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Arguably, calumny defeated John Kerry in 2004, and the infamous Swift boat television ads of that summer were, importantly, preceded by an aggressive Internet campaign begun that January that included perhaps the first viral campaign e-mail: a computer-generated image of Kerry and Jane Fonda beside each other on a podium at an antiwar rally. The image originally emerged at the Web site FreeRepublic.com, and Fonda had not in fact been at the event. But the damage was done.

Bull. The Registered composite was touted far and wide by MSM outlets as an example of dastardly Internet deception well before the Swift Vets even formed. To claim that the composite was a major factor in Kerry's defeat is grotesquely dishonest. Even the leftist professor Ken Light, who took the photo Registered used and eventually filed suit against him, admitted in the Washington Post on Feb. 28, 2004 that "the Internet has come as close as it gets to a correction. If you use a search engine... you find the hoax explanation before you see the photo itself."

There's no shortage of evidence that Kerry and Fonda did in fact work together to achieve a common goal: US defeat in Vietnam. The two radical activists used exactly the same tactic - lying about US war crimes in an effort that was carefully coordinated with the Vietnamese communists. D. Allen wants to pretend that a trivial incident involving fake "evidence" had a major impact, so she can ignore the real evidence against Kerry that really did change minds.

That "arguably" in front of her "calumny" charge against the Swift Vets is a nice bit of weasel-wording. Allen obviously has no qualms about using innuendo when she can't find evidence. When her "genius grant" expires, expect to see Ms. Allen pumping out slipshod research and leftist polemics someplace like Media Matters.