Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Cognitive Dissonance and the SBVT'ers

From the many comments the blog has received, it's clear that Kerry's critics are, to put it mildly, obsessed about the Swift Boat controversy. You can also see this at the Republican convention, where delegates are wearing Band-Aids with Purple Hearts on them. This attention goes beyond the normal sort of "tear down your opponents credentials" that you see in campaigns, I think, because it runs so much against type. It would be like the Republicans nominating a candidate who served as a Peace Corps volunteer before running a homeless shelter for abused women.. It's a case of congnitive dissonance where a fact just doesn't fit with someone's strongly-held beliefs and, therefore, must be denied and discredited, anything but admit that a liberal Democrat served his country honorably and bravely. Democrats, of course, have their own forms of cognitive dissonance, like their insistence that Bush is an idiot, but the Republicans seem particularly crazed on this one.

By the way, to all the commenters who want flame me for suggesting that the SBVT'ers lack credibility, BRING IT ON!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

WHY THE F*** SHOULD HE? You guys keep writting wild eyed missives about Cambodia. Cambodia so what? The story they SBVT are telling isn't about Cambodia or the Silver Star, or the purple hearts or yellow moons.

It's about, as Herr Klinkner said, the fact that you can't deal with the fact that Bush doged the service. His best moment in the military was the mission accomplished fiasco.

So you tear at Kerry's record and repeat the crap you hear on talk radio. You don't read any of the numerous investigations that newspapers througout the country have written. You don't look at the naval records themselves. You're quick to call Kerry a liar but you won't acknowledge that a man like Roy Hoffman is a LIAR. He either lied in 1968 and 1996 or he is lying now. I suggest that the story he told for 32 years is probably more accurate than the one he's been giving since March.

Nothing you have said holds up under scrutiny. Stop letting Sean Hannity into your brain. It's corrosive. You sound practically wild-eyed (THANKS YOU RNC FOR THAT GEM).