Posted on 07/23/2006 6:50:04 PM PDT by new yorker 77
Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential hopes were sunk when he buckled under to “authoritarian” conservatives hellbent on smearing his military record as part of a larger “proto-facist” movement, says a former top White House aide whose testimony helped sink Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
John Dean, a Republican who served as Nixon’s top counsel, said Kerry slipped up during the 2004 campaign against President Bush by not suing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth when they published a book calling into question the Bay State senator’s Vietnam service.
“What most surprised me is that Kerry never did anything with the Swift boat attacks,” Dean said. “He waited so long, it was shocking. I thought he should have brought a defamation action against them and he would have succeeded.”
Dean compared the situation to a suit brought by the late Sen. Barry Goldwater following his failed 1964 run for president. Goldwater won a lawsuit against a magazine that published a poll of psychiatrists who said he was “crazy.”
Dean was in Boston this week promoting his new book, “Conservatives Without Conscience,” a harsh indictment of the current GOP power structure that paints Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top party leaders as dangerous “authoritarians” who have ignored the ideology’s founding tenets.
“About 23 percent of the American people are authoritarian conservatives,” Dean said. “It’s proto-fascist behavior. While we’re not a fascist nation, we’re too close (for) comfort. I’m trying to warn people.”
Dean, who fired his first salvo at the Bush White House with his last book, “Worse Than Watergate,” slams the administration on the war in Iraq, accuses officials of fear-mongering and criticizes Cheney’s opposition to a congressional measure to ban torture.
Asked what he thinks the president would have to say about his book, Dean said: “He doesn’t read books. He has trouble reading his one-sheet summary papers.”
There were so many threats and invitations to sue - who knows anymore! LOL!
I spent quite a bit of time searching for j F K lawsuits, as I thought I had heard the same thing. Amazing, nothing turned up after pages of junk and nothing of substance.
Yes, much like Gore Vidal calling Bill Buckley a "crypto Nazi"!
CA....
Can't help you on this one. Haven't a clue what it means. And, since it came from Dean I won't exert the effort to find out.
The media seems to never run out of ex-politicans and ex-military personnel that they keep bringing forward to lend validity to their stories.
Kerry would not dare sue.
Why?
One word:
Discovery.
I couldn't get past that.
What the (*#)@(*)(? From where did he pull that figure? And what does that mean? That conservatives are fascists in training? But I thought fascists were socialists like Dean, as in NAZI "national socialist worker's party"?
The obvious reason Kerry did not sue--he would've lost.
A suit would've established the truth of the Swift Boat evidence. By ignoring it, Kerry hoped his MSM pals would convince voters it was false. He had a better chance trying to brazen it out.
If Kerry thought he could win in court he certainlt could've sued after the election.
I forget who said it but apt, "Fascism always appears a threat in the US, but always lands elsewhere."
The danger of fascism comes from the politically correct leftist socialist agenda of the Democratic Party.
Dean knows no conservative or libertarian would pick up his book, so his only hope is to say something outrageous to attract the left-leaning reading public (about six of them).
Nixon's biggest mistake was in allowing this guy anywhere near his administration.
Kool Aid drinker or liar.
The Swifties were chomping at the bit for such a lawsuit.
Kerry didn't sue the Swiftvets for defamation for one reason--truth is an absolute defense. Dean, a disbarred lawyer, is so dumb he can't even understand that little point.
Dean is as much of a conservative and a Republican as is the average "lifelong Republican" who calls Rush to bash Bush.
It's slander if spoken and libel if printed. Since the Swiftvets spread their messsage of truth by all available media outlets, a suit against them could have been based on libel and slander allegations. Of course, truth being an absolute defense, Kerry would have lost, which is why he never sued them.
LOL
Who is she?
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