I scratched my head at that comment too. I fully understood your comparison.
However, I don't understand why O'neil turned down the offer to attend the ball.
He and the group made it clear that they were doing this for the Vietnam vets ---- not for George Bush. The RAT Kool-Aid drinkers tried to claim that the SwiftVets were partisan Republicans. They are not. John has wanted that to always be made clear so that the claims of the bias media could be shown to be false. They did the right thing.