Kerry slams Bush for 527 group claims
 

Sorry if my next statement offends anyone but I find it absurd that this story is being passed around as legitimate with little to no challenge from the press about why Kerry is allowing the same thing to a much grander scale on his side of the fence. Move On, ACT, et al have been fighting Kerry's fight by proxy for months and now it's an issue? Come on reporters how about doing your jobs!?!?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...rry_war_critic

Nipping in the Bud, Kerry condemns Anti-Bush Ad
Why can't Bush do the same thing?

Bush can't because on an election decided on issues and facts, he'll lose every thinking American's vote.

I think and support Bush over Kerry, (what a choice)! :lol:

i am surprised that it took kerry this long to react to this example of outsourced sleaze, which just oozes the delightful aromas particular to a karl rove production.

but then i am surprised at how long it has taken kerry to spell out his own positions in general (like many other posters in this and related threads have been)...where i ahve seen or read kerry's actual positions, i find them disappointing (his health insurance plan seems to consist in subsidizing small bidnesses so they can offer benefits to employees--which obviously does almost nothing to address the main problems of the american class-stratified health system in general)

but i would prefer to hold my nose and vote for a tepid centrist (kerry) over a far right whackjob (bush)--next time round, however, once bush is history, i'll probably work for a third party to the left of the democrats. am tired of the dlc influence....

And what about all the other attacks from Move On and ACT? The only reason Kerry is condemning this ad and not the others is to make Bush's lack of comdemnation an issue.

Kerry can't have it both ways. He claims the Swift Boat group can't be listened to because they're biased due to a couple hundred thousand dollars from partisans but lauds Move On and ACT for their efforts when they receive millions and he even hires people from their groups to come help his campaign.

Please feel free to elaborate what facts and issues Kerry is running on, offer as many details as possible. As stated in the initial post, his campaign has presented no detailed plans because there are no significant differences in what he will do versus what Bush is doing and planning to do.

from what i have seen of the moveon adverts, they are not doing the same kind of sleaze politics that the swiftboat people are about.
i dont see the comparison.

I just think Kerry had to do something. He was damned if he did say anything and he was being destroyed and forced to look like a wimp by not doing anything.

It's sad we are focussing more on the mud than on the true issues, but negativity far outsells positive. Damn shame.

Whee, another "Karl Rove is the Evil Mastermind of the Universe" thread!

http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/he-man/skeletor.jpg

Isn't that a good reason though? If we have to shame our candidates into taking the high road and make it political suicide to go negative. Then our goal is realized. Free Market succedes, the candidates tailor their campaign to what we want out of them. A positive, vote-for-me-message.

Move On and their ilk have personally attacked Bush in almost every manner possible. Family ties, education, business dealings, not to mention the infamous "Hitler" ads that they later pulled when it was obvious they weren't going to help their cause.

To decry the Swift Boat group and not these others is hypocrisy of the highest order. Not challenging the blatant hypocrisy is precisely why politicians will continue to get away with smoke and mirror issues rather than talking specifically about what their plans are.

If only it would work that way. Unfortunately this is a very isolated issue that only happened because it works to Kerry's advantage. It's not so much about being political suicide in this case but more about trying to get one up on the opposition. There would be no repercussion to Kerry if he didn't make this declaration. By making it he only hopes to improve his perception to voters.

Yeah, I'm not even saying this because of supporting Bush, but Kerry is wrong here.

You cant have it both ways. Bush SHOULD denounce the Swift Boat people, but so should Kerry on MoveOn and all those other clones.

Neither one is doing that, but Kerry made the decision to denounce Bush for not denoucing the same people that Kerry isnt denoucing. Make sense? No. That's the problem.

Sorry, I gotta jump in on that allegation. Move On solicited everyone to submit possible ads, and any ad that was submitted was posted for comment. The two Hitler ads were very quickly voted down by visitors to the website. Those ads were DOA well before Drudge (or whoever it was) made a stink about them.

More here: Statement by Wes Boyd, Founder of MoveOn.org Voter Fund.

Make College Affordable For All And Expand Lifelong Learning
As president, John Kerry will offer a fully refundable College Opportunity Tax credit on up to $4,000 of tuition for every year of college and offer aid to states that keep tuitions down. And he will launch a new effort to ensure that all of our workers can get the technical skills and advanced training they need.
http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/education/

As a college student, I would have been very interested in this coming in to effect if someone like Kerry became President in 2000. I started school in 2002.

never mind....

and this is why the move on ads are less of a problem then the swift boat ads. The move on ads were a contest where EVERY entry was posted on a WEB SITE -- some of the ads were well done, some were nothing but inflammatory retoric. the swift boat guys have created their own ads and specifically chosen to air inflammatory irrelevant content.

Perhaps the Primary difference here, is the information contained in the Ads in question. From what I have seen(and I just went to Move On, and the Swift Boat site), the reason one would fight back(Kerry), and the other would not(Bush) is simple.
The allegations aginst Kerry seem to be false for the most part, Yet the majority of the Move On ads are pretty accurate, although attacking none the less. Mr. Bush would leave himself open for an onslaught of problems should he deny much of what is said, whereas Mr. Kerry has the information needed to disprove the attack.
Lets face it, they both have outside the loop entities at thier disposal....nothing much we can do about that. But, Move on has, for the most part, simply hightlighted the blunders and lies of the Bush administration. The Swift Boat Site is kinda' reaching in my opinion, and if someone was to attack my integrity in such a way.....I would fight back as well.

How about this site, these people are all right for the Kerry people and democrats.
More money here http://www.moveon.org/front/ than here http://www.swiftvets.com/article.php...40819100856500

I know this has little to do with the discussion at hand but the irony of the entire situation is that all of these 527's are the nasty side effects of the McCain/Feingold act.

Agreed.....let's just give them all $50 and two months. Maybe then we could actually deal with the issues that matter to the future of our country.

I think therefore I am... a Bush supporter.

They had a screening process for these ads and using that process they chose to post them. They later decided the flack wasn't worth it.

They did not simply post everything that was submitted. That in itself implies a level of endorsement. Had the reaction been better they would have run with them.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040405-7.html

In addition to worker training Bush has college savings plans which can be contributed to with pre tax dollars.

The two sides are not significantly different.

As stated above, they had a screening process so not every entry was posted.

I agree to a point but if the Dems had not created these monstrous 527s and taken it to a new level to circumvent the reforms this wouldn't even be an issue.

The mentality of "anything to defeat Bush" is more to blame than campaign finance reform.

I still don't think you can claim that this makes the situations equal. moveon implies that they had a screening process to weed out offensive content (one assumes they didn't want child porn put up on their site) but it was very minimal and i suspect that the ads were not reviewed for content. but most importantly moveon.org did not make these ads, they did not choose the message, citizens did. Move on has also condemned the inflammatory ads that people submitted to their contest where as the swift boat group continues to purposefully release inflammatory ads of questionable merit.

Move On only criticized and pulled the ads after it was obvious the message would hurt their cause rather than help it. The criticism of the Move On ads came from a broad spectrum of people not just the Move On regulars. That broad spectrum included the undecided voters Move On is trying to influence.

Had these ads been effective in mobilizing people against Bush they would have continued to promote them.

