Recent Presidential Elections

2004 Election

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

In 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth started out on the margins of the presidential race. In an era of Old Media domination, they might have stayed there. When the group's founders held a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington on May 4, there was nothing in the next day's Washington Post, and the episode got scant attention elsewhere. A conservative website, FreeRepublic.com, however, covered the news conference and listed the fax numbers of Establishment news organizations, urging readers to send missives demanding to know why they were "blacking out" the event. A day later, the Post and New York Times carried short stories inside the paper. The Post report included the Kerry campaign's response that the Swift Boat Veterans was a "politically motivated organization with close ties to the Bush administration."

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was organized by Vietnam veterans who profoundly resented Kerry's role in the antiwar movement. Some of the men personally had served with Kerry in Vietnam. The group was funded and promoted by prominent Republicans, several of whom had ties to both President Bush and Karl Rove, though no evidence of a coordinated effort ever emerged.

As it happened, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth need not have worried about the amount of coverage they would receive, in either the New Media or the Old. And the spasm of publicity would come at the worst possible time for Kerry. On July 28, one day before Kerry formally accepted the Democratic nomination at the party's national convention in Boston, Drudge touted the imminent release of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry. On the morning of Drudge's report, the book was ranked at #1,318 on Amazon.com. The next day it had jumped to #2, and within a couple of days it hit #1.

The book, published by the conservative Regnery Publishing, alleged that key elements of Kerry's account of his Vietnam service were false. Most dramatically, it claimed that Kerry's Bronze Star for heroic service, earned on March 13, 1969, was based on fraud. The group also questioned other aspects of Kerry's versions of his tour of duty and his involvement with the antiwar movement.

Beyond the book, the Swift Boaters started with relatively modest purchases of television advertising time. But their sophisticated political advisers knew that cable TV, talk radio, and, eventually, the Old Media would pick up on the ads themselves as controversial content, and give them the equivalent of millions of dollars in free coverage. This, of course, promoted their message and drove up awareness of their cause, traffic to their website, and donations to their coffers. In the end, the group was able to purchase additional millions' worth of television ads. Democratic polling showed widespread awareness of the group's message, even in places where the advertisements never aired. The group's work also lit up the blogosphere and talk radio for weeks, giving the Old Media another hook in covering the coverage of the story.

The Swift Boaters pointed out authentic flaws and contradictions in some of Kerry's assertions about his war service and protest activity. But their most sensational claims were either unsupported by evidence or contradicted by independent journalistic inquiries. This nevertheless did nothing to diminish the group's significance in the 2004 campaign: It inflicted crippling damage on Kerry. Many of his strategists in retrospect regard the Swift Boat Veterans as the single biggest reason he is not president today. Initially, coverage was limited, and what did appear was sympathetic to Kerry. A Washington Post story from August 6 led with John McCain, a prominent Republican but a longtime Kerry friend, defending his fellow senator. The Post cited McCain's interview with the Associated Press in which he attacked the group's campaign as "dishonest and dishonorable."

Yet within a couple of weeks the Swift Boat Veterans charges were dominating the front pages, and reporting teams were assigned to ascertain the truth of the group's charges.

One reason the controversy moved from the margins to front-and-center was that Bush's reelection team -- which had been watching the story with delight -- helped push it there. While there is no evidence that the Bush campaign orchestrated the group's allegations, surrogates gave the charges respectable validation. The party's 1996 nominee, war veteran Bob Dole, appeared on CNN on August 22 and declared that the Vietnam criticism was fair game.

If nothing else, Dole said, it exposed Kerry as a hypocrite: "I mean, one day he's saying that we were shooting civilians, cutting off their ears, cutting off their heads, throwing away his medals or his ribbons. The next day he's standing there, 'I want to be president because I'm a Vietnam veteran.' " As for the merits of the accusations, Dole suggested that the Swift Boat Veterans could not all be "Republican liars -- there's got to be some truth to the charges." What about Kerry's war wounds? "I respect his record. But three Purple Hearts, and [he] never bled, that I know of. I mean, they're all superficial wounds. Three Purple Hearts and you're out [of the combat zone]." A week later, the president's own father weighed in similarly on CNN. From what he could tell, the forty-first president said, the claims of the Swift Boat Veterans were "rather compelling."

The Swift Boat Veterans' offensive presented Kerry with a classic political dilemma. If he responded, it might only elevate the prominence of the allegations. The alternative was to let damaging charges go unrebutted. It was not an easy question at the time but, in retrospect, there plainly was a right and a wrong answer. Kerry chose the wrong one. He and his team allowed themselves to imagine that, because the Swift Boat Veterans at first were not getting wide coverage in the Old Media, they could not be gaining much traction with the public.

