Monday, August 23, 2004
Nice followup on Swift Boats story
From the American Prospect, on agenda setting. The name of the game is setting the agenda, in the case, shifting attention from a comparison of Bush and Kerry on Vietnam (or, heaven forbid, anything more recent or policy related) to a minute investigation of not whether Kerry was a brave hero, but exact how much of one he was. And there the WaPo has fallen right into the trap set by the Kerry Swift Boat critics---introduce a little doubt about the details, to wear away a Kerry and remove attention from Bush. But as the article notes:
But what the story actually proves is that a bunch of liars who have in the past contradicted their own current statements can, if their lies are outrageous enough and if they have enough money, control the media agenda and get even the most respected media outlets in the country to focus on picayune "truths" while missing the larger story.
And the larger story here is clear: John Kerry volunteered for the Navy, volunteered to go to Vietnam, and then, when he was sitting around Cam Ranh Bay bored with nothing to do, requested the most dangerous duty a Naval officer could be given. He saved a man's life. He risked his own every time he went up into the Mekong Delta. He did more than his country asked. In fact he didn't even wait for his country to ask.
George W. Bush spent those same years in a state of dissolution at Yale, and would go on, as we know, to plot how to get out of going to Southeast Asia. On that subject, here's a choice quote. "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment," Bush told the Dallas Morning News in 1990. "Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."
