Getting Tough With John O'Neill

Well, if you missed Hardball tonight, try to catch a repeat. I'll be posting the transcript as soon as it's available. Chris Matthews demonstrated that it's really not too difficult to have John O'Neill sputtering as his lies are exposed. Matthews, along with the head of an outfit called Veterans for Kerry, demonstrated the essential baselessness of the SBVF"T" charges. It turns out that George Elliott himself wrote Kerry's citation for the bronze star in terms that could not have been more gushingly admiring. And that the then head of the Navy thought Kerry should have received the Navy Cross rather than the Silver Star for his slaying of a VC armed with a rocket launcher.

But the most withering segment, and the one that really ought to undermine O'Neill's credibility, was his repeated denial of the fact that he is a Republican and that his group is funded by Republican partisans (O'Neill claimed, in a move that ought to defy even Glenn Reynolds' credulity, that he voted for Al Gore in 2000). Matthews had the balls---not that it should take a lot---to point out the fact that O'Neill was recruited by Charles Colson, one of the more despicable figures in the Nixon administration, for the specific purpose of discrediting John Kerry as early as 1971. Matthews also pointed out that any amount of courage in battle is more than Bush has ever demonstrated---a charge for which O'Neill had no response. And Matthews' other guest, who (unlike say, Jeh Johnson), was armed with the facts and documentary evidence, showed that O'Neill and Corsi had essentially fabricated an eyewitness to the episode for which John Kerry received his first purple heart.

On the whole, I'd say it's probably likely that John Kerry embellished his combat reports somewhat---as many soldiers did---but that he did also, in fact, demonstrated exceptional bravery in Vietnam. None of this should be a factor in deciding who the next president should be; recall that Abraham Lincoln was not a soldier while Jefferson Davis was educated at West Point. But the SBVF"T" campaign, and O'Neill and Corsi in particular, are engaged in one of the most reprehensible smear campaigns in recent political history, and they deserve every bit of the ingnominy which they are rapidly accruing.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds didn't see Hardball but thought it worthwhile to report that he has received e-mail to the effect that Matthews was unimpressive. Maybe if he wishes hard enough, the charges against Kerry will turn out true. In fact, the mention of Charles Colson is an improvement on all previous mainstream news coverage of the SBVF"T".

UPDATE: The transcript is here (scroll down).