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Twice in 33 years, John O'Neill looked up from a hospital bed and saw John Kerry on television. Each time, he was stirred to action. In 1971, while recovering from leg surgery, O'Neill watched his fellow Vietnam veteran tell a Senate committee that U.S. soldiers had admitted committing war crimes there. Infuriated, O'Neill debated Kerry on national television. He accused him of libel and spreading "the big lie." This year, in intensive care after donating a kidney to his wife, O'Neill watched on television as John Kerry emerged as the leading Democratic presidential candidate. This time, O'Neill wrote a best-selling...

Letter to John Kerry August 25, 2004 Senator John Kerry 304 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Kerry, We are pleased to welcome your campaign representatives to Texas today. We honor all our veterans, all whom have worn the uniform and served our country. We also honor the military and National Guard troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan today. We are very proud of all of them and believe they deserve our full support. That’s why so many veterans are troubled by your vote AGAINST funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, after you voted FOR...

Vietnam-era POWs are lining up to join the Swift Boat Veterans in attacking John Kerry’s readiness to lead the country. The POWs are breaking their silence on how John Kerry’s controversial anti-war activities -- particularly his testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- were used to torment them while in captivity. The extent and fallout of Kerry’s anti-war activities are outlined in Unfit for Command, the fast-selling new book by John O’Neill and Jerry Corsi. (Human Events Online reported yesterday the book will vault onto the top of the New York Times Bestseller’s list on 9/5/04.) A...

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...

After receiving no bounce from his own convention and after weeks of being slammed by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, John Kerry is now 3 point behind President Bush. The latest LA Times poll shows a very polarized race with Democrats strongly backing Kerry and Republicans strongly backing Bush. However, the race has always centered on who will garner the votes of the Independent "swing voters." Kerry has lost ground due to not only his convention performance, but also due to the attacks from the Swift Boat Veterans. At the convention, Kerry decided to focus on the his own...

Although members of the mainstream media continue to support whatever John Kerry and his surrogates tell them (while they continues to comfortably indulge themselves in their never ending Bush-bashing), the extent of Kerry’s lies and lack of any conviction continues to assault those of us in the alternative media. Suffice it to say, Mr. Kerry has taken both anti-war and pro-war positions. Lately, however (with the exception of telling us that President Bush is doing everything wrong in Iraq, he seldom addresses his own stance. Kerry advises us that he and his band of barristers will “prove” collaboration between the...

In a startlingly bad piece of political theater, John Kerry sent his supporter Max Cleland to hand-deliver a letter to President Bush at his ranch in Texas. The 25 August 2004 letter contained a plea for the President to infringe upon the free speech rights of a group known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: 254 Vietnam veterans who have collectively questioned the circumstances under which Kerry earned three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star in only four months, without spending any time in the hospital. Many of the SBVT are decorated themselves. Because of their questions,...

WACO, Texas -- James Rassmann, his yellow tie off after a long morning Wednesday, eased his 6-foot, 260-pound frame into a red booth at the Dairy Queen next to his friend Max Cleland. Rassmann, dressed in a Navy blazer and khakis, munched on a burger while Cleland, the former U.S. senator from Georgia, ate two chili dogs and sipped a cherry soda. The two decorated Vietnam War veterans relaxed into easy conversation while a handful of campaign aides to Sen. John Kerry buzzed around them, chatting on cell phones and checking their BlackBerries to see how the networks were carrying...

hen Philadelphians aren't booing their Phillies or Eagles and even Santa Claus, their native scrappiness finds other outlets. If you're from Philly and two guys are quarreling on the street, there's only one thing to do -- ask if this is a private fight or can anybody join. It's hard to say just what the raging firefight between John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is. I'd like to see it as a private fight between Vietnam vets; we really ought to be debating today's war on terror, not a 40-year-old war. But, of course, the Kerry-Swifties scrap...

.......Many of those who condemn Kerry for opposing the Vietnam War are too young to have been politically aware during that period. The rest are fighting very old battles. But the fact is that the argument over Vietnam was settled long ago, and a majority of Americans decided that Kerry was right. Members of the Swift boat group and like-minded Americans are free to try to re-litigate the basic Vietnam question. They say, from the comfortable perspective of 2004, that the antiwar movement emboldened the enemy and thus lengthened the war. That's their premise: We could have won the war...

As Republicans prepare to gather next week for their national convention in New York, most Americans probably realize that there won't be too much in the way of news. The voters have grasped a simple truth: The convention is not the start of anything - and they refuse to treat it with a seriousness it does not deserve. Unfortunately, the campaign finance laws haven't shown similar wisdom. They treat the conventions as they once were: The beginning of the race. This anachronistic way of viewing conventions as the firing of the starting gun is to President Bush (news - web...

