I want to be Eric Boehlert when I grow up.

'Cuz:

[W]hat elevated the outlandish Swift Boat allegations that Sen. John Kerry had lied about his war injuries in Vietnam, and what gave the allegations legitimacy and legs, was the fact that the mainstream press not only showered the Swift Boat attacks with voluminous coverage (CNN aired nearly 300 segments on the topic), but that the press completely failed, in a timely fashion, to ferret out the lies the Swift Boat Vets were peddling as part of their elaborate campaign season hoax.

That's the sad truth. And that's why a line from a recent New York Times report caught my attention. The article was on how billionaire Swift Boat backer T. Boone Pickens was basically welching on the reported wager he'd made to give $1 million to anybody who could disprove the Swift Boat Vets' claims against Kerry. (A group of Kerry-backing veterans took Pickens up on his challenge; he promptly changed the ground rules of the wager and refused to pay.

But the Times piece suggested that, regardless of Pickens' refusal to pay up, it was common knowledge back in 2004 that many of the Swift Boat accusations were hollow and that the accusers were often at odds with the facts and themselves.

"Of course, none of this is really new," the Times reported. "Extensive media accounts undermined the Swift Boat charges in 2004, pointing out that some of the Swift Boat critics had written statements during Vietnam lauding Mr. Kerry for extraordinary bravery in the incidents they later said he made up."

Really? Is the Times actually suggesting that the media did their due diligence during the dog days of August 2004 and quickly highlighted the holes in the Swift Boat allegations? That the press unmasked the Swift Boat accusers and dirty tricksters and held them accountable? That Beltway journalists stepped forward and conducted robust fact-checking and concluded that the partisan Swift Boat accusers were not to be taken seriously?

What campaign was the Times watching? (Reminds me of that great Kim Richey song, with the chorus, "You remember the way it never was.")

Go read the whole thing—in which he positively eviscerates that casual rewriting of history.