Dems & Reps Draw Wrong Lessons From 2004

The tenor and factualness of many political advertisements attacking opponents in the 2006 election is truly a new low of not-even half-truths and excess exaggeration.

From the anti-Republican side, this is a continuation of the Soros-led MoveOn-type slurs they so well funded in 2004, that were shown to actually have relatively little impact and out of revulsion even energize some to the Republican side. The 2006 version put more money into character-assassination research, but is cut from the same slimey fabric.

From the anti-Democrat side, however, this descent is a new low. It’s partly motivated by those who think that emulating Soros’ or treating fire-with-fire is the way to go, even though it empirically and morally isn’t. It’s also partly motivated by a sheer misunderstanding of the anti-Kerry campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), and buying into the new Democrat-meme noun “swiftboating.”

This buy-in to the myth-noun “swiftboating” is by those Republicans who still don’t have a clue what the 2004 SBVT campaign was factually or actually about, and reflects an inside-beltway sequestering from realities among ordinary folks in the provinces.

Kerry adherents, including among the mainstream media that Kerry admits he counted upon to ignore and squelch the SBVT, have coined the term “swiftboating” to mean a scurrilous, factless attack upon a candidate. It was nothing of the sort.

The SBVT campaign against Kerry’s candidacy for president was verified as completely documented truth in some cases, beyond a shadow of doubt, as in Kerry’s Cambodia fantasy, and his – maybe youthful, but clearly beyond any pale acceptable from a well-educated, Naval officer, mid-twenties man – leadership of VVAW’s false attacks upon America and its servicemen’s conduct in Vietnam.

In the cases of Kerry’s decorations, the eye-witness accounts of those who were witnesses was overwhelming evidence that Kerry’s self-described tales of heroism were at the very least gross exaggerations, and well probably inventions that he succeeded in being awarded for in the medal-granting milieu of war, even over the objections of superior officers who knew better.

The telling point that so undid Kerry was not the SBVT unearthing of his less than exemplary decades-old behavior, but that Kerry himself promoted his myth as seemingly his only qualification for president, while his pronouncements on current challenges were so hemmed-and-hawed and distinctions-without-a-difference as to be deemed hollow portents of worthwhile leadership.

The core point of the SBVT was that Kerry was Unfit For Command, as a fabricator of his character. In a new world war against fanatic foes, truer integrity and strength of character is necessary. Many – if not most -- raised the good point that the campaign should concentrate on in-depth discussions of the current issues, not old war stories. Still, due to the very emphasis Kerry himself created on old war stories, and the telling amount of nuanced understanding most Americans drew from the SBVT charges, Kerry’s character-centered campaign crumbled.

That such truth-telling by SBVT, as well documented and convincing as any tales of combat can be, has been morphed by the Kerryites, most Democrats, and by their fellow-thinkers in the MSM, into the misleading noun “swiftboating” is resulting in their only misleading themselves, and many Republican leaders who inhabit the same inside-beltway other-universe, into crucial 2006 campaign errors.

Most Americans really do not like clearly low-blow ads, soon tire of them, and begin to resent their supporters. Both political parties are capable of getting out enough clarifications and counter-facts to mostly offset the basest and hollowest of the charges hurled, mostly canceling each other out, and causing contrary reactions. There’s still four-weeks to the elections, and that will occur, and sink in.

What will also sink in is that both political parties are sinking to new lows. Both parties’ ads and talking points are mostly knocks against the other, with extremely little discussion of issues. President Bush’s speeches contain both, and are dutifully reported by the MSM but buried in more space devoted to Democrat counters and themes.

The candidates that rise above this mud-slinging will have the brightest futures. All Americans yearn for leaders with integrity and character, and will turn to them when offered.