Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., speaks at a rally at the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2004. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Posted on 10/28/2004 4:15:08 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
TAMPA - Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, a political organization attacking John Kerry's Vietnam War record, has launched another broadside with a $3.2 million ad buy in Florida - several times the size of a previous purchase. In the final stretch of a bitter race between Kerry and President Bush, the organization is airing two ads locally and plans to continue through Election Day, members said Wednesday in Tampa.
The $3.2 million figure cited by the group is unusually large, and it means a typical Florida TV viewer may see either one of the ads about 20 times.
An August barrage of ads by the Kerry critics was exposed by news organizations and independent researchers as inaccurate and inconsistent with eyewitness accounts and U.S. Navy records.
The new ads include sharp character attacks but make fewer factual assertions, some of which appear accurate, according to available records.
The Kerry campaign would not respond in detail to the ads. Spokesman Matthew Miller called the group funded heavily by close associates of Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, a ``shill for the Bush campaign.''
``We're not at this point going to get in a back-and-forth,'' Miller said. ``They've been so discredited so many times in so many news organizations.''
In interviews Wednesday, group members charged Kerry with ``self-serving, self- aggrandizing behavior'' as a Navy officer during the war and ``treachery'' afterward, in the words of Andy Horne, a Houston lawyer and former Navy officer.
``His conduct when he got home was very detrimental to us,'' said Ron Webb, an Air Force retiree from Niceville who was a POW for five years. He and another former POW, Kenneth Cordier of Dallas, said the work of antiwar activists such as Kerry was used against American POWs by captors.
What's In The Ads
In both ads, the Kerry critics stand together in a crowd facing the camera.
In one, an announcer says the group includes Kerry's ``entire chain of command, most of the officers in Kerry's unit, even the gunner from his own boat.''
``With nothing to gain for themselves except the satisfaction that comes with telling the truth,'' the announcer says, the veterans ``have come forward to talk about the John Kerry they know - because to them, honesty and character still matters, especially in a time of war.''
John O'Neill, a group member who wrote an anti-Kerry book, acknowledged that Kerry commanded boats with gunners other than the one in the ad, and those men support Kerry. O'Neill said four officers constituted Kerry's ``entire chain of command.''
The second ad, in the form of questions for Kerry, contends:
* He met ``secretly ... with the enemy in Paris'' and went on to ``promote the enemy's position back home.''
After returning from Vietnam, Kerry publicly opposed it as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In 1970 he went to Paris, on what campaign spokesmen have previously called a personal trip with his new wife, and while there met members of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese delegations to peace talks.
Kerry didn't hide that; he later described his conversations in testimony to Congress, saying he was careful not to engage in negotiation.
O'Neill said the trip was secret because Kerry, then still in the Navy, didn't notify his superiors, and talking to enemy representatives violated military law.
What's In The Ads
* He accused veterans ``of being war criminals.''
Kerry was involved in Winter Soldier, a gathering of veterans who described war crimes and other misconduct in Vietnam. He later testified about their accounts to Congress.
Kerry, like many war opponents, argued that U.S. destruction of villages and creation of ``free-fire zones'' - areas where any habitation or activity was assumed to be hostile and was fired upon - violated the Geneva Convention, and that he and other troops who participated might be guilty of war crimes by definition.
* He wrongly and repeatedly claimed he was ``illegally sent into Cambodia.''
According to news reports, Kerry has said more than once he was assigned a mission to Cambodia at a time when the United States was undertaking secret combat operations there that violated congressional restrictions.
According to Kerry's journals, cited in a laudatory book about him by Douglas Brinkley, his patrol boat went within yards of the border but not into Cambodia.
Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761.
Baloney! I'm glad this "unbiased" reporter left his contact information. I just may have to voice my inaccurate and inconsistent opinion.
O'Neill was interviewed on Larry Elder yesterday - fantastic!
Are they running adds in Ohio?
They need to run a correction on this.
