One of the eight finalists for the Oxford Languages’s Word of the Year was “Swiftie”.1 The reference is obvious: "An enthusiastic fan of the singer Taylor Swift. But seeing the reference to “Swiftie” made me think of another year when Swiftie could have been the word of the year – at least in American politics.
It was 2004. George W. Bush was running for re-election and John Kerry was his Democratic opponent. Then-Senator Kerry made his service in Vietnam an important part of his campaign. When he accepted the Democratic nomination, he came to the podium, saluted and said, “John Kerry, reporting for duty.” But at least some people had problems with what John Kerry did when he came home from Vietnam and joined the anti-war left.
His charges outraged many who served in Vietnam. There was even a debate between Kerry and fellow Navy officer, John O’Neill, on a special Dick Cavett Show on June 20, 1971.3 But with the ignominious end of the Vietnam War several years later, the whole thing went away. John Kerry was elected to the House of Representatives and then, in 1984, to the Senate.
But, in 2004, when John Kerry ran for President, some of those sailors remembered what Kerry had said about them in 1971. They didn’t think he was fit to be president. They formed a group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and tried to get their side of the story out. But the mainstream media ignored them. So they wrote a book, Unfit for Command, and raised money to air television commercials.4,5
Finally, in August, when Unfit for Command came out and the commercials started appearing, the Swift Boat Veterans started to gain traction. When Kerry attacked them in a press conference on August 19 and tried to get local TV stations to not carry their ads, the mainstream media could ignore them no longer. While most of the coverage in the mainstream media was negative, accusing the Swift Boat Veterans of lying and inaccuracies and being a pawn for the Bush campaign, at least their points were getting talked about.
I don’t know whether the Swift Boat Veterans made a difference in 2004. Certainly, the election was very close, and in that kind of election, who knows what might have made a difference. It could have been any number of things, but the Swift Boat Veterans, “the Swifties” of 2004, might have been one of them.
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1 Oxford Languages is an arm of Oxford University Press. The winner of the word of the year, according to Oxford’s vote, was “rizz”. According to Oxford, “rizz is a colloquial word, defined as style, charm, or attractiveness; the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner,” though there are disputes about this.
2 John Kerry’s testimony is here.
3 At least part of the debate is here.
4 I also wrote about the Swift Boat Veterans back in 2006. See here.
5 The Swift Boat Veterans’ first commercial related to Kerry’s service in Vietnamm The second commercial related to Kerry’s charges and testimony about the war crimes American soldiers, sailors, and Marines supposedly committed in Vietnam (here). This is the issue that resonated with me and the one that John O’Neill debated Kerry about on that Dick Cavett show in 1971. Which of these issues was the bigger for voters, I don’t know.
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