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Here's why the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are doing their best to inderdict John Kerry's march to the White House Date published: 9/13/2004 Why have 260 of his fellow Swifties turned on John Kerry? THE DOZEN OR SO Mekong veterans who travel with Sen. John Kerry he collectively calls his "band of brothers." Alas for Mr. Kerry, about 260 Vietnam veterans linked to the same theater of operations--most of them from the swift-boat service in which the presidential contender served--also consider him a brother: Cain. The difference is that while the biblical Cain murdered his brother outright, Mr. Kerry...

The renewed controversy over President Bush's National Guard service has opened a fresh schism in the presidential contest--among Democrats who dispute the wisdom of keeping the 3-decade-old story alive. Many partisans relish the sight of the White House and Bush aides struggling to answer questions about long-ago Vietnam, after watching Sen. John Kerry being forced to defend his combat duty and subsequent anti-war activism. "If you're going to have Swift Boat Veterans for Truth running around out there on the loose, it's only fair to have Texans for Truth running around out there on the loose," said Bill Carrick, a...

Democrats and the MilitarySunday, September 12, 2004, 5:30 ET, 2:30 PT (55 minutes) Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco, California (United States) Event took place September 10, 2004. Robert "Buzz" Patterson,  Attache, White House, Military,  and John E. O'Neill , Swift Boat Veterans for Truth C-SPAN2  http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/schedule.csp http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=178934641John O'Neill, co-author of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, and Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, author of Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undercut Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopardize Our Security, talk about their books from Regnery Publishing at the Commonwealth Club of California. Following their remarks, the...

WASHINGTON - Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an advocacy group that jolted the presidential race with commercials questioning Sen. John Kerry's military service, said it has raised $6.7 million in a windfall brought about by the group's high profile in recent weeks. Several of the largest donors are longtime supporters of President Bush, according to a financial disclosure report filed on Friday with the Federal Election Commission. The largest contributor was T. Boone Pickens, a famous Texas oilman and longtime Republican supporter who was a major political backer of Bush's father, who contributed $500,000 to the swift boat group. Aubrey...

Johnoneil on now!

WASHINGTON — Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the conservative group that has attacked Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John F. Kerry's Vietnam record, has raised $6.7 million from more than 53,000 donors in recent weeks, the group said Friday. Among those contributing were the wealthy Texas brothers who helped finance controversial ads against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) when he ran against President Bush in the 2000 primary, a former member of Congress and a Los Angeles television producer. "We have major donors and moderate-level donors," spokesman Michael Russell said, adding that the group received $182,405 from 2,681 donors on just one...

Posted on Fri, Sep. 10, 2004 Anti-Kerry Veterans' group now political machine with big budget By Tom Infield and Meg LaughlinKnight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Vietnam veterans group that set out this spring to make an issue of Democrat John Kerry's 1971 anti-war stance, has grown into a well-organized political machine with a multimillion-dollar budget and a network of Republican-affiliated paid consultants. Organization leaders are adamant that they remain in control of the group's strategy. But interviews with founders and others familiar with the group's formation make it clear that the GOP-allied pros...

....................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...

John Kerry is not only uncertain about where he stands; he's politically bipolar. Hiring Bill Clinton's old staff to shore up his campaign won't work. Anyone who follows the news can tell you what's wrong with his campaign. It isn't the campaign staff -- it's the uncertainty of the candidate. Thus, we have the Kerry who says Iraq is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time while having voted for it and still defends both propositions. Kerry claims heroism in Vietnam, after which he repented for a war filled with atrocities, some of which he himself...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A group running ads accusing John Kerry of exaggerating his decorated Vietnam War service record is nearing $7 million in contributions, thanks in part to several Republican donors.The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has raised at least $6.7 million since it was founded in April. That includes at least $1.9 million in donations of $1,000 or more, with several coming in from people who previously gave to President Bush's re-election campaign and the GOP, according to a report the group filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission.The big donations include $500,000 from T. Boone Pickens, a Dallas...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 - Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an advocacy group that jolted the presidential race with commercials questioning Senator John Kerry's military service, said it had raised $6.7 million in a windfall brought about by the group's high profile in recent weeks. Several of the largest donors are longtime supporters of President Bush, according to a financial disclosure report filed on Friday with the Federal Election Commission. The largest contributor was T. Boone Pickens, a famous Texas oilman and longtime Republican supporter who was a major political backer of Mr. Bush's father, who gave $500,000 to the Swift...

