Just watched the interview. First impression: John Kerry is in big trouble.

This is the first time I've seen O'Neill, although I know he has done a ton of inverviews, and he presents himself well. The interrogation was not exactly withering, but I was more interested in hearing O'Neill tell his story than defend himself anyway. O'Reilly definitely was not fishing for any scathing indictment of Kerry.

Some of the key points O'Neill made:

*The controversy over Kerry's supposed medal inflation is less important to the Swift Boat guys than what Kerry did after the war.

*However, he said it was significant to them that Kerry "inflated his medals to get out of Vietnam in a very short period of time."

*Kerry "didn't wound himself intentionally, but used the scratches he received to get out early." When O'Reilly asked whether O'Neill would have considered such injuries an excuse to get himself out of Vietnam, he replied "not in a million years."

*Kerry's crime, in the eyes of the Swifties, was "classifying 58,000 of our friends who we left there as the army of 'Jhengis Khan.'"

What really came across to me was that O'Neill seemed poised to answer frankly any question whatsoever. Not a hint of trepidation or tendentiousness. The relaxed demeanor is striking, as is the appearance of openness. We know that the Kerry supporters refer to the "Swiftlies," but this guy did not give the impression he could be a liar, even an extremely gifted one.

This seems to be borne out by the sheer availability of the Swift Boat guys. From what I've heard, they have been answering every request for an interview since the book was announced. Before the mainstream finally picked up the story, something like two weeks went by when these guys were literally sitting by the phone waiting for someone to ask them to talk.

Another note about my contention that O'Neill is not a liar. Some years ago during one of the Clinton scandals I read an interview with someone who had a background in criminal prosecution. He said that one thing prosecutors and detectives know when trying to get a read on a suspect is that the innocent can't say enough, while the guilty try to avoid saying anything. Innocent people want to be questioned vigorously and want to tell their story as often as they can. The guilty work as hard as they can to make the questioning stop.

The behavior of the two parties in this controversy seems telling. The Swifties want to talk. The Kerry camp has been saying, essentially, "Shut Up!" or more precisely, "Please, shut them up!" - and has totally avoided any questioning on the topic. It's been over a month (since, uh, a certain book went on sale) since Kerry has given an interview. Kerry won't authorize release of a substantial portion of his military records even though, according to his biographer, Douglas Brinkley there is no reason for him not to do so.

Maybe even more telling is the fact that O'Neill has apparently offered Kerry the ultimate challenge: Sue me.

No libel lawsuit that I know of yet. And O'Neill is not going to let up one bit. He's talking up the ads and soliciting contributions.

The transcript of the O'Reilly session isn't available yet, but you can get read a good bit of what O'Neill has to say in this interview by John Hawkins.