Wed, Oct 13, 2004 10:33pm ET

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Krauthammer: "[W]e haven't had any discussion" of Kerry's anti-Vietnam testimony

Syndicated columnist and FOX News Channel contributor Charles Krauthammer claimed that "we haven't had any discussion on" Senator John Kerry's anti-Vietnam war testimony before the Senate foreign relations committee in 1971. In fact, Media Matters for America has documented voluminous discussions on this topic, including discussion by Krauthammer himself.

Krauthammer's remark came on the October 12 edition of FOX News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume during a discussion of the controversy surrounding Sinclair Broadcast Group's decision to force most of the 62 TV stations it owns or manages to broadcast -- just days before the November 2 election -- the anti-Kerry documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, which features former POWs critical of Kerry's 1971 testimony:

KRAUTHAMMER: Look, the whole uproar about this [Sinclair's decision] is ridiculous. CBS spends five years on a story on the president's service in the National Guard -- a trivial story, which it twice already been looked at in the year 2000 and earlier this year, and people complained ultimately because of the documents. A legitimate issue, Kerry '71, anti-war stuff, and we haven't had any discussion on it. We ought to have it. It's absolutely correct.

MMFA has documented more than 20 separate instances of reporters and pundits -- including Krauthammer himself -- not only discussing Kerry's testimony but distorting the facts in order to attack Kerry. Here's a sampling of previous "discussion" of Kerry's 1971 testimony:

  • August 23: Buchanan echoed Swift Boat Vets' latest distorted attack on Kerry's post-Vietnam service
  • August 24: Matthews falsely claimed Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony "seemed" to say Americans were "all Lieutenant Calleys"
  • August 24: Hannity cited 1973 remark to give false impression of McCain's current views on Kerry's anti-war activities
  • August 27: Limbaugh sub host: Kerry "coined the phrase 'baby killers'"
  • August 30: Krauthammer repeated Swift Boat Vets' discredited attack on Kerry
  • August 31: CNN correspondent failed to confront Rove on gross distortion of Kerry's Vietnam War testimony
  • September 14: Garrett tried to discredit Winter Soldiers with irrelevant facts

—G.W.

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