Quote:
Originally posted by Not Bob
Click away, Bimore.
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Man, how many times did we all parse Saletan back then? Not hard to imagine, as his defense of Kerry and attack on the Swifties is best characterized like this:
"
One comes from Louis Letson: "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury." The other comes from Van O'Dell: "John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star. ... I know, I was there, I saw what happened."
Letson loses credibility right away for implying that he has firsthand knowledge about his allegation. He doesn't. The allegation has to do with the source of Kerry's injury, not its severity. According to Tuesday's Los Angeles Times, Letson told the paper that after treating Kerry, "[Letson] learned from some medical corpsmen that other crewmen had confided that there was no exchange of fire and that Kerry had accidentally wounded himself as he fired at the guerrillas. Letson said he didn't know if the crewmen giving this account were in the boat with Kerry or on other boats."
That's third-hand testimony from somebody who doesn't even know the identity or location of the firsthand source. Pretty lousy stuff. Furthermore, the Times notes, "Navy rules during the Vietnam War governing Purple Hearts did not take into account a wound's severity—and specified only that injuries had to be suffered 'in action against an enemy.' … A Times review of Navy injury reports and awards from that period in Kerry's Swift boat unit shows that many other Swift boat personnel won Purple Hearts for slight wounds of uncertain origin." Case closed."
Case closed? That's his case for that point? Maybe you buy that. That sounds like my brother telling mom that, since mom didn't actually SEE him hit me with the hammer, the bloody hammer laying next to the puddle on the floor next to my gashed head means nothing.
The whole Slate article is comprised of "this isn't enough proof for ME!" I was, somehow, not surprised. Remember Saletan's words about his own bias:
"
After the election, I examined the faulty inferences through which I had translated an accurate account of Bush's shortcomings into an inaccurate prediction of his defeat. I never owned up to why had I drawn those inferences: because I had formed—and still retain—a negative opinion of Bush's maturity and wisdom, which I expected others to form as well. I had focused entirely on Bush's flaws."
And yet, you direct me to this as your source of info on the Swifties?
(ETA - forgot the cite -
http://slate.msn.com/id/95513/ )