His testimony about war crimes claimed rape,blowing up bodies etc.
Naval Records place him 50 miles from cambodia no matter that his diary places him yards from it.
"Baloney! I'm glad this "unbiased" reporter left his contact information. I just may have to voice my inaccurate and inconsistent opinion."
Only JFKerry a weapon of mass deception can answer for his "faith without deeds"!
You and a lot of people, I bet.
....according to Kerry's journals, cited in a laudatory book about him by Douglas Brinkley...
The MSM really wears their politics on their sleeve.
I don't know.
They need to get a check from the DNC.
John O'Neill is the best man in this country!!!
He's done wonders.
I dare say, a lot more people will see the Swift Boat ad than will read this story.
I swear, there is a God inside of him keeping him directed for us and our country. I hope so.
Not nearly enough has been made of the fact that the venue on which Kerry made his 1971 charges of misconduct by his "fellow" soldiers, was the committee chaired by Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas, mentor and guide to the "Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-2001". Sometimes the evil men do lives far beyond their years, and old "Halfbright" falls in this category.
John Kerry has been groomed for years for the Presidency, and had he been put up in 1992, and actively promoted then, he could have been in a position to have promoted WAY more mischief than even the "Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-2001". At the time, Kerry would not have been carrying nearly so much baggage as he is today, having a much shorter record of votes in the Senate that show his pro-socialist, anti-military bias.
Then again, H. Ross Perot did far more to get George H.W. Bush voted out of office, than any positive attribute of the Democrat candidate.
He is a cool one.
Prayer, truth and a lawyer's demeanor helps.
Facts and history are a hard sell.
Its about time!! I havent seen any Swifty ads down here in FL for over a week
I am hoping that they will run one with about Kerry's recent criticism's of the military actions and tie it all together. JOhn Kerry lied about our military in 1971 and he is lying about them again today, reckless disregard to the lives of our men and women in battle.
True. Real issues are now moot in this election. And the game, in swing states, seems to be to sow maximum suspicion upon one's rival -- to sway the undecided 2-4%. Everyone else has made up his/her mind, or already voted (as I have).
"They need to get a check from the DNC."
Why would you think they don't already.
I am glad my $50 is being put to such good use. God bless John O'Neill.
I gave them a total of $500 over the last three or four months. Best money I've ever spent.
Is the ad running in Ohio?
The original article has the author's email address as well.
Anti-Kerry Veterans Start New Ad Blitz
By WILLIAM MARCH wmarch@tampatrib.com
Published: Oct 28, 2004
I watched Kerry yesterday on TV campaigning.I realized he thinks he's King,who could care less about the Vets or anyone that opposes him.I believe he thinks his money and power will buy him the White House.
I called a few minutes ago, told him that I and a host of others contributed to the Swift Boat Vets, and I am not employed by Rove or any other Republican group. I told him that I never once heard a factual argument against the Swift Boat claims, and I would appreciate him and his paper coming back to the center of the issue. I left my phone number in case he'd like to discuss it further.
My e-mail to the writer:
1. Kerry says he was within yards of Cambodia, so it
must be true? Why? As you know, he said he was there
on Christmas eve and it was "SEARED, SEARED" in his
memory. Then, he admitted he remembered wrong. Many
others have said he couldn't have been closer than 50
miles. Apparently, what makes Kerry more credible
than these witnesses is the fact that Kerry is a Kerry
supporter and the others are anti-Kerry.
This is not journalism.
2. 30 years ago, when pressed by O'Neill to give an
example of war crimes, Kerry offered the "free fire
zone" example you just cited in your article. That
answer of Kerry's is a maddening exercise in circular
logic to extricate himself from an impossible spot.
The Geneva convention defines "free-fire zone" to mean
shoot at anything that moves -- the US military used
the term "free fire zone" -- ergo, the US military
must have shot at anything that moved.
