Michael Kinsley reminds me of the English Chaplain in George Bernard Shaw's play, Saint Joan.
WARWICK. I am a soldier, not a churchman. As a pilgrim I saw something of the Mahometans. They were not so ill-bred as I had been led to believe. In some respects their conduct compared favorably with ours.
CAUCHON [displeased] I have noticed this before. Men go to the East to convert the infidels. And the infidels pervert them. The Crusader comes back more than half a Saracen. Not to mention that all Englishmen are born heretics.
THE CHAPLAIN. Englishmen heretics!!! [Appealing to Warwick] My lord: must we endure this? His lordship is beside himself. How can what an Englishman believes be heresy? It is a contradiction in terms.
CAUCHON. I absolve you, Messire de Stogumber, on the ground of invincible ignorance. The thick air of your country does not breed theologians.
- Saint Joan, by George Bernard Shaw
Like The Chaplain, Michael Kinsley displays an invincible ignorance in his Time Magazine essay, To Swift-Boat or Not. According to Kinsley, swift-boating is a "brilliant, despicable Republican campaign strategy." And if you disagree? Well he's "not going to waste precious space on the back page of a national newsmagazine arguing with you."
Swift-boating's essence is a particular kind of dishonesty, or rather a particular combination of shadowy dishonesties. It usually involves a complex web of facts, many of which may even be true.
Aren't those just the worst kinds of dishonesties -- the ones that are true?
No matter how thoroughly a charge may be discredited, enough taint remains to support an argument. The fundamental dishonesty is the suggestion that the issue, whatever it is, really matters.
The term swift-boating originated with the Kerry campaign in 2004. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign put a heavy emphasis on his military service in the Vietnam War. The object was establish himself as an authority in military matters and to insulate him from any criticism that might arise from his opposition to the invasion of Iraq. In that context Kerry's military record really matters, and a look into it is warranted.
And what do we find? We find that John Kerry had launched his political career on accusations of American atrocities in Vietnam with his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Kerry began by referring to the Winter Soldiers Investigation in Detroit. Here, he claimed, "over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."
It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did, they relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
They told their stories. At times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
This is quite a bill of particulars to lay at the feet of the U.S. military. He said in essence that his fellow veterans had committed unparalleled war crimes in Vietnam as a matter of course, indeed, that it was American policy to commit such atrocities.
In fact, the entire Winter Soldiers Investigation was a lie...
...Sen. Mark Hatfield inserted the transcript of the Winter Soldier testimonies into the Congressional Record and asked the Commandant of the Marine Corps to investigate the war crimes allegedly committed by Marines. When the Naval Investigative Service attempted to interview the so-called witnesses, most refused to cooperate, even after assurances that they would not be questioned about atrocities they may have committed personally. Those that did cooperate never provided details of actual crimes to investigators. The NIS also discovered that some of the most grisly testimony was given by fake witnesses who had appropriated the names of real Vietnam veterans.
The Swift Boat Veterans took issue with John Kerry's version of Vietnam War history, because of his congressional testimony. But according to Kinsley, what the Democrat John Kerry pronounces is gospel. Vietnam veterans who disagree with the Senator's description of them as war criminals, are not permitted to dispute that description. By demanding an apology from the senator, which he never made, and by asking that he release all of his military records, which he did not do, they invented that nasty Republican strategy now known as swift-boating.
Contrast that with the push back on Kerry's behalf. While The Swift Boat Veterans were accusing John Kerry of misrepresenting his military service, George Bush was accused of desertion. According to now discredited memos, Bush refused a direct order from his Texas Air National Guard commanding officer who had ordered him to report for a physical examination. The memos were forgeries.
So what CBS is now saying is not that the documents are authentic, but that the opinions they express are authentic, based on the hearsay reports of anonymous persons alleged to be close associates of Col. Killian, who recall his views of thirty-two years ago. This is what passes for "authentication" in the mainstream media.
What's a Kinsley to do? Facts that about Kerry's service? He considers them dishonest. Forgeries about Bush's service? No doubt he considers them fake but accurate. An honest Republican? A dishonest Democrat? For Kinsley, those are contradictions in terms. He is utterly invincible.
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