Posted on 08/17/2004 7:59:52 PM PDT by neverdem
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Senator John Kerry denounced an advertisement by the liberal group MoveOn.org questioning President Bush's Vietnam-era service in the Air National Guard yesterday, a move likely to raise pressure on President Bush to condemn a recent commercial accusing Mr. Kerry of lying about his war record.
The new MoveOn advertisement, running in three states, accuses Mr. Bush of using family connections to get into the Air National Guard to escape combat in Vietnam and revisits accusations that he did not adequately meet his service requirements - charges that he denies.
Mr. Kerry's statement came hours after surrogates for his presidential campaign made similar accusations and was prompted by a plea from Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a friend of Mr. Kerry and a fellow combat veteran in Vietnam.
Earlier this month, Mr. McCain similarly called on Mr. Bush to denounce the advertisement criticizing Mr. Kerry, by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. That spot, in which fellow Vietnam War veterans said Mr. Kerry lied about the incidents for which he won his combat medals, stopped running last week but the group says it plans to run another one soon.
The Bush campaign has declined to denounce the Swift boat advertisement, saying it had nothing to do with the spot.
That decision created an opening for MoveOn, whose spot ends with a quotation from Mr. McCain about the Swift boat commercial earlier this month: "I think the Bush campaign should specifically condemn the ad."
In an interview with The Associated Press yesterday, Mr. McCain said Mr. Kerry should condemn the MoveOn spot because it's "the same line of scurrilous attack" leveled against Mr. Kerry by the Swift boat veterans.
Shortly afterwards, Mr. Kerry's campaign released his statement: "I agree with Senator McCain that the ad is inappropriate. This should be a campaign of issues, not insults."
Yesterday, Mr. Bush's campaign again refused to repudiate the Swift boat advertisement. Democrats say that spot was largely paid for by Bob J. Perry, a Texas homebuilder with longstanding ties to Mr. Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove. Mr. Perry has donated $200,000, the group said.
The Bush campaign and the group say they have had no contact and are not working in coordination, which would be a violation of campaign finance rules.
"The campaign has not questioned and will not question John Kerry's service in Vietnam," said Steve Schmidt, a campaign spokesman. "The president made clear on national television that he honors John Kerry's service in Vietnam."
Mr. Schmidt painted Mr. Kerry's repudiation of the spots as disingenuous, given that at a campaign-sponsored news conference earlier in the day Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who competed against Mr. Kerry in the Democratic primaries earlier this year, and Adm. Stansfield Turner, the director of central intelligence for President Jimmy Carter, echoed MoveOn's accusations that Mr. Bush used family connections to avoid combat.
"Kerry's condemnation reeks of hypocrisy given the fact that his campaign surrogates are on the attack echoing the same baseless charges," Mr. Schmidt said.
Echoing a line that the Swift boat veterans have used, Mr. Kerry's campaign said General Clark and Admiral Turner had earned the right to speak their minds.
"With their service, they've more than earned the right to speak out," Mr. Clanton said. "We're still waiting for the president to condemn the smear campaign against John Kerry's military service."
As of last night, it did not seem as if Mr. Kerry's condemnation of the Moveon advertisement would have any effect on the group's plans.
Eli Pariser, the head of the Moveon political action committee responsible for the spot, said of Mr. Kerry, "We feel he's entitled to his opinion."
But Mr. Pariser said he did not believe that the Moveon spot and Swift boat veterans' one were in the same league.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has provided affidavits for the men making claims against Mr. Kerry in its first and last advertisement. But while some of the men served near Mr. Kerry's Swift boat, none in the advertisement served on it.
You summed up my opinion very well Doug!
As if they will do it.
The big distinction between the Swift Boat Veteran Ad and the MoveOn.org add is the Swift Boat Veterans were telling the truth with actual evidence. The MoveOn.org ad just makes an empty claim that Bush used family privilege to get into the Guard, something they had absolutely no evidence to back up their claim with. It also uses a cheap clip of someone stamping "Failed To Appear" on an official document, a document that I would bet doesn't exist anywhere.
NO. It's not on the list.
And the page where you post articles traps articles that must be excerpted.
Exactly tell Kerry to release his full records as Bush did.Bush should sue !!!!
Exactly tell Kerry to release his full records as Bush did.Bush should sue !!!!
This SwiftVet issue is eating Kerry alive. Keep it up Swifties,and FREEPERS, if you havn't donated to the Swifties yet, please do so right away.
Yup, that's exactly what he's doing. Trying to appear to be the one taking the high road .... all the while distorting his record.
Pray for W and The Truth
Kerry is giving up nothing here, the Swift Boat ads are more damaging to him than this is to Bush. I would not be suprised at all if that was the very purpose of the Moveon ad, to be used as a throwaway to attempt to box Bush into denouncing the Swift boat ad.
In this sea of lies, it takes all of our collected efforts to sort the fly sh@t from the pepper.
Absolutely! Which shows that they are VERY concerned about "Swift-Boat-Gate". More than exposing Kerry as an ungrounded politically expedient flipper, this reveals him as a liar and scoundrel (which is of course true).
I swear...it is the POWER OF THE PREPOSITION!
See some analysis in this post on this thread, about the "grammatical hinge" that the Kerry crowd has rested their entire argument.
By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
'...For the second day in a row, Mr. Kerry himself continued that line of attack, telling the Dayton Daily News while campaigning in Ohio yesterday: "I think a lot of veterans are going to be very angry at a president who can't account for his own service in the National Guard and a vice president who got every deferment in the world and decided they had better things go do, criticizing somebody who fought for their country and served."
On Monday, Mr. Kerry made a similar argument on ABC's "Good Morning America" when asked whether he actually threw away his medals or just his ribbons on the Capitol lawn in protest of the Vietnam War. He said the story comes from "a Republican Party that can't even answer whether or not [Mr. Bush] showed up for duty in the National Guard."...'
This man is truly pathetic.
Senator Useful Idiot
President Bush used harsher language than this on the 527's but apparently he still hasnt denounced the ad. Go figure.
Bush wouldn't and shouldn't denounce those Swift Boat Vets. What a slap in the face that would be to them. Mr. Kerry has already done enough of that.
Big Deal. Did Kerry denounce Michael Moore's movie? Looney Tunes Kerry is stepping up to the plate now 'cause the "swift boat" folks are taken 'em down.
I wonder if John Effin' Kerry will repudiate Terry McAuliffe's attack with such strong yet sensitive language?
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