To Set The Record Straight: How the Old Media Goliath was killed (book review)

Matthew Bracken | Sep 19, 2009 | Matthew Bracken

[Travis McGee]

To Set The Record Straight, first pubished in 2008, is much more than a history of the 2004 presidential race, and the effects the Swiftboat veterans had on that campaign. TSTRS uses the Swiftboat veterans' story to focus upon the role the mainstream media has played in shaping American public opinion over the past forty years, from the Vietnam War until the recent past. When Senator Kerry decided to make his military record a central part of his campaign, the Swiftboat veterans who knew him the best were angered and sickened. They had had enough, and they decided literally “to set the record straight.” Presidential candidate John Kerry unwittingly helped to pull the curtain back on the left-wing media machine, when he was directly confronted by scores of his old military associates.

In the words of Navy SEAL captain and Vietnam veteran Larry Bailey, “More than any other person, John Kerry is responsible for the false image of Vietnam veterans as dysfunctional misfits and crazed killers, and we intend to change that image.”

During 1970 and 1971, while the Vietnam was still raging, John Kerry began his first campaign of political self-promotion, as a leader of the hard-left “Vietnam Veterans Against the War” and “The Winter Soldiers.” With the enthusiastic support of that era’s solidly leftist media, Vietnam veterans were smeared as baby killers and maniacal butchers. John Kerry was the public face and the leader of that campaign of slander and libel against American veterans. These campaigns of slander were enthusiastically broadcast into every American home by the three television networks, and they set the image of Vietnam veterans for the next thirty years. With strong old-media support, John Kerry then ran for Congress and the Senate based on the fame he earned as the nation’s worst slanderer of Vietnam Veterans.

However, by 2004, the leftist media’s monopoly control of opinion information had been breached by a “new media,” consisting of internet forums and blogs, talk radio, and the new Fox television network. John Kerry was to discover to his shock that it was not sufficient that his old allies in the old-media were still solidly in his corner. When the Swiftboat vets began to challenge Kerry’s dubious record of heroism in combat, and attack his treasonous behavior after he left Vietnam, the old-media maintained an airtight news blackout of these new players on the political scene. This time, the old-media blackout wasn’t sufficient to prevent the truth from reaching the voters. The way Americans received their news had changed in the new millennium, and the old-media blackout was no longer an effective bulwark against the truth, as it had been from the 1960s until very recently. Eventually the old-media was forced to respond to the Swiftboat veterans charges, first dismissively and then derisively, but never convincingly. All that the old-media accomplished by their full-throated defense of Kerry the “war hero,” and their attacks on the Swiftboat vets, was to absolutely convince the majority of Americans of the left-slanting nature of their reporting.

The Swiftboat veterans victory against the old-media was not only a decisive event, and a David versus Goliath victory, it was paradigm altering. Gone forever where the days when a Walter Cronkite could pretend to be an objective reporter, and be called, “The most trusted man in America.” In “To Set the Record Straight,” we even see how Cronkite’s successor at CBS news, Dan Rather, put the final nail in the coffin of old-media news control and opinion manipulation. Rather, who was a product of Vietnam-era misreporting and disinformation, tried to counter the effects of the Swiftboat veterans with his own attack on George W. Bush’s Vietnam-era Texas Air National Guard service. CBS anchor Dan Rather breathlessly reported on a series of “newly discovered” purported TANG memos, stating that Bush was a marginal and delinquent pilot officer. As soon as the dubious memos were briefly shown on television, they were immediately dissected and proven to be forgeries by unpaid members of the “new media,” who were “mere” bloggers and members of internet forums, with expertise in the typewriters and printing methods available in the early 1970s. The exposure of Dan Rather as a fraud and a hack over his “memogate” behavior led to his dismissal in disgrace.

“To Set The Record Straight” is much more than an outstanding account of the 2004 presidential race, and the role of the Swiftboat Veterans. It’s the first history of the role the leftist old-media played so successfully in manipulating the opinions of Americans during and after the Vietnam War. The book brilliantly analyzes and describes how the old-media ultimately became a dinosaur, brought crashing down through the efforts of a handful of Swiftboat vets, using the new-media channels of the internet, talk radio and FOX news.

To Set The Record Straight was written by Scott Swett, and freeper Tim Ziegler. Swett created the SwiftVets.com and WinterSolder.com websites during the 2004 campaign, and was central to the Swiftboat veterans' success.

[Interesting Times]

A self-aggrandizing sort of ping.

[Travis McGee]

My thought is that, having enjoyed a monopoly for so long (similar to IBM until the 80’s) they became fat and convinced of their wonderfulness. Insofar as they never had to defend a position, they forgot how.

I think that is exactly correct.

[Travis McGee]

“When in doubt, empty the magazine.”

Actually, I had a longer subtitle that went on another few words, but I trimmed it to fit.

[Travis McGee]

Your book is so much more than a history of the 2004 campaign. It really digs into the entire history of media bias from Vietnam until now. Kerry and the Swiftvets just provided a perfect microcosm example for complete analysis.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[Nateman]

Rather than look for an image I just clicked on a Townhall link for Hannah Giles (It was at the top)

[Interesting Times]

How in the world Obama was not snared I will never understand - he is many degrees worse than Kerry politically, apparently born outside of the country, a collaborator of violent anti-Americans, with a murky astro-turfed past. The forces controlling the Hopey Changey doofus are implimenting the policies of preemptive surrender and disarmament abroad, while communizing our society and economy and destroying our freedoms at home. This will not stand. American will revolt so long as they know the truth.

