Swift Boat Vets for Truth: Impact Post-Mortem

by pyrrho

The title says it all but let me only clarify what topic I raise. Firstly, it's not a discussion about the direct veracity of their claims, such disputes were more fit to the time before the election. I fully expect you to digress, but I'd rather we didn't, because the question is "What Impact Did the SBVT Allegation and Advertisements Have On the Election's Outcome?"

The fact that some say they lied in every case, some say in no case, some say in certain cases, some say less than Kerry... is itself data regarding their impact.  If EVERYONE thought they told no lies, then this implies something about their impact, regardless of the fact that everyone, in that case, might be mistaken.

Most of us probably knew the allegations were coming before we ever heard of John O'Neill because it was evident that Kerry's role in the Vietnam Vets Against the War and his appearance before the US Senate were likely to be brought up because they are, in fact, key points not just of Kerry's past but sore points in American History itself.  That John O'Neill played his role might have not been surprising, and added a poetic circle in which John (O) and John (K) relived a debate they had back in the 60s.  In fact, they literally debated on the Dick Cavett show (I wanted to give a link to the C-SPAN archives, where I watched it, but it seems to have been removed).

At the time I felt the impact would not be too severe for Kerry, thinking this all was well known enough to not shift voters, and naively hoping that Vietnam was in the past.  I think history showed me wrong, but the evidence is not conclusive.  However, I do think it hurt Kerry and is one of many things that can be said to have lost the election (that is, there are numerous things that can be said to have swayed a few million votes and any of them were therefore enough to "lose the election").   I say this because when the SBVT started advertising Unfit for Command and running other ads in earnest in August 2004, Kerry had come to enjoy a 5-10 point lead in the polls.  During the onslaught from SBVT he fell into the dead heat stasis that persisted, poll-wise, until election day. 

I don't think this hinged on the disputed facts so much as maybe the basic fact that people didn't know, didn't remember that Kerry was leader of the VVAW, people didn't remember the anti-war movement and by being shown snippets of his testimony and reacquainted with Kerry's significant role against the war, it seemed almost as if Kerry was solely responsible for the negative accounting of the Vietnam War which still persists in the American psyche.  While I suspect most people did not hold Kerry's protesting years against him, quite the contrary, I think the current Wartime Condition of the US did not cross well with their intentions to pursue the War on Terror according to a Bush Doctrine. 

Again, I offer my own answer simply to not be overly coy, to be honest about my ideas (and to display rather than hide any bias I may suffer), but the real point is the question and your analysis, Did the SBVT Campaign Effect the Final Outcome of the US Election?

Comments

[Batman]

http://www2.swiftvets.com/index.php?topic=KerryONeill

Hubris: What is "malicious comment posting by scripts"???

[Batman]

Crap....that last post was a link to the transcript of the debates Pyrrho listed in his post.

Sorry....

[pyrrho]

"malicious comment posting by scripts"

it's a euphamism for when Averroes and I get snippy with one another. (?)

thanks for the transcript... I guess maybe C-SPAN only had temporary rights to archive that show. It was good watching.

[Hubris]

Batman,

If you got some weird message when trying to post a comment, it's probably due to Typepad's increased attempts to fight comment spammers. I got a similar message the other day when I tried to post a comment linking to a photo of an old Burger Chef restaurant, for some reason.

[pyrrho]

hubris,

are you claiming to not know what is objectionable about old Burger Chef restaurants..?

[pyrrho]

Hubris.... what happened to the Hubris link in the Cabal blogroll?!

[Hubris]

pyrrho,

Oops, I was tinkering with the blogroll very quickly last night. I'll fix it.

[Hubris]

Fixed it.

And absolutely nothing was wrong with Burger Chef (I got violently ill there once, but I chalk it up to coincidence). I loved that place.

On your post topic: I think if anything, the SBV thing might have negated Kerry's Vietnam service luster for people who might be swayed toward Kerry because of such a factor. I know that to me, what either candidate was doing thirty years ago didn't matter.