Like many Democrats, Kerry and his team believed that presidential campaigns are fundamentally about which candidate has the best thirty-two-point policy plan and who snags the most endorsements from top-tier newspapers. The reality is that campaigns are also character tests. And, unlike gossip about a possible affair, the Swift Boat controversy went to the heart of Kerry's leadership character. As August dragged on, a debate grew in Kerry's campaign about whether to get off the sidelines and defend aggressively against the Swift Boat Veterans. The debate was resolved with a bold decision: Let's wait for polling to settle the matter. By the time the numbers came back, it confirmed for Democrats what Republicans already knew. The Swift Boat blitz was raising serious doubts among some swing voters about Kerry's veracity and values. Kerry's team finally responded, with a demand that Bush apologize for the Swift Boat attacks. That wan parry, which Bush swatted away, was so late and so lame that it hardly projected an image of strength, or solved the problem.

The entire episode, like Kerry's earlier encounters with the Freak Show, revealed the combination of indignation (How dare they attack me!) and insecurity (This is a crisis -- let's take a poll!) that was at the heart of Kerry's campaign. In his defense, it must be said that this combination is characteristic of many Democrats. So, too, was the reaction of his party: pervasive grumbling to Old Media reporters about its candidate's incompetence in standing up to New Media abuse.

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Bush certainly had his own Freak Show moments. The September 2004 controversy over whether he had evaded his commitments to the Texas Air National Guard was an example. That story, however, promoted by the Old Media warhorse CBS News, promptly was demolished by New Media critics. And though Bush survived it, the episode illustrated that he, too, had a life of competing narratives. According to some, he was a man born to privilege but with a common touch, whose life had been infused with new purpose once he embraced religious faith. This faith was the core of a presidency that had led the nation through the worst attacks on native soil in American history and was keeping the country safe in a dangerous new era.

There was another narrative, too. Bush was a daddy's boy and a lifelong mediocrity who was comically unprepared for the presidency and was elevated to the office by a Republican-weighted Supreme Court. With hawkish surrogates making the decisions, Bush had blundered into a disastrous war and had led the nation to the brink of catastrophe. As in 2000, the country in 2004 divided almost perfectly down the middle over which version of George W. Bush they found more plausible.

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… Just after the Democratic convention, voters who thought Kerry would keep America strong militarily outnumbered by 19 percentage points voters who said he would not. After Labor Day the margin was 3 percentage points. Over the same time period, Kerry saw comparable declines on "strong leader" (from 18 to 1) and "trust John Kerry to be commander in chief" (16 down to 3).

Because of the Swift Boat attacks, Kerry had to shy away from discussing Vietnam, which the campaign had planned to use as its entrée into presenting Kerry as a regular guy (through his crewmate relationships), illustrating his mettle, displaying his ideas for national security, and positioning him as a wartime president. Within Kerry's campaign, there was a roiling debate about when and how to take the issue on, but there was always more talk than action (Halperin and Harris 24-28).

In his April 22, 1971, testimony [before Congress], Kerry related the personal experiences of other Vietnam veterans who conveyed their personal experiences and focused blame on the leaders at that time -- not the soldiers -- for the atrocities they claimed to have committed or witnessed:

KERRY: I would like to talk, representing all those veterans [VVAW members], and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

[…]

KERRY: They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country. [Media Matters, 10/23/04]

Factcheck.Org: “Since Kerry Testified, Ample Evidence Of Other Atrocities Has Come To Light.” A 2004 Factcheck.org piece found “ample evidence” to support Kerry's 1971 congressional testimony on the atrocities of the Vietnam War:

Some atrocities by US forces have been documented beyond question. Kerry's 1971 testimony came less than one month after Army Lt. William Calley had been convicted in a highly publicized military trial of the murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai hamlet on March 16 1968, when upwards of 300 unarmed men, women and children were killed by the inexperienced soldiers of the America l Division's Charley Company. And since Kerry testified, ample evidence of other atrocities has come to light. [Factcheck.org, 11/8/04] (Feldman and Grouch-Begley14-15).

