Upon rereading the Newsweek piece on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and their crusade against John Kerry, the following passage leaped out at me; it explains everything about why Kerry refused to respond to the Swifties’ accusations:

But as early as Aug. 5, when the Swifties were just getting traction, Edwards wanted to push back, hard. McCain had just told the Associated Press that the Swift Boat ads were “dishonest and dishonorable… the same kind of deal that was pulled on me.” Edwards wanted to begin a speech, “I join with Senator McCain in calling on the president to condemn this dishonest and dishonorable ad.” But Kerry headquarters said no. Stephanie Cutter, the boss of the Kerry communications shop, explained that the campaign didn’t need to give the Swift Boat vets any more attention than they were already getting.

Edwards played along, but his aides were indignant. They warned the veep candidate that the story was already out of control and about to get worse. Historian Douglas Brinkley, author of a wartime biography of Kerry, cautioned that Kerry’s diary included mention of a meeting with some North Vietnamese terrorists in Paris. Edwards was flabbergasted. “Let me get this straight,” the senator said. “He met with terrorists? Oh, that’s good.”

North Vietnamese terrorists.

And this was written in his own diary—the diary he refused to release during the campaign.

Once again we see the almost unbelievable extent of mainstream media’s collusion with the Kerry campaign to hide any facts that would have damaged Kerry’s chances; if this had come out pre-election, it could have ruined him.

So Kerry, his biographer, and the media all conspired to hide it from the American electorate.