|
|
|
|
8/20/04 Bush Allowing Freedom of Speech? Perish the Thought! If George Bush's Justice Department has the right to subpoena library records when investigating suspected terrorists, liberals scream that the administration is creating a police state, destroying privacy rights, and threatening freedom of speech. But when Bush "allows" groups hostile to Sen. John F. Kerry and friendly with Republicans to air their opinions about Kerry's war record, they decry him for using them as a front to "do his dirty work for him." Well, the fact is that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have as much right as anyone else to air their opinions. Kerry himself has plenty of surrogates out there making unjustified and slanderous accusations, without a shred of evidence, against the President, and he refuses to denounce them. But when Bush refuses to denounce a group of people who have real evidence to support their claims, this they consider dirty pool. Once again, their hypocrisy is intolerable. Why would Bush denounce these men when he doesn't know any better than any of the rest of us whether they are telling the truth or Kerry is? We can all investigate when Kerry says Bush lied about the evidence of WMD in Iraq prior to the war, and discover that he did not. He said what everyone else at the time also believed. That was not a lie. That was a conviction which has not yet been refuted to this day (although Democrats must pretend that it has been to sustain the empty charge of dishonesty they libelously apply to the President at every turn). And if it is right for Kerry to continue lying by claiming falsely that the President lied or tried to manipulate intelligence, he cannot claim that the President ought to denounce men who might well be telling the truth. The fact that the truth might harm Kerry does not make it less true or less worthy of being told. Kerry claims that it was courageous for him to return after his service in Vietnam to tell what he claimed then was the truth about the war. If so, it is arguably just as courageous for these men to come out now that Kerry is trying to use his service as a key to the White House and tell the truth as they see it both about their service in the war and about the truth or falsehood of the things Kerry has said and is saying about his own service (and theirs). The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are either telling the truth or lying (or a little of both), and John Kerry was and is either telling the truth or lying (or a little of both). No one knows. But it is fair for each side to air their version of events and for the people to make their decision. Bush doesn't have a dog in that fight. As a footnote, I might point out that the big newspapers have never been so quick to accept official military accounts of events as they are in this case. They were never interested in trusting Lieutenant Calley's official reports about events at My Lai when people came forth claiming to have witnessed events different from those officially described. But now Kerry is their man, so it wouldn't make sense to question his motives for filing reports flattering to himself which in some cases he himself later disputed in his own words. Investigative reporting is reserved for enemies of truth and justice (which means those who disagree with the received opinions of the liberal mainstream). And men who served as honorably as Kerry claims he did obviously cannot be trusted if they ever touched a Republican. Right. Modified: 09/10/2004 |
|
|
All Original Content (C) 2003, 2004, 2005 SoothSeeker.Com
SoothSeeker Welcomes your Comments at letters@soothseeker.com Report problems to webmaster@soothseeker.com
Hits on this site:
|