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Yesterday, John Kerry released a number of his military records, days after being prodded to do so by Tim Russert on “Meet The Press,” as well as by some Republicans. Most of the stories in this morning’s papers suggested the records consisted of “uniformly positive evaluations,” as The New York Times puts it, that “depict many instances of bravery in the face of enemy fire and describe a young officer who is smart, articulate and decisive. “
Other papers had similar takes: The Washington Post refers to “glowing evaluations of his combat service in Vietnam,” and even the Boston Globe, often critical of Kerry, led with word of “evaluations that characterized him as an outstanding and aggressive officer.”
But the Associated Press’ Nedra Pickler saw something else in the records: an excuse to stir up a little class warfare. Here’s the lede in the first version of her story:
Records of John Kerry’s Vietnam War service released Wednesday show a highly praised naval officer with an Ivy League education who spoke fluent French and had raced sailboats — the fruits of a privileged upbringing that set him apart from the typical seaman.
Kerry’s privileged upbringing isn’t off limits, of course, but it seems bizarre to make it the focal point of an examination of the candidate’s military records. We don’t remember any pieces on President Bush’s Air National Guard service that paused to point out that he was head cheerleader at Andover. Pickler’s take is the kind of thing we’re used to seeing in the Socialist Worker, not in what’s supposed to be a straightforward wire service account.
Apparently, her editors agree – belatedly. By the time this morning’s revised version of the story was posted, the Kerry-as-blueblood angle was gone — no sailboats at all — and the story focused on “[military] documents showing high praise from [Kerry’s] supervisors.” But that was not before The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Kansas City Star (registration required), and other papers had already picked up the earlier version of the story and ran with it.
Suggestion to AP editors: Edit first, print second (especially on Wednesdays). It almost always works better that way.
–Brian Montopoli
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