Redefining 'Swiftboating' and Rewriting History

American Thinker ^ | 4-20-08 | Henry P. Wickham, Jr.

[smoothsailing]

April 20, 2008

Redefining 'Swiftboating' and Rewriting History

By Henry P. Wickham, Jr.

If the words "swift" and "boat" must be combined and turned into a verb, then let us insist on its proper use. The word as a verb originates from the campaign undertaken in 2004 by the Swift Boat Veterans in response to the John Kerry presidential candidacy. The word means, or should mean, the exposure of a fraudulent autobiography of one seeking political office or public influence. It is the correction of a personal and professional record that has been selectively and dishonestly compiled, as the Swift Vets did so effectively to that of John Kerry.

Although swiftboating may be a neologism, there are other recent examples of this phenomenon. Justus Reid Werner, in a seminal Commentary article, exposed the fraudulent life story created by Edward Said to advance his political agenda. Dan Rather's macho claims to be an "ex-Marine", when he did not finish Marine basic training, were also revealed to be fraudulent. This is swiftboating in its truest sense.

The Left is now redefining and, therefore, misusing the term swiftboating, and this misuse has become one of the many notable aspects of the 2008 presidential campaign....

[Dad yer funny]

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[Eagles6]

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[RussP]

Reminds me of the “Willie Horton” issue.

When liberals say, “that’s his Willie Horton,” they are implying that the people who exposed Dukakis’s furlough of Willie Horton were somehow in the wrong because Horton was black.

The truth is that Dukakis was furloughing convicted murderers, and at least one of them, Willie Horton, went on to commit a heinous murder while he was out on a weekend furlough. But it got twisted around to mean exactly the opposite, just as “swiftboating.”

[Question Liberal Authority]

John Kerry's favorite phrases are "swiftboating" and "telling truth to power".

He'll go to his grave not realizing that they are both the same thing.

[norton]

"John Kerry's favorite phrases are "swiftboating" and "telling truth to power".
He'll go to his grave not realizing that they are both the same thing."

Of course he will.
He's a socialist (democrat) and it is dogma that what he (they) state is 'truth'.
Until they need to change it.

Is anyone surprised that such a person would happily define anything else as a 'lie' and give their definition the 'legitimacy' of frequent repetition?

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[OeOeO]

Is this guy plagiarizing us or what?

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

"The Traitorous Rat-Bastard, John "The Snake" Kerry"

As a Nam Vet who worked dilligently with others to help expose this worthless POS in 04, as expressed in this article, we did manage to expose him for who and what he was and many are convinced that this and of itself helped defeat him.

And though we suffered mostly in silence for some 30+ years as a result of his slander and deliberate misrepresentation of our service, we did extract a measure of justice, though not nearly the full and complete exhoneration we should have been afforded and could have, had his complete military records been obtained and made public as well as his having been protected by the corrupt left and their sycophant allies in the mainstream media.

Most of all, it was for the 58,000 heroes who paid the ultimate price and were also vilified that this small victory was so sweet.

I penned this poem on the eve of the November 2nd 2004 election and am posting it for those who have not seen it.

[DGHoodini]

I guess Kennedy “swiftboated” Nixon....

[river rat]

Thank you for that....
Their voices and votes were finally heard.

[Berlin_Freeper]

The fact that Kerry could not make another run this time around for the presidency proves that the Swiftboat Vets were correct because Kerry never sufficiently proved otherwise and the Democrats did not want a real certified loser (Yet they now want Hillary or Obama, they are idiots - proven once again.).

[carton253]

Wow! Wow! Wow!

[TigersEye]

Excellent article. Bookmarked.

[Bender2]

Looks like nObama is learning first hand... the ABCs of today's Presidential politics!

[matthew fuller]

Excellent commentary by Wickham. Thank you, sir.

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

Thank you. You and anyone feel free to copy it, use it and pass it on to whoever, whenever.

Its been posted on several anti Kerry sites, including one of my favorites and I believe the best.

http://members.aol.com/ga1449ga/links/links.html Sincerely, Michael Burlington, VT

[Jaxter]

You can’t swiftboat an honest man.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

As Ann Coulter amply documented in Treason, the term "McCarthyism" was in the 1950s a neologism promoted by Big Journalism to prevent honest judgement of the issues Senator Joseph McCarthy raised. Like the Pharasees in the time of Christ, McCarthy's Democrat opponents in the Senate sought to force McCarthy to say things which they could then condemn McCarthy for saying. And the famous "putdown" of McCarthy - "at long last, have you no shame?" is itself actually a slander of McCarthy - it's just that Big Journalism and its politician wing, the Democratic Party, demanded a prejudgement of the issue rather than a rational analysis of competing claims.

In exactly the same way, "Swiftboating" is a neologism crafted by Democrats as a prejudicial description of the controversy between the SBVT and the advocates of John Kerry running as a war hero (rather than, as the article notes, a long-serving but utterly undistinguished senator). Like "McCarthyism," "Swiftboating" was crafted for a dishonest purpose and has no honorable meaning. Anyone who uses it is therefore promoting a fraud. Even the author of the piece, who is protesting the meaning of the term, is willy nilly helping establish the word in the lexicon - and like "McCarthyism" it does not and will never have an honest meaning. It is no use pretending otherwise.

Whenever we contemplate that history, we have to remind ourselves that journalism as we know it didn't exist when the First Amendment was ratified. Journalism as we know it is the business of promoting the importance of the (relatively superficial) things that the journalist knows from the AP newswire which you and I don't know until the papers print it. But as the saying, "There's nothing more worthless than yesterday's newspaper" indicates, the value of the stories which you haven't heard yet tends to actually disappear in the telling. The AP newswire actually united the newspaper business into Big Journalism by giving all newspapers the incentive to agree with all other newspapers since all sing from the same page of music. Before the advent of the AP, the differing editorial positions of the various newspapers was the significant thing about the newspapers - just as with, say, National Review or the Rush Limbaugh radio program today. The AP newswire reduces that formerly significant editorial viewpoint to a sideshow like the comics.

The Market for Conservative-Based News

[E.G.C.]

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