Even More Liberal Media

The new David Brock site, Media Matters, has an article attempting to rebuff claims made on Fox News Watch.

On May 1, two panelists on FOX News Watch asserted that Senator John Kerry has a "credibility" problem over the issue of whether he threw away ribbons or medals at a 1971 anti-Vietnam War rally, when in fact, an official U.S. Navy website, which displays various medals and ribbons under the heading "The United States Military Navy Service Ribbons" seems to confirm that the Navy regards the two war decorations as interchangeable.

Conservative syndicated columnist Cal Thomas said, "John Kerry [is] trying to make a case through the media that it wasn't medals, it was ribbons. It just doesn't have any credibility." Newsday columnist Jim Pinkerton -- who has worked for both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, as well as for four Republican presidential campaigns -- went further, stating that the "whole business with the medals back and forth, clearly has got reporters wrangled because they don't like being lied to."

It is Kerry saying that he threw his ribbons, but not his medals, over the fence. He's the one making the distinction. He's also the one who implied that he threw more than his ribbons over in a 1971 interview. The post goes on to say:

The Boston Globe's Thomas Oliphant, who was "4 or 5 feet behind John Kerry ... on the way to the fence where he threw some of his military decorations 33 years ago," wrote in an April 27 op-ed, "It was clear from our conversations back then [1971] and ever since that Kerry made no distinction among his various decorations, though others have. Some in the military don't either."

The distinction is very important to Kerry now, though, isn't it? He only threw his ribbons over. He can't now be seen to have thrown over his medals too, but he could then.

I only bring up this minor controversy to highlight how Media Matters has handled it. Not well. Citing the Navy website which "seems to confirm" an issue only tangentially related to the controversy and pronouncing therefore that "Conservative pundits wrongly claimed Kerry lied about Vietnam decorations" is just misdirection. This tempest is not about the distinction between ribbons and medals, but about Kerry changing his story to suit the times and his audience.

Media Matters won't be worth very much if this kind of sloppy debunking ends up being routine. As for the other posts there, I don't have direct knowledge of the facts, so I don't know if it is routine. We'll see.