Old Wounds, Like Old Soldiers, Never Die
Reported by Marie Therese - August 19, 2004 -
The O'Reilly Factor. August 18, 2004. 8:38 PM to 8:44 PM EDT.
As someone who lived through the Vietnam era I find this whole swift boat issue painful. It dredges up memories of a time when this country was as torn apart as it is now, of sitting with road maps, marking out the best routes, so I could drive Joe or Tom or Larry to Canada, thanking God one of my brothers got a high lottery number and terrified because my middle brother drew #26. It was a dirty war fought in a backwater country based on a lie for a ridiculous theory about dominoes.
The two guests for this segment were Paul Waldman, editor of Gadflyer.com and Brent Bozell, president of Media Research Center.
Substitute host, John Gibson, mentions a survey that says that the swift boat controversy has cost Kerry swing voters. However, he never cites the survey. I can't seem to find it with an internet search, probably because I don't know the name of the organization that sponsored it or the date it was published.
On the question of the Swifties' claim that they served with Kerry, I thought Paul Waldman had a great response: "You have this parade of guys saying 'I served with John Kerry.' Well, you know that's true in the same sense that 'I slept with Condoleezza Rice.' We were both in Washington just in the same sense that these guys were all in Vietnam at the same time as John Kerry."
It was the TONE of this discussion that I noticed. Bozell and Gibson were clearly allied against Waldman, who handled himself well. Bozell was almost out of control at one point.
WALDMAN: "You put your finger on the key point. They're not mad because his injuries for his purple heart weren't severe enough. They're mad because he came back and he was an opponent of the war effort."
GIBSON: "He came back and he slimed them."
BOZELL: "That's right."
GIBSON: "He slimed them."
BOZELL: "He accused them of killing women and children. That's why they're mad."
WALDMAN: "And that's something that happened in Vietnam."
LATER:
WALDMAN: "He [Kerry] never talked about any particular individuals in that [1971 testimony]. He said that he saw those kinds of things...
BOZELL (overtalks): "And never had any evidence.."
WALDMAN: "And as far as I know nobody has refuted that.."
BOZELL (shouting loudly): "Of course they did! All these Vietnam veterans did do that. Come on! Cut it out. All these veterans said exactly that. It didn't happen and they challenged him. This goes back to 1971. He couldn't provide a single example. Don't start this nonsense again!"
WALDMAN: "Which one of these guys that were involved with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say that Kerry personally accused them of an atrocity? Who was that?"
BOZELL: "John O'Neill."
GIBSON: "But the point is that Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth is saying 'We were out there running these same operations as John Kerry. He says these atrocities happened. We were there. We didn't see 'em happen. We didn't hear about 'em. We weren't ordered to do them. We think he's confabulating his real experience with stuff he read about in the news.'"
WALDMAN: "Yeah but none of these guys was on his boat. You know...they were in the same area."
GIBSON: "The next boat."
WALDMAN: They weren't there with him every day. The guys that were on his boat are all supporting him."
Comment
Simmering below the surface of this discussion is the tension between vets who opposed the war and those who didn't.
Bozell says "Don't start this nonsense again!". Well, we have to. Maybe this time with the Freedom of Information Act and the national attention once more focused on the question of what constitutes a "just" war, we can verify or debunk the claims made in the heat of a tumultuous time thirty years ago.
Atrocities did happen. Even John O'Neill admits this:
"Of course, there were war crimes in Vietnam. There are crimes right here in Houston. But I knew that wasn't the general pattern of what was happening. We'd see what the Vietcong would do, guys with their heads blown off, and to portray them as freedom fighters and us as criminals seemed to me to be a pretty amazing way to set the world upside down." (Dallas Observer, August 11, 2004)
But, as recently as fall 2003 the Toledo Blade uncovered proof of atrocities that occurred in Vietnam (Blade wins Pulitzer: Series exposing Vietnam atrocities earns top honor).
It seems to me that the Swift Boat Vets are like neighbors who hear the sounds of a belt and a child screaming each night, but cover their ears with pillows, grit their teeth and refuse to admit what's really going on.
In psychiatry it's called denial. People will erect elaborate defense mechanisms against facing the truth.
War is hell.
ALL war - every lousy, dirty, stinking war that's ever been fought - is hell.
And, in that hell, good people do bad things.
Added August 18, 2004. 4:14 PM EDT.
The website for the Swift Boat-Swing Voters survey can be found at ReadMyLipz.com.
Added August 18, 2004. 4:27 PM EDT.
Mad As Hell: How I got a disturbing view of Brent Bozell's undying rage by Paul Waldman, Editor-in-Chief, gadflyer.com. 8.19.04
