Swift Boat Veterans for…meh.
T. Boone Pickens—a person who almost seems destined to have been a crazy right-wing billionaire Texas oilman with a name like that—welches on his famous $1 million dollar Swift Boat bet.
T. Boone Pickens is not giving up his million dollars.
That’s how much he had offered to pay anyone who could disprove any of the accusations the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made against Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election – attacks Mr. Pickens, the billionaire Texas oilman, helped finance.
A group of Swift boat veterans sympathetic to Mr. Kerry sent Mr. Pickens a letter last week taking him up on the challenge. In 12 pages, plus a 42-page attachment of military records and other documents, they identified not just one but ten lies in the group’s campaign against Mr. Kerry. They offered to meet with him to provide Mr. Kerry’s journals and videotapes from Vietnam and a copy of his full military record certified by the Navy – a key demand of Mr. Pickens and veterans who believe Mr. Kerry lied about his service to win his military decorations.
Mr. Pickens replied with a one-page letter, thanking the veterans for their research and their service, but politely saying there had been a misunderstanding. “Key aspects of my offer of $1 million have not been accurately reported,” he wrote.
The whole Swift Boat saga, as those that were privy to my political rantings at the time, infuriated me. It struck me then, and even more in retrospect, as the middle of a Venn diagram of almost every pernicious and vile political tendency there is. One of the most fundamental is the lack of perspective that people get in politics sometime, and I don’t disinclude myself in that from time to time. The idea that the people you disagree with just have to be awful sub-humans and any evidence to the contrary isn’t just suspect, but guilty until proven innocent, is chief among them. It’s worse then obnoxious, it’s poisonous.
In related news, Vegas is trying to get in on the action.
I also found the whole “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” thing nauseating. However, I’d have to read what Pickens actually promised to pay in return for what, I guess, to decide whether he’s welching.
I had forgotten he had even made this promise; last I heard of him was through an NPR story where they were talking about Pickens’ investment in wind energy. Presumably, if he is welching, it has more to do with not wishing to admit he’s wrong than it does the money itself (given that I gather he is very rich), which is worse than just wishing to avoid spending the money, in my opinion.
Comment by Adam — 6/29/2008 @ 11:53 am
Nobody can find the original promise, which was made at a relatively small local event (no video or transcript). It was widely reported at the time, however, uncorrected by Pickens (including by many Swiftie sites) that the bet was “prove any of our claims wrong and you win a million dollars”.
Kerry himself, incidentally, was the first to take the challenge, offering to donate the million bucks to troop charity, but for some reason Pickens didn’t want any part of that either.
Comment by Brad — 6/29/2008 @ 12:35 pm