the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the conservatives supporting them have been going over the top in their excessive eagerness to bring Kerry down. This could be damaging to the truth, to their own cause, and to the country. Here are several e-mails I’ve written to conservative opinion writers about this over the last couple of weeks.
Thomas Winter
Editor
Human Events
August 6, 2004
Dear Mr. Winter:
I have a problem with the use of the term “self-inflicted wounds” which is used repeatedly in the book Unfit for Command and in your promotional material for the book. As I understand it, a self-inflicted wound is a wound that a person deliberately inflicts on himself. But the wounds Kerry received, for example the tiny bit of shrapnel in his arm, came from firing a shell or grenade aimed at enemy forces which hit a rock near his boat and the metal ricocheted and hit him.
I think Kerry is the biggest phony that ever lived and I’d like him to be exposed for what he is. But this book damages its own effectiveness when it uses sensational language that suggests Kerry did something that he did not do.
Tony Blankley
Washington Times
August 13, 2004
Tony,
While I haven’t read the book, the Swift boat veterans have done some things are are off-putting and raise suspicions. I think the one-minute tv ad is terrible. Lots of people have spoken of it as though it were so powerful. But there are no facts in it, just a lot of smearing and name-calling. I’m interested in the facts of what happened in Vietnam, not hearing a lot of men say, “Kerry is a liar, Kerry is not a good man.” To me, that kind of personal smearing, presented in the ad without facts (though apparently there are abundant facts in the book), creates a very negative impression. They should present facts, not just call Kerry names.
Michelle Malkin
August 20, 2004
Michelle,
Chris Matthews repeatedly asked you about the “self-inflicted wound” charge and whether that meant the Swifties were charging that Kerry deliberately wounded himself. Now of course, that’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying he accidentally wounded himself. But by refusing to answer Matthews directly on that point you left the impression that you want people to believe that self-inflicted means something dishonorable.
You should have said to Matthews, “Of course they’re not charging that it was deliberate. By ‘self-inflicted’ they mean he accidentally wounded himself, and their point is that because the wound was accidental, and was not received under enemy fire, that he should not have gotten a Purple Heart.”
While I think Kerry is a huge liar and I want him to be exposed, I also think our side hurts itself when we seem so gung-ho against Kerry that we’re not even willing to clear Kerry of false charges such as that he deliberately wounded himself.
Jack Wheeler
August 20, 2004
Dear Mr. Wheeler,
Allow me to take exception from your gleeful anticipation of some October Surprise by the Swifties that, you predict, will utterly destroy Kerry. This reminds me of the frenzied excitement felt by enemies of Clinton in August/September 1998 when they were all sure that at the Grand Jury testimony taping that was about to be shown on tv, Clinton lost control of himself and that this would utterly destroy him. When such a Clinton self-destruction did not actually occur, the whole mood of the public suddenly shifted in Clinton’s favor. It was the decisive moment in the entire Lewinsky affair leading ultimately to Clinton’s survival in office.
Apparently people on our side have not yet learned the lesson. This partisan licking of the chops in anticipation of a meal that has not even been served yet (it’s the ultimate meal, the meal of the complete and decisive discrediting of an enemy) is not only unseemly, but is bound to recoil upon ourselves. Let’s just stay with the facts, please.