According to the liberal side of the blogosphere, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth should be discredited since they have Republican ties. Assailing conservative “527’s” named for the tax-code section that defines them, is the height of hypocrisy from Democrats who discovered and perfected the legal circumvention of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law.
The Kerry campaign has subsisted on $15 million of political advertising in the past three months, most of it bashing Bush, most of it in key battleground states – without costing the Kerry campaign a dime. Media Fund, ACT, the MoveOn.Org Voter Fund, the list of pro Kerry 527’s is endless.
The Boston Phoenix has an expose on 12 millionaires and billionaires that are really running the Kerry media campaign.
Update: After distancing itself from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad, the White House calls for an end to ‘soft money’ ads. Somehow, given the information above, I doubt Kerry will be making a similar pronouncement.
Kevin, I personally think they should be able to speak, publish, hype all they want. Just as MoveOn.org does. But like I said in my Response, If John McCain says its BS, then I gotta go with him.
I have no doubt that there will now be attacks on McCain, and its all good. Its politics. But I will say this, he has his men on the stage standing for him. That says a lot more to me than people who would not vote for him regardless who may have been in Vietnam and may have an opinion. As you know I am not a Kerry fan, and agree that the hyping of the Vietnam thing is kindda ridiculous at this point. But it is ridiculous on both sides. No one is going to convince me that Kerry was less than his war record says he was. Just as I am not going to convince anyone on the right that he was.
I’m not going to argue with Kerry’s heroism. I just am baffled by the attempt to be a hero, only to come home and bash the actions of the soldiers (blaming the command of course), and then to run for President and tout the hero business again.
It’s the expediency, stupid!
The people who sided with Michael Moore are asking that the Swiftboat Vets be discredited? I’m shocked.
At the very worst these vets are no better than Michael Moore. At the most they’re telling the truth and Kerry is in big trouble.
REPORT FROM THE FRONT FINAL THOUGHTS
Adrian just comment spammed my site a while ago. I think he needs to be added to the Blacklist.
(via Allahpundit)
I don’t take marching orders from John McCain (or Jeremiah Denton, for that matter). That being said…
Let’s just remember who injected Vietnam into this campaign — Terry McAuliffe, who raised the whole Bush AWOL issue; Wesley Clark, who stood by approvingly on the same stage while Michael Moore called Bush a deserter; and John Kerry who wrapped himself in the Flag like a Circle-K pre-made sandwich.
They sow what they reap, and couldn’t happen to nicer people, either.
–furious
I actually wrote Adrian and promised him that if he commented on a post that actually had to do with his spam, I’d let it through. He does have some good commentary. And, on this post, he is not off topic. (So far, he’s been off topic on every comment on our blog. This might have something to do with the fact that we don’t do much posting on domestic politics. )
We were told by liberals all during the Nineties that service in Vietnam didn’t really matter, so far as being a good President goes. And now…? Vietnam and nothing else matters, seemingly.
In his book Rogue Warrior, former SEAL Richard Marcinko groused about officers who would recommend themselves for decorations after tagging along with the teams on a mike boat mission. I don’t doubt that the military has had problems with “medal inflation” from time to time, and I wouldn’t ordinarily see any reason to single Kerry out for any irregularities in his decorations. But hey, he started it…
settle down a bit, lads. Kerry put emphasis upon his role in Viet Nam to emphasis his leadership abilities and clearly as an aside to point by contrast to the AWOL Bush (records still not fuujly available)…Kerry’s full military records are now available on-line (his site and I posted them at Metafilter)…The guys that were on the boat with him testified as to what he did do..those against him and placing ads were not on his boat! for me, it is all simple: am i better off now than I was 4 years ago? Nol. ILs the country? heck no…now po0int to anything that matters and you will see we as a nation are much the worse off…show me in what we are better off, please, before you turn SET UP bUSH FOR REELECTION.
settle down a bit, lads. Kerry put emphasis upon his role in Viet Nam to emphasis his leadership abilities and clearly as an aside to point by contrast to the AWOL Bush (records still not fuujly available)…Kerry’s full military records are now available on-line (his site and I posted them at Metafilter)…The guys that were on the boat with him testified as to what he did do..those against him and placing ads were not on his boat! for me, it is all simple: am i better off now than I was 4 years ago? Nol. ILs the country? heck no…now po0int to anything that matters and you will see we as a nation are much the worse off…show me in what we are better off, please, before you turn SET UP bUSH FOR REELECTION.