FACT: Swift Boat Campaign Was Based On Lies, Factual Distortions

Swift Boat Allegations Were Replete With Inconsistencies And Outright Lies. Allegations leveled against Kerry in 2004 by members of the Swift Boat Veterans were replete with inconsistencies and factual discrepancies:

George Elliott: Elliott, Kerry's commanding officer in Vietnam, told conflicting stories in 2004 about Kerry's service. He first said in early 2004 that he had no qualms about Kerry's actions that earned him the Silver Star in Vietnam, affirming that they were “exemplary.” But in the group's Swift Boat ad, Elliott stated: “John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam.” After the first Swift Boat ad aired, Elliott changed his story again, saying that his Kerry attack was “a terrible mistake.” He added: “I'm the one in trouble here. ... I knew it was wrong. ... In a hurry I signed [an affidavit] and faxed it back. That was a mistake.” But in yet another flip-flop, days later, Elliott announced that he stood by claims that Kerry “had not been honest” about Vietnam. [Media Matters, 11/9/07]

Dr. Louis Letson: Letson, who claimed he treated Kerry in Vietnam, disputed Kerry's account of how Kerry received his first Purple Heart, saying, “I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart, because I treated him for that injury.” Letson later claimed Kerry's wound was too small to justify the medal. In fact, according to Kerry's medical records, Letson was not the doctor who signed off as having treated Kerry the night of the injury. Moreover, Navy guidelines during the Vietnam War for Purple Hearts did not take into account the size of the wound when awarding the honor, which invalidated Letson's wound claim. [Media Matters, 11/9/07]

Cmdr. Adrian Lonsdale: In 2004, retired Cmdr. Adrian Lonsdale claimed that Kerry “lack[ed] the capacity to lead,” which was at odds with what he reportedly said about Kerry during his 1996 Senate race. According to reports from ABC News and Air Force Times, Lonsdale stated: “It was because of the bravery and the courage of the young officers that ran boats ... the swift boats and the Coast Guard cutters, and Senator Kerry was no exception.” In 1996, Lonsdale explained that Vietnam War medals could only be awarded if battle events were corroborated by others -- this explanation contradicted Swift Boat Veterans' 2004 claims that Kerry won his awards only because he was able to write up false reports and fool his commanders. [Media Matters, 11/9/07]

Navy Lt. Larry Thurlow: Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry's in Vietnam -- which resulted in Kerry earning a Bronze Star -- affirmed as late as April 2004 that Kerry “was extremely brave, and I wouldn't argue that point.” Four months later, Thurlow publicly disputed Kerry's medal, claiming it was a fraud. Thurlow maintained that Kerry was “not under fire” that day and that the claims that units involved came under “small arms and automatic weapons fire” were “totally fabricated.” In fact, according to The Washington Post, the citation for a Bronze Star Thurlow also received that same day for actions on a swift boat alongside Kerry's, detailed how both his and Kerry's boats sustained “enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire.” [Media Matters, 11/9/07]

Stephen Gardner: Gardner, who served as a gunner under Kerry's command, was repeatedly cited as an eyewitness to key Kerry events in Vietnam. Gardner later admitted however that “he was not on the boat with Kerry during the incidents for which Kerry got his medals.” [The Columbus Dispatch, 8/6/04, via Media Matters]

Alfred J. French: French, a veteran featured in the Swift Boat ads, claimed: “I served with John Kerry. ... He is lying about his record.” French also agreed that Kerry had received his Purple Heart “from negligently self-inflicted wounds in the absence of hostile fire.” But in an interview with The Oregonian, French admitted he had no firsthand knowledge of the events surrounding Kerry's medals and that his information came secondhand from “friends.” [Media Matters, 11/9/07]

Time Magazine: “Swift-Boating's Essence Is A Particular Kind Of Dishonesty.” A Time magazine article described “swift-boating” as “a particular kind of dishonesty”:

There have, of course, been dirty politics and outrageous infamies since the beginning of the Republic. Swift-boating is not about that. Nor is it merely negative campaigning. There's nothing wrong with criticizing your opponent if the criticism is accurate and important. Swift-boating's essence is a particular kind of dishonesty, or rather a particular combination of shadowy dishonesties. It usually involves a complex web of facts, many of which may even be true. It exploits its own complexity and the reluctance of the media to adjudicate factual disputes. No matter how thoroughly a charge may be discredited, enough taint remains to support an argument. The fundamental dishonesty is the suggestion that the issue, whatever it is, really matters. This is how swift-boating differs from its cousin McCarthyism, which deals in totally baseless charges that would be deeply serious if true. Swift-boating is McCarthyism lite. [Time Magazine, 6/12/08]

Kerry’s opponents ... understood that they could strike at the heart of his campaign by questioning his Vietnam service, together with his statements on behalf of VVAW. Under federal campaign finance law, individuals could form so-called “527” organizations to raise and spend unlimited money for political advocacy, as long as they did not coordinate with or endorse particular candidates. Additionally, by 2004, the “new media” of talk radio, blogs, and 24-hour news channels, particularly in the conservative vein of Fox News, was challenging the control of news traditionally exercised by the major networks and newspapers. All of these elements created an environment in which groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth could seriously affect the election.

