It's Nice To Revisit A Tribune-Review Smear, Sad To See The Editorial Board Is Still Smearing

From today's Tribune-Review's Sunday Pops column:

The Boston Herald reports that Secretary of State John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz, have put up for sale the $7 million sailboat they purchased in 2010 for $4 million. Depreciation is cited. It's the same 76-foot yacht over which the couple was criticized for docking in Rhode Island to avoid a six-figure Massachusetts sales tax bill. They say the tax eventually was paid. The Herald says the Heinz Kerrys are looking for “a new and bigger motorized yacht.” Aweigh, we say, aweigh! [Bolding in Original]

This non-story goes all the way back to this smear in 2010.

The interesting thing is that in the smear's original reporting, this sentence could be found:

And state Department of Revenue spokesguy Bob Bliss confirmed the senator “is under no obligation to pay the commonwealth sales tax.”

Now go look at what the Tribune-Review's editorial board wrote.

Bliss also stated that Kerry would be obligated to pay the tax if he docked the yacht someplace in Massachusetts within 6 months of purchase.

Oh, wait.  Didn't you know that, according to the Seattle Times, Kerry had yet to take possession of the yacht at the time of the Herald's initial story?

So that 6-month window hadn't even opened yet.

By the following November the Scaife braintrust had dutifully continued the smear with this:

Kerry, D-Mass., originally ported the tony craft in Rhode Island in an apparent attempt to get out of paying taxes on it in his home state. But when the Boston Herald disclosed the boat's location in July, Kerry agreed to promptly pay the equivalent of all taxes owed had the boat been ported in Massachusetts.

Didn't happen.

This is simply a lie. According to the reporting that the braintrust actually sited, a tax return had been filed for the taxes "that would have been owed, had he kept the Isabel in his home state’s waters."

What hadn't been paid was a $500 tax to the town of Nantucket - a tax bill the Kerry's hadn't received yet.

Now go back and look at what the braintrust wrote - this part, specifically:

...the couple was criticized for docking in Rhode Island to avoid a six-figure Massachusetts sales tax bill. They say the tax eventually was paid.

Usually as part of a smear, the verb "to say" means that what has been "said" as taking place maybe hasn't really happened - it's a way to imply dishonesty without really coming right out and saying it.  This unspoken phrase is implied to end the sentence: "...but we all know that's simply not true."

But of course, the braintrust had to know at that point that the tax bill had been paid.  They're just lying to you by phrasing the sentence in such a way as to let you think it (possibly) hadn't.

Look at all the facts here and then look at how the Tribune-Review has presented them to you.  How much more dishonest can they be?

They'd say they're just commenting on the news, the facts - but we all know that's simply not true.