I have not read the new book about Kerry, but I am fascinated that so much attention is being paid to various comments made by one of the authors, Jerome Corsi. While I certainly don't agree with many of the comments as reported, I am not sure how relevant they are to the debate on the merits of Unfit for Command.

Apparently, this is part of a larger plan of character assassination and ad hominem attacks against the authors:

“We have prepared what we call ‘Brown Books’ that contain damaging military records, personal credit histories, medical histories, psychiatric histories, divorce records, you name it,” our source told us. "We've got the goods on the Veterans who oppose Kerry."

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The “Brown Books” are so called because of their distinctive plain brown covers, which contain no words. Some books have already been delivered to Kerry-friendly reporters. Others are on their way, our source told us. When asked if we could have a copy, our source declined, saying there is a limited number of “Brown Books” and they have been carefully inventoried to control in whose hands the books ended up. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

I have bought a lot of books, and I usually pay attention to the reviews. I like to know the biases of whoever is writing them. But psychiatric records? Divorce histories?

Credit records?

Why should I care whether an author has been late on his mortgage payments? I don't even care if he's been to prison; what I'm interested in when I read a book is what's in it and whether it's true.

Of course, Unfit for Command is not being treated as a book; it's seen as war:

....[T]he DNC has deployed a six member team from their press shop whose sole responsibility will be to spin and counter-spin stories about the members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth with pro-Kerry media entities, like the Times.

When asked if this was just another example of John Kerry slandering Vietnam Vets – like he did in 1971 as a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War – our source snapped, “No! This is warfare. The only way we’re going to get out of this is to force everyone to question their motives and credibility.”

Sheesh! It has a familiar ring to it, but I don't like to dwell on the past.

We all have our biases, and anyone who wants to read through my blog can certainly determine mine. There's something which causes me a lot of confusion, though, and I think it may account for a major disconnect in political dialogue. That is this: despite my biases, I do try to establish whether or not a given fact is true, and I try to grapple with whether an idea is valid. I can respect people who do the same, whether or not we reach the same conclusions.

Increasingly, there are mobs of people on both sides who are more interested in winning arguments than finding out what's true. Truth is becoming almost irrelevant. Thus, in "analyzing" Unfit for Command, political partisans focus on weird remarks an author made in online discussions, whether he paid his bills on time, what his wife said in a divorce proceeding, etc. This forces their opponents to defend not the words in the book, but words somewhere else, or personal financial decisions. I think it's getting a bit crazy.

You can be sure that a site like MediaMatters will never admit that anything in Unfit for Command is true, even if it were proved to be an incontrovertible fact. All that matters is whether the author is a bigot or a deadbeat. If I really wanted to know that I'd hire a private investigator.

I mean really; how many writers have been in prison over the centuries? Even if MediaMatters were to show that half the anti-Kerry veterans are convicted felons, why should I care?

None of this, of course, is to argue over the merits of Unfit for Command. I haven't read it and I can't read it yet because it's not for sale.

But I do wish the argument over the book could somehow be limited to its merits.

Whether the stuff is true is all that should matter.

But what about people who think truth is not the point?

UPDATE: Blogging hastily from an airport with free WiFi, but I wanted to express my thanks to Dean Esmay for his link to this post. Welcome all fans of Dean and family! Hope you stick around.