The so called "swift boating" of candidates has already begun in the 2008 Pres Campaign. In 2004 John Kerry, Vietnam Veteran, hero, was painted as a coward by the "Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth," a section 537 "issue oriented" organization exempg from campaing financing limits (they were funded by one multi millionaire in Texas who was a long time Bush supporter.) Now Barak Obama is being presented as a Muslim extremeist. The subtext of the story was that Obama was some kind of Muslim Manchurian Candidate (or the Russian spy played by Kevin Costner in “No Way Out”)—trained in an Indonesian religious school to be a jihadist who would do Al Qaeda’s work from within. Under the old media order, the whole thing would have made for a nice joke amid the somber mood surrounding President Bush’s State of the Union address. But this is a different time, when every campaign lives in fear of being Swift-Boated. Even after the story was debunked, the folks at Fox News Channel wouldn’t apologize, and in one case kept pushing a line on the air they knew was false. Fox now admits the story was bogus (so much for journalism, than again, I'm not sure you can turn on the TV and get journalism from any network) but they refuse to apologize (they copied that from Pres Bush I guess).
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