On Tuesday's The Situation Room on CNN, host Wolf Blitzer and correspondent Dana Bash followed the lead of CNN's New Day in forwarding accusations that Jeb Bush and other Republicans have been "hypocritical" in slamming Donald Trump's dismissal of John McCain's military record, while Republicans supported the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004 when they ran ads discrediting some of John Kerry's claims about his war record.
Addressing Dana Bash at about 6:50 p.m., the CNN host brought up the issue of "those so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." Blitzer:
Talk a little bit about Jeb Bush, the Republican presidential candidate, former governor of Florida. He's criticized Donald Trump's comments about Senator McCain when he was a POW in Vietnam but way back in 2004 when John Kerry, who was then the Democratic presidential nominee, was being attacked by those so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for his service during the Vietnam War, at that time Jeb Bush wrote a letter to one of those veterans praising what he was doing, saying he had the courage to go up against John Kerry and his record.
The CNN host then showed a clip of Jeb Bush responding to a reporter asking the Florida Republican about his addressing a letter to Colonel Bud Day praising the anti-Kerry Swift Boat group in 2004, with Bush speaking highly of Colonel Day.
Blitzer related the "hypocritical" charge as he posed:
So what's the reaction to this front because there are some saying that Jeb Bush and other Republicans are being hypocritical now?
Bash disparaged the Swift Boat ads against Kerry as "infamous" as she began her response:
Mm-hmm. That's exactly the reason why this is being brought up in the first place, because the fact that the last time a Vietnam veteran ran for President on the Democratic side before John McCain was John Kerry, and he was very much ridiculed by Republicans and of course by those now infamous Swift Boat ads questioning his record, questioning his purple hearts and so on and so forth.
The CNN correspondent seemed to predict more questions on the subject to Bush as she asserted that "there still is a lot more exploring to do." Bash:
And what I thought was interesting about that Jeb Bush reaction was that he didn't actually talk about the criticism. He didn't talk about the criticism of whether or not he was truly praising the ads and the attacks on John Kerry. He simply kept his answer limited to Bud Day, who was a decorated war veteran who has since passed away. So there still is a lot more exploring to do when it comes to that question and that issue and what he really meant when he wrote that letter which really does on its face look like he was praising the tactics used against John Kerry.
