Juan Williams noted Swift Boat Vets "are lying"; highlighted Jerome Corsi's slander against pope, Jews, Muslims

During a roundtable discussion on the August 22 edition of FOX News Sunday, National Public Radio senior correspondent Juan Williams defended Senator John Kerry's (D-MA) service in Vietnam and discredited the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Williams noted that he believes the group is lying about Kerry's record and also pointed out that Jerome R. Corsi, co-author of the Regnery book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, has "slandered the pope, slandered Jews, slandered Muslims."

From an exchange with fellow panelists William Kristol (Weekly Standard editor), Brit Hume (FOX News Channel managing editor and chief Washington correspondent), and show host Chris Wallace:

WILLIAMS: You know, this is just so amazing to me. There is no dispute about John Kerry's heroism in this situation. John Kerry went to Vietnam, chose to put himself in that swift boat.

What we've got here is a group of people who have accounts that change from day to day, from time to time, from situation to situation, given whether or not they're happy or angry or whatever.

When it turns out that their own records, in terms of their own contemporaneous records that were the basis for their getting awards, are released -- which they hadn't released -- it backs up John Kerry's account of what occurred. In addition to which--

KRISTOL: So most of the Swift Boat Veterans are lying?

WILLIAMS: ... if this was in court -- let me just say this. If this was a court room --

KRISTOL: Most of the Swift Boat Veterans are purposely lying?

WILLIAMS: They are lying, Bill. I think that's why --

KRISTOL: And why are they lying? Why are they lying?

WILLIAMS: Let me just say this. They're lying, it's obvious. They have motivation. I was just going to say to you, this was a--

KRISTOL: What's the motivation?

WALLACE: Wait a minute. Let him speak.

WILLIAMS: If this was a court room, this whole thing would have been thrown out a long time ago as ridiculous. If this was Judge Judy or that jury that Oprah Winfrey's serving on this week, they'd laugh at this stuff.

These people have political motivation. They're angry at John Kerry about the fact that he came back and was part of the anti-war movement in this country. They're very much Bush supporters: Bob Perry, Merrie Spaeth, all these people from Texas are big Bush supporters. They're putting money behind this. They're taking advantage of these men. This is a political conspiracy, if you will.

HUME: Juan, I --

WILLIAMS: In addition to which, the co-author of this book [Corsi] has slandered the pope, slandered Jews, slandered Muslims. And yet somehow, we give them all this attention and credibility, put them on network television. These people are ridiculous.