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Swift Boat Vets for Rewriting History
Now that we've learned that the Bush campaign and Swift Boat Vets for "Truth" share the same attorney, what's next in this debacle? Oh, it looks like a Democratic lawyer is working for both the DNC and MoveOn.org. Great. This is all so ridiculous I've been loathe to comment, but for the record: While the Repubs are wrong to try to smear Kerry just as they did McCain in 2000, they're right that Kerry has made too much of his Vietnam service and should focus more on the rest of his record and his concrete and detailed plans for the future. They're also more or less right that the 527s are fighting hard on both sides. Truth Laid Bear notes that, according to OpenSecrets.org, the 527s on the Democratic side have all the marbles. What's to be done about the 527s? How do we allow people to join together to make their voices heard in a way that we can all agree is good for democracy? Conundrum.
On the other side, Kerry is right that this is a smear campaign (Snopes even says Kerry's medals are all legit), and he's right to fight back on it, but he's wrong to focus so exclusively on it. He's got so much more to run on; squabbling about his war medals is making him look petty and is allowing the Repubs to reduce him to nothing more than that. And why isn't Kerry making a bigger deal out of Bush's war medals?
And yet, the controversy rages. The best overall summary I've heard of what is going on with the Swift Boat Vets comes from Kathleen Hall Jameison who spoke last week on NOW:
We know that human memory is fallible. And anybody can go back in their own past and say, there are times when I was so sure this is what happened. And then I talked to other people who were there, and they didn't remember it the same way. I don't think that the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth had any idea who Kerry was when Kerry was on those boats.
He wasn't Senator Kerry or President Kerry, he was just one more person on the boats. I think they went back and recalled their memories of Kerry when he came and protested the war. And I think they were very angry. They came back and thought they heard him accusing them of atrocities. I think this is the explanation for why it is that they believe that he must not have earned his medals even though the evidence would suggest that he did. In order to make their own internal story coherent about Vietnam, they have to somehow reconcile what they heard as an attack on them, what they heard as allegation of atrocities that they had committed, which is different actually I believe from what Kerry said.
But, nonetheless, what I believe they heard and the ads suggest what they heard. They had to reconcile that with Kerry the hero who earned the medals. I believe to make their own story consistent for themselves they believed he couldn't have earned those medals. Hence, he was a liar then. He was a liar when he protested the war. He must be unfit to be President. I think this is an exploration in the process about human memory requires us to create a consistent story, particularly about people we intensely dislike.
As Lisa Rein noted last week, "The Daily Show"d has pointed out that few if any of the Swift Boat Vets actually served "with" Kerry (as in, going on actual missions with him so they could see how he got his injuries and how he performed in the field), so the best what they're saying now can be is second- or third-hand memory distorted by time. In other words, regardless of their ties to the Bush campaign, the Swift Boat Vets aren't very credible.
Kerry was actually on "The Daily Show" last night, and Stewart put things into perspective immediately:
"That's what I understand, too, but I'm trying to find out what happened," Kerry joked.
All this Vietnam talk has reminded me of an "old" Lou Reed song, Xmas in February. I wonder if there will be songs written like this about the troops serving in Iraq. War, what is it good for? Not for people, that's for sure.
And speaking of the "Daily Show," Monday's episode also had a terrific bit w/Rob Corddey about how utterly worthless the mainstream media have been throughout this campaign, but I can't find it online. The point was that the media just give a "he said/she said" near-verbatim report of what the campaigns are saying w/very little (relatively speaking) investigation as to the value or credibility of each side's claims. They report all right, even if what they're reporting is complete crap. Makes you proud to live in a country w/such a free press, doesn't it?
Posted 02:35 PM | election 2004 tv land
Amazingly Ugly Racers
Hey, look! Another episode of the Amazing Race and another example of Americans Behaving Badly. Maybe that should be the name of this show. If you missed it, there's a pretty good recap here, but the show was all about Colin's anger. He and Christie got a head start on everyone at the beginning of the episode, but their cab got a flat tire and the driver had no spare. Colin basically stole the spare from another team's cab, then refused to pay his driver what he'd agreed to pay. After being threatened with jail, Colin finally paid up, then proceeded to continue blaming Christie for making him have to give in to the demands of the cabbie and the police.
So is it just me, or does Colin have an anger problem? I feel very bad for Christie; she didn't deserve any of the blame for the consequences of Colin's tantrum. She was being the reasonable one, while he was being an insane anger bomb. Sad. Of course, what do we know? Editing means everything, doesn't it?
Even before Colin's craziness in the most recent episode, I've noticed that this season everyone seems more stressed and high strung than in past seasons, and also more aggressively "ugly" (as far as how they treat each other and the people they interact with around the world). Is it a coincidence that this season also seems to be drawing the biggest audience the show has ever had?
Posted 10:56 AM | Comments (2) | tv land
