According to a Kerry campaign source, senior campaign advisers tasked two Washington-based campaign staffers to vet the recently published Unfit for Command.
[…]
The campaign source said that the book was not considered a “serious” problem for the campaign, because, “the media wouldn’t have the nerve to come at us with this kind of stuff,” says the source. “The senior staff believes the media is committed to seeing us win this thing, and that the convention inoculated us from these kinds of stories. The senior guys really think we don’t have a problem here.”
Sounds like more CYA to me. Note, though, that this cite is dated 10 Aug 2004, so it was out there before things really went wrong for Kerry vs. the Swift Boat Veterans.