Special Edition Evening Rant

The Washington Post told us this morning of yet another bit of folly: According to a recent poll [PDF] by the U. Penn's National Annenberg Election Survey, a majority of veterans still favor Bush over Kerry as commander-in-chief, 56% to 38%. According to the article, the Swift Boat Liars' putsch hasn't had a big impact among these voters -- but the Post saw fit to provide this man-in-the-street gem on the controversy from a local vet:

"I can't make heads or tails out of it," said Keith Weeks, 72, a Korean War veteran who was soaking up the sun Tuesday in the back yard of Arlington VFW Post 3150. "You can't know who's telling the truth."

"You can't know who's telling the truth." Doesn't anybody in this country read a decent g*dd*mn newspaper any more? Preferably while thinking about what they're reading?

Memo to Mr. Weeks: The truth, as they say on the X-Files, is out there, for anyone who takes five minutes to investigate it.

Chalk up another one for the smear merchants.

I'll grant you that most veterans are probably politically conservative, but you would have thought them more likely to approve of someone who'd actually seen combat than give the nod to our Shirker-in-Chief. (On the other hand, I suppose it's likely that a sizable number of veterans, even today, have never actually seen combat, either, so maybe that explains it.)

From the ray-of-hope department, however, comes news of another NAES survey [PDF]: This one concludes that an increasing plurality of the public -- 46% -- now believes that the Bush Campaign is behind the SBL ads; 37% of those surveyed, by contrast, held that the ads were made "independently." So maybe the message is getting through after all.