The dangers of selective quotation, or Further evidence that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are a bunch of hacks

The latest Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad (I'd rather not link to it) features John Kerry's testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1971. Here's what Kerry said, according to the Swift Boat Veterans:

They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads... randomly shot at civilians... cut off limbs, blown up bodies... razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan... crimes committed on a day to day basis... ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.

Interspersed with Kerry's testimony are statements like this:

-- "The accusations that John Kerry made against the veterans who served in Vietnam was just devastating."

-- "John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I, and many of my, uh, comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, uh, took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us."

-- "He betrayed us in the past, how could we be loyal to him now?"

The point of the ad, then, is that John Kerry demoralized and betrayed his fellow Vietnam veterans by accusing them of war crimes.

Frankly, the ad is irresponsible, deceptive, and, put more crudely, complete crap.

Go read the entire transcript of Kerry's testimony that Atrios has put up. First, Kerry wasn't accusing veterans of anything. Instead, Kerry was reporting the testimony "over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans" regarding these crimes. By ignoring Kerry's introduction, the ad shifts the information from the realm of fact to Kerry's imagination.

Second, the point of Kerry's testimony was not to betray or demoralize veterans of the Vietnam War. Here's the relevant portion of Kerry's testimony:

I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.

In his Senate testimony, John Kerry sought to cast blame on the United States government for sending young Americans into awful circumstances in Vietnam. This bears repeating. John Kerry did not blame Vietnam veterans; he laid the guilt firmly on the U.S. government.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad distorts the essence of John Kerry's testimony. That much is clear to anyone who actually reads the transcript. It's just as clear that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have no interest in presenting an accurate account of the past. Their sole concern is casting John Kerry in as negative a light as possible, truth be damned.