They knew how to win. Does John Kerry?
The Bush machine is running one of the dirtiest -- and most effective -- campaigns in modern history. The Democrats need to get back in the fight.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert
Sept. 1, 2004 | Back before the Watergate break-in, Republican operatives had a name for their unique brand of below-the-belt campaign attacks: "rat fucking." Part character assassination, part collegiate pranks, the dirty tricks -- conducted in utmost secrecy -- were designed to throw Democrats off balance, create confusion, and tarnish reputations. Three decades later these attacks have been perfected. Except now they're practiced out in the open for everyone, including the compliant media, to witness.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth became the latest multimedia incarnation. Launching the most bitter, and perhaps most deliberately misleading Republican-backed campaign attack since the racist Willie Horton ad of 1988, the group, bankrolled by a wealthy Bush donor, aired hollow, secondhand allegations that John Kerry lied about his actions in Vietnam that won five military medals. Not one charge about Kerry's medals has withstood the slightest scrutiny, but thanks to the inaction of the national press corps, which again appeared in awe of the mighty Republican attack machine and its conservative media echo chamber, the Swift Boat's dirty trick succeeded in disrupting the presidential campaign for several weeks this summer.
Instead of quickly pointing out that Kerry's Vietnam accusers were factually challenged and that the coauthors of the anti-Kerry book "Unfit for Command" had severe credibility problems, too many mainstream reporters, editors and producers, taking their cue from Republicans, agreed to abandon serious campaign coverage for weeks in order to focus, yet again, on a so-called character flaw of the Democratic candidate. By the time the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times did deploy reporters to knock down the Swift Boat Vets' rickety charges, they'd taken on a life of their own in the anti-Kerry netherworld of talk radio, right-wing bloggers and Fox News.
The Republicans' brash maneuver was "highly reminiscent of Nixonian politics," says John Dean, who served as Nixon's legal counsel during the Watergate coverup. He notes that 33 years ago John O'Neill, coauthor of "Unfit for Command," was recruited into politics by one of Nixon's top dirty tricksters, Chuck Colson.
"We've come full circle since Watergate and dirty tricks," Dean says. "Although today they're much more nasty."
salon...use the day pass
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/01/kerry_media/print.html