Swift Boaters a "freak show"?

Jonathan Martin is one of my favorite reporters. I especially liked his reporting when he was at National Review because he was encouraged to let his conservative bias show. I still like his reporting at The Politico, but this piece is more than a little perturbing.

In it Martin suggests that Barack Obama may not be up to the "freak show" style of attacks that are sure to come his way in the general. Martin:

On potentially lethal lines of attack, religion and patriotism, Obama has twice now demonstrated that he's not sufficiently aware of the danger that exists from the conservative Freak Show that did as much to beat John Kerry as George W. Bush did in 2004.

Martin goes on to define the "freak show" circa 2004 as the Swift Boater campaign.

Somehow, I don't think this would have gotten past the National Review editors.

I know one of the Swift Boaters well. He is an accomplished man who has all the integrity in the world. I cannot speak for all of his fellow Swift Boaters, but if they have half the honor that he does, Martin should be ashamed of labeling their group a "freak show."

Thankfully, Byron York gives us some proper perspective:

A significant part of Martin's point is based on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth experience from 2004. It is a commonplace to dismiss them as a key part of the Freak Show attack on Kerry, but I covered the Swift Boaters from pretty much their public beginning, and the thing that gave them legitimacy was they were Kerry's fellow officers, they were with him in Vietnam, and they were in a position to know about his service. They came out, in public and by name, and made their charges. After spending a lot of time looking into it, I thought some of those charges had merit and others didn't. In any event, the Swift Boat allegations were an entirely legitimate matter of press inquiry. By Freak Show reckoning, however, the Swift Boaters have become shorthand for smear.

In any event, I don't see what is accomplished by calling this stuff, or, to take another example, the brouhaha about Michelle Obama's "proud of my country" comment, a Freak Show. And if you're worried about people saying unkind things about Barack Obama, it would be a good idea to stay away from the Clinton campaign and its surrogates for the next few weeks.