Aug 25, 2004

essential reading

As Salon's Todd Gitlin writes, the only victim in the Swift Boat crapfest is the truth.

Then this week, the same smear artists opened up with their bigger -- as it were -- guns. The second SBVFT commercial includes clips from Kerry's April 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads ... randomly shot at civilians ... cut off limbs, blown up bodies ... razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan ... crimes committed on a day-to-day basis ... ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."

What happens during those ellipses is SBVFT members talking about Kerry's accusations in these terms: "Just devastating." "It hurt me." "John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in the North Vietnamese prison camps took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us." "Betrayed us." "Dishonored his country and more importantly the people he served with. He just sold them out."

Note well: These bait-and-switch artists don't dare say that Kerry's statements were false. The anti-Kerry crusaders issue classic non-denial denials. The subtext of their outrage against Kerry is simple: They are still averse to facing the awfulness of the Vietnam War. What they are really saying with their slanders is that the truth hurts.


Read it all here. (Day pass required.)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I don't understand why the SBVFT feel that John Kerry telling how it was in Vietnam is a stain on their honor. He didn't betray anybody- rather he expressed how he and his comrades where betrayed by those they trusted most the jolly ole government. Wasn't Kerry standing up for the people who now slander him?

Aaron posting as Josh

Kerry is speaking on Saturday at the Tacoma dome- get free tickets here: http://www.johnkerry.com/events/082804_tacoma_form.php