# Here's the attempt to "Swiftboat' Obama **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 16, 2012, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685 "2012-08-16T17:12:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/261 "2012-08-19T10:33:07Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > If you still think the President should be held accountable, I guess you’ll also have to admit that since, as you pointed out, the POTUS works for the American people, every citizen should be held responsible, even tho none of us knew anything about what was going on. What should be the penalty we 300 million or so citizens should face? I think the bottom line here is “Haters gotta hate.” Is there a further lesson to arguing with **adaher**? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/262 "2012-08-19T11:53:17Z")
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female party guests – we did. But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few sick, perverted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg … isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do what you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America! Gentlemen!” ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/263 "2012-08-19T13:54:54Z")
I think I agree with Adaher. We should hold the President responsible for Fast and Furious, from its very inception…😉 ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/264 "2012-08-19T15:23:19Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > And to get back to the actual subject, since the OP isn’t fond of my taking us off topic, with good reason: > > Is the President also not responsible for leaks? He seems awfully uninterested in finding out who has been leaking all these secrets. But in the absence of any new disclosures/developments related to the OP, you all have my blessing to devolve this into the current partisan glopfest thread… ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/265 "2012-08-19T19:52:43Z")
The attack still might work, because I have seen no sign that the mainstream media have stopped being lazy about using false equivalences to create a semblance of “balance.” Remember, when Rove started the Swiftboating campaign against Kerry, the situation was: Kerry was a decorated combat vet who had served in Vietnam, while Bush had served in the National Guard … a well known technique for avoiding being drafted at the time … and was dogged by probably accurate rumors that he had gone AWOL a time or two while in the Guard. The Swiftboaters didn’t deny that Kerry was a combat veteran, they just said he wasn’t as much of a combat veteran as he (and the other members of his crew) claimed he was, particularly that he didn’t deserve his purple heart. The reason it WORKED was that the mainstream media are lazy. Confronted with two conflicting stories, instead of doing good research and pointing out who’s lying and exaggerating and who isn’t, they retreat into false equivalence. Often they end stories like this: I’m sure you’ve read this in places like Time, Newsweek and USA Today many times: “The (blanks) maintain that (stuff) is true, however, the (other blanks) will continue to insist that their interpretations of (other stuff) is true, and there’s no telling when or if the truth will be discovered.” In the case of the original Swiftboating, it would have run something like this: "The (Kerry camp) maintains that (Kerry is a rightfully decorated combat veteran) however, the (Swiftboaters) maintain that their interpretation (that Kerry had little more than a splinter in his finger and did not really deserve the Purple Heart) is true, and there is no telling when or if the truth will be discovered. Now that ending makes the publication/news program SEEM to have been objective and not taken sides. That’s why they love it, and use it, it’s an easy and cheap way to seem objective. However, they HAVE fallen into Rove’s trap using that technique, because they’re created a false equivalence. The contest changes from one between an acknowledge combat veteran and a draft avoider serving in the National Guard with a questionable record, to two candidates with questions relating to their service during the Vietnam War. Few if ANY mainstream publications had the courage to report the simple truth, or their stories would have ended like this: “A cursory examination of the two candidates’ records shows that Kerry WAS a swiftboat veteran who WAS involved in combat with the Vietnamese, and DID receive injuries during combat. The dispute about the extent of his injuries seeks to cast the same shadow on Kerry’s service as there is on Bush’s service in the National Guard, but in no way can it reasonably be shown to diminish the gap between Kerry the combat veteran and Bush the hard-partying National Guard pilot.” That last line is the absolute truth, can easily be backed up with objective records, does not take sides except with the truth, and does NOT allow the false equivalence trap to be sprung. But you almost never see anything like that from the mainstream media, except in editorials. The point is, there’s NOTHING that I’ve seen in the mainstream media lately to indicate they have changed their approach to being “balanced.” Granted, I do not follow mainstream media nowadays as I have completely lost faith in their ability to report the news fully and accurately. But unless there’s been a change, the Swiftboating of Obama CAN throw doubt on his achievement in ordering the death of bin Laden. It made Bush a sort of equivalent of Kerry in terms of military service, a much more difficult task, in my opinion. And yes, you’d THINK it wouldn’t have much effect on anyone but die-hard Republicans, but the sad fact is that while some independent voters are probably people who look hard at the facts before they vote, a sizable portion of them … I suspect the vast majority … are idiots who are independents because they can’t be bothered to think about the issues before them when they vote, and can hence be swayed even by the obvious lies and misrepresentations involved in Swiftboating – as happened in 2004. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/266 "2012-08-19T20:18:37Z")
