When the swift boat liars lied, where was the balanced OTHER SIDE?

[rainy]

Every time I see Cindy on the TV there are at least two mothers or others who do not approve of what she is doing, being interviewed right after. Why, whenever there is a right wing point of view being presented are there not at least ONE LEFT person being interviewed to BALANCE the reporting. The media, whenever they present a left view ALWAYS follow with a dissenting right voice. I am so mad about the glaring evidence that they do not do the same whenever a right wing person presents their views. Right is a given, Left must be rebuffed by a righty. It is so apparent and sickening.

[gman16]

1. And when we are given

an opportunity, we drop the ball.
Most Recent, Biden on the Sunday morning talk shows.

[TheDebbieDee]

2. The only "Swift Boat" balance we got was Lawrence McDonnell

flat out repeatedly calling that swiftboater making the allegation, John O'neil, a "liar".

They went at it on Tweety's show when Pat Buchannan was subbing for him. Out of all the shows where the swiftboaters were allowed to spew their garbage unchallenged, this was the only instance I recall there being any liberal counter-balance in the person of Larry McDonnell.

And for that incident, MSNBC let McDonnell go and he wasn't heard from again until after the election.

[karynnj]

3. There were Kerry surrogates

The best ones were Rassman, Del s. (from Kerry's crew),Kerrey, Clark, Vallery (who was coordinating the veterans). They were able to point out SBVT lies. There was one time Vanessa expressed her disgust with the people who questioned if her dad was injured seriously enough - she was clearly sickened at the thought. To me it amazing that NO senior Republican or pundit, called for Bush to request on end to the purple band aid nonsense. (I was hoping that people would wear purple band aids to Dole's book signing. He was more injured, but I don't have to believe that.)

Part of the problem was a bizarre double standard. The SBVT made hundreds of claims. They would bring any of them up. The Kerry surrogates often had to respond globally rather than on some specific claim. The media ignored the fact that hundreds of claims were pr oven to be lies, that Nixon had had Kerry thoroughly checked out, that the chain of command had backed Kerry as recently as 1996, and that the 2 people who wrote it were a Nixon backed Kerry attacker and a creep.

In addition, they played with each lie before allowing it to be debunked and took an innocent Kerry discrepancy as proof that he was a liar, who exaggerated his role. Kerry, on the floor of the Senate in the late 80s (nearly 20 years later) arguing against covert actions in Central America talked about the impact on American soldiers in that position. He talked about being sent (by Nixon) into Cambodia on Dec 24,1968. In actuality, his journals quoted in Tour of Duty show he saw action within miles of Cambodia while returning to the base which was further down in VN. Brinkley, a historian says that he may have been in Cambodia that day, but he certainly was there several times in early 1969 (as were the other swiftboats from that base).

The overall content of Kerry's speech was honest. Nixon was not President in 1968 however for Kerry in the late 80s to associate the VN war with Nixon seems not unexpected. Whether he was in Cambodia on the date mentioned, it seems he thought he was in Cambodia - he was definitely upset about something when he cryptically refereed to his boat as the most inland. (He obviously would not have written in a book that he had with him that he violated the border - which would be stupid beyond words.) At any rate, the inaccuracies don't impact the message of Kerry's speech one way or the other. You can misspeak without lying.

What was interesting to me is that they obviously much have scoured Kerry's Senate speeches and likely other public statements - and didn't find much - so they made things up.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

4. "Balance" on the MSM

They balance outrageous lies from the right wing with the truth from the left, then shrug their shoulders as if to say that the two are more or less equal, and people have to make up their own minds. Take Global Warming -- every independent scientist on Earth knows the phenomenon is real, yet the MSM insists on dredging up industry-funded science that casts doubts. If I loudly proclaim that gravity is a liberal plot, can I get on CNN, too?

A few months back, C-SPAN was going to do a show about the Holocaust, and they invited (for balance) David Irving, the notorious Holocaust Denier. The program was never aired. It's not enough to tell the truth any more, because the MSM believes it has a responsibility to submit baseless falsehoods as part of the public debate.