Wall Street Journal Joins Fox's "Swift Boat" Campaign Against John Kerry

[Mass]

They're back!! Not exactly surprising, of course!

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/12/07/wall-street-journal-joins-foxs-swift-boat-campa/191736

Wall Street Journal Joins Fox's "Swift Boat" Campaign Against John Kerry

A Wall Street Journal op-ed pushed discredit smears to claim that Senator John Kerry is anti-military and not fit for a possible cabinet post.

President Obama is reportedly considering Kerry to be Secretary of State or Defense. In response, former Journal editorial board member Seth Lipsky asked in his op-ed "why in the world" the president would consider Kerry for either position. Lipsky claimed nobody did more than Kerry to "besmirch the name of the GIs who fought in Vietnam." As evidence, Lipsky cited 1971 testimony by Kerry that members of the military had committed war crimes in Vietnam. Lipsky suggested this claim was unfounded aside from the massacre at My Lai. But as FactCheck.org stated in 2004, "ample evidence of other atrocities has come to light" since Kerry's 1971 testimony.

Lipsky wrote:

In 1971 Mr. Kerry related to the Senate accusations that he said had been made by veterans testifying before an antiwar group called the Winter Soldier Investigation.

[...]

The conviction of Lt. William Calley for his role in the massacre at My Lai is a reminder that our side did commit some war crimes in Vietnam. But they were, as Mr. Obama suggested, the misdeeds of a few. According to the website wintersoldier.com, which is sympathetic to Mr. O'Neill and the Swift Vets, the allegations raised by the Winter Soldier investigation were examined by the Defense Department and either did not hold up or could not be proved and no one was ever prosecuted for the allegations made by Mr. Kerry's group. Allies of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, sponsor of the antiwar hearings at which veterans testified, dispute critics of the investigation.

...
Lipsky's piece comes weeks after Fox News, which is owned by the same corporate parent as the Journal, also used the Swift Boat campaign's smears to attack Kerry's possible nomination to a Cabinet post.

On November 14, reacting to initial reporting of a possible Kerry nomination as defense secretary, Fox anchor Megyn Kelly cited the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's challenge to "Senator Kerry's record as a war hero." On November 15, Fox's Sean Hannity hosted O'Neill and praised his organization's 2004 ads as "very effective" and "powerful."