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The group calling themselves The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth first organized in April 2004 in order to plot a strategy to undermine John Kerry's bid for president. They developed several advertisements that questioned everything from the legitimacy of Kerry's medals to the accuracy of his version of the past; they portrayed Kerry as an overly ambitious person willing to distort the truth to achieve his political goals, and they generated a firestorm of political debate. This essay argues that the Swift Boat veterans used realist discourse in collusion with Vietnam remembrance to create rhetorically powerful indictments of Kerry. To develop the argument, I focus on the Swift Boat veterans' first broadcast advertisement, an ad that had a significant influence on the presidential campaign both ideologically and in the polls. I argue that a discourse of realism dominated the ad, concealing not only its questionable credibility and political motives, but also the rhetorical tactics it used to reinforce its realist frame.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT) first formed in April 2004 after it became clear that Senator John Kerry would be the Democratic presidential candidate. A group of about ten veterans reportedly met in Dallas "to share outrage and plot their campaign against Mr. Kerry."1 In sharing their stories, the group confirmed each other's previously loose impressions: Not only did Kerry betray his fellow soldiers and his country by testifying to Congress against American involvement in Vietnam, not only did he detail atrocities that he claimed American soldiers commonly committed in Vietnam, but now he meant to run for the office of commander in chief on the merits of his Vietnam service, as illustrated in Kerry's ads during the spring primaries. In their view, Kerry's opportunism and hypocrisy were simply too much to bear. The group hired a private investigator to collect testimonials on Kerry's Vietnam record and it worked to expand its veteran base. By May, the SBVT had the financial support (gathered largely by John O'Niell, a long-time opponent of Kerry) and Vietnam veterans necessary to produce their first advertisement.
In the months leading up to the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Kerry continued to foreground his war hero status as a presidential asset. The hope was that the Democrats might...