The Swift Boats Are Leaking

That's from wikipedia, which many people avoid.  That is an appropriate definition, however, for this diary.  And you can click on the picture for a refresher of the swift boat relationships in this campaign.

Jim Webb declared his candidacy for Senate quite late, but among insiders his name was being circulated as a possible Democratic candidate in late 2005. On December 9, 2005, the Washington Post published the results of a Rasmussen poll pitting George Allen against several potential candidates.  James Webb was a potential Democratic candidate in that poll.

Caught up in holiday shopping, most of us paid it little mind.  But the Swift Boaters definitely sat up and took notice for many reasons.  First, they read and write for the Washington Times.  They also were extremely angry with Webb for not joining in the Swift Boat lies and enhancing their credibility back in 2004.  And they were further angered over Webb's stance against the invasion of Iraq.  And perhaps more than anything, they were threatened because they were aware of his excellent leadership qualities.

The swift boaters couldn't attack Webb's military record.  Instead they opted for an attack from the left, and immediately began laying groundwork for doing so.  In December 2005 the Swift Boaters began the work of painting Jim Webb as a misogynist by intertwining their own hateful ideas on women in general and Tailhook in particular with quotes from Webb's book, Born Fighting.   Another common feature of swiftboating is that little extra sadistic twist of the knife.
On December 15, 2005, Gerald Atkinson posted a 15,000 word article on his New Totalitarians web site called The Tale of Two Gauntlets. That length is not unusual for Atkinson, and he tends to quote enormous blocks of material from other sources to make his point. In this particular rant he attacks the female victims in the Tailhook scandal. This is exactly what Paul Galanti was doing back in the early 1990's when I was working with him, and as I've written elsewhere, he was obsessed with the idea that Tailhook was the fault of the women.

In developing his attack on women, Atkinson does his level best to make it seem like his own words are those of Jim Webb. Atkinson takes quotes from Born Fighting, then follows the quote with misogynist screeds of his own.  This is one block containing quotes from Born Fighting. Sometimes in the very same paragraphs containing those quotes, Atkinson attempts to extend Webb's words into his own women-are-destroying-the-military outrage.  It's bizarre, deceptive and outlandish as were the original Swift Boat attacks.

Here's one paragraph that illustrates the "technique." Atkinson's words are in an appropriate shade of brown.  To get the full impact of the distortions, pause for a moment right before the second brown part.

Webb describes the Scots-Irish who populated the early American frontier as [27] "GǪa quick-tempered but sensual and playful people. They often dressed provocatively, acted with a volatile belligerence, drank to excess, engaged in constant and open competition in every form, and adamantly defied the attempts of outsiders to control them." This might also describe the young naval aviators, warriors just back from the first Gulf War, who formed the gauntlet that Paula Coughlin, the pretender, voluntarily traversed in the third floor hallway of the Las Vegas Hilton hotel one wild, raucous night in September 1991.

You get the idea.  Atkinson uses this method in a huge section of his "Tale" and the verbosity obscures the deception.  It's absolutely outrageous.  And it is a deception mirrored in the ads being played by the Republicans right now.  The point is, this type of attack on Webb has been on the agenda for the Republicans for over 10 months.  Atkinson's article was one of the early seeds planted, and it failed to propogate as hoped.  The real reason that they ran dishonest ads anyway is that those lies are the best they have. 

Here's the rest of Gerald Atkinson's misuse of Born Fighting in one big block. 

  But the Scots-Irish were, above all, fighters. Webb says of these early settlers [28], "These were uncommonly tough people, used to hardship. They asked for nothing from the government or anyone else, and nothing is what they usually received. They followed the Wilderness Road into the backcountry and the Wagon Trail into uncharted Piedmont and mountains where only the Indians dwelled, creating a series of log cabin settlements that were little more than small but interconnecting fortressesGǪtheir principal economic activities were cattle and hog farming, hunting, trapping, and rudimentary trade, especially with the Indians whom the flatlanders so desperately feared. And every male adult automatically became part of a local militia."

  "[The Scots-Irish settlers'] ferocious performance against a variety of Indian attacks that began in 1754 and continued even after the seven years of the French and Indian War gained them not only respect but also an enduring legitimacy. They fought and played by their own rules, expecting no quarter from an enemy and giving none in return."