[sweetchuck]

Well, I for one think the SB Vets had an effect on the election. I recall in late August having individual conversations with my parents and grandmother and each of them brought up Kerry’s Vietnam experience and how his wounds were not serious enough, and he kinda skated out and all that. They each said that they did not think it was important, and it should not be an issue, yet it was all they were talking about. I think Kerry’s opposition to Vietnam never really got the coverage that the size and origin of the shrapnel got.

[Shinobi]

Ditto Sweetchuck,

I told my Dad I was voting for Kerry, and after the heart attack he started rambling on and on about this group that had served with him that said he was a bad leader and so on. And I said I didn't care because Bush is clearly an idiot who just happens to be a good leader. And he said that if my only objection to someone as president was that they weren't intelligent that I had a problem and I looked at him disdainfully and left. (Actually I think there was a lot of yelling and door slamming) Crazy midwesterners.

But I definetly think the SBV had an affect on the election. I think it really would have been enough to point out Kerry's protests of the war after his return. (flip flop?) But instead they attacked his service. Which is pretty low.

But on the flip side my grandfather was a Vet and if anyone had ever denied the sacrifices he had made he probably would have killed them. (I mean really, with a knife) I think part of the fault here lies with Kerry as well, for not defending himself. (with words, not a knife obviously)

[sweetchuck]

My grandmother is 92 years old, and as sweet as a cranky nag can be. She was astonished when I told her I was voting for Kerry. She said she didn’t like him because of all the lies he tells. I asked he for a single example, and she said “well everything”. Clearly 6 hours of liberally biased media consumption a day is not enough for her.

[Batman]

Sweetchuck:
Well, the same can/could be said for the media and the myth of all the "lies" Bush has told as well. And, if you would like, I would be happy to give you some examples of Kerry lies. Just because a 96 year old woman cannot remember one does not mean there weren't any, right?

[Batman]

Oops, that last post should have said 92 year old woman.

[Chum]

The effect the negative campaign had more to do with being a momentum inhibitor as opposed to affecting the direct vote. It caused Kerry to pause from addrsssing issues he wanted to put out there while damage control was taking place. By the time the debates took place this assault pretty much dropped off of the radar screen except in a few states where ads like the one with the veteran's wives were being aired.

A parallel question could be what impact did Dan Rather's sloppiness have in also sucking the oxygen out of the Kerry campaign while extiguishing the smolderings of Bush's TANG record? This too changed the dynamic of the debate.

[pyrrho]

chum,

I wonder that as well... I think that may have killed any gain Kerry could have hoped to make at the last moments. I hope some enterprising report tracks down the origin of those documents.

I think it's too bad we as a nation are focussing on these accusation that the other candidate is reprehensible and morally unfit for any command rather than policy.

On the other hand, I think it's important for a party to have a philosophical worldview that it explains about why we are here (a creation myth story) and where we are going. And on that score the Republicans do have such a myth story and the Democrats do not, and in the end I think that's is the WHY of this election.

I still ask and wonder about these other questions which I think are marginal, such as the topic of this post or the Rather effect because it was -so close- that it is also valid to wonder what more incidental events of the campaign may have swayed a deciding number of votes. A marginal issue can make a difference, obviously, if the winning margin is itself so narrow.

[Shinobi]

Politicians lie, its what they do. In fact, everyone lies, I think you would be hardpressed to find anyone who had never told a lie. People lie all the time, in fact frequently they lie to make the people around them like them. (I.e. Oh i love that band Humpsalot.... Oh.. uhm.. yeah... Humpsalot, they are uhhh kickin')I think evaluating a politicians truthfulness is not as important as evaluating their integrity.

(By Integrity I mean, Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.
The state of being unimpaired; soundness.
The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.)

So a politician lied about getting a BJ, (to chose an out of date example) but was getting a BJ a violation of something in his mind? Did he consider it wrong when he did it, yet chose to do it anyway? Even better, did he allow corporate interest groups to affect his decision to get a BJ in such a way that caused him to violate his moral code? Lets assume (for the sake of argument and nothing else) that the politician in question got his BJ in line with his own moral code and was acting in the best interests of his constituency. (i.e. preventing the sperm from backing up and killing brain cells)

Now on a whole different level we have to analyze whether the moral code of the politician in question lines up with our own. Personally, I don't have a problem with someone getting a BJ in any office, because I feel that is his business. So this politician and I could probably get along and I might vote for him depending on how our moral codes lined up on other issues.

