FOXNews.com Still Harboring Swift Boat Vets
Reported by Ellen - November 11, 2004 -
As noted by Deborah and Melanie yesterday, John O'Neill, Captain of the Smear, I mean Swift Boat Vets, has sailed back to FOX again. He was also touted on FOXNews.com last night. First, an ad on the top of the home page said, "Swiftees: Mission Accomplished" followed by an advertisement for John O'Neill's appearance on Hannity & Colmes at 2AM Wednesday (Comment: I think they meant Thursday).
Besides that, there's a video available of O'Neill's appearance on Hannity & Colmes under the Politics "video access" section on the right side of the web page. Usually the videos in that section are of news reports, not segments from Hannity & Colmes or the other discussion shows so we know there had to be something that FOX wanted to highlight. But what?
Surely, it could not have been John O'Neill contradicting himself on the impact of the Swift Boat Vets on the election. At the beginning of the clip, in answer to Alan Colmes' question about whether the Swift Boat Vets "put Bush over the top," O'Neill answered, "Bush made his own victory, Kerry made his own defeat." O'Neill went on to say that the Swift Boat Vets had two significant effects: First, John Kerry was unable to run simply as a war hero, second they reclaimed the honor of those serving in Viet Nam.
But later, after questioning (or should I say posturing?) by Sean Hannity, O'Neill complained about his lack of coverage in the "big" media. Because of that, O'Neill contended, Kerry was able to ignore the vets, but "if there had been REAL coverage, he would have lost by 20 points." Comment: I guess the multimillion-dollar advertising campaign didn't count as real coverage, nor did the vast amounts of free airtime on FOX. Only the free airtime O'Neill was cheated out of by the bogus, liberal-biased elite networks would have been "real." In that scheme of things, FOX viewers don't count as real news consumers either!
So did Bush just squeak through his victory (don't forget the White House calls it a mandate) that would have been a landslide if only the big networks had covered the Swiftees? Or was it "Mission Accomplished" as FOX proclaimed in its ads? Did the vets deny Kerry the ability to run as a war hero and reclaim the honor of other vets, as O'Neill said to Colmes, or did the "lack" of network coverage allow Kerry to ignore O'Neill as he later said to Hannity? Hannity seems not to have noticed or cared about the discrepancy and FOX ended the video clip right after O'Neill's later speculation.
I suspect O'Neill will dock again at FOX but I somehow doubt the water will be less muddy.
