Thursday, August 14, 2008

"This Man Won't Be Swift Boated"   [Byron York]

Time's The Page has a picture of Obama with the headline "This Man Won't Be Swift Boated." It links to an article at the lefty Talking Points Memo reporting that:

In stark contrast with the Kerry campaign in 2004, the Obama campaign is mapping out an aggressive counter-attack against the new Swift-Boat-Vet style book targeting Obama — including plans to dig more deeply into the author's past statements, plans for increased surrogate action against the book, and stepped up pressure on high-level media executives to let the Obama team have air time to rebut the charges.

Question: With the exception of pressuring of TV executives, isn't that what the New York Times, Washington Post, and Politico are already doing? It's often said that John Kerry learned a terrible lesson in 2004: that he should have addressed the Swift Boat charges head-on, and quickly. I think it's fair to say that top media types believe the same thing about themselves: that they should have knocked down the testimony of the Swift Boat veterans before it got a chance to spread. Perhaps, they believe, things might have been different if they had taken quick action. So they're jumping this time. Obama doesn't really need to do much. It's already being done.

08/14 04:21 PMShare