Boston Globe “Reporter” Paid By Kerry Demonstrates Huge See, I Told You So on Campaign Finance Reform Folly

“Elliott is quoted as saying that Kerry ‘lied about what occurred in Vietnam . . . for example, in connection with his Silver Star, I was never informed that he had simply shot a wounded, fleeing Viet Cong in the back.’ The statement refers to an episode in which Kerry killed a Viet Cong soldier who had been carrying a rocket launcher, part of a chain of events that formed the basis of his Silver Star. Over time, some Kerry critics have questioned whether the soldier posed a danger to Kerry’s crew…. Yesterday, reached at his home, Elliott said he regretted signing the affidavit and said he still thinks Kerry deserved the Silver Star. I still don’t think he shot the guy in the back,’ Elliott said. ‘It was a terrible mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words.'”

Yet in Kranish’s own book on page 102 he quotes Kerry as acknowledging that he killed a single, wounded, fleeing Vietcong soldier whom he was afraid would turn around — meaning he shot him in the back! Who is Mike Kranish? Mike Kranish is a reporter covering the Kerry campaign for the Boston Globe. Mike Kranish is also a biographer of John Kerry, and as I just learned during our break at the top of the hour, Mike Kranish has also written the yet-to-be-released official campaign book for Kerry-Edwards. It is entitled “Kerry-Edwards.” You can get it now on Amazon. It’s not available. The item has not yet been released but you can order it and they’ll ship it to you when it arrives. List price, $12.95, your Amazon price, $10.36. What does it <a target=new href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1586483145/qid=1091814589/”>say about</a> the author? “Michael Kranish has worked for the Boston Globe for more than 20 years, including the last 16 in the newspaper’s Washington bureau. He is co-author of, ‘John Kerry the Complete Biography’ published this year by Public Affairs.”

A description of the book Kerry-Edwards, the official campaign book written by the Boston Globe reporter covering the Kerry campaign: “John Kerry and his running mate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina have a plan, an ambitious, detailed blueprint to alter the current course of America and redirect its future. They call it ‘the Real Deal.’ But what does it really promise? How do Kerry and Edwards plan to roll back our damaged foreign relations? How will they improve our economy, restore jobs, and manage to make America safer, stronger, and more secure? Here are their proposals. Kerry-Edwards, their plans and proposals, delineates issue by issue the promises and the plans of the Kerry-Edwards ticket. In his introduction, the Boston Globe’s Michael Kranish offers penetrating insight into the policies of a Kerry administration and what they could mean for America. Kerry-Edwards: Their Plans and Promises, cuts through the rhetoric to the details of the Real Deal.”

Wasn’t Clinton’s plan the New Deal, or we call it the Raw Deal, that’s what. We call it the Raw Deal. This is the Real Deal. “Now Democrats and Republicans alike I can judge for themselves exactly what the Kerry-Edwards ticket is offering America in what is shaping up to be one of the fiercest, most passionate political contests in generations.” I want to see how ABC’s The Note deals with this. I want to see how Newsweek deals with this. I want to see how ABC TV, CBS, ABS, NBC, all these others deal with this. Here you have a staff reporter assigned to the Kerry campaign. He’s on the bus, covering the Kerry campaign. He’s in the Washington bureau. This guy has written the official John Kerry biography published this year, is writing the official campaign book, today has a story about one of the swift boat vets, that the Swift Boat Vets for Truth is denying is accurate. “Captain George Elliot describes Kranish’s article in today’s edition of the Boston Globe as ‘extremely inaccurate and highly misstating his actual views.’ He reaffirms his statement in the current advertisement paid for by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He reaffirms his affidavit in support of that advertisement, and he reaffirms his request the ad be played.”

This story by Kranish today said that he renounces and recants all this! The article by Mr. Kranish is particularly surprising given page 102 of Kranish’s own book quoting John Kerry acknowledging he killed a single, wounded, fleeing Vietcong soldier whom he was afraid might turn around. The story today by Kranish in the Boston Globe says that Elliot ‘renounces’ this story, when Kerry himself admits it in a book Kranish wrote! This is beyond insane. It’s beyond a new depth. This is beyond a symbiotic relationship. This is beyond a willing accomplice relationship. This turns the Boston Globe into a campaign arm of the Kerry-Edwards campaign. This means the Boston Globe is actively involved in securing the election of John Kerry. Now, it’s nothing that we don’t know, but they deny it when confronted with this. Now it’s out there, and it’s undeniable when you have a staff reporter writing the biography and writing the official campaign book and then doing a story on one of these vets.

