The latest spin from the Kerry apologizers are the sinister ‘ties’ between contributors to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and some of the members of the organization have to President Bush.
The New York Times hit piece on the Swift Boat Vets and their ‘ties’ to President Bush came off like it was Woodward and Bernstein again, digging through request slips at the Library of Congress. What did they come up with? Look at this graphic for the results. It’s a joke. A total of $225,000 from two men, one of whom, Bob Perry, knows Karl Rove. The other, Harlan Crow, is the trustee of the foundation for President George Bush’s library.
Meanwhile, the “conservative media” has given John Kerry a free pass on the ties he has to the various liberal 527’s that are out pimping his bid for the Presidency by attacking President Bush. Well, I looked into it a little, and used OpenSecrets.org to get some interesting results:
Zach Exley - Former director of special projects for the MoveOn PAC is now the online communications director for the Kerry campaign. He’s also the one who started the Bush cocaine smear in 2000.
Jim Jordan - John Kerry’s former campaign manager is now a spokesperson for America Coming Together, which is helping to sponsor anti-Bush concerts and is famous for using convicted felons to including sex offenders, to try and register voters door to door.
George Soros - A direct contributor John Kerry’s campaign, he has donated literally, tens of millions of dollars to MoveOn.org, ACT, and The Media Fund. He is also the largest contributor to The Center For American Progress, which just happens to back Media Matters Whores For America. The Center for American Progress is run by John Podesta who also is a direct contributor to John Kerry.
ACT by the way, was formed by Steve Rosenthal, the former political director of the AFL-CIO, and Ellen Malcolm of Emily’s List, both of whom have contributed directly to John Kerry’s campaign.
Harold Ickes - Former deputy White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton is the head of The Media Fund, another anti-Bush 527. He is also a direct contributor to John Kerry.
Stephen Bing, a Hollywood producer, who in the past has donated money to John Kerry has donated millions of dollars to various 527’s as has Peter Lewis, head of Progressive Insurance. You can get more details from this post by John Cole.
Environment 2004 is anti-Bush environmental 527 that was started by Bruce Babbitt, Bill Clinton’s former Interior Secretary and Carol Browner, the former head of the EPA. Babbitt has contributed directly to Kerry’s campaign. In fact, on the page I linked, a good number of the board members of Environment 2004 are Kerry campaign contributors.
I know there’s more, and as I find them I will update this post. In the meantime, it almost hilarious that Kerry and his underlings are whining about the SBV, when they have essentially working on behalf of their campaign that have funds that dwarf those of the receipts the SBV’s have received.
UPDATE: If you want a good snicker, read Atrios’s absolutely pathetic attempt to spin the differences between MoveOn.org and the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth. Here’s a quote in particular that is just neck deep in idiocy:
Move On is an established organization which has been around for years and which has a very large small donor base (and, a few large donors as well). Swift Boat Liars came into being just recently to lie about John Kerry’s record.
First of all, one only has to go to Opensecrets.org to see that the bulk of the donations received by MoveOn.org are large donations from wealthy individuals. Second of all, what reason would the SBV have for forming their organization before John Kerry had the Democratic nomination wrapped up?
