Spoken like a Holocaust denier:

In today's essay, Charles Krauthammer takes the Swift Boat Veterans anti-Kerry ad and uses that (and others) to bemoan the "527 groups" that are active this political year. It's all negativity, says Krauthammer, not bothering to gauge the truthfulness of any particular organization, especially the Swift Boat Veterans. In fact, when discussing the widely differing claims about Kerry's service in Vietnam, Krauthammer writes: (emp add)

These vets have the perfect right to publish their book and do their ad. But are they right? Did Kerry rescue Jim Rassmann under fire, as Rassmann recalls, or in perfect calm, as a vet on a nearby Swift boat recalls? We don't know. We can never know. I have no doubt of the sincerity of both recollections, but in the fog of war, as anyone who has read any military history knows, there are wildly varying recollections of what actually happened at the front.

Did the Jews die in Auschwitz? Raul Hilberg says YES. David Irving says NO. And without doing any further investigation, we can safely say:

We don't know. We can never know. There can be no doubt of the sincerity of both men.

Yeah.

posted by Quiddity at 8/13/2004 10:14:00 AM