Kerry Still Fighting the Swifties

John Kerry saw his credibility on many issues hammered during the 2004 election by a group of Swift Boat veterans who claimed that Kerry greatly exaggerated his exploits during the Vietnam war. The Swifties did a lot of damage, and may have cost Kerry the election.

Kerry is still fighting back, nearly two years after the election, apparently in preparation for another run in 2008:

John Kerry starts by showing the entry in a log he kept from 1969: "Feb 12: 0800 run to Cambodia."

He moves on to the photographs: his boat leaving the base at Ha Tien, Vietnam; the harbor; the mountains fading frame by frame as the boat heads north; the special operations team the boat was ferrying across the border; the men reading maps and setting off flares.

"They gave me a hat," Mr. Kerry says. "I have the hat to this day," he declares, rising to pull it from his briefcase. "I have the hat."

Three decades after the Vietnam War and nearly two years after Mr. Kerry's failed presidential bid, most Americans have probably forgotten why it ever mattered whether he went to Cambodia or that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth accused him of making it all up, saying he was dishonest and lacked patriotism.

But among those who were on the front lines of the 2004 campaign, the battle over Mr. Kerry's wartime service continues, out of the limelight but in some ways more heatedly — because unlike then, Mr. Kerry has fully engaged in the fight. Only those on Mr. Kerry's side, however, have gathered new evidence to support their case.

At this point I don't think anybody but Kerry really cares about his real or perceived Vietnam experience. He won't be the nominee in 2008 whether he has any luck with the Swifties or not.