Once again, The Daily Telegraph (U.K.) is doing the work the American press refuses to perform. John Kerry last night attacked Dick Cheney on the basis of Cheney's receiving student deferments from service in Vietnam. Yet, Kerry himself attempted to avoid service via the same mechanism — for study in Paris, no less.

So far, as in the fiction that Kerry 'volunteered for combat,' the American press is allowing Kerry to skate on the thin ice of deception. A new challenge for the new media is to bring Kerry's prevarication to the attention of the voters.

An excerpt from the Telegraph's story:

The Harvard Crimson newspaper followed a youthful Mr Kerry in Boston as he campaigned for Congress for the first time in 1970. In the course of a lengthy article, "John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress", published on February 18, the paper reported: "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

Samuel Goldhaber, the article's author who is now a cardiologist attached to the Harvard School of Medicine, spent 11 hours trailing Mr Kerry and still remembers that the subject of the Paris deferment came up during long conversations about Vietnam.

"I stand by my story," he told The Telegraph. "It was a long time ago, and I was 19 at the time, so it is hard to remember every detail. But I do know this: at no point did Kerry contact either me or the Crimson to dispute anything I had written."

Sen Kerry's campaign headquarters in Washington refused an opportunity to deny the report. Despite repeated telephone calls from The Telegraph, a spokesman refused to comment. Another Democrat official said merely: "In Vietnam, John Kerry proved his patriotism beyond question. Everyone knows that."

Posted by Ed    9 3 04