“I had hoped that your August break would help you to regain perspective and clear your thinking. From your recent comments in your blog, I believe that did not happen.
I am particularly struck by your simultaneously overly-naive and overly-cynical treatment of the Swift Boat Vets issue. You are the man who inspired me to see “Shattered Glass”, that excellent, horrifying portrayal of the fabulist Stephen Glass, and on other occasions you have repeatedly (and rightly) bashed the far Left for its outlandish, malicious conspiracy theories. Yet you now seem incapable of grasping that John Kerry is a fabulist — an empty, manipulative, fabulist — just as much as Stephen Glass was. And with regard to the 254 decorated veterans (including Admirals) who are bravely pointing that out to all of us in the face of enormous “mainstream” media smears and personal attacks against them — you indulge the shallowest conspiracy theories of the left: that, just because they have taken some money from individual Republican donors and their sincere actions will ultimately benefit the Bush campaign, they “must” be mere creations of Karl Rove.
Are you unaware that their main spokesman, John O’Neill, is an Independent who voted for Al Gore in 2000? and is a great supporter of John Edwards, just as you are? and is a plaintiffs’ lawyer in Houston who files lawsuits against big corporations on behalf of the elderly and disabled? Is it really SO inconceivable to you that John O’Neill might be acting from a personal principle? — a sincere horror at John Kerry’s fabulism over the years and at Kerry’s early, horrific slanders of those who serve in America’s military which Kerry has never adequately retracted nor apologized for?
The truth which the Swift Boat Vets are speaking will eventually be absorbed and acknowledged – whether or not Kerry wins in November – and when that happens, you will find your own apparent gullibility in buying Kerry’s fabulism and in joining your “mainstream” media colleagues in trashing and dismissing the Swift Boat Vets to be most embarassing.” – more tough feedback on the Letters Page.
The Dish 