was I guess my thought about the topic of "swiftboating" and then for Timroff to go on a off-topic rant troubled me.  You are right that my Staff Sgt. son has nothing to do with it except for it made me feel very defensive towards Senator Kerry.  Peace!

Gore's and Kerry's problems were unique. Gore was undermined by the media fops who wanted nothing more than to take down the "smartest guy in the room." It's almost impossible to fight a narrative when the media itself creates it.

So Obama should be shocked, shocked! that Fox News brings up his middle name because it doesn't have anything to do with a military record or the Internet?

Step 1: Lie is started by some Republican hack.
Step 2: Right wing media picks up on the story.
Step 3: Rest of media uncritically repeats the story.

It's the same thing every time.

The standard operating procedure had been to ignore some of the crazier attacks like the swiftboaters. I fully agreed with Kerry at the time. Anyone with a brain would figure, "Don't respond to these douchebags; they're not worth it. Anytime you start arguing with someone, it only legitimizes them, and surely the media will research and defend Kerry's record." Yet magically, the opposite happened, and within no time, asshole conventioners with purple-heart band-aids get shown on national TV.

Then you were foolish in the extreme, just like Kerry.  The "don't dignify those attacks with a response" has never worked a single time in the history of the planet.  You look weak, and some people will wonder if there is a there there if you don't bother to defend yourself, and as the last two elections have proved, every percent counts.

You don't respond to dirty attacks by saying "well Karl, you raised a good point there, but I have to say..."  You mock the attack.  You give it the respect it deserves, but you must respond - or you're going to lose the damn election.

Response 101:

Australia's conservative Prime Minister John Howard said Sunday that victory for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and his party in next year's presidential election would be a boon for terrorists.

"If I were running al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats," Howard said, speaking on "Sunday," a TV show on Australia's Nine Network.

And here's Obama's response, and what do you know, he didn't dignify Howards attack in the process:

Obama, campaigning in Iowa, told reporters Sunday he's flattered that one of Bush's allies "started attacking me the day after I announced (his presidential run) -- I take that as a compliment."

The Democratic presidential hopeful said if the Australian prime minister was "ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq," he needs to send another 20,000 Australians to the war.

"Otherwise, it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric," Obama said.

Kerry has no excuse here.  None.  He only had to look to the very successfully campaigns by President Dukakis and then President Gore to see what happens when you don't respond to attacks, and these swift boat guys had been dogging him since the 70's.

And please, don't even bring up Willie Horton. It was Al Gore who supposedly raised the issue against Dukakis first.

Are you for real?  Putting Willie Horton in an ad was a blatant appeal to racists in this country.  And while Al Gore did bring up the furlough program, he did not mention Horton.

And it's no different than hammering Huckabee for Wayne Dumond.

Apples to fucking oranges my friend!  The law establishing the furlough program in Massachusetts wasn't signed by Dukakis, but by his Republican predecessor, and Dukakis had not intervened personally in the case of Willie Horton.  That is not the case with Huckabee, who did personally push for Durmond's parole.

Huckabee has never apologized for his poor judgment, which was based on recommendations from his Baptist minister buddies.  And it didn't stop with Durmond: he continued to release felons based on the same recommendations from Baptist ministers for years.  He only stopped when the Democrats, Republicans, prosecutors, the Arkansas media and the public were united in calling him out for this nonsense.

so you can understand you're making a distinction without a difference.  The SBFVT attack was exactly the same strategy that they had used against Gore, the only thing different was the story.

To say that "swiftboating = lying to win an election" is too simple. I've always felt it referred to spinning a strength into a perceived weakness. Kerry's strength as a war hero was flipped into a weakness. Shamefully brilliant on Rove's part.

Our good name, is all that we truly carry in our life times and when Rove, et., al..lowered the common decency of civility and political discourse in this country, by swift boating John Kerry, it set the most deadly precedence in this countries psyche. Politics are always filled with somewhat dirty tactics, but there is a huge difference between dirty tactics, (which I don't agree with), and unleashing the most degrading and vicious lies concerning a man or woman's character.

The day John Kerry was swift boated, was a day in America when all of its people would never be the same again during an election. A very sad day indeed. And they call themselves Christians.

Badabing

They got started in 1997, and ratcheted up in 1999 and 2000. It was also broad; various groups were fed with lies to oppose Gore, against their own interests (eg, some environmentalists).

SBVT was a surgical and swift sting-like operation, which coupled with the RNC convention fell on Sen. Kerry like a megaton sledge hammer.

Gore's case was like many smaller hammers beating him up over a longer period.

Thanks, Sen. Kerry, for standing for truth and helping Barack fight off the horrendous smearing.

That was the moment for Senator Kerry to go public with the medical records for his injuries and the x-rays and the scars.

F*ck 'em.

the media spreads BS attacks rather than debunking them.  This is not new.  Why do Democrats keep having to relearn the lessons of 1988, and now 2000 and 2004?  You have to stand up for yourself because the media is more likely to hurt you than stand up for you.

who was funding it - Bush allies from Texas - and showing that they shared a lawyer (Ginsberg) did not work. The media even treated the atrocious purple heart bandaids as novelties, offering no condemnation.

That convention was worse than the hatefest that Bush I was really criticized for. Instead in the Alice in Wonderland-like media, they, a month later blasted Kerry's positive, uplifting convention, that they praised the month before.

'swift-boating' efforts had no where the mental acumen to develop an entirely new form of political attack - the strategy you describe (pretend to be neutral and then viciously and/or selectively attack one side) is as old as I am, at least (and most likely millenia older . . .).

But thanks for the chuckle. . . .

There was nothing new about it.  

There's even tapes with Colson talking to Nixon about Kerry.  

He should have seen it coming decades ahead of time.

and correct you folks.  The bumper sticker reads "Fergit, hell!" not "Forget? Hell no!"

But I do agree with you that the same old rants about Kerry are ridiculous.  He managed to come out of his presidential campaign stronger and more passionate to do the things we need him to do.  Thank you, Senator Kerry!