Nothing To Hide?

I have seen some boneheaded moves in my time, but this one almost defies belief.

Marc Racicot must be rubbing his hands togther in demonic glee. I've been too busy to follow this today. Luckily, Hindrocket over at Powerline deconstructs the DNC's letter to TV stations:

...in some respects, the claims made in the Kerry lawyers' letter are ludicrous. The lawyers write:

"The advertisement contains by men who purport to have served on Senator Kerry's SWIFT boat in Vietnam, and one statement by a man pretending to be the doctor who treated Senator Kerry for one of his injuries. In fact, not a single one of the men who pretend to have served with Senator Kerry was actually a crewmate of Senator Kerry's and the man pretending to be his doctor was not. This attack is absurd; the Swift Boat ad never says that the sailors depicted were on Kerry's boat. Rather, they say they served with Kerry in Vietnam. In some instances they were on other Swift Boats. In some instances, they were obviously senior commanders in Vietnam, not "crewmates" of John Kerry."

As to the physician, the Kerry letter seems very artfully phrased. The paragraph quoted above says the man in the ad was "not [Kerry's] doctor." Later, the letter says "the 'doctor' who appears in the ad, Louis Letson, was not a crewmate of Senator Kerry's and was not the doctor who actually signed Senator Kerry's sick call sheet. Letson is not listed on any document as having treated Senator Kerry after the December 2, 1968, firefight."

Note that, if you add up all of these allegations, the letter never actually says that Letson didn't treat Kerry. When a lawyer says that a particular fact is not reflected in "any document" -- I speak from experience here -- alarm bells should go off. That's very different from saying that it isn't true. And the assertion that Dr. Letson was not a crewmate of Kerry's seems ridiculous on its face; I assume that the Swift boats didn't have doctors on them.

Until I read the DNC letter, I feared the Swift Boat ad would rebound and hurt Bush. The only way for Kerry to play this and come out ahead would have been to take the high ground and maintain an air of injured honor, wrongfully impugned. As with Clinton's impeachment, this election has been so polarizing that the ad would likely not have been as devastating as they feared. Die-hard Kerry supporters are predisposed to see it as a below-the-belt partisan attack, Bush supporters are more inclined to give the Swift Boat vets the benefit of the doubt. Net result: few minds changed.

In the battle for the hearts and minds of undecideds, Kerry would have reaped a sympathy dividend by remaining silent. By going on the attack, his campaign raises doubts where they may not have existed before.

To me, it speaks volumes that he wasn't able to grasp the obvious and make the intelligent choice. It's all about judgement.

UPDATE: Just when you think life can't get any better... It's a Chill Wind that blows no one any good.

Dale Franks at QandO reports that The Kerry Campaign: The Gift That Just Keeps On Giving, has deployed their TruthinAdvertising Death Squad against another group: The Club For Growth:

Apparently, this will be the Kerry Campaign's default response to ads critical of the senator. The Club For Growth reports that DNC lawyers are doing the same thing to them in reference to an ad that criticizes Kerry's record on taxes in the Senate.

- Cassandra