First of all, do you really think the person who started this beltway rumour did not know that this would happen?
The facts are that Kerry did fight this in 2004 and afterward. At this point, the ONLY people who believe that garbage are mostly the 30% who still believe that Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya.
The campaign's immediate reaction to the August attack was to put out 36 pages listing lies and discrepancies in the book. That was done within ONE DAY of the book's emergence in August.(In 2008, the first reaction of the Obama team was to put out 41 pages on lies in Corsi's book.) This should have been sufficient to spike their attack. How many lies are people usually allowed when they are disputing the official record, offering nothing - not one Telex, photo, or record sent upward discussing Kerry as the problem portrayed in the book - as proof. They also later proved the links to Bush - in funding, lawyers, and in one case the B/C people were caught passing it out. In addition, Kerry surrogates including some of his crew, Rassman and Cleland countered it. (Like Kerry, Obama used surrogates against Corsi rather than respond himself)
That was far more proof countering the liars than the media had on anything other than Obama's birth certificate. The problem was that it went to the media and they refused to play the role of evaluating who was telling the truth - the Washington Post's editor even saying they wouldn't. The broadcast media was worse. Would Obama have done as well if the networks and cable TV failed to give coverage to his speech on race in the furor over Reverand Wright?
There was an abundance of proof - far more than would be typically available as they hit against a well documented official record. Even before the August re-emergence, the Kerry campaign had already provided the media with more than enough backup for them to reject the August attack out of hand.
It should also be mentioned that it was not Kerry's accounts they disputed, it was the NAVY's official record. Backing the NAVY account over the SBVT, Kerry had the following:
he had 120 pages of naval records - spanning the entire interval with glowing fitness reports - all given to the media and on his web site from April on. That alone should have been enough.
He had every man on his boat for every medal earned 100% behind him. That alone should have been enough.
He had the Nixon administration on tape (that they thought would never be public) saying he was both a genuine war hero and clean, but for political reasons should be destroyed. (SBVT O'Neil was one of those tasked to destroy Kerry in 1971.) That alone should have been enough.
He also was given a plum assignment in Brooklyn as an aide to a rear admiral. From the naval records, this required a higher security clearance - clearly his "employers" of the last 3 years (many SBVT) had to attest to his good character. That's just standard. That alone should have been enough.
The then secretary of the Navy (John Warner) said he personally had reviewed the Silver Star Award. That alone should have been enough.
In any previous election, calmly and professionally countering lies by disproving them would have been the obvious preferred first step. It is only when there is no open and shut case (as there is here) that the candidate would try anything different.When this didn't work, Kerry did speak to the issue - and he did so before the Firefighters as soon as it was appear that the attack was beginning to hurt him. Many here - all political junkies didn't here this. Why? The media that gave a huge amount of free time to people they had to know were lying didn't think that it was important to give the Democratic nominees response air time. Now, it was - I think less than 2 minutes long - so there is no excuse.
But that was 2004. Since then, you could add:
1) When Kerry spoke on Kerry/Feingold, Senator John Warner debated Kerry on the floor. He respected what Kerry had put together and, in addition, he spoke of having reviewed Kerry's silver star and that he found that it was very well earned.
2) Sam Fox, who was one of the SBVT funders, tried to preempt Kerry grilling him when he was before the SFRC to get approved to be an ambassador by saying that "Kerry was a war hero and that no one could take that away". Kerry led him through ALL that was known when he paid for more ads in late October. The man best attempt to respond was to say that the left had "untrue" ads on Bush - to which Kerry asked if "that was the kind of judgment he would bring to Belgium - that two wrongs made a right.
There is NOTHING that Kerry or anyone else - in the Navy, media or government that could change the opinion of the far right - it is too deeply in their other reality - maybe because the truth of the type of man Kerry is and always has been can not fit with their distorted belief system. (ie he has in reality nearly every value they claim to admire and he is a LIBERAL.)
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