Will the political press ride the swiftboats?
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JD Vance told a story about Tim Walz’s honorable military service that is unambiguously false:
The story is “Vance smears Walz” not “Walz faces criticism for blah blah blah.” Let’s see which campaign reporters get it right and which ones participate in the smear. https://t.co/JZFmiPSWCA— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) August 8, 2024
Some media outlets handled this responsibly, but too many did not:
JD Vance launched a spurious and baseless attack on Tim Walz’s military service reminiscent of the Swift Boat attacks in 2004 that targeted one of John Kerry’s key political strengths: his heroism and valor in Vietnam. But instead of using the last 20 years to reflect and reconsider the familiar coverage patterns, some political editors still get played like a fiddle when it comes to covering GOP attack lines.
The WaPo was probably the worst culprit, with this headline: “Tim Walz’s military record, National Guard departure get new scrutiny.” It happily launders the Vance attack line without self-awareness or historical understanding of the last two decades of American politics. “New scrutiny” – like its weasel-word compadres “raises questions about” and “is said to” – confers a miraculous virgin birth to scurrilous political attacks even if they’re launched right out in the open.
To its credit, Politico is much more direct and puts the attack in the broader context with a story headlined: “Vance runs a Swift Boat attack against Walz’s military service.” You might quibble with Politico’s handling of it, but it’s clearly not the same laundering operation the WaPo ran on this one.
The irony of the Vance attack and the media coverage of it is that the originator of the Swift Boat attack against Kerry back in the day was Chris LaCivita, who is now a senior Trump campaign adviser.
You read that right — the guy who provided this smear to Sgt. Scribbles was literally the Swift Boat guy from 2004. If you take Vance’s story at face value you’re more collaborator than sucker. And it’s very hard to avoid the conclusion that the outlets who did are unhappy with what’s happened to the horserace:
2/ Note that the guy QBing Vance's attacks is Chris LaCivita, the guy who led the Swift Boat attacks on Kerry in 2004. The campaign is using Vance to make the attacks because he is also a veteran and did a stint in Iraq. But note that the Times waits till literally the last …— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 8, 2024
4/ Should Sergeant Scribbles really be attacking a 24 year National Guard vet over his service?— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 8, 2024
There are two things that have changed since 2004 — Democrats seem much better positioned to fight back, and the Republican candidate is way too undisciplined to allow any one narrative to settle. So hopefully this won’t have a major impact but we need to know what’s coming.