Swiftees are the best money I ever spent. "Hanoi" John was thwarted, and all Vietnam Vets got some long overdue and well deserved thanks.
Posted on 01/05/2008 10:26:45 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
More than three years after John Kerry's bitter defeat, at the dawn of what looks like a far more promising campaign cycle for the Democrats, the party is still haunted by the specter of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Once upon a time, "Swift boat" denoted an obscure military vessel, but thanks to the activities of this group it has come to represent movement conservatism's penchant for ruthlessly (and effectively) smearing any and all political opponents, from a sitting senator and war hero to an 11-year-old boy with a cranial fracture.
Research by The Nation into Federal Election Commission records of the group's top twenty donors reveals that they've been remarkably active in this cycle, contributing and bundling nearly $200,000 to presidential candidates. This does not bode well. During the last presidential campaign, the wealthy backers of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth--now rebranded as Swift Vets and POWs for Truth--didn't do their real dirty work until the general election, where as a tax-exempt 527 group they operated outside the restraints of direct campaign contributions. We may wish we were done with the Swift Boaters, but they aren't done with us.
In 2004 the top twenty donors all gave (with one exception) at least $50,000 to the group. The top three--Houston home builder Bob Perry, Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens and billionaire drugstore impresario and investor Harold Simmons--gave a combined $9.5 million ($4.45 million, $3 million and $2 million, respectively). Calculating the influence of these and the slightly less wealthy Swift Boat donors during this cycle is a touch more complicated than simply adding up their contributions. Each one exerts far more influence as a bundler, given the federal restrictions on individual giving, which limit donors to a maximum of $4,600 per cycle. So The Nation looked not only at the contributions of the donors themselves but also at those of their family members and employees. It's an imperfect method, since some employees are clearly contributing of their own volition (such as one employee of a Simmons company who gave money to Hillary Clinton), but it gives a rough estimate of who's backing whom and to what extent.
The most notable recipient of Swift Boat largesse is John McCain, erstwhile front-runner and Stand Up Guy. When the Swift Boat ads were first unleashed, McCain was alone among his Republican colleagues to condemn them. A fellow Vietnam veteran, a good friend of Kerry's and a former target of smears about his own service, McCain called the ads "dishonest and dishonorable," a "cheap stunt," and he urged Bush to condemn them. But in pursuit of the GOP nomination, McCain ditched the mantle of maverick for that of hack, and his once-floundering, possibly rejuvenated campaign has been aided along the way by $61,650 from Swift Boat donors and their associates. "There is such a thing as dirty money," said Senator Kerry in a statement, after The Nation informed him of McCain's FEC records. "I'm surprised that the John McCain I knew who was smeared in 2000 and thought so-called Swift Boating was wrong in 2004 would feel comfortable taking their money after seeing the way it was used to hurt the veterans I know he loves." (McCain's office did not return calls for comment.)
McCain's Swift Boat bounty is exceeded only by that of Mitt Romney, who has raked in $70,550. Romney's success with Swift Boat donors is significant because he has surpassed even McCain in his demonstrated willingness to do or say anything in pursuit of the presidency and because he has emerged as the GOP establishment's favored candidate. Last year, when McCain held that position, the Arizona senator received significant backing from Swift Boat donors. But many have subsequently switched their allegiance. Pickens, who donated to McCain in June 2006, is now an enthusiastic Giuliani donor and fundraiser (Giuliani ranks third in Swift Boat funding, with $47,950). Perry, who also recorded several donations to McCain's PAC in 2005 and 2006, is now a major donor and fundraiser for Romney. If the list of top Swift Boat donors is expanded to fifty, Romney's fundraising edge is even more pronounced. (Neither Romney nor Giuliani's campaign returned calls for comment.)
Also noticeable among the recipients of Swift Boat largesse is one who received only a single donation: Mike Huckabee. Despite meager fundraising and little national name recognition, the former Arkansas governor has experienced a bubble-like expansion of support and media attention, taking the lead in Iowa and approaching a steady lead in national polls. But the lack of Swift Boat contributions lends credence to the claim that Huckabee is viewed warily by the money men who call the shots in the modern GOP. Despite proposing a radically regressive tax change and taking Grover Norquist's antitax pledge, he's been attacked savagely by the Club for Growth and eviscerated by columnist George Will for "comprehensive apostasy against core Republican beliefs," among them "free trade, low taxes, the essential legitimacy of America's corporate entities and the market system allocating wealth and opportunity."
This all supports the notion that the people behind the Swift Boat operation are chiefly concerned with the continued upward redistribution of wealth that is, more or less, the contemporary GOP's raison d'être. In 2006 Perry ponied up $5 million to start the Economic Freedom Fund, a 527 group devoted to attacking Democratic incumbents, and landed a large donation from prominent Swift Boat donor Carl Lindner. All of which is to say that the Swift Boaters aren't some kind of side show, a coterie of vicious mudslingers operating at the edges of respectability. They are the show. They are modern conservatism's core funders and beneficiaries. With conservatives staring straight into the abyss, their activities in this election cycle could very well make the Swift Boat smears look tame by comparison.
well, I still occasionally start writing the year on a check as 19.., so please forgive me.