Notice we don’t have any other vets in this story quoted or even talked to, and I’m sure had that been done, it would have upset the whole tone and direction of this story. So they only were able to get to Elliot, and he claims that he has been “misstated.” What he said was “misstated.” He doesn’t use the word “misquoted” in their statement. The final graph of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth statement is: “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has more than 250 supporters who are revealing firsthand eyewitness accounts of numerous incidents concerning John Kerry’s military service record. The organization will continue to discuss much of what John Kerry has reported as fact concerning his four-month tour of duty in Vietnam.” Again, John Kerry opened this up by telling us that he’s qualified to be president because of these four months. They’ve now expanded the story by issuing this 32-page rebuttal to a 60-second ad. They are attempting to smear honored, honorable Vietnam veterans simply because they are funded, they claim, by Republican donors.
Yet there’s no investigation of who might be paying John Kerry’s band of brothers. We don’t know if they are being paid or not. It might be interesting to find out. There’s no investigation of whether or not George Soros’ 15 to $20 million in support of Democratic causes — George Soros, who has compared Bush to Hitler. There’s no investigation of any of this, and the dishonor that might be part of the whole Democrat campaign. No, it’s just assumed to be status quo. My guess is the Boston Globe is not going to find anything wrong with this, folks. My guess is they’re going to think that — they’re not going to understand why anybody thinks this is abnormal or odd. They’re going to think this is a coup that one of their reporters is in so tight that he’s covering the campaign, writing the Kerry biography and writing the official campaign book: Mike Kranish. They’re going to think this is really good work by their reporter. They’re going to think, “We’re getting the inside story out the way we want it out.” They’re not going to find anything wrong with this. But at the same time, they’ll take a look at this program and find all kinds of problems with the First Amendment.

They’ll do what they can to worry about Fox News that has two million viewers. Democrats on Capitol Hill have asked for sanctions against Fox News because it’s “unfair.” Democrats on Capitol Hill have attempted to get this program taken off of Armed Forces Radio. The Democrats find nothing wrong with this. In fact, the press finds nothing wrong with this. They’re very supportive of it. This is unbelievable. Even I who claim I can’t be surprised, I will not be surprised by any more examples of media bias, even I on this one, am stunned — and, by the way, Paul Colford in the New York Daily News makes it clear that Kranish is the paid author of the official book. He is being paid to write the official campaign book called “Kerry-Edwards.” He’s being paid by the campaign while a reporter on the Boston Globe. So I think, ladies and gentlemen, that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have just been given an added credibility boost here contrary to what everybody thought when the sun came up this morning.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

All right, actually three more things. One is that a television station, one of the TV stations that time had been purchased on to run the ad has canceled the ad after the Kerry campaign assaulted this station, don’t know what the station was, with the Globe story. They went in there waving the story. “Hey, these guys are a bunch of frauds!” and so forth. Swift boat veterans have denied the story is accurate. Apparently this book, “Kerry-Edwards: Their Plans and Promises,” written by Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe, the Kerry campaign beat writer — photocopies of this book recently sent to a few reporters and reviewers before its planned release are now collectors items. That’s because this page, or this book, 287-page book, culled from the Kerry-Edwards website and introduced by Boston Globe reporter Michael Kranish will not be published after all by Public Affairs. Paul Colford has confirmed that in the New York Daily News. I don’t know what’s caused this to change.

I doubt that it’s the news of today. You never know. It could well be. This is dynamite. Folks, this is a nuclear explosion. You’ve got the Boston Globe running the Kerry campaign. The Boston Globe endorsing the Kerry campaign, their beat writer writing biographies, now writing pieces on the front page of the paper that disparage these Viet vets for truth, Swift Boat Vets for Truth — who is now denying the story is accurate, standing by the affidavit, standing by what he claimed, contrary to what the story says. But there’s another element to this that I have to remind you of, and it’s about campaign finance reform. I told you that the reason the media was all for campaign finance reform was for the simple reason that it limits candidates from buying commercials 60 days before a primary and 30 days before a general election but it doesn’t limit the media from doing their own commercials because they don’t have to buy their time.

What we have here is an unpaid, ongoing, everyday commercial for the Kerry campaign on behalf of the Boston Globe. The Boston Globe is nothing more than a Kerry campaign house organ when this guy Kranish writes the stories, and nothing about campaign finance reform can stop it. In fact campaign finance reform has empowered the media, which they knew it would, because there’s nothing that can be done within those 30 days. When the candidates cannot run commercials critical of one another, the Boston Globe can still run stories pro-Kerry disguised as news. The TV networks could have “guests” on their programs disguised as news, that are in effect nothing more than commercials, but nobody else can do that 30 days before an election. I told you this was going to happen.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

This is not the first time the Boston Globe has been intimately involved in helping John Kerry out of a jam. We go back to March 15th of this year. I’m holding a transcript from the Drudge Report — well, story from the Drudge Report. “A Boston Globe reporter at the center of a growing controversy over comments made by John Kerry last week in Florida now claims he screwed up, and John Kerry never bragged how foreign leaders privately backed his presidential bid.” You remember this? Kerry did say it, and we have the tape of it. We went back and forth and it was clear what Kerry was saying. But “Patrick Healy, a political reporter for the Boston Globe who covered the event in Florida in March, in a pool capacity, said, ‘I mistranscribed a key word. Listening to the audio recorder now in the quiet of my house, I hear ”more leaders,” and I am certain that ”more leaders” is what Senator Kerry said, not ”foreign leaders.”’ Patrick Healy claims in an e-mail correction, transcribing on the bus in Florida and again on the plane ride to Tampa, ‘I heard ”foreign leaders” rather than ”more leaders.” I’m very sorry for this screw-up. Please feel free to hold me accountable to your editors and higher-ups.'”

