Kerry Campaign, Liberal Group Attack Anti-Kerry Book
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Editor
August 20, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign and a liberal watchdog group launched attacks on Friday to either ban Unfit for Command or restrict sales of the book, which the group's president called "the Hitler Diaries of this political season."

In an article entitled "Unfit for Bookstores," Eric Boehlert of Salon.com reported that a representative of the Kerry campaign had said Regnery Publishing, which printed Unfit for Command, is retailing a hoax and should consider withdrawing it from bookstores.

"No publisher should want to be selling books with proven falsehoods in them, especially falsehoods that are meant to smear the military service of an American veteran," said Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton. "If I were them, I'd be ducking under my desk wondering what to do. This is a serious problem."

While acknowledging that the book is a bestseller, Boehlert referred to "a long-standing tradition by reputable publishers of withdrawing titles that prove to be hoaxes or frauds.

"Just last month, Random House's Australian unit was forced to pull an international bestseller after it was determined to be a fabrication," Boehlert wrote. "The book, Forbidden Love, allegedly detailed the death of a Jordanian woman murdered by her Muslim father after he discovered she was seeing a Christian man. After questions were raised, an internal investigation by Random House concluded the book was a fraud."

Boehlert then said that Unfit for Command and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "are facing similar questions" after an article printed Thursday in the Washington Post questioned the veracity of Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam.

Thurlow insisted that Kerry lied about the circumstances surrounding his Bronze Star award, claiming Kerry's boat never came under enemy fire on March 13, 1969, the day an injured Kerry leaned overboard to scoop wounded Green Beret Jim Rassmann out of the river.

"Contrary to Thurlow's claim," Boehlert noted, the Post reported that, according to his own military files recording the events of that day, "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" were directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla, including Kerry's.

However, as reported Thursday by CNSNews.com, Thurlow responded that John Kerry's own report 35 years ago was the basis for the military records the Post used in its story.

At the end of his article, Boehlert suggested that even "if Regnery doesn't withdraw the book, perhaps bookstore retailers will at least consider moving the title over to the fiction section."

Also on Friday, Media Matters for America (MMFA), a liberal organization that monitors conservative media for "misinformation," asked that Wal-Mart, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble "reassess the responsibility of book sellers when it becomes established that prominent non-fiction books are based on false information."

"There is something fundamentally wrong when a book that is rampant with falsehoods and misinformation is published and sold as non-fiction," said David Brock, the president and chief executive officer of MMFA. "Consumers are being misled by John O'Neill, Jerome Corsi and Regnery Publishing as they are extensions of the right-wing machine."

In his letter to the retailers, Brock specifically asked them to consider taking action -- if not simply pulling the book from their shelves, then prominently calling attention to one of the many refutations of the book. "Customers should be made aware that Unfit for Command is a paid political hatchet job, full of false allegations and lies," Brock said.

Along with research and coverage of Unfit for Command from the MMFA website, Brock also cited Thursday's Washington Post article on Thurlow as proof that the book is "the Hitler Diaries of this political season."

Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the Media Research Center, said that the attack on Regnery is an attempt to have the entire book characterized as a lie without exploring individual allegations. "The media still needs to be focused on applying scrutiny to a man who may be the next president, not on book publishers."

Graham said the intensity of the liberals' move is a signal to Kerry critics that the charges are potentially fatal to the senator's campaign.

A Regnery Publishing spokesperson did not return a call seeking comment about the attacks on sales of the book.

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