The Right State

The New York Times is using swift boat veterans to ‘swift boat’ veterans who told the truth about John Kerry’s military past.  Obviously the NYT is still lamenting the fact that John Kerry did not defeat George Bush in the 2004 election.

“Swift boat” has become the synonym for the nastiest of campaign smears, a shadow that hangs over the presidential race as pundits wait to proclaim that the Swiftboating has begun and candidates declare that they will not be Swiftboated.

Swift boat veterans — especially those who had nothing to do with the group that attacked Senator John Kerry’s military record in the 2004 election — want their good name back, and the good names of the men not lucky enough to come home alive.

Either the Times does not understand what a smear is or they consider a smear anything negative that is said about one of ‘their’ candidates.  The liberal NYT has not endorsed a Republican for president in decades.  That in itself should say something.  For me it says the Times has a dog in this fight.  They are not the nonpartisan paper of record they pretend to be.

The writer of the article, Kate Zernike, takes a side swipe at the veterans who outed John Kerry, Republicans in general, and George Bush while making Kerry look like an abused victim.

Who can argue against men who have served their country?  I am sure these vets served their country with honor and distinction.  Their job titles while in the military have been used to denigrate others.  These veterans have a right to a good name, but they should be careful.  They are being used.  Used by people who are willing to do whatever it takes to advance their agenda, even if it means throwing a few veterans under the bus.  In the end, these highly ambitions people will dispense with the swift boat vets as they did anti-war activists like Cindy Sheehan.  Who ever hears of her now?  To liberals, vets are a useful tool when used temporarily.  To them veterans are an expendable item.

“It’s completely inappropriate,” said Michael Bernique, a highly regarded Swift boat driver who led missions up a canal that became known as Bernique’s Creek. “The word should connote service with honor, which is what was conducted. Anything that demeans that honor is shameful.”

In an April column in Proceedings magazine of the United States Naval Institute, Harlan Ullman, a Swift boat driver in Vietnam and a Pentagon consultant known as a creator of the “shock and awe” concept, wrote: “It is time to ban a word that is at once offensive, demeaning and obscene both to and for anyone serving in the naval profession. That word is ‘Swiftboating.’ ”

Kate has forgotten one obvious point, Democrats coined the term, “swiftboating.”  The vets who were against John Kerry becoming president were content with being called, Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.  Democrats coined the new word in order to demean the swift boat veterans in an attempt to label their ads as smear tactics.  Obviously Kate (and the rest of the MSM) completely bought into the idea—hook, line and sinker. 

Denis Keohane of the American Thinker simplifies what and where the term “swiftboating” came from.

Since the 2004 Presidential election the Democrat left and their auxiliaries in the MSM have used the term swiftboating to mean something in the order of a politically motivated and top-down well coordinated character assassination of an innocent party based on lies.

John Kerry does not fit into this definition.  The SBVT documented all of their assertions.  They raised questions concerning John Kerry’s fitness to be president, they told of his associations with the ‘Winter Soldier’ Investigations, the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and his false testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Since all of these accusations were true, the ‘swiftboating’ term was coined to give John Kerry some political cover.  The Times should do their homework. 

Does Kate and the New York Times need to besmirch the character of the veterans who told the truth about John Kerry?  Of course not.  But then the Times can not just come out for the troops without bashing them at the same time.  Liberalism on display.

A word of caution to the swifties—‘beware of Greeks bearing gifts.’  (the Trojan horse)  Liberals do not want to help you recover your good name.  They are the ones who gave it to you in the first place.  You are just a temporary expendable tool for the left to be used, exploited and then discarded.  The left has never supported our military and they will not start now.  Theirs is an alliance of expedience.  Once they are done with you, they will dump you like a hot potato. 

The New York Times may act like they support you and they seem like they are concerned with restoring your honor, but they are complicit in this deceit.  Do not be deceived.  They will be one of the first to dump you and every other veteran.

Tags: Bias //