The Swiftboating of John McCain

I'm aware that the left side of the blogosphere and punditocracy is extremely partisan, but the brazenness of this still shocks me sometimes. This weekend is a good case in point. What do you call it when you cast aspersions on the Vietnam experience of a presidential candidate? Oh yes, swiftboating.


Only Andrew Sullivan did not have any first hand testimony when he went up against McCain's cross in the sand testimony, only a gut instinct that it smelled fishy. And that was enough for the left blogosphere (and check the links at memeorandum) to jump all over the story claiming, in essence, that only once this century could Christian captives and captors communicate the most common symbol of their faith using the most common substance in a POW camp.

Maguire and Riehl cover the absurdities well, and where oh where is Barack Obama, who has spent the entire campaign complaining about unfair and malicious attacks on his background now that his proxies are doing the same to John McCain. And much less than swiftboating no less.


So let's be clear, it's not that the left decries the swiftboat tactics, it's when they're used against Democratic candidates. Against Republicans, we don't even need testimony and an organized book.