Cap’n Ed dissects a hypocritical piece in Business Week on the Swift Boat controversy:

So let me get this straight — MoveOn is more credible because of the transparent nature of the illegal coordination between the Democrats and the 527, while the Swiftvets suffer because no one can establish these links? And they claim inside knowledge because they served in the same unit and the same area as John Kerry, much the way William Rood did — they went out on patrols with Kerry and observed him from close quarters on rivers and canals where the two banks often spread less than 100 yards apart while they patrolled with their 50-foot PCFs. Peterson hasn’t spent much time distinguishing the operational tactics of PCFs, which rarely if ever went out alone on patrols.

Peterson’s perspective, then, is that while John Kerry’s testimony should go unchallenged because he served four months in combat, the Swiftvets — who to a man completed at least their one-year tours or left due to disabling wounds — should shut up about theirs. And the candidate who didn’t make his service any kind of qualification should expect to be slandered, but the nominee who wrapped himself in his four-month stint and surrounded himself with former shipmates for his nominating speech should get a free pass to avoid scrutiny of that record. It’s a point of view, all right — one that reeks of hypocrisy and self-service.

President Bush thinks that free speech is “bad for the system.”

Is there much left of the First Amendment?

I really wish there were a realistic alternative to vote for this year.

[Update at 3:20 PM PDT]

The guys at Power Line agree, and have further thoughts.

I’m sitting here listening to Rep. Jerrold (The Hut) Nadler call the Swift Boat Vets “a bunch of liars.” I’m not sure why.

I’ve been wondering how the Kerry campaign could have used such poor judgement over the past few weeks. We now have an answer–the candidate is in charge.

Duncan Young asked in comments here whether or not there should have been a debate about Bob Dole’s Purple Hearts in 1996.

Well, what do you know? There was.

We don’t recall it because, for some reason, we didn’t have all the outrage in the mainstream media about it.

Duncan Young asked in comments here whether or not there should have been a debate about Bob Dole’s Purple Hearts in 1996.

Well, what do you know? There was.

We don’t recall it because, for some reason, we didn’t have all the outrage in the mainstream media about it.

Duncan Young asked in comments here whether or not there should have been a debate about Bob Dole’s Purple Hearts in 1996.

Well, what do you know? There was.

We don’t recall it because, for some reason, we didn’t have all the outrage in the mainstream media about it.

Bob Dole says that Bob Dole is skeptical about his friend Senator Kerry’s Purple Hearts. He’s not very kind to his friend Senator Kerry in general:

…what I will always quarrel about are the Purple Hearts. I mean, the first one, whether he ought to have a Purple Heart — he got two in one day, I think. And he was out of there in less than four months, because three Purple Hearts and you’re out.

[Update a couple minutes later]

This Boston Globe editorial is simply mind boggling:

Kerry, on the other hand, may have done more than Dole to qualify as a genuine war hero. Although his tour in Vietnam was short, on at least two occasions he acted decisively and with great daring in combat, saving at least one man’s life and earning both a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. That’s not our account or Kerry’s; it is drawn from eyewitnesses and the military citations themselves.

Ignoring, of course, the much greater number of eyewitnesses who dispute it, and the possibility that the citations are based on false testimony.

And this bit is amazing as well:

Rather than seeking debate, however, this group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, is attempting political assassination, claiming in ads and a best-selling book that Kerry is “Unfit for Command.” In many cases the charges conflict with statements the same men made in the past. Sometimes the allegations contradict documentary evidence.

“Rather than seeking debate”? They’re eager to join in a debate, but the media refuses to interview them for the most part. It’s John Kerry who is resisting debate. He won’t even address the charges, instead slandering them and accusing them of being Republican attack dogs.

Anyway, on to the relevant part of the Dole interview with Wolf Blitzer:

Continue reading A True Purple Heart Weighs In →

Fred Barnes just predicted that Arnold will call Democrats “girlie men” in his convention speech, and that it will bring down the house.

I hope he does. It was pretty funny to see him stir up the hornet’s nest in Sacramento (and San Francisco) the last time, in which they all got outraged and acted as though they were going to hit him with their collective purse.

If the Dems are smart, they’ll be figuring out a way to respond ahead of time that doesn’t make them look ridiculous, so they’ll be ready for it this time. But so far, they haven’t shown much sign of being smart.

That’s the only word I have for this piece from the AP. It’s a compilation of all of the Dem talking points in a single article. As someone at Free Republic said, they’re not even attempting to pretend to be objective any more. There’s an amusing howler in the first graf:

John Kerry’s Vietnam War service records run to multiple medal commendations and a notation of “conspicuous gallantry” in combat. President Bush’s file tracks the stateside career of a National Guard test pilot. Yet the combat veteran is the one under attack as a wartime pretender in the race for the White House.

The National Guard has test pilots? And George Bush was one of them? Who knew?

Apparently not David Espo.

Of course, if he was smart enough to know the difference, he’d also know that a test pilot has a much lower life expectancy than a Swift Boat commander in the post-Tet-offensive Mekong Delta of late 1968, after much of the Viet Cong had been wiped out.

The last line in the paragraph somehow reminds me of Monty Burns grumbling after he loses the race for governor: “Ironic, isn’t it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election. And yet, if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail! That’s democracy for you.”

Read the whole thing, and be amazed.