I've heard some try to make the argument that, despite the documents being forgeries, it's what's in them that important. Bizarre.

Imagine if someone found some documents accusing Kerry of a crime, say corruption. Suppose those documents were quickly shown to be crude forgeries. Do you expect anyone like (DN)CBS to hammer Kerry on the charges? Of course not. (DN)CBS wouldn't hammer Kerry regardless of whether the documents were legit or not, but they'd never go after him for forged documents.

The Swift Vets have far more convincing evidence backing them up, and yet the MSM dismisses them.

By their reasoning on these forged memos, someone could create faked documents showing that Kerry was a pedophile and Kerry would still have to answer for that, regardless of the veracity of those documents.

{adding absolutely nothing of merit to the conversation...}

Oliver Willis: Like Velcro to Quarter Pounders

I'm not big on the fat jokes. There are plenty of things to make fun of Oliver for besides his metabolism or eating habits.

And I wish the right-wing of the blogosphere had displayed similar levels of skepticism with the fradulent swift boat charges, as the media gave away millions in free advertising to them. The righteous indignation rings a little hollow when the right has shown they have no scruples about introducing outright phony information into the media stream in favor of manipulating discourse.

Why even bother with Oliver "Cant Handle the Truth" Willis anyway? The man is a spin doctor, and not even a very good one at that.

What's unbelievable to me is that he gets paid to cover conservative media bias.

In light of his comments to about the gun issue, I've asked him to come on NRAnews.com several times, including via email.

As you can imagine, I've never received a response.

"fradulent swift boat charges," - Oliver

A real person making a charge with their real name is never as fraudulent as a fake document. Even if they lie they are actually stating something, while the fake document only pretends to make claims.

- Olivedork - Tell you what ... When you have a break from your terminally stupid yammering have your guy (pocketa pocketa pockata) Kerry trot out that form 180 and then we'll think about letting up on his wind surfing ass.....

Oliver,

You are a fool. Read Mike Dobbs very thorough, very fair expose on the Swifties that contradicted some of their assertions with research into official navy records and VERIFIED others. Whatever your view of the group, that is in no way analgous to this situation.

THIS IS FORGERY.

You've gotten to the point where it's not a matter leftie and rightie disagreeing, coming to different judgments; rather, you are so intellectually dishonest and incapable of non-partisan analysis that you're killing your own credibility.

And destroying any chance that it may have of convincing moderates or independents of anything.

Your punditry is rotten.

Well gee, with that kind of well-reasoned name calling, how could I go wrong?

Oh it's not just random name-calling. I don't say it lightly. You are a "fool" and your punditry is "rotten."

Only you can turn it around.

Perhaps after the election, you'll learn to independently reason again.

Why does anyone even bother to acknowledge Oliver Willis any more? The guy has jumped three or four sharks by now. Move on to the people and things that matter, Bill.

"fradulent swift boat charges," - Oliver

Has anyone done any debunking of the swift boat charges? (and by debunking I mean pulling out actual evidence to refute specific points) As far as I can tell as of now

a) a lot of the Swift Boat charges are subjective (i.e. "Kerry's actions with VVAW leave him unfit to be CiC"), which aren't "provable", you either agree with them or you don't,

b) of the ones that are not the only one that I can find that has been definitively decided one way or the other was Kerry's location at Christmas.

Chances are, though, I'm missing something. So, please, point me in the right direction.

And if we can't make fat jokes (I'm no skinny Minnie myself) then I'll go with "if you're going to be a critic of the media its probably a good idea to learn to use spell check Oliver; its spelled fraudulent" (I suggest the Firefox browser with the spell checking plug in. Manna from heaven for my barely literate ass)

Dave -

Because deep down in the darkest corners of my heart, a little gossamar-winged angel whispers that he can still be saved. I can't kill that angel, Dave.

Do you want me to kill that angel?

Bill, don't bother. Oliver is gonna keep hurling crap that misses the point: CBS was operating as quasi-representative of the American citizenry by broadcasting over a spectrum WE gave them, under rules and regulations that make the presentation of forged military documents, whatever they said, in direct contradiction thereof. It's a federal friggin' offense on at least two levels: the forgery itself and the broadcasting of the forgeries.

If Howard Stern can get slammed with fines and threatened to be yanked off the air for bathroom humor, Rather should get thrown in a cell for breaking the federal laws concerning fraud.