Obama's handlers took a lesson from what we did to Kerry.

The solution was to make their candidate's radical past largely vanish, while mouthing platitudes and playing none-too-subtly on the racial guilt of the white majority. It was obvious to anyone who studied the matter that Obama was a Marxist, but few people actually do that. By focusing Obama's campaign on meaningless slogans of "hope" and "change," his handlers avoided setting up a confrontation on the topic, in contrast with Kerry, who was stuck with his Vietnam record as Topic A.

Now the public sees the Administration and Congress nationalizing everything in sight: the auto industry, banking, mortgages, health care, etc., etc., and a decent backlash is under way. However, the radicals who now control the government have plotted for decades to acquire power, and they aren't likely to relinquish it at all easily.

[Travis McGee]

Yep, it’s a terrific book. It really nails the mainstream media, going all the way back to Vietnam.

[AmericanVictory]

The astonishing thing is that although every thing that they said was provable and true, the urinalists of the MSM, who never were able to disprove a single word of it, to this day disdainfully and scornfully use the the label “swiftboating” to stand for lies. Talk about wee weeing on the truth you claim to stand for!

[Travis McGee]

The MSM still thinks that their memory hole is set on 1984.
And it might work on the dolts and the libtards, but they don’t control the news flow anymore. That’s why Goliath is dead. Goliath only lived when it had a news monopoly.

[Interesting Times]

Your book is so much more than a history of the 2004 campaign. It really digs into the entire history of media bias from Vietnam until now. Kerry and the Swiftvets just provided a perfect microcosm example for complete analysis.

That was what I meant by "perceptive."

The 2004 Kerry Wars opened the eyes of many to the astonishing dishonesty and manipulation practiced by the old media opinion formers - all those charming, photogenic people who insist on being known by their first names. Tim and I tried to pull the whole story together, backed by as much hard evidence and first-person testimony as possible.

Thanks again, and I'm looking forward to reading your own new book.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Chode]

i understand that, i mean there should be at least a FEW pix of her of larger than thumbnails, but try and find them!

this is the return for images of "Hannah Giles" Results 1 - 20 of about 14,600 (0.05 seconds)

Elias and Hannah Giles 350 x 284 - 81k - jpg middlebury.edu	Denbigh School: Milton Keynes: 800 x 439 - 279k denbigh.net	Explicit Hannah Giles Bikini 400 x 415 - 26k - jpg threebeerslater.blogspot.com	Home Page 550 x 1142 - 119k - gif bluegrasscommunityhospital...
Hannah Giles, Jason Mattera, 400 x 300 - 19k - jpg rsmccain.blogspot.com	a feel on Hannah Giles, 639 x 312 - 75k - jpg mofopolitics.com	a feel on Hannah Giles, 639 x 312 - 75k - jpg mofopolitics.com	Georgina Hannah Giles (West 200 x 236 - 14k en-gb.facebook.com
Hannah Giles 200 x 402 - 19k facebook.com	Soubrette - Hannah Giles 922 x 691 - 147k - jpg ajr.freeola.com	Hannah Giles lived with her 245 x 199 - 35k - jpg jimsafe.com	on Hannah Giles American 500 x 469 - 221k - jpg movies-music-games.com
her friend Hannah Giles, 364 x 431 - 39k - jpg activitypit.ning.com	Hannah Giles 320 x 240 - 4k - jpg dipity.com	A group dedicated to Hannah 800 x 600 - 28k - jpg activitypit.ning.com	that Hannah Giles and 718 x 538 - 59k - jpg primordialslack.blogspot.com
hannah giles facebook 771 x 588 - 162k - jpg kathkeayr.blogspot.com	O'Keefe and Hannah Giles's 499 x 472 - 37k - jpg cafeconservative.com	Hannah Giles (Brighton and 200 x 150 - 9k facebook.com	Hannah Giles 320 x 240 - 4k - jpg dipity.com and this is what you get...

[blackie]

Good stuff, thanks, good job!!

[Nateman]

The trick is to add extra tags. In this case I used "columnist".

[The Shrew]

Swett created the SwiftVets.com and WinterSolder.com websites during the 2004 campaign, and was central to the Swiftboat veterans' success.

Matt, your review was outstanding and this sentence summarizes not only the book but the reality of the Swiftboat veterans success.

Nice work. Thanks for the effort. (Hey, Where's my copy of 'Traitors'?)

TS

[Chode]

but why would i do that when i only want a picture of her???

[Fawnn]

Isn’t Dan Rather the reporter who first got national attention when he falsely reported that Dallas school children cheered when they learned of Kennedy’s assassination?

[airborne]

Much like “Video killed the radio star” -

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWtHEmVjVw8 -

- “Internet killed the media star”!

[stephenjohnbanker]

I spent 10 years (age 12-22) in the Boston suburb of Newton. On the same day that I graduated from Boston College, I was on the red eye to Los Angeles. In 1976, California was still a Republican state. Thirty years later, I left L.A. for the same reasons. Nowhere to hide ;-)