Kerry throws it up, Edwards grabs the alley-oop and dunks it in.
Link
Sounds about right.

just speaking for myself...

although i am a registered republican and a fairly strong Bush-supporter, i genuinely did not want to see Kerry's war record either 1) become the object constant overanalysis and speculation 2) become the main plank of Kerry's platform. sadly, both have happened. any glance at a paper or news program will confirm the former, kerry's convention speech confirms the latter.

from my perspective it boils down to this: kerry has undoubtedly put forth his experiences in vietnam as the main argument for his legitimacy as commander in chief (a critical aspect of the presidency in these years). if you subscribe to that last statement, then you must also agree that if that is the main focus of kerry's campaign on this issue... then those not supporting kerry have the right to question kerry's credentials based on both evidence and first-hand accounts of the events that kerry proposes to use to furthur his campaign because kerry himself has legitimized the issue in our public discourse.

so... if true, the swiftvets allegations are damning. if proven true, i think many intellectually honest kerry supporters would have to either vote for the President or another candidate. if proven true, that would certainly make kerry a fraud... underserving of the nomination of any party or the vote of any citizen.

if the allegations are false, then we have truly come to a dark era in American politics. McCain-Feingold ought to be re-evaluated or scrapped. Campaign adds run w/out the reputation of the candidate they are intended to benefit not held accountable will have been proven to be detrimental to our electoral process. the swiftvets should be held responsible for libel.

but, as i have witnessed the developments so far, it appears that kerry's account of vietnam events has been forced into revision on several key elements. the swiftvets have made no such consessions. while i am sincerely sad this has received so much focus, the circumstances dictate that the full truth be known (whatever that may prove to be).

but, i think the important thing to keep in mind throughout all this is that the bearers of bad news (from either party's perspective) are not immediately bearing false news simply because it does not want to be heard. i feel that many people automatically discount something that counters their preferred notions.

this is a comprehensive article about the swift boats nonsense:

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=231

the annenberg site as a whole is quite interesting.

and another site, which i think important:

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.pht...e=Disinfopedia

info available on both goes well beyond the karlrove extravaganza being debated here.

I have tried very hard to focus on the issues and not get into the mud.But this is ridiculous and adds proof that Bush knows what Swift is about. Swift is the only thing the GOP can get to hurt Kerry, I guess, because it seems they sure as Hell can't stand on the issues. I keep waiting for this group to backfire into the Pres' face and perhaps this is the crack in that littlw foundation that will start the floodwaters coming in.

I just can't fathom ANYONE honestly believing that Bush has nothing to do with the Swift ads. When proof is starting to come out and this article is just the latest to show it.

===============================================

Former POW Resigns From Bush Campaign

WASHINGTON (AP) - A former POW resigned as a volunteer to President Bush's re-election campaign Saturday after it was learned that he appeared in an anti-John Kerry ad sponsored by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

The Bush campaign has claimed no connection with the group which has led an attack on Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, questioning his war record in Vietnam and criticizing his testimony at a congressional hearing in 1971 in which Kerry alleged U.S. troops committed atrocities.

Retired Air Force Col. Ken Cordier, resigned as a member of the Bush campaign's veterans' steering committee after it was learned that he appeared with other former POWs in a 30-second ad, produced by the Swift Boat group, criticizing Kerry's congressional testimony.

``Col. Cordier did not inform the campaign of his involvement in the advertisement,'' the Bush campaign said in a statement. ``Because of his involvement (with the group) Col. Cordier will no longer participate as a volunteer for Bush-Cheney '04.''

Cordier spent six years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.

The White House and the Bush campaign have denied any direct connection with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is funded in part by a top GOP donor in Texas.

``The president has made it repeatedly clear that he wants to see an end to all'' advertising from outside groups, said Brian Jones, a Bush campaign spokesman.

Kerry, at a fundraiser in East Hampton, N.Y., on Saturday called on Bush to ``stand up and stop'' what he called personal attacks on him over his combat record in Vietnam by the Swift Boat group.

``The president needs to stand up and stop that. The president needs to have the courage to talk about it,'' said Kerry.
=============================

LINK: http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...0929436286.htm

Then there is this.
-another man's diary talking of the attack,
-the fact that someone else's initials are on the report (KJW) and appear on reports that Kerry (JFK) had nothing to do with,
-the man's life he saved's account, Thurlow and Chenoworth both claim they THINK Kerry wrote the reports, but neither can show proof)
-his crew all but 1 supporting him,
-the fact that many of the Swift group are gaining financially and recieved monies from Bush and GOP donaters,
-THURLOW's own leading Petty Officer was the source of his (THURLOW's) Bronze Star (for actions taken the date in question) recommendation,
- a man manning machine guns in the boat behind Kerry's HEARING and saying THEY WERE UNDER FIRE
- the fact that the boats had 30Cal holes from weapons fire
- Chenoworth claims he would have written in his journal any attack, yet he'll not disclose his journal, only read from it

All this work and focus and yet no fuocus on the issues, eh Pres. No focus on you cutting O/T. Keep jamming this down people's throats so that you can destroy a man on innuendoes and half truths and people seeking finacial gain and revenge, yet don't debate issues, eh, Mr. Prez? If you ran on issues alone Mr. Prez, ya may lose and you and Haliburton and your oil budddies would hate that, wouldn't you Mr. Prez?

Stick to the issues let the man with the best ideas win.

======================

Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete

Sun Aug 22,11:04 AM ET

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By Michael Dobbs, Washington Post Staff Writer

When John F. Kerry rescued Jim Rassmann from the Bay Hap River in the jungles of Vietnam in March 1969, neither man could possibly have imagined that the episode would become a much-disputed focus of an American presidential campaign 35 years later.

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For Kerry, then a green and gangly Navy lieutenant junior grade and now the Democratic challenger to a wartime Republican president, that tale of heroism under fire has become integral to his campaign. A centerpiece of public rallies, videos and a new campaign advertisement, it has helped distinguish the candidate from his Democratic primary rivals and from President Bush (news - web sites), who spent the war at home as a member of the Texas Air National Guard.

For the Massachusetts senator's critics, who include three of the five Swift boat skippers who were present that day, the incident demonstrates why Kerry does not deserve to be commander in chief. They accuse him of cowardice, hogging the limelight and lying. Far from displaying coolness under fire, they say, Kerry was never fired upon and fled the scene at the moment of maximum danger.

Establishing the facts is complicated not merely by fading memories and sometimes ambiguous archival evidence, but also by the bitterly partisan nature of the presidential campaign.

An investigation by The Washington Post into what happened that day suggests that both sides have withheld information from the public record and provided an incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate, picture of what took place. But although Kerry's accusers have succeeded in raising doubts about his war record, they have failed to come up with sufficient evidence to prove him a liar.

Two best-selling books have formed the basis for public discussion of the events of March 13, 1969, as a result of which Kerry won a Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart. The fullest account of Kerry's experience in Vietnam is "Tour of Duty" by prominent presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. It was written with Kerry's cooperation and with exclusive access to his diaries and other writings about the Vietnam War. "Unfit for Command," by John E. O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as commander of his Swift boat, and Jerome R. Corsi, lays out a detailed attack on Kerry's record.

The Post's research shows that both accounts contain significant flaws and factual errors. This reconstruction of the climactic day in Kerry's military career is based on more than two dozen interviews with former crewmates and officers who served with him, as well as research in the Naval Historical Center here, where the Swift boat records are preserved. Kerry himself was the only surviving skipper on the river that day who declined a request for an interview.

On the core issue of whether Kerry was wounded under enemy fire, thereby qualifying for a third Purple Heart, the Navy records clearly favor Kerry. Several documents, including the after-action report and the Bronze Star citation for a Swift boat skipper who has accused Kerry of lying, refer to "all units" coming under "automatic and small-weapons fire."

The eyewitness accounts, on the other hand, are conflicting. Kerry's former crew members support his version, as does Rassmann, the Special Forces officer rescued from the river. But many of the other skippers and enlisted men who were on the river that day dispute Kerry's account and have signed up with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group that has aired television advertisements accusing Kerry of lying about his wartime service.

From an outsider's perspective, the flotilla of five 50-foot Swift boats that followed the Bay Hap River that humid March day has spawned two competing bands of brothers. One is fiercely loyal to Kerry and frequently appears with him at campaign events. The other dislikes him intensely and is doing everything it can to block his election.

