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.
I guess the Swift Boat Vets should have made a theatrical documentary instead of a commercial. Would he then encourage everyone to see it? Yeah right.
Poll out in Colorado from SUSA
Bush 47%
Kerry 47%
Coors is up one on Salazar
For eight months, Kerry joins together with Michael Moron and the whack jobs in claiming President Bush was negligent or AWOL from the Air National Guard, and now that the SwiftVet ad comes out ABOUT HIM, he calls such rhetoric as mudslinging and demands the Prez denounce it all.
As a decent love-thy-neighbor type man, I try not to hate this guy Kerry, but he is really making it hard.
How can his brain be so convoluted as to believe his own crapola.
HEY -- Michael Moron and the Whack Jobs. Sounds like a good name for band Stringspeen might want to join.
This is all Kerry's doing. He can stop these unpatriotic, lying swiftee vets by releasing his war records. Only problem is that they are telling the truth, they are patriotic and Kerry royally screwed himself by running on 4 months of service and not 20 year in Congress/Senate.
LOL
Kerry's hard core lefty bloviating for 20 years in the Senate was seared - seared in his memory.
NOPE! The SBV were there, Move On was not!
Nuff said.
Kerry is really feeling the heat on this one.
Sure is. The Vets are making another one. Gotta love those guys.
What do you want to bet the entire thing was staged to take the heat off of Kerry's Magical Mystery Vietnam Tour?
Instead, it's one of those, "what he said," dodges.
Kerry can't co-ordinate with MoveOn.Org, just like Bush can't co-ordinate with the Swifties. It's illegal.
While the hydra MoveOn probably surreptitiously co-ordinates with Kerry, at least by a wink and a nod, the Swifties have one last mission to extract revenge on the POS who slandered his fellow veterans and gamed the system to pad his resume for selfish political gain.
I think the Swifties would do this even if they knew it was a kamikaze mission. While it's just conjecture on my part, he also slandered me, and that's how I feel.
The Dems would love for Bush to denounce the Swift Boat ad, then they would say he had "backed away" from it - meaning he had a connection to it.
It won't fly.
The difference?
234 members of Bush's unit haven't called him an unfit Psycho. Kerry has no choice but to denounce this.
Senator Kerry, we can come up with plenty of insults based on your fickle stance on the issues.
When will Kerry denounce Michael Moore and his movie Fahrenheit 9/11?
So even though Gardner served on Kerry's boat, he wasn't in the advertisement so he doesn't count. Talk about transparent propaganda.
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