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Consider the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth story. Kerry strategists are now saying that Kerry should have responded to the Swifties' charges sooner. But they didn't because they were confident Old Media would bury the story. Which it did, for months, from the formation of the group in April, the publication of its book "Unfit for Command" and the TV ads that started running in the summer. Old Media loved the Kerry narrative .. and didn't want to disturb it by airing the Swifties' charges. But the story got aired on New Media, the Swifties' book zoomed to No. 1 on amazon.com and Kerry responded to the charges on Aug. 19. Then Old Media had to cover the story, and while many stories brushed the Swifties' charges aside as "discredited," more careful examinations, as in The Washington Post, showed the charges had some substance. Kerry would have been better served, it turned out, by apologizing early on for his 1971 testimony that besmirched all troops in Vietnam. He could have done so in the spring when questioned by Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," but decided not to. Memo to future Democratic nominees: You can no longer rely on Old Media to hush up stories that hurt your cause. Your friends in Old Media don't have a monopoly any more.