WaPo enters the SwiftVets fray

Thursday's Washington Post includes an editorial entitled "Swift Boat Smears" that will doubtless comfort Sen. Kerry and his allies.

To its considerable credit, the WaPo's editorialists don't altogether ignore the competing evidence.  For example:

Dr. Letson isn't listed on Mr. Kerry's medical record at the time. That doesn't disprove his claim to have treated Mr. Kerry, who received a superficial shrapnel injury to his arm. But neither does the account of Dr. Letson or others about the incident indicate that Mr. Kerry was lying.

Bravo, WaPo, for not falling for the Carreon Signature Fallacy!  But you're missing the point, my friends in Washington.  Kerry claims to have been wounded by the enemy.  Dr. Letson's statements about the physical evidence indicate that the fragment he removed from Kerry's arm was from American munitions — and that, as Dr. Letson has testified in his affidavit, "[t]he crewmen with Kerry told [Dr. Letson] that there was no hostile fire, and that Kerry had inadvertently wounded himself with an M-79 grenade."  Everyone agrees that Kerry had a trivial injury — but if it was self-inflicted, then that Purple Heart wasn't justified.

Elsewhere, the WaPo duly notes some of the conflicts in the versions of events regarding the Rassman rescue and Kerry's Bronze Star.  "But the weight of the evidence supports Mr. Kerry," opines the WaPo. 

Well, okay — that's one conclusion that can be drawn, and it depends on how you assess the credibility of the witnesses and the evidence.  Given that this is on the editorial page, I can't fault WaPo's editorial writer(s) for coming to, and expressing, an opinion. 

Personally, however, I'd find that opinion more persuasive if, for example, on the question of whether there was hostile fire from the shores, WaPo could give a better reason for believing Rassman, Sandusky, and Wasser on the one hand, over O'Dell, Chenoweth, and Thurlow on the other — beyond the fact that the SwiftVets' largest financial backer is a Texas Republican.  Yes, it's certainly worth considering what motivations these conflicting witnesses have when one's deciding whom among them to believe.  But I find it rather hard to accept that the hulls and superstructures of the Swift Boats involved in this rescue — none of which displayed any bullet holes when they returned — were guilty of partisan bias.

Still, I didn't expect WaPo to write its first editorial on this subject with a title like "John Kerry's Got Some Serious 'Splainin' to Do!"  The fact that this mainstream media outlet is beginning to react to the SwiftVets controversy in a serious manner is significant.  This editorial may calm the butterflies in the stomachs of Sen. Kerry's supporters — until they realize that the "ignore it and it will go away" dike has now been thoroughly broken.

(Hat-tip to PrestoPundit, with thanks, too, for his link to my post on the Baer article.  And don't miss Patterico's excellent take on this editorial, about which I can only say, great minds think alike.  Update:  Captain Ed also has a typically thoughtful take on the WaPo editorial, and was kind enough to link my own post.)  Update:  Patterico also shines the bright lights on his most regular and shameless target, the LA Times.