Wednesday, August 25, 2004
They Report, They Decide
LA Times Editorial on the conservative media's unfair coverage of the Swift Boat story, and how they're keeping it alive.
I'm glad to see a media outlet finally expose this smear for what it is- a Vast Right-Wing conspiracy. Too bad CNN is looking for the next Kerry "controversy", instead of debunking this one.
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The leading serious conservative journal, the Weekly Standard, posted a new issue online Friday with a cover story titled "The Kerry Wars." The story cited the Washington Post article and admitted that "the documentary evidence available so far backs Kerry's story," but its paragraph dealing with the accusations that Kerry lied to get his medals concludes that "such claims boil down to Kerry's word versus his opponents'." That ignores the witnesses who back Kerry's story. It also ignores the pesky documentary evidence that supports Kerry's version of events...
Next came Fox's "Special Report With Brit Hume," which opened with the teaser: "And despite Navy records, the dispute goes on about whether Kerry earned one of his medals under fire or not." Addressing the claims in the Washington Post article, there was a pre-taped interview with O'Neill, who asserted that Thurlow's "Bronze Star citation is based on the report that John Kerry wrote." The fact that there is no evidence that Kerry wrote that report was not mentioned. Military analyst Bill Cowan appeared to answer questions like, "If you yourself wrote an after-action report … would that be taken into consideration?" This discussion of Kerry's alleged report left no time for comment on the controversy over whether Thurlow deserved his Bronze Star and why he waited so long to examine the citation's language
I'm glad to see a media outlet finally expose this smear for what it is- a Vast Right-Wing conspiracy. Too bad CNN is looking for the next Kerry "controversy", instead of debunking this one.
