Serve your county – then get swiftboated?

Well here they go again. Political extremists who

work behind the scenes in both national political parties

have dusted off their old playbook by attacking the mili-

tary record of both vice presidential candidates. Such at-

tacks even have a name. It’s called swift boating.

The name comes from the vicious assaults

against former Democratic presidential nomi-

nee John Kerry back in 2004. Kerry had been

a highly decorated Naval officer during the Viet-

nam war where he received numerous combat

medals along with three purple hearts for being

wounded. He was certainly an American hero

and was in charge of a patrol vessel called a swift

boat. The leadership of both political parties

should have condemned the vicious campaign

attacking his brave service to America. I visited at length

with Kerry a few years back when he told me that the

outrageous false charges against him were preposterous

and devastating at the time.