Somewhat more accurately, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth retained the services of a senior retired FBI investigator to interview eyewitnesses to John Kerry's actions in Vietnam and take depositions...
For those who don't know, John O'Neill's co-author on Unfit is Dr. Jerry Corsi, occasionally known as the freeper jrlc.
The book has obviously gotten Drudge's attention -- this is his 3rd major feature article on it in the last week.
So hey, are we having fun yet?
That legislative record left Kerry vulnerable when Weld, the popular Republican governor, came calling for Kerry's Senate seat in 1996.
In his first two Senate campaigns, Kerry had walked over fairly light Republican opposition, millionaire businessmen Raymond Shamie in 1984 and Rappaport in 1990. He'd dispatched Shamie by painting him as a conservative extremist. Rappaport's challenge was waylaid by Kerry's clever television ads that ridiculed the Republican's past residency in Hawaii and questioned his business dealings.
There would be no easy route around Weld. Despite the state's lopsided Democratic voter registration advantage, Weld had been reelected in 1994 in a historic landslide, burying state Representative Mark Roosevelt with nearly 71 percent of the vote.
Kerry's equal or better in lineage, education, and resume, Weld was now restless in his State House office. Like Kerry, he had presidential aspirations. Like Kerry, he saw a path to the White House running through the seat of the state's junior senator.
It was a campaign for the ages, the marquee Senate contest in the country. A pair of heavyweights, they slugged it out in seven memorable debates on statewide television. They argued about every issue imaginable, trying to magnify small differences as they grappled for the political center.
Weld rolled out the platform that had served him well in state elections: reform welfare, be tougher on criminals, and cut taxes. Kerry staked out Democratic positions on health insurance for children, investments in education, and better job-training programs.
Kerry, however, was suffering defections by some Bay State Democratic officials. Others did little to help him. After Kerry's 12 years in Washington, some said he was a stranger, a remote figure who courted them at election time.
The candidates made a personal pledge to each other to abide by a cap on overall spending and media costs. They also agreed not to spend more than $500,000 in personal wealth. But in the final weeks, with Weld outspending Kerry, the incumbent blew off the cap, mortgaged the Beacon Hill townhouse he jointly owned with his wife, and poured $1.7 million into his campaign kitty. He claimed Weld was buying more media time than their agreement allowed, but there was scant evidence to back that up.
As Election Day neared, some polls had Weld closing on his opponent. But Kerry, say his campaign operatives, always performs worst when he is cautiously nursing a lead, best when in danger.
Kerry turned out swift boat crewmen, his Navy superiors, and even retired admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. at Charlestown Navy Yard to sing his praises. Ted Kennedy, too, stepped in. The senior senator co-wrote legislation with Kerry to ensure that all children were covered by health insurance, a program to be financed by a cigarette tax. Kennedy's staff helped Kerry draft the bill and gave it to him to announce just a month before the election. Kerry used the issue in his ads and speeches as a cudgel against Weld, who had vetoed a similar measure in Massachusetts.
In the gravitational pull of President Clinton's crushing 33-percent victory over Bob Dole in Massachusetts, Kerry beat Weld by 191,508 votes, or 7.5 percent of the 2.55 million cast At his victory party on election night, Kerry proclaimed, "We made this a race about health care for poor children, and when we finish, the Kerry-Kennedy health care bill for children will provide all children in America with health care!" But with the election over, it was Kennedy who did the heavy lifting on the child insurance bill: finding a Republican cosponsor in Utah Senator Orrin Hatch; raising money to run ads to battle the tobacco lobby; and going to war with Republican Senate leaders and the Clinton White House, when necessary, to win passage of a $24 billion health care program for uninsured children.
"Mostly Kerry is more interested in the titles of his bills than the actual guts of the legislation," says Weld's campaign spokesman, Rob Gray, now a GOP consultant. "He worked on bills that sounded good in press releases and gave him good media, and then moved on to the next thing."
Notice the tactics employed by Kerry against Weld are very similar to what he is doing now. He is following the same playbook. Look for Kerry to assemble more veterans to try to bail him out this time. However, his military record has never underwent this kind of scrutiny before.
A blast! LOL!