Meanwhile, the Swiftboating of John Kerry, the recipient of three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star, helped cost him an election.
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Meanwhile, the candidate who benefited from the "swiftboating," President George W. Bush, suffered no real blowback from ads that smeared a decorated war veteran on his behalf.
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No, with swiftboating, birtherism, voter fraud, anti-vaxxing, Pizzagate, crisis actors, false flags, and alternative facts, the conspiracy theory has clearly been weaponized in the most cynical and partisan way.
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Kerry did lose the 2004 election to incumbent George W. Bush, and the success of the campaign to undermine his military record gave rise to the term "swiftboating" as political slang for political attacks of dubious veracity.
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"He is 'Swiftboating' her by throwing shade on what should be a strength," Ms. Conway said... The disconcerting thing is that Trump has proven time and again that he has unerring sense of how to cut down his opponents.
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The most famous recent example was Karl Rove's "swiftboating" of John Kerry in the 2004 election, in which Kerry's military service record was challenged with unsubstantiated accusations that he did not deserve the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts he was awarded for his service in the Vietnam War.
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Charges of "swiftboating" were made by supporters of both major candidates in the 2012 presidential election. Republican Party strategists compared attacks on Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital to swiftboating: "It's very clear they are trying to re-create and take a page out for the 2004 Bush campaign." The term was also used by a representative of Barack Obama's re-election campaign to describe the documentary film Dishonorable Disclosures and an associated ad campaign released by the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund on the topic of the death of Osama bin Laden. The feminist Gloria Steinem has accused Donald Trump of swiftboating his rival Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race, calling her 'Crooked Hillary', despite his record of much more frequent and severe lying.
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Fox News Radio host John Gibson has written a book titled How the Left Swiftboated America, in which he defines swiftboating as "the political trick of claiming to expose truth while in fact lying".
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Dubbed the "Change the Course" policy emphasized a massive increase in training of Iraqi forces using Allied training capability outside Iraq. In August 2006, the VETPAC joined Max Cleland to speak out against the "swiftboating" of John Murtha.
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Since the 2004 election, the term "Swift Boating" (or "swiftboating") has become a common expression for a campaign attacking opponents by questioning their credibility and patriotism in a dishonest manner. The term is most often used with the pejorative meaning of a smear campaign.
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LTJG Kerry was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts during riverine combat in a PCF. As the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, then-Senator Kerry's military record was attacked by a political 527 group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Ever since, the term "swiftboating" has entered American political jargon associating swift boat service with political smear tactics. In an article in the New York Times on June 30, 2008, Swift Boat veterans objected to the prevalent use of the verb "swiftboating" as this type of ad hominem attack, stating that it is disrespectful to the men who served and died on the PCFs during Vietnam.
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The unsubstantiated charges against Kerry by the SVPT gave rise to the term "swiftboating" as a synonym for "the nastiest of campaign smears", "a slimy political attack", and, for many, "ugly, unprincipled slander". As the purpose of a tax-exempt 527 organization is "to focus on the issues" rather than "attack or defend a specific candidate", the SBVT was fined by the Federal Election Commission in 2004 for specifically attacking Kerry instead of focusing on political issues.
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The term swiftboating (also swift-boating or swift boating) is a pejorative American neologism used to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term is derived from the name of the organization "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" (SBVT, later the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth) because of their widely publicized—and later discredited—campaign against 2004 U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry. Since the political smear campaign that the group conducted against Kerry, the term has come into common use to refer to a harsh attack by a political opponent that is dishonest, personal, and unfair. The Swift Boat Veterans and media pundits objected to this use of the term to define a smear campaign.
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David Carr of the New York Times wrote, "Both Mr. Frey and Ms. Talese were snapped in two like dry winter twigs." "Oprah annihilates Frey", proclaimed Larry King. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote, "It was a huge relief, after our long national slide into untruth and no consequences, into swiftboating and swift bucks, into W.'s delusion and denial, to see the Empress of Empathy icily hold someone accountable for lying", and the Washington Post's Richard Cohen was so impressed by the confrontation that he crowned Winfrey "Mensch of the Year". All of Winfrey's reactions, as well as video clips of her interview with Frey, are found within her book club's website.
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Hillary Clinton at Gallaudet University for the SEIU union forum in late January 2007 In February 2007, The Los Angeles Times reported that several anti-Clinton organizations, including Stop Her Now and Stop Hillary PAC, were preparing "swiftboating" style attacks against her, with venues to include a documentary film, numerous books, and websites. A top Rudy Giuliani donor, Richard Collins, who has also supported George W. Bush for several years, was central in establishing "Stop Her Now."Mike Taibbi, "Worse Than Bush: He's [Giuliani's] Cashing in on 9/11, working with Karl Rove's henchman and in cahoots with a Swift Boat-style attack on Hillary." Rolling Stone, June 14, 2007, p. 55.
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During John Kerry's candidacy in the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, a political issue that gained widespread public attention was Kerry's Vietnam War record. In television advertisements and a book called Unfit for Command, co-authored by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), a 527 group later known as the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, questioned details of his military service record and circumstances relating to the awarding of his combat medals. Their campaign against Kerry's presidential bid received widespread publicity, but was later discredited and gave rise to the neologism "swiftboating", to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. Defenders of Kerry's service record, including former crewmates, stated that allegations made by SBVT were false.
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Logo of Swift Vets and POWs for Truth Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, formerly known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), was a political group (527 group) of United States Swift boat veterans and former prisoners of war of the Vietnam War, formed during the 2004 presidential election campaign for the purpose of opposing John Kerry's candidacy for the presidency. The campaign inspired the widely used political pejorative "swiftboating", to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The group disbanded and ceased operations on May 31, 2008. SBVT asserted that Kerry was "unfit to serve" as President based upon his alleged "willful distortion of the conduct" of American servicemen during that war, and his alleged "withholding and/or distortion of material facts" as to his own conduct during that war.
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