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Editorial: Kerry takes up the Swift Boat charges He deserves this opportunity to set the public record straight. Most of the controversies from the wild 2004 presidential campaign have long been forgotten. But one is coming back, the New York Times reported this week, and we're glad it is: Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, is joining an effort to debunk the many attacks on his service in Vietnam more than two decades earlier. [snip] Although they had little bearing on Kerry's qualifications to be president, his young-man's sentiments on Vietnam were a legitimate issue. But that's...

As we watch the left of the Democratic Party press its case to return to the top of the heap in American politics, or at least evade the fate of the Dodo, we have ever more evidence validating an insight on which I stake my reputation as a political seer. To wit: partisan politics more often falls under the professional expertise of the psychiatrist than that of the political scientist. A learned shrink can often tell us more about a political issue than any other professional, not excluding a swami or a voodoo priest. Consider the ongoing controversy over Sen....

June 05, 2006 The Truth, John Kerry, and The New York Times By Thomas Lipscomb Kate Zernike's story on the front page of the Memorial Day Sunday New York Times, "Kerry Pressing Swift Boat Case Long After Loss," is an unfortunate reminder of the Times's embarrassingly poor coverage of Kerry in the face of the Swift Boat Veterans' for Truth charges in the 2004 election. Now as then, the Times acts as if the issues involved were between Kerry's latest representations of his record and the "unsubstantiated" charges of the Swift Boat group. The Times used the term "unsubstantiated" more...

Sunday, June 4, 2006 10:49 p.m. EDT John Kerry: Bush A Criminal, Looting Country Failed presidential candidate John Kerry blasted President Bush on Thursday as a "criminal" who has been "looting the country." The Massachusetts Democrat offered the incendiary comments during an off the record meeting with liberal bloggers after a speech in Los Angeles to the Pacific Council on International Policy. According to the Web site L.A. Observed, Kerry asked the bloggers to keep his comments confidential; a request they apparently dismissed out of hand without telling him. Blogger "Hollywood Liberal" reports that Kerry "agreed completely with someone's assessment...

Kate Zernike's story on the front page of the Memorial Day Sunday New York Times, "Kerry Pressing Swift Boat Case Long After Loss," is an unfortunate reminder of the Times's embarrassingly poor coverage of Kerry in the face of the Swift Boat Veterans' for Truth charges in the 2004 election. Now as then, the Times acts as if the issues involved were between Kerry's latest representations of his record and the "unsubstantiated" charges of the Swift Boat group. The Times used the term "unsubstantiated" more than twenty times during its election coverage and continues to make no discernable effort to...

That's "Swiftboating" -- as John Hinderaker defines it: "when a veteran says somehthing that liberals disagree with." Kate Zernike is John Kerry's latest mainstream media stenographer regarding his service in Vietnam. I wrote briefly about her New York Times article in "Return of the magic hat" and called on Tom Lipscomb to rise to the bait: Preparing for another grab at the brass ring, John Kerry seeks to engage the claims of the Swift Boat veterans. In today's New York Times, the "magic hat" -- the hat that Kerry claims was tossed to him by the "special forces" (apparently Navy...

Failed presidential candidate John Kerry blasted President Bush on Thursday as a "criminal" who has been "looting the country." The Massachusetts Democrat offered the incendiary comments during an off the record meeting with liberal bloggers after a speech in Los Angeles to the Pacific Council on International Policy. According to the Web site L.A. Observed, Kerry asked the bloggers to keep his comments confidential; a request they apparently dismissed out of hand without telling him. Blogger "Hollywood Liberal" reports that Kerry "agreed completely with someone's assessment that everything that Bush does is solely for the purpose of looting the country....

The puff piece starts out: “John Kerry starts by showing the entry in a log he kept from 1969: “Feb 12: 0800 run to Cambodia.” Right off the bat, this is the first piece where the Swift Boat Vets were 100% correct. At the time, John Kerry stated that his trip took place on Christmas Eve in 1968. The SBV were right at the time, he was NOT iN Cambodia on Christmas Eve of 1968. Kerry had said that this moment was “seared” into him. After the Vets came out, Kerry had his personal biographer come out and it changed...

John Kerry starts by showing the entry in a log he kept from 1969: "Feb 12: 0800 run to Cambodia." Graphic: Kerry's New Evidence He moves on to the photographs: his boat leaving the base at Ha Tien, Vietnam; the harbor; the mountains fading frame by frame as the boat heads north; the special operations team the boat was ferrying across the border; the men reading maps and setting off flares. "They gave me a hat," Mr. Kerry says. "I have the hat to this day," he declares, rising to pull it from his briefcase. "I have the hat." Three...

Kerry Pressing Swiftboat Case, Long After Loss By KATE ZERNIKE John Kerry starts by showing the entry in a log he kept from 1969: "Feb 12: 0800 run to Cambodia." He moves on to the photographs: his boat leaving the base at Ha Tien, Vietnam; the harbor; the mountains fading frame by frame as the boat heads north; the special operations team the boat was ferrying across the border; the men reading maps and setting off flares. "They gave me a hat," Mr. Kerry says. "I have the hat to this day," he declares, rising to pull it from his...

THE ISSUE: The possibility of Sen. Hillary Clinton's becoming the first female president ("Tough Enough," by John Podheretz, PostOpinion, May 7). **** Clinton is not going to be elected president. She has no consistent ideology about anything, and the American people will not elect someone who doesn't. Manhattan ***** All the speculation and hype about Clinton are just media creations. Santa Maria, Colo. **** Shame on Podhoretz for writing like he's on the Democratic Party's payroll. Clinton is a chronic liar, a curse that will follow her to her grave. Who would ever want the likes of her to be...

US Democratic Senator John Kerry says a video message from Osama Bin Laden sealed his defeat in a presidential race dominated by the 9/11 attacks. Mr Kerry told NBC TV his opinion poll lead over President George W Bush fell away after the tape was broadcast. He said national security was the decisive issue in the November 2004 poll, won eventually by President Bush. Osama Bin Laden's video, shown days before the vote, urged Americans to back neither Mr Bush nor Mr Kerry. "Your security does not lie in the hands of Kerry, Bush or al-Qaeda. Your security is in...

Sen. Clinton strikes out The day before former President Clinton's library was dedicated in Little Rock, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrats' front-runner for the party's 2008 presidential nomination, gave Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren her first sit-down interview since her party got pummeled in the last election. If Mrs. Clinton aspires to become president, it would be helpful for her to get her facts straight. The junior senator from New York could begin by settling upon a consistent explanation for what happened to her party on Nov. 2. From one moment to the next in the interview, Mrs....

An academic researcher has found 11 passages in Senator Kerry's published writings that appear to have been taken from other works without attribution, though experts disagree about whether the copying should be considered plagiarism. Six of the passages come from Mr. Kerry's 1997 book, "The New War: The Web of Crime That Threatens America's National Security." All bear some similarity to news accounts that preceded publication of the book.

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<p>May 14, 2003 -- Disgraced ex-New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was sexually assaulted as a child, he claimed in a 1999 column written for his former college student newspaper.</p> <p>The column, which was met with skepticism from former colleagues, discussed media coverage of rape.</p>