Daily Prayer Thread for "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" Current Press Releases Pray for Truth to be Victorious!

Since we devoted an entire editorial Wednesday to denouncing a political ad aimed at Ken Salazar by the Virginia-based Americans for Job Security, permit us now to say a word on behalf of such independent advocacy groups. In just one week's time, their constitutional right to free speech will be curtailed by the single gravest assault on civil liberties approved by Congress during the past four years. No, not the Patriot Act. We refer to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, aka McCain-Feingold. After Sept. 2, believe it or not, Americans for Job Security will be barred from mentioning...

Politics: Campaign finance reform hasn't ended attack ads. It hasn't stopped MoveOn.org or the Swifties. Good. Let's hear it for loopholes that allow free speech. Both John Kerry and President Bush have done some play-acting in recent days on the issue of negative campaigning. Kerry, stung by ads by fellow Vietnam vets questioning his claims to be a war hero and reminding voters of his over-the-top antiwar rhetoric, says Bush should stop these attacks. As if Bush could. Kerry knows better. Bush, for his part, says he'd be glad to join Kerry in squelching all this nastiness being funded outside...

.........Some voters, especially men, will privately welcome a commander in chief who plays rough with his opponents. Mr. Nixon's meanness, it was said, provided an extra measure of safety against the Russians. Maybe, some will think it's a good thing for terrorists to see that Team Bush rolls over anyone who stands in its way, whether Saddam Hussein or Mr. Kerry. But there are distinct and pressing dangers here for Mr. Bush. Remember that in Iraq, he gained the upper hand at first, but the brash, overreaching way he went to war has come back to haunt him in the...

OKLAHOMA CITY - With his up-by-the-bootstraps biography and Carolina drawl, John Edwards is working to advance John Kerry's presidential candidacy in regions where the Massachusetts senator of privilege may need help connecting with voters. Edwards has spent much of his time since joining the Democratic ticket last month in a Southern swath long dominated by Republicans and conservative rural Midwestern towns, areas where his populist message and emphasis on middle-class values _ not to mention his background _ are familiar. The campaign hopes that sending Kerry's personable running mate into GOP bastions will sway disgruntled Republicans and undecided voters and,...

Kerry camp's bid to deliver protest letter turned away at Bush's ranch CRAWFORD - The Vietnam attack ad controversy that has increasingly dogged the presidential campaign almost consumed the race Wednesday. Vietnam veteran and former Democratic Sen. Max Cleland traveled to President Bush's ranch, but was not allowed to give him a letter protesting ads challenging John Kerry's military service. Hours earlier, a top Bush lawyer resigned from his campaign after disclosing he had given legal advice to the veterans group behind the television ads. As both sides continued to wrestle over commercials by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Republican...

August 26, 2004 Lawyer for Bush Quits Over Links to Kerry's FoesBy ELISABETH BUMILLER RAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 25 - The national counsel for President Bush's re-election campaign resigned on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after he acknowledged that he had provided legal advice to a veterans group that has leveled unsubstantiated attacks on Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record in a book and on the air.Hours later, Senator John McCain, a Republican who is both a friend of Mr. Kerry's and an increasingly vigorous supporter of President Bush's, said in an interview that he was so annoyed over the veterans'...

A Scarred Campaign Veteran, Caught in a New CrossfireBy SHERYL GAY STOLBERGPublished: August 26, 2004 ASHINGTON, Aug. 25 - When a group calling itself Republicans for Clean Air attacked Senator John McCain's environmental record during the 2000 presidential primaries, Mr. McCain lashed out at his opponent, George W. Bush, urging Mr. Bush to "tell his sleazy Texas buddies to stop these negative ads.''Now, Texas supporters of Mr. Bush are behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group attacking the Vietnam War record of Senator John Kerry, one of Mr. McCain's closest friends in the Senate. But this time, Mr....

August 26, 2004 Wounds Opened Anew as Vietnam ResurfacesBy TIMOTHY EGAN any of them are bent and broken, grayer and wider. Some carry shrapnel from a step too far, an ambush replayed over and over. All of them carry memories. And now as the debate over service 35 years ago in a war that will not entirely fade roils the presidential campaign, Vietnam veterans wonder if they are doomed to take the arguments that divided a nation to their graves. "It really upsets me, pitting one Vietnam veteran against another," said Frank Stephens, 55, of Granite Falls, Wash., who received...