On Wednesday’s “Today Show,” NBC’s senior White House correspondent Chuck Todd reported that “a few [White House] aides describe it to me as ‘we didn’t know that they were going to Swift Boat Bergdahl.'”
In a later tweet, Todd didn’t dispute that the White House used the derogatory term “swift boat” to “describe Bergdahl’s platoon reaction.”
With Democrats, the term “swift boat” or “swift boating” is used as a pejorative to attack political opponents as liars. Democrats want the public to believe that John Kerry was “swift boated” unfairly during his 2004 presidential run when a number of the men he served with in Vietnam came forward to claim that Kerry had wildly exaggerated his war exploits.
They called themselves “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” hence the term “swift boating.”
Kerry never proved his wartime claims and still refuses to release his full military record.
According to Todd, a frustrated White House that was expecting joyous news-cycles out of the Bergdahl release is apparently attempting to smear veterans who served with Sergeant Bergdahl as liars.
This, despite the fact that all the objective documentation we’ve seen so far (including a military investigation) backs the claim that Bergdahl abandoned his post and was not “taken in battle” or “served honorably” as National Security Adviser Susan Rice falsely claimed Sunday on ABC’s This Week.
What “swift boating” really means to Democrats is the use of facts against their phony narratives.
It seems likely that the White House is hoping to convince media figures like Todd to attack the credibility of these Veterans and make them the story, as opposed to the Administration’s imploding narrative.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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