settle down a bit, lads. Kerry put emphasis upon his role in Viet Nam to emphasis his leadership abilities and clearly as an aside to point by contrast to the AWOL Bush (records still not fuujly available)…Kerry’s full military records are now available on-line (his site and I posted them at Metafilter)…The guys that were on the boat with him testified as to what he did do..those against him and placing ads were not on his boat! for me, it is all simple: am i better off now than I was 4 years ago? Nol. ILs the country? heck no…now po0int to anything that matters and you will see we as a nation are much the worse off…show me in what we are better off, please, before you turn SET UP bUSH FOR REELECTION.
Am I/are we better off as a result of the last three and a half years? Weelll, let’s see… in a very stable job with better pay/benefits Wife is able to stay home to prepare for the arrival of our first child this fall all the bills are paid and up to date haven’t had to overly worry about terrorist attacks, BECAUSE THERE HAVE BEEN NONE am in less debt than I was three years ago I could go on, but it’s painfully obvious that freddie poo has a motivational issue, mainly that he is a democrat/is full of poo….
Wierd, I had some “checks” in between above comments, but they didn’t make it to the post. (Just didn’t want you folks to think that I am one of those punctuation-challenged ‘tards.)
I don’t know about the Rob from NC, this Rob can add “paying less in taxes” to that list.
I don’t understand why need to have a discussion about Kerry’s medals, heroism, etc; for me his self-admitted war crimes trump all else. I wish the sob would release his military records so that we could all see him for what he is.
btw- The quote you attributed to PT Barnum is actually from Abraham Lincoln.
“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.
To a caller at the White House, In Alexander K. McClure’s Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories.
About the hypocrisy, and that list (“an expose” link, regarding “12 Millionaires and Billionaires that are really running the Kerry campaign”)…
I thought back over my life. A few people on that list were known to me. At times of crises, and particularly as to the females on the list who are identified as trumpeters of “women’s” issues/causes, anyway, at times of crises in my life, there was never any offer, however minor, mild or subtle, to help.
However, the people, also, from my own life experience, who DID make efforts to help, minor and/or major, aren’t among the megadollar folks, nor among the Democrats.
To repeat and recap here, it’s never a liberal, Democrat with money who makes a difference in needy individual’s lives (my experience, which is all any of us can actually attest to, much as have these brave SwiftVets done), it’s been the “conservative” and Republican folk I’ve known who have helped with needed, useful and even necessarily specific things, when/as needed: a job, a loan, a gift even, a grant, a recommendation, a link, a referral, a suggestion, information, tools, whatever it was that was appropriate when needed, as needed, it’s never been a wealthy Democrat who showed up or sent the messenger, but, rather, it’s been a conservative, a Republican, some private individual doing the most effective thing they can on their own volition, to assist a need.
With Democrats, particularly these listed with all those dollars, it is always an “ideology” that motivates them, and it is always the individual who they dis. I’ve seen this happen time and time again and that is, that Democrats/liberals “give” when it’s affiliated with ego (advancing their “ideology”) to an impersonal organization, but who can’t be bothered when an individual is in need, if it’s private, ordinary, without the politics involved.
Just saying, though I realize that Kerry dislikes that expression (and now I understand why, given the SwiftVets’ “Say”). Just saying.
Someone (I have no idea who) has done an analysis of the FITREPs that the Kerry campaign posed as a .pdf a couple of days ago. Kerry does not look as good as some people think in his(her) eyes: http://www.sportsmenforkerryedwards.com/fitrep_analysis.htm
I don’t put a lot of stock in that analysis. Drawing on my 20-year career in the Navy, I don’t find anything truly derogatory in Kerry’s fitreps. If you know how to read Navy performance reports and evaluations, you can tell that Kerry was consistently one of the top officers in his paygrade at every command, sometimes the top Ensign or Lieutenant(j.g.).
I’m no lover of Kerry, but trying to make hay out of his fitness reports is ultimately as stupid as similar attempts to turn President Bush’s service documentation into evidence of poor performance. According to his fitreps, Kerry was a fine, young naval officer.