Many Swift boat veterans opposed to Kerry acknowledge that their disgust with him was fueled by his involvement in the antiwar movement. When they returned from Vietnam, they say, they were dogged by accusations of atrocities. While Kerry went on to make a prominent political career, they got jobs as teachers, accountants, surveyors and oil field workers. When he ran for president, partly on the strength of his war record, their resentment exploded.

At one level, an attempt to establish what happened during a Vietcong ambush on the Bay Hap River 35 years ago is a simple search for facts. At another, it is the story of the divisions that tore the United States, and its armed forces, into two opposing camps at the time of the Vietnam War -- tensions that have resurfaced with a vengeance during the current political campaign.

"The old wounds have been reopened, and they still bleed," said Larry Thurlow, one of Kerry's accusers, who was awarded a Bronze Star for heroism for going to the rescue of a boat that was rocked by a mine explosion that day. He says he got involved with the anti-Kerry campaign organized by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth because Kerry's distortion of the truth about the Vietnam War "makes me madder than hell."

"We decided we aren't going to take it anymore."
Boats Thrown Into Fight

When Kerry signed up to command a Swift boat in the summer of 1968, he was inspired by the example of his hero, John F. Kennedy, who had commanded the PT-109 patrol boat in the Pacific in World War II. But Kerry had little expectation of seeing serious action. At the time the Swift boats -- or PCFs (patrol craft fast), in Navy jargon -- were largely restricted to coastal patrols. "I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry wrote in a book of war reminiscences published in 1986.

The role of the Swift boats changed dramatically toward the end of 1968, when Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., commander of U.S. naval forces in South Vietnam, decided to use them to block Vietcong supply routes through the Mekong Delta. Hundreds of young men such as Kerry, with little combat experience, suddenly found themselves face to face with the enemy.

Taking a 50-foot aluminum boat up a river or canal was replete with danger, ranging from ambushes to booby traps to mines. Kerry and his comrades would experience all these risks on March 13, 1969. The purpose of the mission was twofold: to insert pro-government forces upriver in a group of Vietcong-controlled villages; and more generally to show the flag, keeping the waterways free for commerce.



In some ways, it was a day like any other. The previous day, Kerry had taken part in a Swift boat expedition that had come under fire, and several windows of Kerry's boat were blown out. A friend, Lt. j.g. William B. Rood, almost lost an eye in the ambush. [Now an editor with the Chicago Tribune, Rood yesterday broke three decades of public silence to support Kerry's version of how he won the Silver Star on Feb. 28. Rood has no firsthand knowledge of the Bronze Star incident.]

In other respects, March 13 would mark the culmination of Kerry's Vietnam War career. With three Purple Hearts, he became eligible for reassignment. Within three weeks, he was out of Vietnam and headed home after a truncated four-month combat tour.

As commander of PCF-94, Kerry was responsible for ferrying a group of Chinese Vietnamese mercenaries, known as Nung, eight miles up the Bay Hap River, and then five miles up the winding Dong Cung Canal to suspected Vietcong villages. His passengers included Rassmann, the Special Forces officer, who had run into Kerry at a party a couple of weeks before and remembered him as "a tall, skinny guy with this humongous jaw."

The expedition began to go wrong soon after they inserted the Nung troops into a deserted village off the Dong Cung Canal. As the mercenaries searched from house to house, Rassmann recalled, one reached for a cloth bag at the base of a coconut tree and was blown to pieces. It was a booby trap. Kerry, who arrived on the scene soon after, helped wrap the body in a poncho and drag it back to the boat, diving into a ditch when he thought he was under fire.

"I never want to see anything like it again," Kerry wrote later. "What was left was human, and yet it wasn't -- a person had been there only a few moments earlier and . . . now it was a horrible mass of torn flesh and broken bones."

In "Tour of Duty," these thoughts are attributed to a "diary" kept by Kerry. But the endnotes to Brinkley's book say that Kerry "did not keep diaries in these weeks in February and March 1969 when the fighting was most intense." In the acknowledgments to his book, Brinkley suggests that he took at least some of the passages from an unfinished book proposal Kerry prepared sometime after November 1971, more than two years after he had returned home from Vietnam.

In his book, Brinkley writes that a skipper who remains friendly to Kerry, Skip Barker, took part in the March 13 raid. But there is no documentary evidence of Barker's participation. Barker could not be reached for comment.

Brinkley, who is director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, did not reply to messages left with his office, publisher and cell phone. The Kerry campaign has refused to make available Kerry's journals and other writings to The Post, saying the senator remains bound by an exclusivity agreement with Brinkley. A Kerry spokesman, Michael Meehan, said he did not know when Kerry wrote down his reminiscences.

As they were heading back to the boat, Kerry and Rassmann decided to blow up a five-ton rice bin to deny food to the Vietcong. In an interview last week, Rassmann recalled that they climbed on top of the huge pile and dug a hole in the rice. On the count of three, they tossed their grenades into the hole and ran.

Evidently, Kerry did not run fast enough. "He got some frags and pieces of rice in his rear end," Rassmann said with a laugh. "It was more embarrassing than painful." At the time, the incident did not seem significant, and Kerry did not mention it to anyone when he got back on the boat. An unsigned "personnel casualty report," however, erroneously implies that Kerry suffered "shrapnel wounds in his left buttocks" later in the day, following the mine explosion incident, when he also received "contusions to his right forearm."

Anti-Kerry veterans have accused Kerry of conflating the two injuries to strengthen his case for a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Kerry's Bronze Star citation, however, refers only to his arm injury.

At 2:45 p.m., according to Navy records, Kerry was joined by four other Swift boats for the Bay Hap trip. Kerry led the way on the right-hand side of the river, in PCF-94, followed 15 yards behind by one of his best friends in Vietnam, Don Droz, in PCF-43. A procession of three boats on the left side of the river was led by Richard Pees on PCF-3, followed by Jack Chenoweth on PCF-23 and Thurlow on PCF-51.

Ahead of them was a fishing weir, a series of wooden posts across the river. That morning, the Swiftees had noticed Vietnamese children in sampans attaching nets to the posts and had thought little of it. To get through the weir, their boats had to pass to the left or to the right of the fishing nets.

Just as the Kerry and Pees boats reached the weir, there was a devastating explosion, lifting Pees's boat, PCF-3, three feet out of the water.
Witness Accounts Diverge

"My God, I've never seen anything like it," Chenoweth wrote in what he says is a diary recorded soon after the events. "There was a fantastic flash, a boom, then the 3 boat disappeared in a fountain of water and debris. I was only 30 yards behind." Assuming that they had run into a Vietcong ambush, Chenoweth wrote, "we unleashed everything into the banks."

A later intelligence report established that the mine was probably detonated by a Vietcong sympathizer in a foxhole who hit a plunger as the Swift boats passed through the fishing weir.

Aboard the 3 boat, Pees remembered in an interview being "thrown up in the air" into the windscreen of his pilothouse and landing "kind of dazed," his legs numb, lap covered with blood. When it was over, Pees and three members of his crew would be medevaced to a Coast Guard cutter offshore with serious head and back injuries.

"When the mine went off, we were still going full speed," recalled Michael Medeiros, one of Kerry's crew members. Kerry's boat raced off down the river, away from the ambush zone.

It is at this point that the eyewitness accounts begin to diverge sharply. Everybody agrees that a mine exploded under the 3 boat. There is no argument that Rassmann fell into the river and that Kerry fished him out. Nor is there any dispute that Kerry was hurt in the arm, although the anti-Kerry camp claims he exaggerated the nature of his injury. Much else is hotly contested.

When the first explosion occurred, Rassmann was seated next to the pilothouse on the starboard, or right, side of Kerry's boat, munching a chocolate chip cookie that he recalls having "ripped off from someone's Care package." He saw the 3 boat lift out of the water. Almost simultaneously, Kerry's forward gunner, Tommy Belodeau, began screaming for a replacement for his machine gun, which had jammed. Rassmann grabbed an M-16 and worked his way sideways along the deck, which was only seven inches wide in places.

At this point, Kerry crew members say their boat was hit by a second explosion. Although Kerry's injury report speaks of a mine that "detonated close aboard PCF-94," helmsman Del Sandusky believes it was more likely a rocket or rocket-propelled grenade, as a mine would have inflicted more damage. Whatever it was, the explosion rammed Kerry into the wall of his pilothouse, injuring his right forearm.

The second explosion "blew me right off the boat," Rassmann recalled. Frightened that he might be struck by the propellers of one of the boats, he dived to the bottom of the river, where he dumped his weapons and rucksack. When he surfaced, he said, bullets were "snapping overhead," as well as hitting the water around him.

At first, nobody noticed what had happened to Rassmann. But then Medeiros, who was standing at the stern, saw him bobbing up and down in the water and shouted, "Man overboard." Around this time, crew members said, Kerry decided to go back to help the crippled 3 boat. It is unclear how far down the river Kerry's boat was when he turned around. It could have been anywhere from a few hundred yards to a mile.

O'Neill claims that Kerry "fled the scene" despite the absence of hostile fire. Kerry, in a purported journal entry cited in Brinkley's "Tour of Duty," maintains that he wanted to get his troops ashore "on the outskirts of the ambush."

The Kerry/Rassmann version of what happened next has been retold many times, in TV advertisements and campaign appearances: Rassmann struggling to climb up a scramble net, Kerry leaning over the bow of the boat and pulling him up with his injured arm. As Kerry later recalled, in notes cited by Brinkley, "Somehow we got him on board and I didn't get the bullet in the head that I expected, and we managed to move down near the 3 boat that was still crawling a snail-like zig-zag through the river."

Rassmann remembers several boats coming back up the river toward him. But Chenoweth believes that the rescue must have taken place fairly close to the other boats, which had been drifting slowly downriver. In his diary, he said, he wrote that "we spotted a man overboard, started to pick him up, but 94 [Kerry's boat] got there first."

While Kerry was rescuing Rassmann, the other Swift boats had gone to the assistance of Pees and the 3 boat. Thurlow, in particular, distinguished himself by leaping onto the 3 boat and administering first aid, according to his Bronze Star citation. At one point, he, too, was knocked overboard when the boat hit a sandbar, but he was rescued by crewmates.

The Kerry and anti-Kerry camps differ sharply on whether the flotilla came under enemy fire after the explosion that crippled the 3 boat. Everybody aboard Kerry's boat, including Rassmann, says there was fire from both riverbanks, and the official after-action report speaks of all boats receiving "heavy a/w [automatic weapons] and s/a [small arms] from both banks." The Bronze Star citations for Kerry and Thurlow also speak of prolonged enemy fire.

A report on "battle damage" to Thurlow's boat mentions "three 30 cal bullet holes about super structure." According to Thurlow, at least one of the bullet holes was the result of action the previous day, when he ran into another Vietcong ambush.

Thurlow, Chenoweth, Pees and several of their crew members who belong to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say neither they nor Kerry came under fire. "If there was fire, I would have made some notation in my journal," Chenoweth said. "But it didn't happen that way. There wasn't any fire." Although he read his diary entry to a reporter over the phone, he declined to supply a copy.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Rassmann said, "are not just questioning Kerry's account, they are questioning my account. I take that very personally. No one can tell me that we were not under fire. I saw it, I heard the splashes, and I was scared to death. For them to come back 35 years after the fact to tarnish not only Kerry's record, but my veracity, is unconscionable."

Until now, eyewitness evidence supporting Kerry's version had come only from his own crewmen. But yesterday, The Post independently contacted a participant who has not spoken out so far in favor of either camp who remembers coming under enemy fire. "There was a lot of firing going on, and it came from both sides of the river," said Wayne D. Langhofer, who manned a machine gun aboard PCF-43, the boat that was directly behind Kerry's.

Langhofer said he distinctly remembered the "clack, clack, clack" of enemy AK-47s, as well as muzzle flashes from the riverbanks. Langhofer, who now works at a Kansas gunpowder plant, said he was approached several months ago by leaders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but declined their requests to speak out against Kerry.
Who Initialed Navy Report?

Much of the debate over who is telling the truth boils down to whether the two-page after-action report and other Navy records are accurate or whether they have been embellished by Kerry or someone else. In "Unfit for Command," O'Neill describes the after-action report as "Kerry's report." He contends that language in Thurlow's Bronze Star citation referring to "enemy bullets flying about him" must also have come from "Kerry's after-action report."

O'Neill has said that the initials "KJW" on the bottom of the report "identified" it as having been written by Kerry. It is unclear why this should be so, as Kerry's initials are JFK. A review of other Swift boat after-action reports at the Naval Historical Center here reveals several that include the initials "KJW" but describe incidents at which Kerry was not present.

Other Swift boat veterans, including Thurlow and Chenoweth, have said they believe that Kerry wrote the March 13 report. "I didn't like to write reports," said Thurlow, who was the senior officer in the five-boat flotilla. "John would write the thing up in longhand, and it would then be typed up and sent up the line."

Even if Kerry did write the March 13 after-action report, it seems unlikely that he would have been the source of the information about "enemy bullets" flying around Thurlow. The official witness to those events, according to Thurlow's medal recommendation form, was his own leading petty officer, Robert Lambert, who himself won a Bronze Star for "courage under fire" in going to Thurlow's rescue after he fell into the river. Lambert, who lives in California, declined to comment.

In a telephone interview, the head of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, who commanded all Swift boats in Vietnam, said he believed that Kerry wrote the March 13 after-action report on the basis of numerical identifiers at the top of the form. He later acknowledged that the numbers referred to the Swift boat unit, and not to Kerry personally. "It's not cast-iron," he said.

Some of the mystery surrounding exactly what happened on the Bay Hap River in March 1969 could be resolved by the full release of all relevant records and personal diaries. Much information is available from the Web sites of the Kerry campaign and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the Navy archives. But both the Kerry and anti-Kerry camps continue to deny or ignore requests for other relevant documents, including Kerry's personal reminiscences (shared only with biographer Brinkley), the boat log of PCF-94 compiled by Medeiros (shared only with Brinkley) and the Chenoweth diary.

Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages.
Some Felt Betrayed

Kerry's reunion with Rassmann in January this year, nearly 35 years after he pulled the former Green Beret from the river, was a defining moment of his presidential campaign. Many political observers believed that the images of the two men embracing helped Kerry win the Iowa Democratic caucuses. The "No Man Left Behind" theme has become a recurring image of pro-Kerry advertising.

But many of the men Kerry served with in Vietnam feel betrayed and left behind by him. Soon after Kerry returned to the United States, he began organizing antiwar rallies. Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971, he appeared to endorse accusations that U.S. troops in Vietnam had committed war crimes "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

The anti-Kerry veterans began mobilizing earlier this year, following publication of the Brinkley biography and the nationwide publicity given to Kerry's emotional reunion with Rassmann. Many of the veterans were contacted personally by Hoffmann, a gung-ho naval officer compared unflatteringly in "Tour of Duty" to the out-of-control lieutenant colonel in the movie "Apocalypse Now" who talked about how he loved "the smell of napalm in the morning."

Hoffmann, who was already angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return from Vietnam, said in an interview that he was "appalled" to find out from reading "Tour of Duty" that Kerry was "considered to be a Navy hero." "I thought there was a tremendous amount of gross exaggeration in the book and, in some places, downright lies. So I started contacting some of my former shipmates," he said.

One of the men Hoffmann contacted was O'Neill, a longtime Kerry critic who debated Kerry on television in 1971. O'Neill put Hoffmann in touch with some wealthy Republican Party contributors. One of O'Neill's contacts was Texas millionaire Bob Perry, who has contributed $200,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Perry has also contributed to the Bush campaign.

"I'd met him three or four times and represented people he knew," said O'Neill, who has practiced law in Houston for nearly 30 years.

In addition to helping to organize the anti-Kerry campaign, O'Neill wrote his own book about the senator's wartime record, which soared to the top of the Amazon.com best-seller list before its publication earlier this month.

With the exception of a sailor named Stephen Gardner, who served with Kerry in late 1968 on PCF-44, Kerry's own crew members have remained loyal to him. "If it wasn't for some of his decisions, we would probably be some of the names in that wall," said Gene Thorson, the engineman on PCF-94, referring to the Vietnam War Memorial. "I respect him very much."

Others who served on boats that operated alongside Kerry on that fateful day in March 1969 say they cannot stand the man who is now challenging George W. Bush for the presidency.

"I think that Kerry's behavior was abominable," said Pees, the commander of the boat that hit the mine. "His actions after the war were particularly disgusting. He distorted the truth when he talked about atrocities. We went out of our way to protect civilians. To suggest otherwise is a grotesque lie. As far as I am concerned, he did not speak the truth about how we conducted operations in Vietnam."

"A lot of people just can't forgive and forget," countered Kerry crew member Medeiros. "He was a great commander. I would have no trouble following him anywhere."

=============================

LINK: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...1239_2004aug21

PS: off topic but aw well sue me.....

Welcome, Back Irate, you were missed friend.

I second the welcome....was gettin' a bit boring in here


thought I would add this

Press Release Source: Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune Editor and Former Swift Boat Commander Breaks Silence; Says Kerry Critics Wrong
Saturday August 21, 11:00 am ET

CHICAGO, Aug. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- "There were three Swift Boats on the river that day in Vietnam more than 35 years ago -- three officers and 15 crew members. Only two of those officers remain to talk about what happened on February 28, 1969.

"One is John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate who won a Silver Star for what happened on that date. I am the other."

So begins William Rood's compelling account of events that happened more than 35 years ago. The article appears in the Sunday, August 22 edition of the Chicago Tribune.

Rood, now night city editor for the Chicago Tribune, earned a Bronze Star for his part in the operation. Rood has chosen to break more than three decades of silence in defense of the men who served alongside him.

"It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there," Rood writes. "What matters most to me is that this is hurting crew men who are not public figures and who deserved to be honored for what they did.

"My intent is to tell the story here and to never again talk publicly about it."

William Rood's complete account will appear in the Sunday, August 22 edition of the Chicago Tribune, available Saturday in Chicago and online at chicagotribune.com.

Chicago Tribune Managing Editor James O'Shea said Rood has refused all interview requests up to now, including some from the Tribune's reporters. "Bill is a modest man and he didn't want his harrowing combat experiences to become engulfed in a political campaign.

"As the coverage of Senator Kerry's war record has intensified, though, Rood decided to come forward with his story, primarily, he says, because Kerry's critics are telling stories that Rood knows to be untrue. The false accounts are casting doubts on the actions of those men who served with and under Rood, men who are not public figures running for president but brave, ordinary Americans, war veterans whose courage, Rood believes, should not be diminished by a heated political campaign."

NOTE: William Rood will not be available for further comment or interviews. Deputy Managing Editor George de Lama and reporter Tim Jones are available.

Great new Kerry ad featuring John McCain.

http://www.johnkerry.com/video/playe...104_old_tricks

WOW, That was powerful potent. All I can say is WOW..... and Bush looked like a deer caught in headlights.

Freakin' ouch.....

A savings plan wouldn't help me now. The tax free tuition income would. I'd imagine that's the way with most people currently in high school or starting college this year.

Yes, for your specific case there is a significant difference but in the grand scheme of things they are not massively different and each has a plan. They just each but a slightly different focus within them.

ouch........what a vid...

and yeah, bush has a history of this...actually, i believe it's been said before, it has the smell of rove...

You'd think he could come up with a new strategy

So, will Kerry do the same? Or will he continue down the hypocritical path of criticizing the Swift Boat group while supporting the efforts of Move On and ACT?

http://members.home.nl/koz/flabber/L...jungle_015.jpg

onetime--after all that has been said on the thread about the distance that seperates rove from move on, you would think that you would stop trying to make the linkage.
anyway, this does not seem like a discussion, so onto other things:

to show that in a pr cesspit run by karl rove, there really is no bottom:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselection...288686,00.html

so after the iraqi footbal team told him to fuck off,
after the usoc expressed outrage at this,
cowboy george---in high emperor mode---will try to exploit the next iraqi football match.

what a yahoo.

Yeah, Bush denounces, as Dole (who is well respected) decides to say Kerry never bled and has no idea what he's talking about on national television.

Every piece of lit. I've gotten in the mail from ACT has been accurate and not divisive. They have simply dealt with Bush allowing jobs to go overseas and what is happening to the economy today in Canton Ohio. They honestly show what Bush and his policies have done. I have yet to see ACT be negative and talk about Bush's private or before elected office life.

Move On was negative but haven't seen or heard much from them for awhile and last I did see they were keeping to issues, just pointing out things like how Bush will say one thing then show him saying and doing the exact opposite. Potent, but public record fact based commercials.

Have a feeling Swift boat group isn't going to stop and will now get worse because Bush denounced them so now they can be more negative and claim Bush wants them to stop but their "truth" must be put out there.

I think if we have these 527's then the election committee must ask these groups for proof in advertising. That would change a lot.

How about, instead of calling for an end to SBV and ACT and MoveOn, he start by telling his own friends and associates to stop funding SBV, and then play it by ear after that.

Thanks for the warm welcome back everyone, it's good to be back on TFP among friends...

Bush came out today and denounced ad's by 527s in entirety, not just the ones that attack his opponent.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040823/D84L4DI80.html

Here are some selected quotes from the article, follow the link for the whole thing.

In Texas at his ranch, Bush said, "I don't think we ought to have 527s," a reference to the outside groups that have poured millions of dollars over the past year into attack ads. Bush himself has been a main target of ads costing some $60 million. Bush said all of the ads should be stopped.

"That means that ad," he said, referring to the anti-Kerry ad, "and every other ad."

Ok, fine w/me... sounds good so far...

Kerry's vice presidential running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, said Bush's comments on Monday fell short of what was needed.

"The moment of truth came and went, and the president still couldn't bring himself to do the right thing," Edwards said. "Instead of hiding behind a front group, George Bush needs to take responsibility and demand that the ad come off the air."

that is what gets me. what exactly does edwards want? the President denounces all adds, including those that are visibly damaging his opponent... yet edwards says that is not enough and furthur spreads the false notion that the President is responsible for those ads. this tactic preys on those who aren't involved enough in the process to realize that neither Kerry or Bush has a hand in the content of the ads by any 527 group.

This is frustrating because the already dangerous issue (in the sense that it could damage our electoral process) of Kerry's Vietnam service is being taken from level of conflicting accounts from seemingly genuinely sincere soldiers on both sides to out and out falsehoods by politicians.

In all seriousness, I have considered myself a civically aware citizen for a long time... but I don't think I've ever been more disillusioned with or frustrated by politics as I am now.

527's really aren't the issue. They are a fine topic of discussion, and I'd gladly like to see a seperate debate on whether or not their existance and operation is appropriate.

Kerry did not denounce all 527's that support the President or oppose Kerry.

The strategy Bush is using is to denounce all 527's as a way of saying that he is therefore denouncing the specific ad, and so technically meeting what has been asked of him, but yet hiding it in a general attack on 527's as if it were the fact that it was a 527 that was the problem, not the specific content of the ad.