O'Neill's answer, then, (after he recovered from his
shock at such duplicity) was simple: we didn't use the
term to mean that. In fact, Kerry's own accounts of
his own activity in "free-fire zones" don't describe
"shooting at anything that moves.
You chose Kerry Defense of the "war crimes" problem:
"well, TECHNICALLY we did." Pathetic.
You chose THIS PARTICULAR example of "war crimes"
because it avoids having to defend his OTHER, MORE
SPECIFIC CHARGES: that officers up and down the chain
of command were complicit in rapes, cutting off heads
and heads, etc.
Your responses to the SBVT ad are carefully crafted to
make Kerry LOOK AS GOOD AS POSSIBLE.
This is not journalism.
3. You seem to think it somehow discredits the SBVT ad
to note that Kerry's "entire chain of command" is 4
officers. How many would it take to make the charge
that he was an incompetent boob legitimate? I mean,
as a JOURNALIST, what percentage of an officer's chain
of command would have to label him incompetent before
you would think there was substance to the charge? AS
A JOURNALIST?
4. Gardner was Kerry's gunner for the bulk of the
time. Again, you use the parsing of the Kerry
Defense: "well, technically, there were other
gunners."
5. Again, hard hitting journalism here: ":Kerry SAYS
he didn't negotiate." Oh? He SAYS he didn't negotiate?
Well, then he must not have negotiated. Why? Why
must we believe him? He met with the Viet Cong, than
came back and ADVOCATED THEIR POSITIONS WHILE STILL A
NAVAL OFFICER.
And you, as a journalist, are satisfied with "Kerry
says he didn't negotiate"? Pathetic.
You repeat the smug dismissal of the Old Media --
which has been documented to be about 80% Democrat --
the smug dismissal: "this group has been discredited
multiple times."
Well, guess what? The Swift Boats ads have seriously
hurt the Kerry campaign for a reason: many, many
people simply DON'T BUY the kind of "journalism"
represented by your article. Many, many people have
read "Unfit for Command" and actually found the
charges against Kerry OVERWHELMING.
Your answers to those charges are all based on the
presumption that Kerry is truthful and so are not
journalism, but DNC spin.
If John Kerry loses this election it will be because
of John O'Neill. And Mr. O'Neill will be showered
with the garlands of heroism for the rest of his life.
Notice that the "journalist" attributes this to O'Neill (who he earlier in the story discredited) in order the question the veracity. He could easily have checked whether Kerry was indeed still in the military at the time, and interviewed his commanders in order to see whether Kerry had asked permission. But he already knew what would become ofthat investigation, so he slyly attempts to discredit the info by attributing it to O'Neill.
These guys are slime. I know the public sees through them, but their bald-faced audacity continues to amaze. They hold themselves up to be artiters of truth when in fact they are mere water carriers for the DNC.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., speaks at a rally at the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2004. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Good!
Good stuff!
Bump!
Go Heroes!
If I was 60+ years old and had a billion dollars in the bank, I would volunteer at my church, be a full time "Mr. Mom" to my kids, and help my neighbors.
"If I was 60+ years old and had a billion dollars in the bank, I would volunteer at my church, be a full time "Mr. Mom" to my kids, and help my neighbors."
Does sound like a peaceful, constructive existence.
Another example of MSM advocacy blatantly posing as news - these "analyses" mysteriously only take place for Kerry and against Bush. There was another A.P. slime article yesterday (27 Oct) attempting yet again to find something on the President's ANG service at the late moment; but there has not been a single A.P. story at any time - any time - of Kerry withholding his military/military records and refusing to sign a SF 180 for their release. The A.P. sued to get every scrap of info on the President's service - which it proceeded to selectively "analyze" - but the A.P. cannot even ask for Kerry's records.
Kerry was involved in Winter Soldier, a gathering of veterans who described war crimes and other misconduct in Vietnam. He later testified about their accounts to Congress.
- considering the fact that a number of the Winter Soldier "vets" were never vets at all, and several stole the names of real vets.
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