Hatred sometimes requires blindness

Last year, T. Boone Pickens issued a challenge. He would pay $1 million to anyone who could prove false any of the allegations made in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads. So far, no one has attempted to present such proof. Sen. Kerry requested the money based on his claim that he was "prepared to prove the lie." Despite his 'preparations,' no such proof ever appeared. (Kerry also promised to release his military records but he hasn't done that either.) Now, this has Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh upset. After 'doubting' that Mr. Boone was a 'man of [his] word,' Lehigh writes:

Last November, you certainly sounded like a standup guy. Speaking at a dinner for the conservative American Spectator magazine, you said that you'd give $1 million to anyone who could prove that anything the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (or SBVT, in political shorthand) had said about Kerry was false.

Given that media outlets from the Washington Post to The New York Times to the Chicago Tribune to "Nightline" to the Globe have all highlighted the various ways that SBVT's anti-Kerry claims ran contrary to both official and eyewitness accounts, your challenge was more than a little foolhardy.

While there were many news stories attempting to smear the SBVT, if any of those media outlets had actually proved that any SBVT allegation was false, Lehigh mentions not a single one. If Lehigh had found a news story with such proof, then Lehigh himself could present it to Mr. Pickens and claim the $1 million prize himself. But, that would require that he actually get to know the facts and that would likely interfere with his indignation.