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GLENN REYNOLDS -- "Godzilla vs. 'the Blogosphere'.":

It's been apparent for quite a while that Mr. Kerry's Vietnam record would be a centerpiece of his campaign, and it's also been apparent that he has stretched the truth more than a little where parts of it were concerned. In a Boston Herald piece inspired by "Apocalypse Now," Mr. Kerry wrote: "On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in 'Apocalypse Now,' took my patrol boat into Cambodia.

"In fact, I remember spending Christmas Day of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese Allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real." Mr. Kerry made similar claims on the Senate floor in 1986, adding that the memory was "seared -- seared -- in me." He also peddled variations on this story during press interviews over the years.

But the story isn't true. And the Kerry campaign eventually admitted that, but only after prodding from the media. Not from the newspapers and TV networks -- which studiously ignored the story for nearly two weeks -- but from blogs and talk radio. Bloggers researched the story on Google, on Factiva and Lexis, and in libraries. Talk-radio hosts, including some like Neal Boortz and Hugh Hewitt who are bloggers themselves, retailed the findings to the wider world. Eventually the Kerry campaign was forced to respond, which then forced the New York Times and the LA Times, grudgingly, to admit that the story existed and to start their own coverage.

Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack