Free Republic

TAMPA - Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, a political organization attacking John Kerry's Vietnam War record, has launched another broadside with a $3.2 million ad buy in Florida - several times the size of a previous purchase. In the final stretch of a bitter race between Kerry and President Bush, the organization is airing two ads locally and plans to continue through Election Day, members said Wednesday in Tampa. The $3.2 million figure cited by the group is unusually large, and it means a typical Florida TV viewer may see either one of the ads about 20 times. An...

....................The financial report "proves without a doubt that we have received genuine grass-roots support for our message and, more importantly, touched off a national debate concerning John Kerry's character and leadership ability as a potential commander in chief," said Adm. Roy Hoffmann, founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In television commercials, the accuracy of which has been undermined in newspaper articles and disputed by the Kerry campaign, the swift boat group has challenged Kerry's service in Vietnam and the medals he received there. The swift boat anti-Kerry campaign began just over a month ago with a relatively modest $500,000...

NASSAU BAY, Texas - Nearly 40 protesters gathered Saturday at the suburban Houston home of the chief financial backer of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's television ad criticizing Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's military record. But the elusive Bob J. Perry didn't appear to be at his Nassau Bay home and didn't answer three doorbell rings by several veterans seeking to hand-deliver a letter asking him to stop supporting the swift boat veterans group. "We deeply resent what he's doing to the veterans," said Richard Zaner, a 70-year-old veteran of the Korean War who lives in the same suburb...

JOHN KERRY wants us to believe he can effectively defend America, but based on the way he is struggling to defend his own reputation these days, you have to wonder about his grasp of focus, tactics, and threat analysis. Here's what I'd like to hear him say: "Here we have a president who the whole country knows deliberately avoided service in Vietnam, using his family's connections to get into the National Guard before going AWOL, permitting his surrogates to question whether the enemy fire I was subjected to in combat was thick enough to justify a citation for valor, or...

WASHINGTON (CBS) Sen. John McCain has called on both political parties to declare a cease-fire in the increasingly bitter partisan quarrel over John Kerry's Vietnam war record. "I'm sick and tired of re-fighting the Vietnam War. And most importantly, I'm sick and tired of opening the wounds of the Vietnam War, which I've spent the last 30 years trying to heal," McCain told USA Today. "It's offensive to me, and it's angering to me that we're doing this. It's time to move on." Separately, McCain told the New York Times that he intended to personally "express my displeasure" to President...