It appears adaher is arguing for [ministerial responsibility](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_ministerial_responsibility), which isn’t really a feature of US government. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/267 "2012-08-20T04:22:18Z")
Actually, that is the way things tend to work here. When a specific department has a major failure, blame tends to fall on the cabinet member rather than the President. I’m just invoking the “Buck stops here” doctrine. An organization’s head is responsible for the organization. Now if we truly believe that he isn’t, then he can’t take credit for anything. And no, he can’t just choose what he will directly involve himself in and what he won’t. Any idiot can be successful that way. Especially when you can claim to be heavily involved in things after they went well, while hiding your involvement in things that went badly. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/268 "2012-08-20T23:51:52Z")
What is absolutely clear is that Obama won’t take responsibility for things he did personally that went wrong, like the economy. Well, no, not the economy because the President doesn’t control that, but like Fast and Furious. Which he didn’t know anything about but his Attorney General was responsible for, even though it was started under the Bush administration and Holder tried to end it. But he should have known and therefore we can assume that he deliberately avoided knowing even though he would have had to have known in order to have known not to know. Which makes no sense. But what I really really mean is that clearly Obama must have done something we can criticize him for and DAMMIT PEOPLE WHY WON’T YOU DO MY HOMEWORK FOR ME??? ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/269 "2012-08-21T12:15:04Z")
Well he did refer to himself in the first person in many of his speeches – with all his I’s and me’s. What kind of egomaniac talks like that? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/270 "2012-08-21T13:02:04Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > Well he did refer to himself in the first person in many of his speeches – with all his I’s and me’s. What kind of egomaniac talks like that? You’d never catch Bob Dole doing it. Also: Bob Dole. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/271 "2012-08-23T19:57:19Z")
[Fox News has now released the name and photographs of the SEAL who lead the Abbottabad raid.](http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/08/23/735671/fox-news-publishes-name-of-seal-who-led-bin-laden-raid/) I eagerly await the vast right-wing condemnation of Fox News for leaking classified information and endangering the safety of our troops. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/272 "2012-08-23T20:04:16Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > Well he did refer to himself in the first person in many of his speeches – with all his I’s and me’s. What kind of egomaniac talks like that? I do. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/273 "2012-08-23T20:42:25Z")
Not me. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/274 "2012-08-23T21:12:54Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [Fox News has now released the name and photographs of the SEAL who lead the Abbottabad raid.](http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/08/23/735671/fox-news-publishes-name-of-seal-who-led-bin-laden-raid/) > > I eagerly await the vast right-wing condemnation of Fox News for leaking classified information and endangering the safety of our troops. **Smapti** ’s link goes to a story on Think Progress. The actual Fox News story is [here](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/23/author-bin-laden-raid-insider-account-idd-could-face-legal-trouble/). ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/275 "2012-08-24T01:18:45Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [Fox News has now released the name and photographs of the SEAL who lead the Abbottabad raid.](http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/08/23/735671/fox-news-publishes-name-of-seal-who-led-bin-laden-raid/) > > I eagerly await the vast right-wing condemnation of Fox News for leaking classified information and endangering the safety of our troops. Why? Did the right condemn the NY Times? The media aren’t the wrongdoers, it’s whoever leaked to the media who did wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/276 "2012-08-24T01:26:54Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Why? Did the right condemn the NY Times? You’re not seriously _asking_ that question, are you? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/277 "2012-08-24T01:28:57Z")
I seem to recall that the right alone didn’t criticize anything. There was bipartisan outrage at the leaks and both parties wanted to know where the leaks came from. We’re still waiting for that answer. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/278 "2012-08-24T01:32:04Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Why? Did the right condemn the NY Times? The media aren’t the wrongdoers, it’s whoever leaked to the media who did wrong. The media who put it out for broadcast is just as wrong, if not more, as the one who gave it to them. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/279 "2012-08-24T01:35:52Z")
Maybe, but the media is what it is, expecting them not to print a story in this day and age is like expecting a dog not to eat a steak when you put it in front of them. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685/280 "2012-08-24T01:43:00Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Maybe, but the media is what it is, expecting them not to print a story in this day and age is like expecting a dog not to eat a steak when you put it in front of them. If you find that an acceptable way of behaving, that’s a sad, pathetic world you live in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-the-attempt-to-swiftboat-obama/631685.md?page=15)