Kerry Takes on the Swifites and the Truth about RW Hack Lipscomb

There's 3 posts on the Dem Daily today, taking on the latest assault from the Swift Liars...

This is good news!

:kick:

As Taylor Marsh recently said “Baby, this is personal for the Democratic Party and not just because of Kerry, though he’s very important here.”

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/082504Z.shtml

These Charges are False...
Los Angeles Times | Editorial

Tuesday 25 August 2004

It's one thing for the presidential campaign to get nasty but quite another for it to engage in fabrication.
The technique President Bush is using against John F. Kerry was perfected by his father against Michael Dukakis in 1988, though its roots go back at least to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It is: Bring a charge, however bogus. Make the charge simple: Dukakis "vetoed the Pledge of Allegiance"; Bill Clinton "raised taxes 128 times"; "there are Communists in the State Department." But make sure the supporting details are complicated and blurry enough to prevent easy refutation.

Then sit back and let the media do your work for you. Journalists have to report the charges, usually feel obliged to report the rebuttal, and often even attempt an analysis or assessment. But the canons of the profession prevent most journalists from saying outright: These charges are false. As a result, the voters are left with a general sense that there is some controversy over Dukakis' patriotism or Kerry's service in Vietnam. And they have been distracted from thinking about real issues (like the war going on now) by these laboratory concoctions.

It must be infuriating to the victims of this process to be given conflicting advice about how to deal with it from the same campaign press corps that keeps it going. The press has been telling Kerry: (a) Don't let charges sit around unanswered; and (b) stick to your issues: Don't let the other guy choose the turf.

At the moment, Kerry is being punished by the media for taking advice (b) and failing to take advice (a). There was plenty of talk on TV about what Kerry's failure to strike back said about whether he had the backbone for the job of president — and even when he did strike back, he was accused of not doing it soon enough. But what does Bush's acquiescence in the use of this issue say about whether he has the simple decency for the job of president?

************

If we had a media that did its job, these lies would never have gotten traction at all.

Thanks for the rebuttals, KG!

go for greed and power.
And this media owes him clear and public apologies.

Yes they do.

We need to take on all of those Swift Boat liars.

I'm sorry, but it's true. If Kerry had mounted this kind of defense when the first attacks occurred - the morning AFTER these attacks occured during his candidacy at the latest - things might have been different.

But now, those unfounded charges have soaked deep into his character, in the view of the voters. I still see bumper stickers screaming about the "Fonda/Kerry" ticket. This stuff is like trying to defend your wife's virtue from a mob...long after she's been raped and her unwanted child is two years old.