- Well based on the spectacle of the past week I guess its now acceptable to field any sort of home brew factious material stating scurulous, phony charges against anyone and demand they "prove" them to be false. Thats the new wave "journalistic standard" circa 2004. So warm up your MS word programs and have at it....Lets see..."John Kerry rumored to be a closet pediphile, with several illigitimate children by campaign party girls and a severe crack habit". Insider Emails shown as "proof"...All you need is a pissed off ex-DNC worker willing to purjure themselves for a 25 grand kickback.... easy as pie.....

Not that anyone will change their minds.

Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" v. The Truth
Swift Boat Vets' smear campaign

Oliver's trap is the Soros money, now that he's in how many lefty but not moonbat sites are there that he could apply to work at? A slight change of view won't work, he needs to consider a full Brock. An honest book covering the inside of the left through the election would be wonderful.

So he has to maintain cover till Nov. 2.

I give up, Oliver. You still totally miss the point.

Re-read Hunter's comment and Ripper's comment. Whatever you think of the charges (and trust me, we disagree, though I admit that the swifties only bat about .500 or so), these are charges made on the record by private citizens that have been investigated by teh WaPo. (Michael Dobbs wrote it, couldn't find it)

The issue here is CBS, NOT KERRY OR BUSH.

Jesus.

I haven't seen a single claim of the swiftboats "debunked". What contradictions exist may be there because Kerry hismelf wrote reports or dolled up accounts of what went on.

He has made some odd changes to his medal citations over the years, and there is no question the records were both redacted and misused (e.g. claiming pecks service as his own) and included misstatements of fact ( Kerrey's service for Kerry's) on Kerry's website.

We can't look at the ACTUAL records because Kerry won't let us.

Can't we pass a law for next time that says a Presidential candidate is required to sign the 180 form release all military documents, or that the entire file of a presidential candidate will be available under FOIA?

I'm serious.

Oliver,

I hate to say it, but from a cursery glance at the headlines from the Media Matters section 95% of the posts have squat to do with the actual alligations, but instead cover issues about how much media coverage its getting, who works / is connected to who, whether or not someone has made an anti-catholic / anti-muslim comment....

Again, this is just after 5 minutes of scanning post headlines; I need to do a heck of a lot more digging. I'm still looking for a good "SBVFT said XXXX, here's the proof they're wrong" site.

About Oliver I submit my forged document,

http://www.rain.org/~mkummel/stumpers/23mar01a.html

This subset of the Universal Library says most of the very bad things you might imagine about Olviver and his associates. Please consider each charge before you evaluate the fact that I lied about forging it.

The Swift Vets have been proven right on at least 3 of their claims:

1) Kerry did not spend Christmas in Cambodia in 1968, even though he claimed it was seared into his memory;

2) Kerry's first purple heart was from a self inflicted wound (accidental, not intentional)

3) Kerry's silver star was for his actions shooting an already wounded Vietnamese in the back

So far the score is:
Swift Vets: 3
Kerry: 0

Official Navy records have contradicted or called into question 2 or 3 Swiftie claims, or at least severely muddied the water.

Don't bother with "but Kerry wrote the ..." because that's not conclusive enough. It's conclusive enough for you to make a judgment, but it's not conclusive enough to use as a piece of evidence.

But the fact is, from a standpoint of evidence, the SwiftVets still come out ahead.

"Do you want me to kill that angel?"

The left would say we eat broiled angels for dinner without a second thought.

I can go with you on Oliver's blind partisanship; it would, in fact, take a blind man not to see it. That said, I'm not exactly sure why you're surprised by the left-wing reaction in general, or Oliver's specifically. Let's take your hypothetical one step further, to illustrate: suppose that some document purporting to show that Kerry had done something you already believed he had done turned out to be a forgery.

After a few days of trumpeting to the skies that finally, this could be that critical piece of evidence to wake people up to the fact that Kerry is "Unfit For Command", wouldn't you be a bit reluctant to just drop it based on evidence compiled and brought to light largely by your political opponents, whom you do not exactly trust to be objective or honest with regard to your candidate?

What might work better is to imagine not your reaction (as a moderate), but that of the rest of the right-leaning side of the blogosphere (or media). Can you see, for example, Jeff Goldstein putting up a post in his typical (just ask him!) witty, profound, and philosophically aesthetic fashion, obliquely implying yet no less clearly conveying that he was wrong to jump all over the Swift Boats bandwagon (supposing the SBVTs were shown to be straight-up Republican attack dogs)?