Veterans Who Served With Kerry Documented 10 “Lies Told By People Who Were Not There And Never Bothered To Talk With Us.” In a 12-page letter disputing the Swift Boat campaign against Kerry, a group of 10 veterans identified 10 falsehoods from the campaign that members stated had “tarnished the sacrifices [they] made”:

T]he lies of the SBVT ... tarnished the sacrifices we made, called into question the medals we were awarded and challenged the very authenticity of our service. In countless radio talk shows, television appearances and ads, newspaper and magazine interviews, not to mention political speeches and group appearances, SBVT lied about our skipper's and our service in Vietnam and in so doing, damaged our reputations and attacked the quality of our service to country. We have children and families who were deeply affected by these lies and we believe you and the SBVT whom you supported owe us and the American people an apology for the tactics you bankrolled.

Those of us who served with John Kerry on PCF-94 were personally there, on the boat and with him in the actions for which he was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and two of his purple hearts. Many of us were decorated for some of these same actions and we are outraged that thirty five years later, for political purposes, people lied so outrageously about what we did, attacking our character and the Navy's integrity--lies told by people who were not there and never bothered to talk with us. How can your group call itself the Swift Boat Veterans “for Truth” when you never interviewed the PCF-94 boat eyewitnesses? [Letter from PCF-94 crew, 6/19/08, via Huffington Post]

John E. O'Neill, founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, had extensive ties to the Republican Party, including ties to the Nixon administration and contributions of more than $14,000 to GOP campaigns. Member Ken Cordier was also found to have GOP ties, including serving as a member of the Bush-Cheney '04 National Veterans Steering Committee and being named to a Bush administration POW Advisory Committee. [Media Matters, 8/24/04] (Feldman and Grouch-Begley 9-13).

Here is more commentary about the Swift Boat story.

The effects of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s advertisement quickly outstripped its low buy-in cost of $500,000. Immediately, the commercial began appearing all over television and online media. In response, donors sent millions of dollars to the group, adding to the serious money that O’Neill was already receiving from wealthy Texas Republicans, including Bob Perry, T. Boone Pickens, and Harold Simmons.

The advertisement ushered in a period of decline for the Kerry campaign, which, shepherding resources and not expecting the accusations to gain traction, waited two weeks before responding. By August 30, as the Republican National Convention began, Kerry and Bush were polling neck-and-neck again. Most damaging of all, Kerry’s Vietnam service had become controversial, rather than reassuring, and it was largely dropped from the remainder of his campaign.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and its effective television advertisements (the most memorable of the campaign) became one of the most important elements of the 2004 election. The ads were endlessly parsed within the context of a new media environment and an anxious electorate divided over questions of war and national security. The group capitalized on this context by combining it with decades-old anger over criticism of the Vietnam War and contemporary disapproval of Democrats like Kerry who criticized the war in Iraq. Ultimately, the group’s efforts succeeded so well that the verb “swift-boat” has entered the Oxford and American Heritage Dictionaries. However, as those entries define it, “swift-boating” refers to public campaigns which utilize “personal attacks” and “exaggerated or unsubstantiated allegations.” Thus, while the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth succeeded in helping to defeat John Kerry, they did so in a way that many remember as a low point in modern U.S. politics (Buckaloo 1-2).

Works cited:

Buckaloo, David, “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.” Center for Presidential History. Web. http://cphcmp.smu.edu/2004election/swift-boat-veterans-for-truth/

Feldman, Marcus and Grouch-Begley, “Fox News Kicks Off ‘Swift Boat’ Campaign against John Kerry Ahead of Possible Defense Post.” Media Matters, November 14, 2012. Web. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-friends/fox-news-kicks-swift-boat-campaign-against-john-kerry-ahead-possible-defense-post?redirect_source=/research/2012/11/14/fox-news-kicks-off-swift-boat-campaign-against/191387

Halperin, Mark and Harris, John F., Excerpts from The Way to Win and the ABC internet article “ Political Pundits on How to Win the White House.” ABC News, October 30, 2006. Web. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Books/story?id=2517449&page=1