527's are legal and part of the landscape. If we come to the conclusion that they are not healthy for our process, we should definitely take action legislatively to deal with them.

SBVFT is under attack for their content not their organizational makeup. What Bush has yet to do is specifically decry the content of the SBVFT attack. He has said he will not attack Kerry's war record. He has said he's against the 527 concept. But he has not yet come out and said that the SBVFT ad's content was not appropriate and did not reflect his own sentiments.

why should the President denounce the swiftvets and specifically state that he disagrees with them fundamentally? isn't it a bit arrogant for someone to demand the President to say exactly what they want to hear about the issue? the President may personally think much of what the swiftvets is true, but still considers the matter an unsuitable topic for the election. i think when many people consider this matter they assume the swiftvets have nothing pertinent to say about Kerry's Vietnam record and base the candidates responses to the matter on that assumption. that has not been proven true.

the fact is that there are many respected men of many political perspectives who have put their reputations on the line with the swiftvets organization. you must surely agree that they would expect the firestorm of scrutiny they would have to endure, but put their integrity into full public view anyway. i think that kind of commitment to a cause deserves a serious, respectful evaluation.

I haven't seen the ads in question.

On of the benefits of living in Toronto I guess.

A couple of things come to mind...

1. Kerry was in Vietnam. Bush was not. Kerry did his duty, and no-one can say he didn't. I find it incredible that the democrats don't put Bush more on the defensive if this is the way that Bush wants to play. (This is certainly a very dirty and personal campaign.)

If Bush wants to get personal, the Democrats could get even more personal against Bush. So far, they seem to be taking the high road.

2. I think Kerry did this (make his Vietnam record part of the campaign) to attract middle America voters. A large number of Americans seem to mistakenly believe that the democrats are somehow less patriotic than the Republicans. It's absurd, but perception is that the Republicans are somehow tougher and more adapt at protecting America.

The difference between this crap and Move On is that this is all lies. How dare the right make spread lies and slander about a man who actually served, and killed, for his country.

james t. kirk - the democrats did in fact try to make political hay out of Bush's service but it ended up being a dead end. you're kidding yourself if you think Bush personally is making any sort of political statement about senator kerry's service. he has repeatedly stated that he honors and respects kerry's service in vietnam. this isn't debatable... it's a matter of public record. if the democrats are taking the high road (now) then they are taking the same road that Bush is.

Ralvek - that is speculation. it may be your personal opinion that every one of the hundreds of swiftvets who put their integrity on the line for their cause is an outright liar... but that is your interpretation of the issue and not fact. if it were as cut and dry as you seem to think it is... it wouldn't be worth having the discussion we are engaged in.

Irate I love ya man (in a brotherly, cousin, cross country way), but come on.

Bush's fingerprints may not be on Swift but his people are (one just had to resign from his re-election committee). It's easy to say I respect you while I have my donors and henchmen find people with axes to grind and pay for them to be heard.

I don't believe all the Swiftvets are evil. I'm sure many are men who served very honorably and were hurt by Kerry's '71 testimony and therefore see this as a way to get back. The very few that are VOCAL have books to sell, are getting paid for their spots on news programs and/or have been shown to be liars or not have facts straight (as reports in the US Navy records show).

This BS that Kerry fudged on reports to make himself look better are BS also, first as shown in another post the ones on the day in question are signed not with his initials. Secondly, if he had filed a false report (and supposedly these Swiftboat commanders say they knew he falsified) then he ran the risk of being court martialed and at the very least reduced in rank. Those that say they knew he fudged and in one case got a bronze star, then they are just as guilty as he, if not moreso because they accepted awards on his "falsified reports". That in my eyes makes them worse in character than Kerry.

I wish I could say I was amazed at your double standards but, of course, I am not.

The groups are shadow organizations created to do the dirty work of the political parties and yet the one 527 making a case against Kerry is somehow different than the multiple 527s created and funded to attack Bush at every turn.

As for the change in subject, feel free to start a new thread and ignore this one if the topic is not to your liking.

Fine will Kerry do the same with ACT and Move On? Denouncing the Swift boat group which received a whopping $100k or so from an individual while ignoring the fact that Move On et al has received millions upon millions for their messages is disingenuous at best.

There already was one. There is still a question as to the legality of 527s as outlined in the below thread. They are being allowed to operate right now as the FEC has pushed back any decision on their status to after the election. Bush has been attacked with regularity by the Democratic leaning 527s with little to no recourse to their distortions.

As pointed out in the below thread the ugliness of these ads is not surprising to me. It was a foregone conclusion that this course would be set when the Dems chose to use 527s, allegedly to even the ad spending playing field, and the FEC passed on making a decision about them with regard to campaign finance reform laws already in existence.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...&highlight=527

So, you were on the boat that day and can without a doubt say that there was enemy fire? You saw the wounds on Kerry?

If not, then you have simply made a choice on who to believe.

The left has been slandering Bush in the same way and to be disgusted by this and not the other is partisan hypocrisy at its worst.

You want to believe that everything Kerry got was legitimate because it went through the proper channels then fine. So do I. But I also give the same credit to Bush because everything he got with regard to his military service and discharge went through proper military channels.

For those in this thread claiming that Move On and others have reported nothing but "truth" let me remind you of the questions they threw around about Bush's military service. They questioned every aspect of his service. They demanded records, they trotted out people who claimed "well I don't remember meeting him" as evidence that he didn't serve. Every scrap of paper the military released and Bush himself released was shot down as "inconclusive".

Well, as stated before, you can't have it both ways. Either the military knew what it was doing when they authorized Kerry's medals and Bush's discharge or they didn't. They both went through the approval processes and as far as the military is concerned they are equally valid.

The 527 groups hold no accountability to accuracy and have no limits on what can be spent by individuals. If you want to criticize the Swift Boat group because they're supported by a couple of Republican stalwarts then stand up and hold the other 527s equally accountable because they're supported by long time Democratic forces.

Truth be told I blame the media for pushing this more than anyone. Here's a great article that talks about how stations will air 527 ads regardless of truth.

The media is the big winner making HUGE amounts of money on these ads. Probably enough to push their 1/4 and yearly profits up into double digit percentiles. So why should they care what is truth, what is fiction and what the outcome is? They're making millions on the ads and money talks baby.
=====
GOP, Democrats Seek to Pull Campaign Ads
By LIZ SIDOTI

WASHINGTON (AP) - When a Republican-funded group of Vietnam veterans sought to run a blistering television ad accusing John Kerry of lying about his decorated war record, Democrats quickly fired off a letter to broadcasters imploring them not to air the ``inflammatory, outrageous lie.''

The goal: to get as many stations as possible to reject the ad and stymie potential damage from it.

It's a dance that happens often in political advertising. Republicans and Democrats try to get broadcasters to block each other's commercials by providing evidence countering claims in the spots. Sometimes they succeed and ads get pulled or changed. More often they don't and commercials are run even with questionable material.

Unlike ads by outside groups, candidates can say whatever they want to in ads and stations must run them.

That's the case with a new spot Kerry rolled out that says Bush's campaign ``supports a front group attacking John Kerry's military record,'' a reference to a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Bush's campaign complained that the Kerry ad contained a ``false and libelous charge.'' Stations didn't have to run the veterans' ad; they do have to run the Kerry campaign's ad responding to it, despite the Bush campaign's objections.

Broadcasters have a right to turn down other political ads that don't meet truth-telling standards followed by commercial advertisers like Pepsi, Toyota and Nike. Stations leave themselves open to lawsuits if non-candidate political ads contain potentially libelous content.

``It's basically up to the individual broadcaster to decide whether that third-party advocacy ad is appropriate for their audience,'' said Dennis Wharton, a National Association of Broadcasters spokesman.

Still, stations rarely reject commercials - even ones with fuzzy claims. They have little incentive to: they don't get paid for ads that don't run, and they very rarely are sued.

