Washington Post:
The mainstream media has been acting like Kerry had a natural constituency with veterans for months ignoring the elephant in the room. It just shows how out of touch these guys are with how veterans of Vietnam feel when it comes to Kerry's false charges of war crimes and atrocities. Kerry only compounds his problem by trashing the vets who are bringing this matter to everyones attention. These guys are not going to back down under hostile fire from Kerry and his accomplices in the media.
The fight over Vietnam and valor consumed the presidential campaign yesterday, as a group of veterans accused John F. Kerry of betraying fellow soldiers and dishonoring the country when he became a leader of the antiwar movement upon his return, and Democrats launched a new counteroffensive.
A new ad by the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth condemns the Democratic nominee for making allegations of war crimes and atrocities committed by American soldiers. "It hurt me more than any physical wounds I had," a Vietnam veteran says in the ad about Kerry's highly publicized testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.
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Kerry, who hoped to focus on domestic matters, finds himself plotting a response to a veterans group that did not even exist a few months ago over an issue he thought had died. He has been forced to spend money and valuable time responding. Kerry talked with aides throughout the day about a strategy to put the issue of his Vietnam service and protests to rest.
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Kerry, who has been criticized by Democrats for mishandling the controversy, has been damaged by the veterans' accusations, according to two polls. Three weeks after the anti-Kerry veterans questioned whether the Democratic nominee lied to win decorations in Vietnam, a CBS poll showed Kerry dropping 18 points behind Bush among veterans. The candidates were even only weeks ago.
Although the Swift boat group says it spent just $500,000 airing its first ad in three states, a new poll by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey found that more than half of voters questioned had seen or heard of the ad, often on cable news shows. Most distressing to the Kerry camp, the survey found that 44 percent of independent voters considered the ad very or somewhat believable.
The new ad could prove even more damaging, according to several Democratic strategists. The ad, which will air next week in Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada, takes selected portions of Kerry's antiwar testimony from 1971 to portray the nominee as brutally critical of Americans in Vietnam. "They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads," Kerry is shown testifying in the opening clip. A few seconds later, Ken Cordier, a veteran, says: "He betrayed us in the past -- how can we be loyal to him now?"
One thing the media better do in a hurry is read "Unfit for Command." Chris "Maddog" Mathews made a fool of himself Thursday night barking at Michelle Malkin who was responding to a question Mathews asked about the book he obviously had not read. This error was compounded by Keith "Oh where be my head" Oberman who congratulated Mathews for his ignorance, then proudly wrote a blog column on the point. Read the book man.
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