Sound of Crickets Chirping

[billroper]

This column by Larry Simoneaux (who I know nothing about other than what I just read in the linked-to column) does a fine job of encapsulating my feelings about the utter silence from the mainstream press in trying to determine what's the truth of the situation with John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

I've watched stories on the Internet for the past week since I first heard about Senator Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" on Fox News Channel. That's the only place I can get any information, because none of the mainstream press that should be interested in getting to the truth has reported on it at all that I can find. Just to pick on my hometown papers, the Chicago Tribune hasn't mentioned it at all in their news pages. The Chicago Sun-Times has referenced it twice on the editorial page, here and here. But I'm not really interested in editorializing on the subject. What I want are facts.

I can find blogs like Captain's Quarters which have assembled an impressive recitation of what they say are the facts. But are they telling the truth?

I don't know that. But I'd like to believe that the mainstream press would pursue this story with the same kind of dogged persistence that they've chased after President Bush's National Guard Service Records.

Because I'd like to know the truth.

I really would.

Comments

Re: SCLM

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Fine. I will. But the core of the story seems to be whether or not Kerry was physically in Cambodia when he says he was, i.e., which side of an imaginary line he was on. This is trivia. Whether or not Bush even showed up for his post -- and whether or not he got paid for it! -- are, I hope you will agree, a touch more substantive.

I think I'll have to stop this, pal. Neither of us is going to change his mind. :)

Re: SCLM

[billroper]

Well, the last is almost certainly true. :)

However, I've seen articles on the Web that claim that the Vietnam / Cambodia border on the Mekong River was very well marked, because they didn't want anyone crossing it and creating an international incident. And since Senator Kerry says that his trip to Cambodia at a time when the President (the Boston Herald article said President Nixon) said there were no U.S. troops there was one of the seminal events of his life and was "seared" into his memory, it makes me itchy.

Now, the problem is that I take things that I find on the Web with a pretty large cube of salt. That's why I want to see the mainstream media discuss this. In full.

I did just go and read a lot of the sources that you provided. A lot of them spend time "shooting the messenger" rather than trying to debunk the message. As I recall, the Factcheck.org article concludes that many of the items are he said/they said and not subject to ultimate proof, which is quite possibly true.