The most egregious parts of Jeffrey Dworkin’s commentary on the Not-So-Swift Boaters, which is essentially another “cable and the Internet made me do it” mea non-culpa:
NPR reporting has come close to endorsing the Kerry view.
Well, God forbid we endorse his view, given that it’s true and all.
As early as June, NPR’s Peter Overby reported that the money for the Swift Boat Veterans campaign had come from three conservative Texans: John O’Neill, Harlan Crow and Bob J. Perry. Overby reported that all three have longtime connections to the Bushes –– both pre et fils, as well as to President Bush’s political advisor, Karl Rove.
‘Dancing the Innuendo’
Other reports from senior correspondent Juan Williams and commentator Cokie Roberts stressed that no matter how spurious or politically motivated, the damage to Kerry’s credibility as a war hero was starting to show up in the polls.
Look, this is the part that annoys me about political reporting, the part where political reporters completely ignore their own roles in the nonsense. Wan and Coked-Up are stressing something that they’re partly responsible for. Of course it would affect his standing in the polls if you keep flogging it, even if you say it’s spurious. And the more you say it’s affecting him in the polls, the more it actually does. We’re sheep, if we think all our neighbors are deserting Kerry’s ship we’ll desert right along with them.
And because something’s affecting somebody in the polls has absolutely no bearing on whether it’s true or false. Tools.
A.