“It was Healy’s pool reporting of Kerry’s ‘I’ve met foreign leaders’ quote that ignited the original firestorm and resulted in a dare from Secretary of State Colin Powell to name names.” This is back in March. “Kerry said he had been told by foreign leaders they wanted him elected president and Bush had to go.” Also, by the way, in an interview on NPR today Kerry revealed his Iraq plan. He’s going to have us out of there in a year, international forces will move in, and we get a brand-new start, Edwards and Kerry. So we’re going to pull out of Iraq in a year. That’s really great. Now they’re going to really want Kerry to win, because that’s great news. You announce a date certain you’re pulling out all you gotta do if you’re the terrorists is back off. These people have demonstrated that they’re patient. Just stop the attacks and we’ll think, “Yep, safe and sound to get outta there.” We’ll get out.

Kerry wins, we’ll pull ’em out — and then all hell will break loose and that country will go to smithereens in a handbasket almost overnight. (program observer interruption) Yes, the Boston Globe is owned by the New York Times. I don’t know what kind of autonomy the Boston Globe has, but it is owned by the New York Times. (program observer interruption) Um, that is big media concentration, yes. Here you have the nation’s newspaper of record owning a Northeastern house organ now essentially for John Kerry. Yes, Mr. Snerdley, correct about that. This is a great example of media concentration. It’s interesting, isn’t it, how newspapers are never thrown in this bag of media concentration and how there are too many newspapers owned by so few corporations, you never hear about that. We also never hear about how conservative the owners of newspapers are, but we do always hear about how conservative CEOs of corporations that own TV networks are. So, anyway, sort of a blockbuster hour here, ladies and gentlemen, as it continues to unfold.
Basically what we’ve uncovered here is that the beat reporter for the Boston Globe covering the Kerry campaign has written the Kerry biography, also wrote the foreword to the Kerry-Edwards campaign book biography, wrote a story besmirching one of these Swift Boat Vets for Truth who has denied the statements in the story attributed to him and has reaffirmed his original stance with his buddies, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. So basically what we have here, we have the Boston Globe as an acknowledged house organ. Their beat reporter is doing everything he can to help John Kerry. He’s not reporting on him. He’s doing everything he can to help him. He’s doing everything he can to get what John Kerry wants said printed. He’s getting everything Kerry wants, out. He’s helping to do that, and the Boston Globe editors cannot be ignorant of this.

The Boston Globe editors cannot claim to be “blindsided,” not when this writer has his by-line on books about John Kerry, including being paid, ladies and gentlemen, to write the official campaign book. Now, I thought there was this thing called “conflict of interest” out there in the media. I thought if you were a journalist, an objective journalist (ahem) covering a beat, that if anybody on that beat was paying you, that your, uh, interests had thus been conflicted and you’d be pulled off that beat because of “the appearance of impropriety” would suggest that maybe what you’re writing has been tainted by what you’ve been paid. Uh, I don’t know how the Boston Globe is going to deal with this. My original thought was they’re not going to find anything wrong with this at all. They’re going to think this is a coup, actually, to have one of their reporters this close to a potential presidential candidate.

I have no clue, but I’ll tell you, as I say, the depths to which these people in the press are now sinking in order to get a certain candidate elected. We’ve all known for all these — and in the face of all this they still deny that they are liberal! (program observer interruption) I don’t… (program observer interruption) No, they haven’t disclosed this to their consumers. Those of us in the new media have had to tell the story. (program observer interruption) Well, here’s the problem. The consumers, the people that read the Boston Globe, probably won’t find anything wrong with this either, is my guess. I mean, the readers of the Boston Globe. “Yeah, well, whatever it takes to beat Bush!” Whatever it takes! will be their reaction. They’ll get a little jazzed that we’re so exercised about this but, you know, if journalism, mainstream journalism just wants to continue to corrupt itself, we’ll stand by and watch and we will chronicle it as it happens.

This is part and parcel of what I have said. They are cracking up because they’ve had a monopoly for so many years. Fifteen years ago they began to lose the monopoly. They don’t have it anymore. They are not totally in charge of who gets what news and what they are to think about it, and they don’t like the competition. They want to be a monopoly, and they don’t own that monopoly — and don’t forget, again, the campaign finance ramifications of this, because this amounts to an ongoing, daily, unpaid commercial for the Kerry campaign knowingly published by the Boston Globe each and every day this guy writes a story — and during periods of time where certain television commercials are prohibited by this stupid new assault on the First Amendment called campaign finance reform, nothing can stop the Boston Globe from running its commercials disguised as beat reported news stories — and there you have one of the things I warned you people about. I predicted that this was a reason, one of the primary reasons, the mainstream press was so excited about campaign finance reform because in the end, it was going to empower them — and not just the print press, but the electronic as well.

END TRANSCRIPT