``If the system worked, the sleaze wouldn't get on the air,'' said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a political ad expert at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication.

Lawsuits take time and money, neither of which the campaigns have to spare. And, proving defamation of character, slander or libel is extremely difficult when the person attacked is a public figure.

So, campaigns often settle on urging stations to reject an ad - while publicly objecting to the content.

``There are incidents where candidates object every cycle and stations do pull ads,'' said Trevor Potter, a former member of the Federal Election Commission. ``But there aren't a huge number of them pulled.''

Still, stations require political parties and interest groups to back up statements in ads. The opposing side often sends its own documents rejecting the charges and reminding TV stations of their overriding duty as broadcast license holders ``to protect the public from false, misleading or deceptive advertising.''

Often, documentation from the ad sponsors, whether accurate or not, is all a station needs to put an ad on the air. Sometimes, the station has its lawyers review the material before going forward.

Anticipating a challenge to its first ad, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth sent 28 stations in Ohio, Wisconsin and West Virginia a 12-page background document and 64 pages of material supporting the ad's claims, including affidavits.

Lawyers for Kerry and the Democratic National Committee quickly faxed an objection letter to the stations, pointing out that questions were being raised publicly about claims made by veterans.

The group says two stations didn't run the ad. A couple of others hesitated.

Jeff Armstrong, a station manager for Wisconsin's WLAX and WEUX said the publicity about potential problems with the ad prompted them to initially refuse the commercial. But, he said, they ``had a change of heart'' after other stations aired it.

Another station, WEAU, an NBC affiliate, waited a day for its lawyers to sign off on the ad, said Steve Lavin, the station's general sales manager.

Sometimes, one side can get stations to force the other side to change an ad.

In January, the Republican National Committee challenged an ad by an arm of MoveOn.org. It said: ``Bush sided with the drug companies who had given him huge contributions.'' Attorney Charles Spies said in a letter to stations in Ohio, Florida and other states that the ad ``falsely and maliciously'' accused Bush of ``committing a federal crime.''

``No drug company has ever given a contribution'' to Bush because ``corporate contributions to federal political campaigns have been legally prohibited for close to 100 years now,'' Spies wrote.

The RNC says MoveOn had to change the spot before several stations would air it.
=======

link: http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...20.htm&sc=1131
=================

PS: Onetime, I respect you man but to say that SBVT are not getting BIG money from a select group of donors while MoveON is.... is very partisan and accusatory, and IMO foolish. I read the statements on their website the vast majority sound pissed because of Kerry's anti-war speeches. Others have been shown to be downright liars, one has signed the affadavit, then said he didn't know what he was doing, then signed again changing his original story (O'Neill), selling books or as I said above making big bucks on TV shows as "spokesmen".

As I have stated, in my opinion there is a HUGE difference between this group and ACT. ACT challeneges Bush's issues and how they affect people they do not personally attack him or his family or his past. ACT has done nothing, I have seen, but stick to issues.

MoveOn, it, in the past had questionable material, and some personal attacks, but has pretty much gotten away from that and has gone to the issues. While some of the ads may be very "out"there, I have seen very few on tv. And the ones I have are issue driven. Their website is something else, but for the love of God they can put anything they want on their website and if a person goes there, they know what to expect so to act all pissy is BS.

Same with Swift's homepage. They can put anything they want on their website and I could careless, but to run total fictious lies and divisive ads meant to hurt an individual (not for his politics) and in the process open wounds of veterans, is pathetic.

The GOP cannot win on issues they have to destroy the character and the man running against them.

Let the issues determine the vote and let this bullshit die, because all the Swift group is truly doing is damaging the 'Nam memory more and re-opening seriously deep wounds for the vets that have tried to move on.

Any man or woman that served in Vietnam deserves respect and to try to tarnish ANY man's medals or valor 35 years after the fact and 29 years after the war is pathetic. These men on their homepage don't just attack Kerry but the men who support him also. It's divisive to a huge group of people who truly have moved on.

As pointed out by others in this thread, some weight needs to be given to the shear number of "Swifties" coming out against Kerry. Certainly you can write off some as being questionable but not all of them. You want to attribute it to their anger over Kerry's stance when he got home? Fine, I'll buy that. But that's not the message coming out in the media. The Kerry campaign is painting them all as liars or puppets because they don't want Kerry's statments as head of his Veterans against the War group to become a focus.

As far as my comments about the Swift Boat group not receiving big money, I think you're misreading my position (or I have not stated it clearly). I am saying it's downright disgusting for people to come out and say the Swift Boat group is partisan because it's received big checks from Bush supporters while not making the same claims against the other 527s. The biggest single contributor to the Swift Boat group gave like $100k and he is (or was) by far the biggest single contributor. The other 527s have seen checks for millions from individual contributors yet their messages are not being charged with being biased by those on the Kerry side.

It's just another one of those hypocrisies that bug me. The Dems are claiming the Swifties are being used as attack dogs yet the other 527s have been used in that manner for a year or more but that's ok.

Until we start holding our own party up to the same standards we attempt to hold the "others" to the process will remain corrupt and partisan. The parties will continue to play off the fears of the partisans and we will never see any sort of focus on issues.

hmm... i think if you'll draw this conclusion from a swiftvet having to stop being a volunteer in Bush's campaign, then the same measure should be applied to MoveOn and ACT if there are any Kerry volunteers among their ranks. I have not read of any examples... but I'm speculating that there are probably many. You may already go as far as this... I'm just saying that the first conclusion seems to necessitate the second.

But are we really surprised that the swiftvets are (perhaps zealously so) Bush supporters? I mean seriously, it's basically a two-party system in national elections. It's not as if they have a whole slew of candidates to support if they are against Kerry as commander-in-chief. In almost all cases, a person not thinking Kerry is the man for the job will most likely support Bush.

If these same people decide to donate to their candidate of choice, if they decide to partake in the political process, it does not make them right-wing henchman... their donations do not impune their truthfulness.

Onetime, I understand and agree, my point being that it seems this thread has become a debate on 527's instead of the specific ad(s) in question, which I believe is in fact the focus of the Bush strategy for this one as well--to broaden the field, so to speak, to avoid having to specifically disavow the specific ad/group in question.

The question that needs to be answered is this: Regardless of what anyone may think of 527s, is it appropriate for Bush, obviously fully aware of the content of the SBVFT ads, to not specifically disavow that content and its promulgation? If he does decline such action, then is it wrong for us to infer that he, while maybe not willing to make such statements himself, none-the-less agrees with the SBVFT, or at least considers their content legitimate?

Bush has played the same game as Kerry in the actions of the 527s. I don't seem to recall Kerry disavowing the attacks on Bush's service in the Guard. He simply said that his campaign does not question Bush's service. That is exactly what Bush's campaign is doing.

Let's understand a little about why the "honesty" of the 527 messages and the existence of 527s are so inextricably linked.

The 527s have been used in this campaign as the attack dogs which allow the campaigns to appear above the fray. Not only do they get to make unsubstantiated claims (happening on both sides not just on Bush's) without repercussion to their candidate but they also get to put out messages both in support of their candidate and in more honest opposition to their opponent. This helps the campaign of "their guy" in the traditional sense of advertising but also in trying to eat up opponent campaign resources to rebut them. The Kerry campaign is starting to fall into this trap by trying to directly take on the Swift Boat group. They've obviously decided this message is too powerful to leave out there alone so they must address it. They're trying to make the expense palatable by also tying the Swift Boat actions to Bush and his campaign. Of course there is no evidence of collaboration between Bush and the Swift Boat group but that doesn't stop them from making the claim. It does, however, set a new precedent for combatting 527 claims. For the most part the Bush campaign made the strategic decision not to directly address the claims of the 527s that alligned against him. This kept the focus a little more towards the candidates and the real issues.