  "From the very beginning, the Scots-Irish carried few delusions with them into the mountainsGǪ[there was an Indian problem]GǪFrom the moment the members of a new settlement began building their first cabin, every man, woman, and child knew they were in a land that could quickly turn into a war zone. A militia had to be formed, with clearly defined responsibilitiesGǪIn many mountain areas, 'blockhouse' forts were built on centrally located farms, where the settlers could gather in order to defend themselves from attack. Attacked they were, war parties sometimes carrying away women and children as prizes. Fight they did, learning from the Indians themselves how to use the woods and blend into their surroundings, tossing aside old European ideas of battle and becoming masters of the frontier."

  For the Scots-Irish "The measure of a man was not how much money he made or how much land he held [or how educated he may or may not be] but whether he was bold - often to the point of recklessness - whether he would fight, and whether he could leadGǪ Physical courage fueled this culture, and an adamant independence marked its daily life. Success itself was usually defined in personal reputation rather than worldly goodsGǪpoor but proud was an unapologetic and uncomplaining way of lifeGǪThe difference between this culture and most others is that its members don't particularly care what others think of them."

  Webb points out that [29] "To the end of his service [the Scots-Irish soldier] could not be disciplined. He slouched. He would never learn to salute in the brisk fashion so dear to the hearts of the professors of mass murderGǪand yet - by virtue of precisely these unsoldierly qualities, he was, as no one will care to deny, one of the world's very finest fighting men."

  Webb lays the foundation for a rational view [made in this essay] for the behavior of the young male naval aviators, just back from the first Gulf War, at Tailhook '91. As were the Scots-Irish, these young naval aviators were imbued with a warrior ethic. According to Webb [30], "The warrior ethic has always been the culture's strong suit. The Scots-Irish emphasis on soldiering builds military leaders with the same focus and intensity that Talmudic tradition creates legal scholarsGǪAnd, as always with this culture, wherever it resides, honorable military service remained one of the surest stepping-stones to respect and even advancement inside the community."

  Webb, in a discussion of the political debate over the impact of Darwinian theory, observes [31] that this [again] "GǪpitted the touchstones of Southern culture [primarily Scots-Irish culture] against what many viewed to be an assault from the outside." This is a trait of the Scots-Irish. They have never bowed to any assault from outside their own culture. And that is precisely what was occurring as politically motivated Congressmen were preparing to open near-combat roles for women in the U.S. military - at the urging of a radical feminist movement based on a foreign ideology, cultural Marxism. The Scots-Irish, our nation's most valuable military asset - the fighters, the warriors - were being challenged from above rather than led from below. This violated a 2,000-year tradition, based on a warrior ethic that spanned the ages from Hadrian's Wall in northern England through the Indian Wars, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and every other major war to the present. The Scots-Irish and their warrior ethos would not stand for such a corruption of their heritage. Consequently, Tailhook '91 had to happen.

  Webb gets to the heart of what is in contention in today's culture wars, an element of which is the matter of women-in-combat [32]. "For nearly two thousand years, in one form or another, this culture's unbending individualism - and its ingrained hatred of aristocracy - has been in conflict with a variety of authoritarian power structures, and it remains so in today's America. The culture in its embryonic form stood fast against the Roman and Norman nation-builders who created a structured and eventually feudal England. The unique emphasis on individual rights and responsibilitiesGǪcaused it to resist the throne and finally brought down a king. The fierceness of its refusal to accommodate the Anglican theocrats in Ulster created the radical politics of nonconformism, and this attitude was carried into the Appalachian Mountains. Its people refused to bend a knee to New York and Boston either before, during, or after the Civil War, standing firm against outside forces that would try to tell them how to live and what to believe." This, again, explains the resistance of many ordinary Americans to the alien practice of 'sensitivity training,' to change their behavior and/or attitudes toward agendas of our elites in the higher echelons of many of our public institutions - including, during the 1990s - our nation's military. This is particularly true of the resisters in the military who respected themselves and their honor above the ticket-punching careerism that has infected our modern armed forces. They are not satisfied to 'go along to get along' with the politically motivated bootlickers - both civilian and military. They remain true to the Scots-Irish heritage whether or not they have a Scots-Irish surname.

  Webb continues. "And even today, an individual and an issue at the time, [the Scots-Irish heritage] refuses to accept the politics of group privilege [e.g. affirmative action, preference for some over others] that have been foisted on America by its paternalistic, Ivy League-centered, media-connected, politically correct power centers."

