Thursday, August 12, 2004

Coulter and Old Faithful

Ann Coulter has a great column on the Swift Boat veteran controversy. Here are just a few of the highlights:

With the media playing their usual role as Truth Commissar for the now-dead Soviet Union, the Swiftees are having to purchase ad time in order to be heard. No Tim Russert interviews, no "Today" show appearances, no New York Times editorials or Vanity Fair hagiographies for these heretics against the liberal religion. The only way Swift Boat Veterans for Truth could get less attention would be to go on "Air America" radio.

If the 254 veterans against Kerry got one-tenth as much media coverage for calling Kerry a liar as Clown Joe Wilson did for calling Bush a liar, the veterans wouldn't need to buy ad time to get their message out. (Wilson, you'll recall, was a media darling for six or seven months before being exposed as a fantasist by Senate investigators.)

With their commitment to free speech and a robust exchange of ideas (i.e., "child pornography" and "sedition"), the Democratic National Committee is threatening to sue TV stations that run the Swift Boat Veterans' paid ads. Sue? Can you tell already that there are two lawyers at the top of the Democratic ticket? These are the same people who accuse John Ashcroft of shredding the Bill of Rights.

Ron Brownstein, Los Angeles Times reporter and Bill Clinton's favorite reporter, compared the Swift Boat Veterans' ad to a "snuff film." He claimed the veterans have "strong Republican ties." Apparently, before being permitted to engage in free speech against Democrats in this country you have to: (1) prove that you are not a Republican, (2) take a vow of poverty, and (3) purchase the right to speak in a TV ad. On the basis of Clown Wilson, Michael Moore, George Soros, Moveon.org, etc., etc., etc., I gather the requirements for engaging in free speech against a Republican are somewhat less rigorous. Hey! Maybe John Edwards is right: There really are two Americas!

O'Neill, the author of "Unfit for Command" and founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, can be heard on the Nixon tapes - unaware that he was being taped - telling Nixon that he came from a family of Democrats and voted for Hubert Humphrey in the prior election. Unlike Joe Wilson, Anita Hill or Richard Clarke, Woodward and Bernstein, et al., O'Neill has said he will take no royalties on his book but will donate all his profits to the Navy.

For a rather dramatic illustration of the power of the Swift Boat veterans' testimony go here.

As Coulter says the major media have pretty much ignored this issue so far, but they won't be able to ignore it much longer. Like a subterranean geyser, it's quickly reaching the point in the blogosphere and the conservative media where its temperature and pressure are about to reach critical levels. How will Kerry handle this story when the geyser erupts? Up to this point their response has been to try intimidation through lawsuit and character assassination.

Eventually, however, they'll have to respond to the charges themselves. If they can't, the danger for the Kerry campaign is, as Viewpoint has argued before, that a lot of the people who would otherwise vote for Kerry, but who don't particularly despise Bush, will be disillusioned and either switch to Nader or sit it out.