Kaus Files:
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Kf's Long-Overdue Push-Back!This has undoubtedly been blogged, but I couldn't help noticing that what The Note called Michael Kranish's "long-overdue, point-by-point push-back from the Kerry campaign" on the charge that he didn't take his Swift boat into Cambodia during Christmas of 1968 contained no evidence of any sort--beyond the Kerry campaign's own assertions--that Kerry was ever in Cambodia. Instead, Kranish gave us the testimony of three Swift boat crewmen.
1) One, who supports Kerry, says "they were 'very.. very close' to Cambodia" but "did not think they entered Cambodia."
2) A second, who opposes Kerry, says they were nowhere near Cambodia.
3) A third said they got close but didn't go into Cambodia and "could not recall dropping off special forces in Cambodia or going inside Cambodia with Kerry." [Emph. added.]
If this is Kerry's mighty, mighty "push-back," I'd hate to see what a Kerry retreat would look like. Yet Kranish's account was bizarrely portrayed by The Note as a pro-Kerry turning point. ...
P.S.: The idea that Kerry was actually in Cambodia over Christmas when he said he was has apparently long been abandoned by the Kerry campaign. ...
...The Times thinks the ad should be stopped because you just shouldn't be able to make such "outlandish" independent charges in a campaign. They're against the speech, not the financing. Like Kerry, they're trying to come up with a "process" reason that avoids the inconveniently messy issue of truth. But their process reason--an attack on "independent" criticism per se--seems particularly dangerous.
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