Comments on: Cliopatria: Swift Boat Historiography

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

You are entirely correct: what ambiguity we tolerate depends on our questions. There is no single satisfactory answer to the question of certitude, because the sources are not consistent, nor even a helpful equation that I’m aware of.

And I have been avoiding the whole Swift Boat issue (because I, too find it distracting and irrelevant) but I thought the accessibility of it as an historiographical issue was too good to pass up. I actually think that some of the broader questions might actually be of interest to military historians, but I’m a social historian, myself.

By: Muninn

Muninn — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks a bunch for stopping in! Ya, despite the issue itself not being particularly interesting, it certainly becomes more useful when we think of it from the perspective of historiography – which was what I thought was so fresh about your posting.

By: Kerim Friedman

Kerim Friedman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

What I find so interesting is how Kerry is deliberately misrepresenting his own history. It should never have been a story about whether or not he is a “war hero” but about a man who stood up against an unjust war. As Molly Ivins put it:

“Sooner or later, someone is going to ask Kerry the question he so famously asked about Vietnam: “How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?” He’d better have an answer ready.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/19605/

Fortunately, this movie should set the record straight:

http://www.boxofficeprophets.com/tickermaster/listing.cfm?TMID=1275

Even if Kerry won’t.