Ramesh: You are right about TNR–its defense of Kerry’s Senate testimony is absurd, especially this line: “So, far from making the allegations himself, Kerry was simply repeating what other veterans themselves had admitted.” One of the fundamental points of the Mac Owens piece, of course, is that Kerry advanced fraudulent claims. At best, Kerry was a dupe. At worst, well, some people–not me, of course!–might call him a lying traitor. This, by the way, is an old rhetorical trick known as paralipsis. “I know some people have accused Bill Clinton of being a pot-smoking, draft-dodging womanizer–but let’s not go into the substance those allegations…”