And this, in my humble opinion, is how we should be deciding who to vote for, and not whether or not they have, at some point, told a falsehood. Unfortunately, this is impossible, because they are all too busy lieing about what their moral code is and there is all kinds of media bull to sort through as well. But it would really help to know where our politicans stand, besides what we hear from their mouths. For instance if I had known that Bush was going to allow books citing creationism as fact to remain on the shelves in national park bookstores, I probably wouldn't have voted for him. (Oh... wait... I didn't)

[pyrrho]

Spinsanity comment: off topic to my own post! but I must

>> Ryan (#230): " Of course, we *don't* use computers for truly mission critical situations, do we."

(averroes): Yes, we do, but we don't use Windows.

Ok, it worked! I LIKE AVERROES. the rest is left to the reader.

>JABBS and Hubris: I, like you, am shocked, SHOCKED to find that there is politics in politics. And imagine my utter amazement that IN AMERICA we would allow someone to hold their office while indicted, prefering to, hottot of horrors, regard them as innocent until proven guilty.

JD,

Sorry the link didn't work... here it is again, I messed it up, I could blame no preview but half the time I neglect to preview anyway. I do not suspect it will change your eloquent answer in the spinsanity thread one iota. We agree also that it's not such a bad excercise... it's meant to reduce extremist rhetoric in the mainstream, but the penalty comes when the results are generalized.

[pyrrho]

shinobi,

the moment we have the true information about peoples morals and their ethics... that is the moment we as the people get the control that democracy has promised and lent us hope for. Which is why so many are fighting the forces of clarity.

I think this may be an area, the only area, where spinsanity readers and cabal reader/writers agree or at least aspire to agree (the path to clarity is still and forever in dispute in some regards). We prefer clarity. We are confident clarity will not cloud our ideals. JD is not afraid he'll suddenly vote like a communist if he knows where the communist stands... or against him. Not that Bush is a communist... he just likes big government, nation building, unfunded state mandates and a lot of socialism like that... :)

[Shinobi]

I know, I'm preaching to the choir so to speak.

(I always used to hate it back when I was a catholic and the preist would stand there and talk about how we should come to church... I was like... We're AT church dude.... Call some of the people who are happily asleep and tell them this.)

[JD]

pyrrho : Thanks for the link. As I stated previously, and you managed to summzarize my position far more succinctly, I abhor taking the actions or statements of a few and generalizing that out to being the mindset of the larger group. You might be the first person to ever accuse me of being eloquent, so I have to assume that you were either very tired, or very drunk when you wrote that.

pyrrho also did a good job of pointing out a couple of the things that I have been in disagreement with President Bush and his administration on. I have no problems whatsoever having disagreements within my own party, or even with our leaders. To me, that just reinforces the fact that a variety of different philosophies and mindsets can reside within the overall political party.

Hubris : I will admit to agreeing with you in regards to DeLay, because I cannot bring myself to type the words that could indicate that jabbs may have said something that I agree with. Then, after reading his post at his site, I realized that I only agreed with it being wrong to change the rules. There is no blind following of DeLay, and to my way of thinking, lightning rods such as him are detrimental to the party. Having said that, were he gone, somebody else would surely become the lightning rod for the opposition. Unless he is indicted, I do not see how this is important. If that rule was for convictions rather than indictments, I would be perfectly fine with it, but a zealous prosecutor of either party could find a way to indict somebody.

However, that does bring me to another idea, and one that I think could produce a rather stimulating debate. When did political transgressions become felonious activities?

pyrrho : Now, on to your original topic, the swifties. I have made my position on them abundantly clear in spinsanity posts, so I shall not repeat that here. What I have not addressed is what their impact, if any, was on the election. First off, I do not live in a battleground state, so I had to view the ads online. Overall, I just do not think that they had such an effect on the election. As with any advertising, I am sure there were a handful of people that changed their opinions, just like with any of the other unregulated 527's. They were a sideshow, covered extensively on the cable news channels, and given far more free press than they ever could have anticipated. I personally thought that the 527's, on both sides, were more of a distraction from the plans and messages of the campaign.

