Somehow, this headline takes on an irony that wouldn’t have been discernable when it first appeared, over three weeks ago, right after the Dem’s convention.
It will be quite amusing, and poetically just if, after raising hundreds of millions for these Dem-supporting groups to disseminate spin and lies, Kerry’s campaign is sunk by a small group of dedicated Navy veterans and a few hundred thousand dollars. By the way, their fund raising has apparently been going great guns since the story has gained traction. They reportedly raised almost half a million yesterday alone.
Campaign finance laws are a disaster, and I agree with Andrew Stuttaford that signing McCain-Feingold was one of George W. Bush’s more shameful acts as president. Even Michael Kinsley on NPR said this morning that the situation is hopeless, and that we need to get rid of all the rules, and just have full disclosure. I agree.
[Update a little after 11 AM PDT]
Power Line has a nice roundup of reader commentary on the Swiftboats, almost all of which is more intelligent than what we read in the vaunted mainstream press. Example:
The men who were best able to observe and judge John Kerry’s performance in combat were the men who had the same level of training and expertise that he did; and those are the young officers and noncommissioned officers who commanded the boats operating in close proximity to his, young men whose very lives depended on the coordinated action of all units participating in any particular mission. Successful riverine combat maneuvers require inordinate observational skills. So were these officers and NCO’s, all of them skilled observers, asleep at the wheel while some pillaging preppie ravished the countryside unbeknownst to all but himself?
Well, if you will but listen to them, no, they weren’t. These men, these Swiftvets, several dozens of them, who ate, slept and fought with John Kerry will tell you that, no, they were quite aware of what was going on around them, and that their recollection of events is far different from those attested to in Congress by their onetime comrade in arms. They are as befuddled as the rest of us that a man who launched his political career on claims of being duped into committing war crimes in an unjust war wants to now use his service in that war as the foundation of his campaign for the presidency.
Think about this: John Kerry had to know that his fabrications were ultimately unsustainable and that the men he falsely condemned would not remain silent were he to run for the presidency. Yet he has ignored that reality and attempted to build his whole campaign on his wartime service and his questionable awards. It would be interesting to hear what a psychiatrist might conclude from such bifurcated reasoning. Which brings us, unavoidably, to this question:
Does this sound like the kind of judgment we want in a Commander in Chief in this time of terror?