[Vision2020] Balancing it out . . . somewhat

Thu Aug 5 16:12:06 PDT 2004

Right, Dan!
>From Salon Politics blog:

Different decade, same dirty tricks

With a little bit of help from the Drudge Report, and an ad buy that got
their nasty claims in the newspapers, the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth are getting more than their share of publicity today. And they'll
likely get even more in some quarters (like, say, Fox News) as the group's
leader, Nixon-anointed Kerry detractor Houston attorney John O'Neill,
publishes his book "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against
John Kerry," coming soon from the conservative publishing house Regnery
Publishing.

Hopefully the media will do their job in exposing O'Neill's longtime ties to
the GOP and the fact that, as they admit, none of the men who appear in the
ads that will run in some markets in Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin
today, actually served on Kerry's boat. So how did Larry Thurlow, a vet who
appears in the Kerry-bashing ad know, as he claims, "When the chips were
down, you could not count on John Kerry?" Does he know this better than Jim
Rassman, who when the chips were down, counted on Kerry to save his life? Or
how about James Wasser, a radar man on one of Kerry's swift boats, who says
that if Kerry called his band of brothers for one last mission and said they
were going to hell, "he'd have a full crew."

The facts of Kerry's service don't really matter to O'Neill, anyway.
Attacking Kerry has been O'Neill's role since Nixon tapped him for the job
in 1971, as Joe Conason reported in Salon in May, and his latest anti-Kerry
effort is now funded and organized by Republicans:

"Behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are veteran corporate media
consultant and Texas Republican activist Merrie Spaeth, who is listed as the
group's media contact; eternal Kerry antagonist and Houston attorney John E.
O'Neill, law partner of Spaeth's late husband, Tex Lezar; and retired Rear
Adm. Roy Hoffman, a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described
as 'the classic body-count guy' who 'wanted hooches destroyed and people
killed.'"

"Spaeth told Salon that O'Neill first approached her last winter to discuss
his 'concerns about Sen. Kerry.' O'Neill has been assailing Kerry since
1971, when the former Navy officer was selected for the role by Charles
Colson, Richard Nixon's dirty-tricks aide."

Media Matters has more on O'Neill's GOP ties, dating back to Nixon:

"During the CNN interview [with O'Neill], [Wolf] Blitzer reported that
former President Richard Nixon had urged O'Neill to publicly counter Kerry
on The Dick Cavett Show, but there is more to the story. O'Neill was a
creation of the Nixon administration, as Joe Klein detailed in the January 5
issue of The New Yorker. Former Nixon special counsel Chuck Colson told
Klein that Kerry was an 'articulate' and 'credible leader' of those veterans
calling for an end to the Vietnam War and therefore 'an immediate target of
the Nixon Administration.' As such, the Nixon administration found it
necessary to 'create a counterfoil' to Kerry. Colson recounted, 'We found a
vet named John O'Neill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just
Peace. We had O'Neill meet the President, and we did everything we could do
to boost his group.' Articles from the April 21 Houston Chronicle and the
June 17, 2003, Boston Globe confirm close ties between O'Neill and the Nixon
administration."

"Beyond his role in the Nixon administration's strategy to undermine Kerry
in the 1970s, O'Neill is also connected to Supreme Court Justice William
Rehnquist (a Nixon appointee) and to former President George H.W. Bush,
according to Houston Chronicle articles from March 31 and April 21. In the
late 1970s, O'Neill clerked for Rehnquist; in 1990, according to an October
7, 1991, report by Texas Lawyer, the former President Bush considered
O'Neill for a federal judgeship vacancy."

-- Geraldine Sealey

[09:03 PDT, Aug. 5, 2004]

Swiftboat Veterans for "Truth"

A new ad out from the Bush-backing Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, a 527 group
out to attack John Kerry's Vietnam war record, looks to be particularly
vicious. Kerry, by all reliable accounts a war hero, takes heat from other
swiftboat vets in the 60-second spot. "When the chips were down, you could
not count on John Kerry," one says. Others continue with "John Kerry is no
war hero" and "John Kerry cannot be trusted."

Maybe it's just Silver Star envy. Or more likely, it's just another arrow
dispatched from the Right's anti-Kerry quiver. The Kerry campaign was quick
to point out that none of the men denouncing Kerry's service in Vietnam
actually served with the former Lieutenant. Of the six men who did serve on
the swiftboat Kerry commanded, five support his candidacy and one is
deceased. And Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, it turns out, is flush with
money from Republican activists.

John McCain, for one, thinks the new ad is despicable. The Associated Press
reports today:

"Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an
ad criticizing John Kerry's military service 'dishonest and dishonorable'
and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well.

"'It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me,' McCain said in an
interview with The Associated Press, referring to his bitter Republican
primary fight with President Bush..

"The ad, scheduled to air in a few markets in Ohio, West Virginia and
Wisconsin, was produced by Stevens, Reed, Curcio and Potham, the same team
that produced McCain's ads in 2000.

"'I wish they hadn't done it,' McCain said of his former advisers. 'I don't
know if they knew all the facts.'

"Asked if the White House knew about the ad or helped find financing for it,
McCain said, 'I hope not, but I don't know. But I think the Bush campaign
should specifically condemn the ad.'"

The ball is in your court, Mr. President.

-- Stephen W. Stromerg

Different decade, same dirty tricks