The vast majority of those funds were contributed *after* the Swift Vets had already dealt enormous political damage to the Kerry campaign in August 2004. That was made possible primarily by tens of thousands of small online donations.
The lie the leftists are promoting this week is that the Swift Vets were the creation of their top donors. In fact, those donors saw the Swift Vets gutting Kerry like a fish and reached into their wallets to reinforce that success.
Does to me!
Swiftees are the best money I ever spent. "Hanoi" John was thwarted, and all Vietnam Vets got some long overdue and well deserved thanks.
That is because SBVT was an angry reaction to John Kerry’s shameless exaggeration of his Vietnam record at the expense of everyone else who served. When Kerry aired his fabricated combat home movie and rendered his Vaudevillian salute at the convention he triggered the anger of millions of veterans.
Shortly afterward, the Swift Boat Veterans held their first news conference at the National Press Club in Washington. Except for UPI and C-Span, the news media boycotted the event. Only when the group’s book—”Unfit to Command”—became a national bestseller did the media pay any attention.
Teddy Kennedy and the Boston Democrat machine stage managed the short Vietnam experience of this shameless thespian. If you study Kerry’s political career his lies about Vietnam got more outrageous over time.
____________________________________________________________
washingtonpost.com:
John Kerry: Hunter, Dreamer, Realist
Complexity Infuses Senator’s Ambition
By Laura Blumenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer
6-1-03
-snip-
. . .And who is he, really?
A close associate hints: There’s a secret compartment in Kerry’s briefcase. He carries the black attaché everywhere. Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open his case.
“Who told you?” he demanded as he reached inside. “My friends don’t know about this.”
The hat was a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading, the seams fraying.
“My good luck hat,” Kerry said, happy to see it. “Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia.”
Kerry put on the hat, pulling the brim over his forehead. His blue button-down shirt and tie clashed with the camouflage. He pointed his finger and raised his thumb, creating an imaginary gun. He looked silly, yet suddenly his campaign message was clear: Citizen-soldier. Linking patriotism to public service. It wasn’t complex after all; it was Kerry.
He smiled and aimed his finger: “Pow.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59559-2003May30?language=printer
My husband and I were one of those tens of thousands of small donors and consider it the BEST political contribution either of us ever made to anything or anyone. I can't remember which of the 3 it was who gave a sizable donation prior that got the whole thing off the ground and made it possible for the Swift Vets to collect all the small donations.
This article seems to be p.o.'d that the Swift Vets didn't go away after '04. All I'm saying is that they would go away if Soros would tell his lackeys in Congress to end 527's, but of course, they enacted the legislation to give him power, and he's not about to do that to get rid of these 3 pikers who are spending a drop in the bucket compared to what he and his socialist buddies spend.
I personally have never seen the Swifties debunked, but I have seen it said that they were, even though I know that they were not.
'In his cover piece after the election, this reporter revealed why the Kerry campaign had been "slow to respond" to the SBVFT. He wrote:
"Because most of the charges were true."
A fact that the left has no difficulty ignoring, evidently.'
Is it possible to provide a link to that. I'd like to read it myself.
An Inside Report On The Kerry Campaign...or a similar title.
One of their reporters was "embedded" with the Kerry campaign. There was a prior agreement that he would publish nothing until after the election.
There's a similar episode concerning the SBVFT, as reported by the Washington Post.
When they couldn't ignore it any longer, they did a complete report of the events on the river, when Kerry "rescued" the soldier. Gave it front page treatment, complete with diagrams.
For some reason, the Post assigned the project to their Science writer -- probably because he was the only person in the newsroom capable of doing any serious research.
The story exhaustively described the events of the day, as reported by various sources -- eyewitness, books, official reports, etc.
At the end, it concluded that the actual events had been pretty much as the Swift Boat Vets had described.
That was the first -- and last -- piece the Post ran on the controversy. And, to my knowledge, the last time that the Science writer did a front page piece.
No pretense of objectivity.
I know John O'Neill was taken aback.
I.e., they weren't true because Pinch didn't want them to be true.
Once I read this, there was no need to read any more of this article. "ruthlessly", "smearing", "war hero", and the reference to the "11 year old boy" are all Pure Liberal BS.
That's the core of the lie.
The Swift Vets *did* go away after 2004 - they stood down as an organization in Orlanda in January of 2005. I was there. The leftists are trying to pretend that when people who supported the Swift Vets support other political efforts that they are somehow related.
I was a Swift Boat donor. I have not donated to McCain. Never would, never will.
verb. To tell the truth about a lying democRat politician (who looks French).
Thanks for the ping. Unable to counter the Swift Boat Veterans’ facts, the leftists attack the donors. Typical.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.