Political Machine with Big Budgetâ
âNot Too Swift: Vets Questioning Kerry's Record Discredit Themselvesâ
âSlime Slung by Shameless Surrogates Sticks to Bush Gangâ
âSwift Boat Veterans Wouldn't Know Truthâ âKerry-Loathing Swift Boaters Sinking Factsâ
âSwiftly Developing Smearsâ âKerry-Edwards: America's
Swift Reaction to Bush Backersâ Latest âUglyâ Lying Smear Campaignâ
âVietnam: Just Like the War Itself, This Story's Now a Quagmireâ
âAttacks on Kerry's War Record Are Dishonorable and Distract from Real Issuesâ
âVet Group Doing Bush's Dirty Work, Kerry Says: He Urges President to Condemn Ads Critical of His Recordâ
âKerry Says Group Is a Front for Bush: Democrat Launches Counterattack Ad on Combat Recordâ
âKerry Insists Veterans Lie, Blames Bushâ
âKerry-Edwards Campaign Debunks False Swift Boat Attacks: Sets the Record Straight with New Adâ
Liberal commentator Lawrence O'Donnell offered the most hilarious reaction to the Swiftees. Appearing on MSNBC's
Scarborough Country
with John OâNeill, the author of
Unfit for Command,
O'Donnell spent two segments shouting down OâNeill as a âliar,â a âcreepy liar,â a âlying writerâ with a âpack-of-lies bookââand similar variations. In a nutshell, it went like this:
That's a lie, John OâNeill. Keep lying. It's all you doâ¦. Liesâ¦. Which is not in John OâNeill's book, because it's a lieâ¦. That's a lie. It's another lie. That's a lieâ¦. Absolutely lieâ¦. You lie in that bookâ¦. You lie about documents endlessly. His name is not on the reports. You're just lying about itâ¦. And you lied about Thurlow's Bronze Star. You lied about it as long as you could until the
New York Times
found the wording of what was on the citation that you, as a lying writer, refused to put in your pack-of-lies bookâ¦. Disgusting, lying bookâ¦. You have no standards, JohnOâNeill, as an author. And you know it. It's a pack of lies. You are unfit to publishâ¦. Liesâ¦. He just lies. He just spews out liesâ¦. Point to his name on the report, you liar. Point to his name, you liarâ¦. You just spew liesâ¦. I just hate the lies of John OâNeillâ¦. I hate liesâ¦. They're proven liesâ¦. OâNeill is a liar. He's been a liar for 35 years about this. And he found other liarsâ¦. Creepy liar ⦠liar who makes things upâ¦.
Liberals threw so much mud at the Swiftees that anyone who wasn't willing to devote four hours of research to getting the facts would be left with the impression that the Swiftees had been discredited. As the ombudsman for the
Washington Post
put itâa few weeks before the
Post
would begin printing Kerry's retractions and clarifications, âMy sense in reading those stories is that, while they found holes in both sides, the most serious holes were poked in the case made by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.â 68
It would require the labor of Will and Ariel Durant to document all the attacks on the Swiftees, but two examples will give the flavor of the objections: One of the commanders on the mission leading to Kerry's disputed Bronze Star was Lieutenant Donald Droz. He was the only commanderâother than Kerryânot to contradict Kerry's version of what happened but only because he wasn't around to object, having been killed in action. So liberals produced Droz's widow, a San Francisco lawyer and Vietnam War protester, to say that she distinctly remembered her husband telling her what happened that very day. She told the
Boston Globe
that her husband had told her about the March 13 action during a leave a few weeks later, when they met in Hawaii, and ⦠it matched exactly what Kerry had said! 69 So we could not trust the memories of three commanding officers and eleven crewmen who were part
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