Not All 'Journalists' Can Be Trusted to Report Truth

SEPTEMBER 28, 2004
By GREGORY J. RUMMO

          AS THE DEBATES have now begun, perhaps Americans will have the opportunity to learn where Senator Kerry stands on the issues even if only for that evening. Up to now, I have been unable to find a series of statements by the senator that, when strung together, form a cohesive and consistent policy on anything other than the typical liberal plans to raise taxes to fund non-constitutionally mandated give-aways such as socialized medicine.  

And while the focus will now be on something other than Bush’s and Kerry’s records of military service, I am still bothered by the brouhaha over which candidate served his country “honorably.”

If we can’t learn the truth on what amounts to a simple matter of the record of history, how will we ever be able to discern the truth on other matters, especially those where we rely on political pundits and other experienced journalists to explain the nuances of convoluted policies?  

It was Senator Kerry who decided to make service in the armed forces the focal point of this presidential campaign several months ago at the Democratic convention in Boston. The ensuing firestorm—from the Swift Boat Vet ads to CBS’s “Memogate” has been the result.

Kerry has brought all of the criticism down on himself by underestimating the power of the alternative media; the Internet, talk radio and the cable news shows, which now have taken it upon themselves to set the record straight when arrogant politicians, relying on “ignorant Americans with short memories,” attempt to paint themselves as people they are not and a complicit mainstream media goes along with the ruse because they want to protect “their guy.”

Things like reputation and the truth have a funny way of surfacing at the most embarrassing times. President Clinton learned this when the results of a DNA test from a stain on a famous blue dress were made public.  

Kerry has become the emperor with no clothes, despite his legions of well-paid spinmeisters.   

Some have called Sen. Kerry’s military service “honorable.” Such a characterization is more out of politeness and a desire to avoid controversy than a fair and balanced assessment of what actually happened during and after Kerry’s four and one-half month tour of duty in Vietnam.

On his return to the U.S., in addition to throwing his medals away, he admitted in sworn Congressional testimony to being complicit as an officer to war atrocities. We don’t need the accusations of the Swift Boat Vets to make this case. We have the Senator in his own words:

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“I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.”

Committing war atrocities and callously discarding symbols of America over a fence are acts considered “honorable?”

In comparison, the worst that could be said about President Bush’s 5-year tour of duty in the National Guard is that he received favorable treatment amounting to a deferment. This implies serving in the National Guard is second-class to serving in the other branches of the military.   

But even liberals’ charges here of privilege is a contrivance. Can we really trust them to deal fairly with the facts in light of this group’s own draft dodging activities during that same turbulent era?

It’d be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

Clinton’s record of military service never bothered the elite media establishment during 1992 when he was the presidential candidate. Even Dan Rather winked about charges of draft dodging and protesting the war in Vietnam from the former Soviet Union.

What’s really going on here is simple to figure out.

The mostly liberal-Democrat mainstream media has been caught with its pants down. It couldn’t shore up Kerry’s military record because the facts would not allow it. So CBS hatchet man Dan Rather instead thought he would try to cut President Bush down to size, not counting on the same alternative media that exposed Senator Kerry’s past to catch Rather et al trying to pass off forged documents.

This is pathological slander, done in an attempt to influence a national election and to “bring down a sitting president” as some have intimated.

Such is the fruit of bitterness and hatred. In journalism, they become the enemies of objectivity producing the equivalent of a literary white-out, blinding the writer to the truth.

Dan Rather has joined the other poster children of Bush-haters like Michael Moore and Maureen Dowd who prefer to let emotion and “purple prose” masquerade as intellect and journalism.

They are stains on the profession that is commissioned to report the truth to the American people. And in a year when the truth is so important, these “journalists” simply cannot be trusted. n

Gregory J. Rummo is an author and syndicated columnist. His latest book, “The View from the Grass Roots—Another Look,” was just published. Visit GregRummo.com  for more information.