PRESTOPUNDIT

John Kerry never saw them coming: not the book, the ads, or the 250 veterans of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. When the DRUDGE REPORT broke the story, an enraged spokesperson who was traveling with Kerry told DRUDGE, “They hired a goddamn private investigator to dig up trash!”1 The next day, Senator John McCain, without having ever studied the charges, called the Swiftees “dishonest and dishonorable.”2 Several days later, the New York Times declared the group to be a “shadow party” of the GOP.3 None of these unjustified attacks mattered to the Swiftees. They knew these attacks were not true. But more important, none of it mattered to the American people who wanted to find out the truth for themselves. In a few weeks, Unfit for Command was #1 on Amazon’s bestseller list, #1 on BarnesandNoble.com, and then #1 on the New York Times list for four weeks in a row. And even though in those early days when the Swift Boat vets could only afford to buy airtime in a handful of markets, polls showed that roughly half of Americans already saw or knew of the ads. The truth was out.