  "America's ruling classes have carried a visceral dislike of this culture from the earliest days of the colonial experience, when the first Scots-Irish parcels from Ulster - turned away from the Puritan settlements in Massachusetts - headed for the hills of New Hampshire. Those who plotted their towns so carefully and wished to form a society based on order, reason, and compliance felt little more than disgust for the chaotic, often sensual rebelliousness of a people who refused to be controlled from above. [Shades of Tailhook '91.] GǪ Modern military commanders, plant foremen, union bosses, and government commissars of political correctness all learn and relearn the same lesson every day - that this is a people who respond to good leadership but will never allow themselves to be dominated or controlled if an edict from above violates their beliefs."

  Web explains that "The ethnic makeup of America's ruling class has changed over the generations, just as the ethnic composition of the [Scots-Irish] has been leavened by assimilation. The methods of enforcing dominance from above have also undergone many alterations, from sword and spear and royal prerogative to the ability to manipulate power structures through a network of elite academic institutions, media suasion, and judicial activism. But the basic issues that drive the controversy have remained remarkably consistent. On the one had, there has always been a form of power that believes it holds the answers to society's problems and wishes to impose those answers from above, its members being the arbiters of what is right and wrong, proper or antisocial. And on the other are the people who are sure of who they are, loyal to strong leaders who affirm their basic beliefs, and who reserve their greatest dislike for those who would abuse governmental systems in order to create special favors for anyone who does not deserve them." And this, in a nutshell, is what was at the heart of the Tailhook '91 'abuse' of women by the young warrior naval aviators. Paula Coughlin and her sisters in arms did not earn their 'combat' positions. They were placed there by edicts from above - political edicts from congress, political edicts from the Clinton administration (the center of the cultural Marxist revolution in America from their early days in the 1960s to their rise to power in the 1990s), and finally from the Navy admirals (most of whom were non-combat submariners) who were at the top of the chain of naval command.

  There is significance to the fact that when LT Paula Coughlin prepared to enter her 'gauntlet' on the third floor of the Las Vegas Hilton hotel, a male voice loudly proclaimed, 'Admiral's Aide!' The 'warrior' Navy, as opposed to the 'suck up' Navy takes a dim view of those who finagle such cushy, career-enhancing positions without going through the test of fire in, at least several long deployments, if not combat, where one is expected to 'earn' his good reputation. Paula Coughlin was one such 'suck up' naval officer. The admiral who proudly served as her mentor (a former good friend of mine at Test Pilot School at Patuxent River and who testified on her behalf in her lawsuit against the Hilton hotel chain) had awarded her a medal for 'working ten hours a day, six days a week' as his aide. She had bragged publicly that her job was to 'keep her boss out of trouble.' Her job as 'Admiral's Aide' was to keep track of his schedule. The young naval aviators at Tailhook '91 presumably knew of her record.

  Those young naval officers at Tailhook '91 were also obviously aware of the reduced standards for women in tests involving upper body strength, stamina and endurance in physical fitness tests, and allowing women to simply walk around the barrier-climb were observed by these young male naval officers throughout their training.  And they obviously resented it.  The female naval officers were competitors for scarce future flying jobs and the young male aviators naturally resented "dumbing down" of standards for women in this competitive atmosphere.  Thus, it is particularly telling that the cry "Admiral's Aide!" went up in a chorus when LT Paula Coughlin attempted a penetration of the all-male gauntlet.  The thought of a male competitor enhancing the path of his own future promotion by "sucking up" to the brass in a cushy aide's job, without having to face the dangers and hardships of at-sea deployments, can make even a hardened combat veteran slightly "white around the moustache."  The fact that Lt Coughlin, an Admiral's Aide, was in addition a female, obviously added to the fire of resentment.  The OIG report contains [33] reference to such attitudes, "One female Navy commander opined that the 1991 Tailhook convention was different in some ways from previous years, in part because of the recent Gulf War and the congressional inquiries regarding women in combat.  She is quoted as saying,
  The heightened emotions from the Gulf War were also
    enhanced with the forthcoming . . . downsizing of the
  military, so that you had people feeling very threat-
    ened for their job security and to more than just their
  jobs, their lifestyle.  So you had people worried about
    what was coming down with the future.  You had quite a
  bit of change.  You had people that had been to the
    Gulf War.  You had alcohol.  You had a convention that
  had a lot of ingredients for an emotional whirlwind
    of controversy."
She went on to say that these potentially explosive ingredients combined at Tailhook '91, and resulted in ". . . an animosity in this Tailhook that existed that was telling the women that 'We don't have any respect for you now as humans.'"  The animosity, in this officer's opinion, was focused on women:
  "This was the woman that was making you, you know,
    change your ways.  This was the woman that was
    threatening your livelihood.  This was the woman
    that was threatening your lifestyle.  This was the
    woman that wanted to take your spot in that combat
    aircraft."
Anyone with half a brain could have figured out that a walk down the 30-yard 'gauntlet' at Tailhook '91 was not a good idea. Especially if you were an 'Admiral's Aide' and a female naval aviator with an elevated opinion of herself. Thus, LT Paula Coughlin walked into a Scots-Irish hornets nest and could not 'take it like a man.' She had unwittingly stumbled into over 2,000 years of warrior tradition that was fired up and white hot. A comparison of Paula Coughlin's 'gauntlet' and that traversed by Simon Kenton, the frontiersman, is especially telling with respect to one who has the 'warrior ethos' and another who was just a 'pretender.' America fights (and must fight) her wars with the former. America cannot rely on the 'pretenders.' To do so is not only folly, it is akin to committing suicide.

