BY DAN
KENNEDY
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See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Monday, August 30, 2004
THERE GOES SWIFTY! This
week's New Republic has so much good stuff on the lying
Swifties that it's hard to know where to begin.
From Peter
Beinart's "TRB" column
(sub. req.):
The medals and the
Cambodia charges are partisan hack stuff, cynically repeated in
service of the greater Republican good. What genuinely upsets
conservatives - including conservative veterans - is something
different. First, conservatives think it's hypocritical for Kerry,
who denounced the war, to now take credit for having fought in it.
As The Wall Street Journal editorialized this week, Kerry
has "managed the oxymoronic feat of celebrating both his own
war-fighting valor and his antiwar activities when he
returned home." But what's oxymoronic about that? What Kerry
"celebrates" is that he volunteered for Vietnam - and served
heroically - when elites (including Bill Clinton, Dan Quayle, and
George W. Bush) were finding ways not to go. That's noble, even if
Kerry thinks the war itself was not. And, if Kerry is a hypocrite
for having served in a war he opposed, what about Dick Cheney -
who avoided serving in a war he supported?
From the
editorial (sub.
req.):
Journalists, in short,
became accomplices to fraud. And they should have known better. In
2000, Bush and his right-wing allies learned that the way to win
political arguments is to launch rhetorical attacks based only
loosely - if at all - on the facts and then depend on reporters to
spread them as credible perspectives on the truth. And, ever
since, this White House has conducted its business the very same
way, shamelessly peddling lies about everything from budget
projections to weapons of mass destruction without the slightest
fear of retribution.
From Ryan
Lizza's "Campaign Journal"
(sub. req.):
Never in a campaign has a
more disreputable group of people, whose accusations have been
repeatedly contradicted by official records and reliable
eyewitness accounts, had their claims taken so seriously.
Is the New Republic
partisan? Well, sure. It's nominally Democratic in a centrist,
hawkish kind of way. But it also supported the war in Iraq, even
going so far as to endorse Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primaries.
It also ran opposing views in favor of other Democrats - and couldn't
find a single person willing to write on Kerry's behalf.
In other words, TNR is far
from being the house organ for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, and at one
time it was even sympathetic to Bush. [Update: I originally referred to the "Bush-Edwards campaign." D'oh!] So its judgment on the Swifties
bears paying attention to.
MAYBE I SHOULDN'T HAVE STAYED
HOME AFTER ALL. Editor & Publisher has some
eye-opening details on the luxuries
awaiting reporters assigned to the Republican National Convention.
Hey - who's got time to do any real reporting when you're getting a
facial and sucking down a few bottles of complimentary
beer?
posted at 7:53 PM |
3 comments
|
link
3 Comments:
The "Bush-Edwards" campaign? That'll be the day!
Fixed. Good Lord, I've got to slow down.
Whoa - there's an ad for "W" ketchup on the left side of this comments page that says "You don't support Kerry - why should your ketchup?" It's footnoted "Ads by Google" at the very bottom...so PLEASE tell me this is some random thing that the Phoenix did not actively pursue.
I mean, c'mon...the PHOENIX supporting Bush? Say it ain't so!?!?!
On a totally unrelated note, have you ever noticed the constant WFNX-bashing that goes on at the message boards over at radio-info.com? (here's one: http://www.radio-info.com/mods/board?Post=242691&Board=boston) It's hilarious...like these guys have some special claim on what's right or wrong for WFNX.
- Aaron
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