Shinobi : I had an experience with my parents and grandparents much like yours. At one point in time, I was living in the same voting precinct as my parents and grandparents, where they have lived for over 50 years. I went to vote in a primary, and the kind older lady handed me the Democratic ballot. I told her that I was a Republican, and would like their ballot. She asked "Aren't you John's son, and Jonathon's grandson?", to which I replied yes. She said, your grandfather would be very unhappy with you if he knew what you are doing, it would probably give him another heart attack. The amazing thing was that she was not kidding, and in fact, they called my grandparents after I left the precinct and literally told on me.

Enough typing from me ... I am beginning to feel like pyrrho and Av.

[pyrrho]

>I know, I'm preaching to the choir so to speak.

shinobi,

it's not like we practice what we preach though... so don't stop.

[pyrrho]

>Enough typing from me ... I am beginning to feel like pyrrho and Av.

hey! stop this self abuse... you are no way as bad as we are.

As for my being drunk and tired... so?

On the DeLay thing... I would like to another chance to suprise Averroes and agree with his implication (oh lord I hope I didn't read it wrong!) that really people are innocent until proven guilty, even DeLay. Indictment should not be enough.

However, I would stop short of asking Democrats to not exploit the issue as an ethics issue because it was republicans that instituted these "higher" standards when they supposed it would hurt Democrats... and the standard and flip flop really should be brought to bear back as a matter of punishment for hypocrisy.

Also, I think this is in fact a sign that the investigation is finally getting close to DeLay. It's some really nasty stuff too.

[Averroes]

To tell the truth, i have little of the needed information, and i am becoming quite bored with discussions of just which straw broke the camel's back. The Swifties were one such straw; the reasons for kerry's losing an election he should have won lie deeper and are wightier. Some have been touched upon above.

I will only remark that Kerry's convention performance, his identifying himself as the candidate of Viet Nam War heroism, and little else, acted as a large multiplier on any effect that the Swifties might have had otherwise.

To this day, i still don't know what Kerry would do about many of the issues which face us, and how his recent Senate record supports his notion that he would do such things. That was all i asked, didn't get it. Instead, he saluted and reported for duty.

JD: " I am beginning to feel like pyrrho and Av."

You mean hands shaking in front, blindly, and in the dark?

pyrrho: " I would stop short of asking Democrats to not exploit the issue as an ethics issue because it was republicans that instituted these "higher" standards when they supposed it would hurt Democrats.."

Of course. The Democrats are allowed to practice politics as well. Of course, i am not sure how a political rule that applies only to Republicans could hurt the Democrats.

" the standard and flip flop really should be brought to bear back as a matter of punishment for hypocrisy."

No. It should be a matter of politics only. If the Dems can make some political hayon it, they should. if not, they should not attempt to "punish" anyone to their own political detriment.

Note that if hypocrisy were a capital crime, there would be no Senators and Representatives to make the rules. Say....

[Averroes]

pyrrho: "shinobi,

the moment we have the true information about peoples morals and their ethics... that is the moment we as the people get the control that democracy has promised and lent us hope for. Which is why so many are fighting the forces of clarity."

I doubt that people have any great clarity about their own morals and ethics; did not Freud teach us that even our own motives may be hidden from us? Clinton reflectively lays some of his behaviour off on his dysfuntional upbringing, although he was unaware of it at the time.

Heideggar tells us that (I will use regular English here) to be conscious is to live always in both truth and untruth. We will always know something of a politicos morals, and not everything about their morals.

There are some things we will know, and which we know we know.

And there will be somethings we know we don't know.

And there will be some unknowns we don't know we don't know.

Such is the way of life.

We can seek more information, but clarity is beyond us.

Except for self-clarity which allows us to walk through the eddies of politics without attachments, unaffected by the tides and pools.

[pyrrho]

>Of course. The Democrats are allowed to practice politics as well. Of course, i am not sure how a political rule that applies only to Republicans could hurt the Democrats.

really?

basically, they claimed this was a higher standard for themselves, when they abandon it... because DeLay is in danger of indictment, they admit a lower standard.

the degree that this hurt Democrats is only in relation to how well this worked... did this sort of thing make Americans think Republicans were/are more ethical while the Democrats house vicisous felons like the Clintons.