Im not sure whats more shocking, that CBS facilitated the promotion of false documents, or that CBS and the rest of the MSM have the cojones to float this idea that the documents arent important, the charges that the fake documents bring up are the story. That is insane, but i'm seeing it all over. Especially the AP. If this was a murder trial it would have been thrown out and a grand jury convened to investigate the prosecuters by now. Instead the trial continues with the defendent being called on to explain the implications of the admittedly false evidence. I believe the term is, WTF?

It's interesting to note this dichotomy:

With the Swift Vet issues, the response of the Kerry Kamp/DNC is that official records show blah..blah..blah...and Kerry was honorably discharged, and so case closed. In other words, if the official records show something positive for Kerry, but now people come forward and say something different, well, who to believe...official records or this new claim?

However, with Bush, he is not given the same benefit of the doubt. When the Bush camp says that official records show glowing evaluations for Bush and that he was honorably discharged, meaning he completed his duty, that doesn't seem to matter as much. Now, with the left/Dems, the official records of the NG don't mean squat, and the random musings of a few people from long ago all of a sudden are the main measure.

OH an another thing. If anyone is to be blamed for the "important questions" of Bush's guard service getting lost,
It's DAN RATHER and CBS for putting, in the light most favorable to CBS, documents of dubious authenticity and orgin, out there as the case in chief, when their own experts were telling them forgery was a distinct possibility.

They are fakes, BAD fakes and some effort to vett them thouroughly and honestly would have made that clear.
THey could then consider the source as less than truthful and make the appropriate decicions about using him as a source.

But it would not interfered with any "questions", though perhaps the answers. CBS was wedded to a particular outcome in a story and to a particular timing of a story. They screwed the pooch, and if there were any "questions" that needed answering, they sure as hell messed that up for anyone interested in an honest answer.

- This is off topic, but somewhat related in this time of widespread scandles concerning public figures...

- I'm torn watching Martha do her thing. On the one hand you could see it as a "stand-up" move in an attempt to stem the bleeding for the hard working people who have really built her company, and have no doubt, and will no doubt, suffer from her duplicity.

On the other hand I can't escape the feeling that she is displaying, once again, the arrogance that characterizes this whole sordid mess.

She stands there stalwert, and resolute, mistress of her world, surrounded by her "minions" and battery of attorneys and loftily deigns to allow the sentencing to go forth, per her choice and control. As if the laws are a nuisance to be gotten out of the way. Her culpability unthinkable, and framing her lies and malfeasance so as to wrap herself in a mantle of victimhood, rather than criminal, and aristocratic persona that tends to betray her by her very utterances. But in the end its not really about that at all. Its about brand recognition and public perception. In this case the bottom line is the bottom line.

Whatchoo Talkin' bout Willis. Your just another blind Democrat.

The weird standards of the left/Dems:

For Kerry: trust the official military records; it doesn't matter what Kerry's fellow soldiers say now

For Bush: the official military records don't matter; trust what a few clearly partisan individuals say now

Walter -

I'm unsure about Goldstein's reaction, to be honest. But I know that he is far more intellectually honest than what we are talking about here with oliver, Atrios, etc. Not even comparable. Not even the same planet.

Also Walter - I mean Mike - thanks for the civil tone under your new identity.

Hmmm...thinking of a word to describe this attack against Oliver.

What is the word...? Oh yes, how about FASCIST and RACIST.

All you repugs do is spread fear. Now you will bring down the "librul media" i.e. CENSORSHIP, with your scare tactics. Shame! SHame!

Ok, its past noon. Anyone got the scoop yet?

- FOX is reporting that a CBS exec, asking for anonymity has stated just prior to the upcoming news conference..."We understand we need to find a way to confirm the authenticity of the documents. I don't know how we'll be able to do that without revealing the source of our information"...( probably Heyward )

SoulSister:

Asking for facts is racist and censorship and fascist, all rolled up into one?

- Congressman Cox is calling for a senate/FCC investigation into the source and nature of the fraudulant documents and the Nature of CBS's involvement....Other Senators pointing out that the DNC has already aired Bush bash ad's using references from the questionable memo's....

Bill, don't even try.

