You know the game. Fake a throw, palm the ball, and your dog bounds into the weeds looking for it. With a really determined retriever, you don't even need the ball.
The Swift Boat smear has big league newshounds vying for the title of "World's Dumbest Retriever". Let a Swiftie wave a stick over their heads, and they plunge eagerly into the quagmire.
Kerry's media surrogates may not be the world's sharpest pointers, either, as they keep letting the Racicot's give the Wolf's the Runaround.
The game gets old, though, and all but the slowest mutts catch on eventually. Thursday, for the first time, CNN's Judy Woodruff popped a key question:
WOODRUFF: All right. But -- and you're saying the Swift Boat ads are no worse, in your view, than all the other ads?
GILLESPIE: I'm saying that this is systemic [... blah, blah, blah ...]
No follow-up ... but, hey, it's a start.
For hounds and handlers alike, here's a map of the Fake-Out Fetch playing field.
Is SBVT credible? No.
It's not a proper controversy. Not even a proper swearing contest.
For Kerry, there's a documentary record -- uncontested until now -- and the best-situated living witnesses corroborate it.
For SBVT, several witnesses swear against this record. Every one bears undisguised hard feelings against Kerry, and (except in one instance) these feelings stem entirely from Kerry's political conduct after leaving the Navy. (Over 200 Navy veteran non-witnesses also endorse these allegations.)
SBVT testimony is undercut by demonstrable error, inconsistency, evasiveness, hearsay, speculation, prior conflicting statements, subsequent uncertain or conflicting statements, fog of war, conflict of interest, and circular reasoning.
Did Kerry "bring this on himself"? No.
- Kerry left the Navy and became active in the antiwar movement. Even assuming this behavior deserves punishment, bearing false witness is not a legitimate avenue of reprisal.
- Kerry's recent biography described a couple of senior officers in terms they found unflattering. False witness is not a legitimate avenue of reprisal.
- Kerry ran for President. This makes him fair game for character assassination, but false witness is not fair game.
- Kerry emphasizes his experience in Vietnam. His record is fair game. False witness is not.
Has Bush condemned SBVT? No.
Impatient news crews jumped at the chance to put honorable words in W's mouth:
"Bush denounces Swift Boat ads". As the White House later confirmed, Bush did no such thing.
Instead, he condemned all independently-funded political activity -- dodging the integrity issue by hurling a make-believe process issue far over reporters' heads. Faithful newshounds chased the imaginary ball right off the metaphorical cliff.
Newshounds who went for the fake should at least have noticed:
- Bush surrogates simultaneously executed fake #2 ("Kerry attacks free speech"), the logic of which directly contravenes fake #1.
- Candidates can condemn, but can't suppress 527 activity. It's the law.
- The last major law change (MCain-Feingold) took a decade, more or less.
- Bush opposed McCain-Feingold.
- When McCain-Feingold was proceeding through Congress, Bush favored looser regulation of independent expenditures.
When he poses a moral equivalence between SBVT ads and everything else in the 527 universe, the indicated line of play is to knock Bush down and make him cough up the ball.
Are all 527 ads morally equivalent? No.
- A large fraction of 527 activity (which Bush also proposes to constrain) involves grassroots organizing, voter registration and turnout -- not ads.
- Ads can be positive, issue-oriented, and even truthful They're not all equally negative, equally personal, or equally false.
- Not lies are equally reprehensible ... not by the lights most of us live by.
Lying about your opponent's concern for widows and orphans (e.g., by mischaracterizing a budget vote) is one thing. Accusing an authentic war hero of faking it is something else again. The late Strom Thurmond was anathema to liberals, but they never stooped so low as to malign his WW II heroism.
Is the Bush campaign behind the SBVT smears? Yes.
- Bush operatives always said they would do this. [December: 'By the time the White House finishes with Kerry, no one will know what side of the (Vietnam) war he fought on.' And "calculated derision" was the campaign's top priority for August.]
- Bush campaigns have always done this. Despicable smears crop up predictably in areas where Bush's own record is weakest, e.g., military service.
- Bush campaigns have always done it this way. Henchmen take potshots from cover, Bush takes the high road, and Bush official surrogates follow up -- accusing the infuriated opponent of emotional imbalance.
- Key players are known Bush cronies -- part of a "revolving door" network -- or rabid right-wing Republicans with Texas roots.
- SBVT ads were rolled out with world-class "earned media" orchestration.
- Official Bush surrogates had their follow-up lines rehearsed and ready for tandem ridicule of the "wild-eyed" victim.
What's a journalist to do?
Don't chase the stick, especially when there's no stick.
The required factual inquiry is a piece of cake. Given the fog of wartime documentation and the vagaries of human memory, isolated details are open to debate -- but debatable details do not constitute a story.
The suggested unifying narrative is not plausible, even as fiction.
Kerry -- as part of a preconceived agenda -- repeatedly exposed himself to penetrating soft-tissue wounds and repeatedly pantomimed valor under fire. He got away with it. For 35 years, his co-conspirators (all of those neareset the action) remain complicit in this charade.
You know campaign transom trash when you see it. Journalists who value their reputations will not bite on this story, nor will reputable "opposing view" sources embrace it.
- Don't "rescue" the story by suggestive suspension of disbelief.
- Don't traffic in passive-voice imprecations. ("Questions are being raised!".)
- Don't spin typo's into typhoons.
- Simply call a crock a crock.
Your required ethical inquiry is not difficult either, even on a slow news day. It's a pack of lies --
damned lies -- steeped in malign motive.
- Don't chase the stick.
- Don't throw the stick.
- At barest minimum, rise to the Ashcroft standard and "condemn that which is condemnable".
Keep your eye on the ball. There is a big scoop here, and it's up for grabs.
How did the Bush machine orchestrate this discredited smear? How do they do this -- campaign after campaign -- without leaving fingerprints?
When a mobster's inconvenient rivals conveniently disappear, and he has a too-perfect alibi, time after time, you know there's a story. Do you have what it takes to find it?
What's a Kerry surrogate to do?
Do not entertain your hosts by chasing the stick. It only encourages them.
- Don't chase anybody's blame-the-victim stick.
- Don't chase anybody's split-the-difference stick.
- Don't chase anybody's everybody-does-it stick.
- Don't chase anybody's horserace stick.
- Don't chase anybody's free-speech stick.
- Don't chase anybody's moral-equivalence stick.
- Don't chase anybody's where-there's-smoke-there's-fire stick.
Hold your interlocutors to account. Refuse to dignify a change of subject. The subject is "Bush's role in the discredited Swift Boat smears".
If you catch them changing the subject or parroting diversionary talking points, step out of the conventional interview frame. Call them on it, and ask them to justify it.
- "On your reputation as a journalist, do you believe this story has sufficient foundation?"
- "On your reputation as a journalist, do you believe Bush had nothing to do with this?"
- "On your honor, do you believe the Swift Boat ads are no worse than all the other ads?"
If necessary, use a rolled-up newspaper and an emphatic "Shame!" for emphasis.
Does all this help Kerry, by reminding voters of his wartime heroism? No.
It helps Kerry by reminding voters that Bush is too cowardly a liar to do his own lying.
Under his breath, Bush allows that Kerry served honorably ... even as his whole message machine propagates the opposite message. (Benchmark comparison: Iraq WMD.) Just like the highly orchestrated "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" event, Team Bush is invested heavily in this story. And just like that USS Abraham Lincoln May Day, we want to end up owning it.
Set the hook. Keep the line taut. Stand your ground.