  Webb sums up the legacy of the Scots-Irish culture in America today [34]. "GǪthe traditional Scots-Irish is a study in wild contrasts. These are intensely religious people, indeed, they comprise the very heart of the Christian evangelical movement - and yet they are also unapologetically and even devilishly hedonistic. They are probably the most antiauthoritarian culture in America, conditioned from birth to resist any pressure from above, and yet they are known as the most intensely patriotic segment of the country as well. They are naturally rebellious, often impossible to control, and yet their strong military tradition produces generation after generation of perhaps the finest soldiers the world has ever seen." These are just the kind of soldiers our nation needs now in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places around the globe where the threat of terrorist violence of global reach is present. We offend this group at our nation's peril. In the aftermath of Tailhook '91, those with the 'warrior spirit' in naval aviation were purged from the ranks. It continued at Aberdeen with the U.S. Army. And it is at work today at the U.S. Air Force Academy. This must not stand!

  "Underlying these seeming contradictions is an unwritten but historically consistent code of personal honor and individual accountability. For untold centuries this code has required males of the culture to prove through physical challenge that they possess the courage, judgment, loyalty, and survival skills necessary to take their place among the 'Celtic kinship.' Modern sociologists may wish to demean this process and call it sexist or outmoded, but it nonetheless persists, through a series of formal and informal rites of passageGǪThrough a system of rewards and punishments, honor and shame, and ultimately acceptance or rejection, the Scots-Irish culture shapes its own version of manhood in accordance with the traditions that have sustained it." This is America's warrior culture. We see it in action around the world in our Special Forces, our Rangers, our Infantry, our Marines, and in other pockets of excellence in some of our other armed services. It is, however, being corrupted by the cultural Marxist forces at work in attempting to carry out their counter-culture revolution.

  Paula Coughlin was one instrument of that counter-culture revolution. The tale of her 'gauntlet' pales in  comparison to that run by the Scots-Irish frontiersman, Simon Kenton. Where his required a run of a quarter-mile through the clubs, branches, and hickory switches in the hands of hundreds of raging Indians, while naked, and with the sentence of death hanging over his head, Coughlin's was a 30-yard voluntary traverse of a 'gauntlet' of some dozens of young naval aviators who pinched, poked, grabbed, and pushed her along. The sexual nature of her 'gauntlet' is a weak joke compared to the actual survival ritual imposed on Simon Kenton by brutal savages [quite akin to the Islamic jihadists we face now in Afghanistan and Iraq]. Nothing could be more illustrative of the rapid descent of some portions of our nation's military than the comparison of these two gauntlet runs - one by a warrior who would not beg, would not cry, would not complain, would not cringe, would not submit; the other by a female who displayed so little courage as to suggest that her motive was to do the greatest amount of harm and damage to a venerable institution, the U.S. Navy. All if this was carried out in the name of an agenda aimed at male 'enemies,' who are presumed to oppress women. For Simon Kenton the enemy was savage Indians who practiced the most foul and inhumane torture on their victims. For Paula Coughlin, the enemy was young males who pinched, poked, pushed, and groped. The contrast could not be more illustrative of strength of character and a 'warrior spirit' compared to a whining, complaining, malcontent who couldn't take it like a man.

  In fact, there were female naval officers who were subjected to the same treatment afforded LT Paula Coughlin at Tailhook '91, but who took care of the matter by themselves, without a coven of organized outside radical feminists and a lawsuit from which she became a multi-millionaire. Those females did not whine, did not cry, did not submit. They, the few, must have been of Scots-Irish ancestry.

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