Posted on 08/29/2004 4:07:41 AM PDT by rhema
Last Sunday, editorial staff member Jim Boyd wrote a column ("Republican smear machine can't stand up to the facts") attacking our Aug. 18 column on John Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia fable as "fraudulent," and attacking us personally as "smear artists" engaged in "immorality." When someone uses language that strong, you'd expect him to have facts to back up his words. Yet Boyd's tirade was remarkably fact-free.
First, the basics. We wrote that the Kerry campaign has retracted Kerry's oft-told tale of being in Cambodia on Christmas 1968. Boyd did not dispute this. We wrote that there is no record of John Kerry being in Cambodia in December 1968, or at any other time. Boyd did not dispute this. We wrote that Kerry's commanding officers have denied that he was ever sent into Cambodia. Boyd did not dispute this. We wrote that not a single crewman who ever served with Kerry has supported Kerry's claim to have been in Cambodia, and several crewmen have denied that their boat was ever in Cambodia. Boyd did not dispute this. We wrote that there is no record of Swift boats being used for clandestine missions as claimed by Kerry. Boyd did not dispute this. We wrote that Swift boats were unsuited for such secret missions, given their large size and noise. Boyd did not dispute this.
Gosh, for fraudulent smear artists, we seem to be doing pretty well. . . .
John H. Hinderaker and Scott W. Johnson are Minneapolis attorneys and proprietors of the Web log "Power Line" (www.powerlineblog.com), one of 15 sites given credentials to cover the Republican convention in New York this week.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
The boys from Powerlineblog.com give Star Tribune editorial staff member Jim Boyd a nuclear wedgie.
His face gives him away. There is no joy in the man because he's filled with dread...... dread that the whole world will come to know what nearly everyone here at FR knows....... that he is a sleazy, lying bum, and has been ever since his childhood.
He belongs in a rubber room with a lollypop.
. . . closing with this multi-megaton paragraph:
"Boyd's response to our column was stronger on epithets than on evidence. He provided a mighty weak basis on which to call us smear artists. Has word reached Boyd that the Kerry campaign has given up trying to sell the story that Kerry undertook secret missions on his Swift boat to Cambodia? Like the Japanese soldiers who continued fighting World War II on remote Pacific islands after the emperor had surrendered, Boyd keeps up the fight for a story that his own emperor has abandoned.
You are confusing the democrats with truth and fact. That is a no no for the liberal media.
I would say that their rebuttal would leave a mark, but it is the Strib after all. The level of deceit displayed in its pages truly amazes me and being caught in lies never bothers them. Boyd and, seemingly, the rest of the editorial board are presenting their views with all the vigor and objectivity of spoiled children. Damn the truth, full speed ahead.
I think the Swifties are masssively important. Not because of their effect on the campaign, although they are certainly having one. Their most important contribution will be highlighting so boldly the bias of the media that many people who have tried to remain blind to it cannot help but notice it.
This is one example, but there are many others (Ginsburg is especially good at it) of the controversy causing the liberal media to violate any even remote pretense of supposedly sacred objectivity. Highlighting it will sink media credibility along with Kerry's campaign. Kerry is going to lose...but this time the media will lose right along with him.
If ever a smear machine existed, its name is Star Tribune.
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