This is a dirty path the parties are headed down if they do not reign in the use of 527s. Personally, I agree with Bush's stance that all of these groups should be removed from the process. Otherwise we will continue to see unbelievable spending, (and it will get worse as the parties not only have to ramp up contributions to combat the opposition party but to answer the attacks of the pseudo party 527s) greater and greater opportunity for influence peddling, and the reinforcement of a system where only individuals endorsed by one of the two parties can contend for elected office.

Miami Herald Article

As the list of connection points grows, the plot thickens.

So I guess to the majority of you here, Bush's public remarks yesterday mean squat? I thought he was very straight forward when saying A) he was bothered the ad's B) upset that SBVT amongst other 527's and soft money groups were able to operate after legislation he passed C) The fact that he said Kerry's service was noble and he should be proud. But on the other hand Bush is the anti-christ....

Were you equally outspoken against this?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/07/kerry.exley/

Anyone still questioning Bush's involvement? You can say what you want about Move On and ACT, but I don't see anyone having to be fired or have to resign in Kerry's camp. As for hiring someone from MoveOn, big deal as long as he has cut his professional ties to them. IF he hasn't then yes, Kerry needs to let the man go.

Doesn't sound like Bush is wanting Swift to go away too soon. This is going to blow up in his face and hopefully, not only will he lose the election it'll teach the next candidates to run cleaner campaigns that stick to issues.

I mean after all if Bush were the better man on issues and if he truly was this upright honorable man and true follower of Christ, he wouldn't have to step down to this level now would he? He'd win on his merits, wouldn't he? I mean, someone who has principles and believes firmly in his views wouldn't have to rely on slinging mud. (This goes for Kerry also, BUT from what I have seen he HAS and ACT have stuck to ISSUES. MoveOn has been also. But then again no one has been claiming Kerry to be this great noble, fundamentalist, righteous, moral man like we hear Bush is from everyone that supports the man.)

One thing I can say is this shows us that maybe when Kerry IS elected, the GOP won't have anything to hound him over and spend BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of taxpayer money trying to impeach him like they did Clinton. After all the GOP had to dig back 35 years to find some kind of mud on the man. And all they are doing is spreading hate, dividing the country more and being shown as the non issue muckrakers they are.


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Bush Campaign Lawyer Quits Over Ties to Ads Group

By Adam Entous

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - A top lawyer for President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election campaign resigned on Wednesday after disclosing he has been providing legal advice to a group that accuses Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) of lying about his Vietnam War record.

Benjamin Ginsberg was the second person to quit the Bush campaign over ties to the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has been attacking Kerry's record through television commercials and a book.


Dispatched by Kerry to defend his service, former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia and other Vietnam veterans were turned away from Bush's secluded Crawford ranch on Wednesday when they attempted to deliver a letter asking the president to condemn the Swift Boat ads. White House spokesman Scott McClellan dismissed it as a "political stunt."


Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot had insisted just last week that "there is no connection of any kind whatsoever" between the campaign and the Swift Boat group, and McClellan stood by that assessment despite the Ginsberg revelations.


The Bush campaign has denied Kerry's charge the president's re-election team is using such "front groups." Bush on Monday called for a halt to the ads, along with others run by independent groups, but he did not condemn the group or its allegations.


Ginsberg, who served as the Bush campaign's chief outside counsel for five years, informed the campaign on Tuesday that he has been giving legal advice to the Swift Boat group.


In his letter of resignation to Bush, Ginsberg defended his actions as legal and said he was proud to have advised the veterans. "I have decided to resign as national counsel to your campaign to ensure that the giving of legal advice to decorated military veterans, which was entirely within the boundaries of the law, doesn't distract from the real issues upon which you and the country should be focusing," he wrote.


Ginsberg later told CNN, "Nobody at the Bush campaign or the White House knew of my dual representation," though he did raise the broad issue of representing such groups to the campaign. Ginsberg said he "assumed" the Swift Boat group knew he was working for Bush.


Rep. John Dingell (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, asked the Justice Department (news - web sites) to launch a criminal investigation into the "significant ties" between the Bush campaign and the group.


KERRY RECORD


The fierce dispute over Kerry's record in Vietnam, where he was decorated for bravery, has dominated recent campaigning in the neck-and-neck race for the Nov. 2 presidential election. Both candidates are trying to portray themselves as the best man to lead the United States in its war on terrorism.


Federal election rules bar organizations that take unrestricted donations from coordinating their activities with campaigns or political parties.


Stanzel said the law does not impose restrictions on lawyers, adding: "There has been no coordination at any time" between the campaign and the Swift Boat group.


Likewise, Mike Russell, spokesman for the Swift Boat group, denied any coordination with the Bush campaign, and said Ginsberg had agreed to continue advising the group.


"I was at the nexus of making sure (coordination) didn't happen. To suggest otherwise is flat wrong," Ginsberg said.


But Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill countered: "The sudden resignation of Bush's top lawyer doesn't end the extensive web of connections between George Bush (news - web sites) and the group trying to smear John Kerry's military record. In fact, it only confirms the extent of those connections."


In his resignation letter, Ginsberg added that his work for Swift Boat was "quite similar" to ties between lawyers affiliated with the Kerry campaign and several left-leaning groups attacking Bush, including Moveon.org, the Media Fund and Americans Coming Together.


Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman accused the Kerry campaign of "hypocrisy," citing attorney Bob Bauer's ties to both the Kerry campaign and America Coming Together. The Kerry campaign said it received election advise from Bauer during the primaries, but that he now works with the DNC.

The Massachusetts senator has called the Swift Boat ads inaccurate and has asked the Federal Election Commission (news - web sites) to force them to be withdrawn. After the Swift Boat ads, support for Kerry among the country's veterans declined, according to a CBS News poll.

As a Navy lieutenant commanding a gunboat in Vietnam, Kerry was decorated five times for valor and sustaining combat wounds. He has shrapnel in his leg from one of those wounds.

Records show the Swift Boat group received some of its funding from long-time Bush supporters. Its new commercial also features one veteran, Ken Cordier, who was on a Bush campaign committee until last week, when he was forced to quit.

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LINK: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...gn_bush_ads_dc
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And people in '73 and '74 thought watergate was big.... by the time this election is over both sides will make Watergate look like jaywalking.

here here pan, goodshow, wish i could have said it better

After all this crap, they should make a DVD about it

Having a lawyer with multiple clients does not mean coordination with the Bush campaign. Evidence people. Where's the evidence of coordination? You scream for evidence about WMDs but don't care one lick about it when it's in support of "your" guy. I would have no problem with these claims of wrong doing if you were consistent in your wanting proof in all situations. Of course that doesn't quite seem to matter to most.

Tken from Art. above: "In his resignation letter, Ginsberg added that his work for Swift Boat was "quite similar" to ties between lawyers affiliated with the Kerry campaign and several left-leaning groups attacking Bush, including Moveon.org, the Media Fund and Americans Coming Together."

If Ginsberg has proof then he should come forth with it and I WILL be as hard on Kerry. However just sating it as he resigns, IMO, shows sour grapes and that he is a bitter man who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. And he should just shut up, because him saying shit like that and not bringing proof forward adds more fuel to the fire that is burning Bush's ass right now.

Still say Kerry looks far better to me because he tries to stick to the issues, and ACT and MoveOn are also. We're in the homestretch and they're not flinging mud at Bush for actions 35 years ago, or at his family. They are sticking to issues and solely because Swift is full of innuendo, proven lies and opinions that are objective and calling them fact, Kerry does have the right to defend himself. Especially, when some of these Swiftees, supported Kerry or have been quoted in the past to have said good things about Kerry's service.

I just find it very funny they can't get anything on Kerry's present so they have to dredge up 35 years ago and hope something starts selling.