You can't beat an idiot in an argument. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

People like Oliver can't be reasoned with. You just have to hope that Bush wins the election and all the left wing nuts either leave the country, finally drink the Kool-aid (or whatever works for them), or start that revolution the folks at DU keep talking about [giving me a wonderful change to use my ArmaLite].

CHANCE to use my Armalite. I was eating and typing. Sorry.

Someday somebody will come up with Comment code that lets us edit our posts.

As a Democrat, I'd like to see Bush defeated.

But this doesn't take precedence over all over things in the universe.

More important that "defeating Bush" is "the truth."

And CBS has shown itself to be the enemy of the truth.

OT, but Spade, I think even if such code existed in MT (it already exists in some other apps) most bloggers would disable it. Think of the problems it would cause in heated comment debates if people could go back and change or delete what they'd previously said. Best you can do is PREVIEW and proofread carefully.

Give big Ollie a sack of Quarterpounders and Britney fanzine for strokin' and tell him to quit spinnin' and start thinnin'.

Oliver loves mr soros:

Congratulations. You are officially the 597,825th person to make a joke about Oliver being fat. Really clever stuff, and highly pertinent to his political views, I'm sure.

Dave,

I'm a history major, I don't have to proofread. It's a lot like Journalism, but you actually have to cite your sources.

Soul Sister said:

"Now you will bring down the "librul media" i.e. CENSORSHIP, with your scare tactics. Shame! SHame!"

--Gee, what's wrong with bringing down Censorship?

Or is that sarcasm? Inquiring minds want to know.

You can reason with some people just as easily as you can reason with a mule.

Oliver,

"And I wish the right-wing of the blogosphere had displayed similar levels of skepticism with the fradulent swift boat charges, as the media gave away millions in free advertising to them"

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING. First off, this is 255 veterans, including THE MAJORITY of officers who served with Kerry and EVERY PERSON in his chain of command. It's not not a couple wingnuts with an axe to grind.

When they held their news conference in May, they were ignored by MSM. When they held rallies, they were ignored. When their commercials came out, they were ignored. When their book debuted at #1, they were ignored. When Kerry dropped in the polls and was therefore forced to address them, the media FINALLY covered them - by calling them liars.

Not one - NOT EVEN ONE - of the facts in the book has been disproved. For the most part, they haven't even been disputed. Instead, the Swift Vets have been attacked as liars, usually on silly grounds like that they said their favorite color was red in 1972 and now they say it's green.

Eric, she went to J School. She doesn't have a real grasp of "e.g" , "i.e" , or anything involving punctuation or spelling that isn't already booked into MS Word's toolset.

Some of the researchers at/with the SBVT have actually turned up some relevant Navy documents, in the past week or so, and these documents support the SBVT side.

Here's a link to a discussion of the the documents for 28 Feb 1969 (the Silver Star): http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9121&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

And for 13 Mar 1969 (No Man Left Behind, Bronze Star):
http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9148

It's only a matter of time before we start seeing officially released, undeniable copies straight from the Navy.

Imagine this story if you can:

Fox News uses documents to document a story that John Kerry was actually forced out of the military for drug use and theft, and it was revenge for that which drove Kerry to do the Winter Soldier treachery.

Soon after, the documents are shown to be fradulent. Fox News, beyond all reason, defends the story, in particular by claiming that the evidence is unimportant, and people must ignore it and focus on the charges.

Now, were all of that to happen, does anyone doubt that Little Green Footballs, INDC Journal, Powerline and pretty much every right-leaning blogger would be killing Fox, and so would Oliver Willis? It's the mark of a partisan hack that Willis, Kos and so forth are willing to ignore evidence of fraud because it might distract from the success of the fraud, but only when the fraud might help someone they politically support or hurt someone they politically oppose.

Pathetic.

Walter -

Oliver's posts are really short and somewhat sketchy ... If I wish to expand upon Oliver's points as Bill did here, is it okay to start off the response 'Fatter Oliver Willis'?

Just Curious.

" I can't kill that angel, Dave. Do you want me to kill that angel?" - Bill

Kill it. Drive a stake through its black little heart. Kill the angel, Bill.

You'll feel MUCH better afterwards. ;]

Walter: So the fuck what.

Q: What do you get when you cross "Walter/Mike with a wooly mammoth?

A: Who the fuck cares about "Walter"/Mike?