Protesters at Home of Swift Boat Backer

Associated Press ^ | 28 August 2004 | KRISTEN HAYS

[SkyPilot]

NASSAU BAY, Texas - Nearly 40 protesters gathered Saturday at the home of the chief financial backer of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose ads criticize Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites)'s military record.

Bob J. Perry didn't appear to be at his suburban Houston home and didn't answer three doorbell rings by several veterans wanting to hand-deliver a letter asking him to stop supporting the group.

"We deeply resent what he's doing to the veterans," said Richard Zaner, 70, a Korean War veteran who lives in the same suburb as Perry, a wealthy homebuilder.

Kerry supporters chanted "Hey, hey, ho, ho, your stinkin' ad has got to go." A Nassau Bay policeman was parked nearby.

Bill Miller, Perry's spokesman, said this week that Perry provided at least $100,000 to help found the group at the request of his friend John O'Neill, a Houston lawyer who co-wrote a book questioning Kerry's military record. Miller also said that Perry, who doesn't grant interviews, was in Mexico this week.

The ads challenged Kerry's Vietnam service for which he received five medals. The ads said Kerry didn't deserve his Purple Hearts, lied to get his Bronze Star and Silver Star and unfairly branded all veterans with his 1971 congressional testimony about atrocities in Vietnam.

The Kerry campaign rebutted the ads with Navy records and witnesses who served with him. Kerry contends the group is a front for President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election campaign. Bush denounced the ads Monday after they were no longer on the air.

[CyberAnt]

This will not sit well with Texans .. not at all.

If these people think they're making points, they have deceived themselves beyond reason.

[NYCVirago]

Kerry supporters chanted "Hey, hey, ho, ho, your stinkin' ad has got to go."

You might be a leftist if: you begin a chant with "Hey, hey, ho, ho"...

[NYCVirago]

Pure desperation. The SBVs have raised almost 2 million in small donations since Perry helped prime the pump.

You'd think that would make a good story, how the average person, who may not normally even make donations to political campaigns, has sent them money. When grass-roots campaigns like that happen on the left, they get fawning profiles in the Times.

[savedbygrace]

That's all true, but the original point was that the statement, "The Kerry campaign rebutted the ads with Navy records and witnesses who served with him," was false. I was only talking about those issues that the Kerry campaign has already backed off of. I thought they had merely removed those citations from the website, not that they had made any comments about them.

I think they'll have to admit the two issues you mentioned, but they haven't yet. They will then have reversed themselves on three of the five medals issues O'Neill & Co have pounded them about, as well as Kerry's Cambodia fantasy. That's a pretty good track record, and defuses any critcism of the SBVT, in my opinion.

[mnehring]

forget the signs, take your dogs and a louisville....... I prefer something like:

[Tijeras_Slim]

I'd open the door and hand them a copy of the Constitution and tell them to come back for a BBQ once they'ed read it.