MORE SWIFT BOAT SLIME....The conservative blogosphere is finally getting
what they asked for: mainstream media attention to the charges from the
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The results, though, aren't pretty.

The New York Times has a long piece today that has a couple of new
stories to tell. First, there's an account from one of Kerry's former
crewmates about SBVT's "neutral" investigation:

Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr. Kerry, said he
initially thought the caller was from a pro-Kerry group, and happily
gave a statement about the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart.
The investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail for his
signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version was stripped of all
references to enemy combat, making it look like just another night in
the Mekong Delta.

"It made it sound like I didn't believe we got any returned fire," he
said. "He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the
scariest night of my life."

And then there's the story of Kerry's first Purple Heart:

The group also offers the account of William L. Schachte Jr., a retired
rear admiral who says in the book that he had been on the small skimmer
on which Mr. Kerry was injured that night in December 1968. He contends
that Mr. Kerry wounded himself while firing a grenade.

But the two other men who acknowledged that they had been with Mr.
Kerry, Bill Zaladonis and Mr. Runyon, say they cannot recall a third
crew member. "Me and Bill aren't the smartest, but we can count to
three," Mr. Runyon said in an interview. And even Dr. Letson said he had
not recalled Mr. Schachte until he had a conversation with another
veteran earlier this year and received a subsequent phone call from Mr.
Schachte himself.

In addition, there's all the usual stuff about Roy Hoffman, George
Elliott, and Adrian Lonsdale, who used to say nice things about Kerry
and have suddenly changed their minds; Dr. Louis Letson's trick memory
about who he treated and who he didn't; Larry Thurlow's amnesia about
his own Bronze Star citation; Jerome Corsi's bigoted outbursts on right
wing websites; and the creepy conservative network funding the whole
operation. (Too much about that, in fact.)

Something tells me that before long George Bush is going to be sorry he
didn't step up to the plate and disown this group from the start. Their
story, tattered from the start, looks worse and worse every time
somebody shines a light into another of its dank corners.

from www.washingtonmonthly.com