Mouthpiece Meehan & the Lap-Dog Media

Kerry's chosen custodian for his military history and records is Michael Meehan. Two newspapers quote Meehan today. First, the Boston Globe says Meehan's still insisting Kerry was in Cambodia, albeit not around Christmas 1968:

During John Kerry's service in Vietnam, many times he was on or near the Cambodian border and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group operating out of Ha Tien," Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said in a statement. The statement did not say when the cross-border mission took place. . . In an interview, Meehan said there was no paperwork for such missions and he could not supply a date.

Second, the Washington Times focuses on Kerry's service records:

Sen. John Kerry's campaign said yesterday that the Democratic presidential nominee is not hiding any of his war records and has, in fact, released them all to the public. "Senator Kerry's entire military service record is posted on JohnKerry.com. His entire record," said Michael Meehan, adviser for communications to the campaign, at a press conference called to defend Mr. Kerry.

Meehan's first statement is both unproven and hotly disputed--including by pro-Kerry Swiftboat vets, as the Globe admits:

Michael Medeiros, who served aboard the No. 94 with Kerry and appeared with him at the Democratic National Convention, vividly recalled an occasion on which Kerry and the crew chased an enemy to the Cambodian border but did not go beyond the border. Yet Medeiros said he could not recall dropping off special forces in Cambodia or going inside Cambodia with Kerry.

Meehan's second claim is a flat-out lie. The official Kerry website starts its summary in February 1969. The site carries spot (after action) reports for February and March 1969, but omits December 1968 and January 1969. This changed quite recently, when Kerry's site removed Navy records and summary information--including the January 1969 spot report. Kerry's cover-up can be confirmed by Meehan himself, who touted the now-vanished data in an April 2004 press release still available on ScienceBlog. Was Kerry's service record "entire" before? Or is the slimmed-down version "entire" now? Disclosing, then deleting--seems like "hiding" to me.

Will the press challenge Kerry? Before answering, consider Senator Tom Harkin's (D-Iowa) widely reported criticism of Vice President Cheney on Monday:

Harkin said that it angered him to hear tough talk from Cheney. "When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil," said Harkin.

But as bloggers John Cole and Donald Sensing reveal, Harkin--Navy pilot who flew between Japan and the Philippines--consistently claimed he was a fighter jock in Vietnam. Not so--he neither flew fighters nor was in Vietnam. Instapundit excerpts the relevant page (182) from "Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History,"which documents Harkin's phony stories of combat patrols over North Vietnam and combat sorties over Cuba. Senator Harkin's been peddling this fib for years, somehow exempt from media fact-checking (outside of a decade-old Wall Street Journal article and a two-paragraph report on Fox News today). Instapundit correctly concludes that, were the press playing fair, Harkin would be "a Senator who, like President Bush, flew fighter jets during the Vietnam era without seeing combat but who, unlike President Bush, lied about it."

Plainly, the press won't investigate, much less challenge, any Dem. Yet they don't hide their hostility toward Republicans or even for Democrats short on team spirit. Consider Deborah Solomon's unintentionally hilarious interview of Ray Fair in Sunday's NY Times. Fair, an economics professor at Yale, developed an econometric equation forecasting Presidential elections, which predicts Bush will receive 57.5 percent of the "two-party" vote this November:

Q: Why should we trust your equation, which seems unusually reductive?

A: It has done well historically. The average mistake of the equation is about 2.5 percentage points. . .

Q: But the country hasn't been this polarized since the 60's, and voters seem genuinely engaged by social issues like gay marriage and the overall question of a more just society.

A: We throw all those into what we call the error term. In the past, all that stuff that you think should count averages about 2.5 percent, and that is pretty small.

Q: It saddens me that you teach this to students at Yale, who could be thinking about society in complex and meaningful ways. . . .

Q: I just want to know if you are a Kerry supporter.

A: . . . I am a Kerry supporter.

Q: I believe you entirely, although I'm a little surprised, because your predictions implicitly lend support to Bush.

A: I am not attempting to be an advocate for one party or another. I am attempting to be a social scientist trying to explain voting behavior.

Q: But in the process you are shaping opinion. Predictions can be self-confirming, because wishy-washy voters might go with the candidate who is perceived to be more successful.

It is impossible to imagine similar hostility toward, say, a pollster predicting Kerry; nor would the press describe Kerry supporters as "wishy-washy voters" wanting only a winner. And, of course, most media denies "shaping opinion." They're simply "genuinely engaged by social issues like gay marriage and the overall question of a more just society." By supporting liberals in "complex and meaningful ways."

So don't trust Meehan; don't assume the media will bird-dog Kerry's lies. If you favor President Bush, forget the press--but spread the word.

More:

The French press openly backs Kerry:

Le Figaro from Paris also praised Kerry's suggestion, but for different reasons. It commented that moving the troops out of Europe to Iraq and elsewhere actually makes those extra 40,000 "unnecessary." But according to the French daily, "any argument that Kerry makes is right, if it means he wins the White House."

(via LGF)