WASHINGTON - Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Vietnam veterans group that set out this spring to make an issue of Democrat John Kerry's 1971 anti-war stance, has grown into a well-organized political machine with a multimillion-dollar budget and a network of Republican-affiliated paid consultants. More ads are on the way, and the group is hoping to become even a stronger force against Kerry.

The Vietnam veterans group attacking Sen. John Kerry's military record has received $6.7 million in contributions from the public, it was announced Friday. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said 53,068 individuals gave to the group's ad campaigns and more than 99 percent of that number gave $74 or less. A total of $3,870,430 was donated in contributions of $1,000 or less, while $462,175 came from 252 contributions of between $1,000.01 and $25,000. Three donations were between $50,000 and $100,000 and six donations were over $100,000, it said. "The revenue report proves without a doubt that we have received genuine grassroots...

Yes, yes. This came out in 2000 and I asked him then, at the time, if he [helped get Bush into the Guard]. He said: "No, absolutely not. I did not do that."

Last month, when "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry" - a book questioning the details of Senator Kerry's service in Vietnam - failed to materialize on bookstore shelves, the conspiracy theories began to fly. Frustrated customers bombarded bookstores with phone calls, cries of liberal bias, and accusations of censorship. They pointed to prominent displays of Bill Clinton's memoirs, "My Life," and Maureen Dowd's "Bushworld" as blatant examples of how left-leaning the industry has become. Postings such as this one appeared on websites like www.freerepublic.com: "They are not sold out.... This is how they keep the...

Ben Ginsberg is the former Bush Campaign council who is council to the Swift Boat veterans. Listen online from 9-AM to 12-noon EST daily at: http://play.oneplace.com/Stream/ksky/LiveStreamwmp.asp

I would like to extend my sincere and personal gratitude for your generous contribution to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. I am sure you have seen the impact your contribution has had on the public discussion surrounding Senator Kerry's fitness for duties as Commander-in-Chief. You have helped us to raise awareness of these important issues - and the American people are beginning to respond. We would not be where we are today, with what we have accomplished, without your help. Our mission is far from over, however. John Kerry's campaign - aided by a sympathetic media - has responded...

Last May, when the newly formed group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth first spoke to the press about John Kerry, the men — mostly Kerry's fellow officers from the four months he skippered a Navy Swift boat in Vietnam — seemed divided on the issue of Kerry's war record. Some questioned the medals he was awarded. Others had no desire to cast doubt on his service. But all agreed on one thing: that Kerry had betrayed them when, upon returning from Vietnam, he characterized the American military — and, by extension, the Swift boat veterans themselves — as having committed...

The summer has blown through like a wind-driven prairie fire and is all but over — just as I'm finally settling down to rest a little. Here, at least, are a few fragments I've rescued from the flames. We've just hit the 1,000 mark for American military deaths in Iraq, and, unsurprisingly, the press is headlining the number with something less than the truth. Even in peacetime, the U.S. military suffers hundreds of deaths each year. Most are from accidents; some are from illness and other non-hostile causes. Young men and women are quite prone, even in civilian life, to...

Just when you thought the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth couldn't come up with anything nastier in their bid to smear Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, along comes their latest commercial. No longer content to suggest Kerry didn't earn his Purple Hearts while serving in Vietnam, the Swifties are now saying that not only wasn't Kerry in Vietnam during periods when he claims he was, he was actually hanging out with George W. Bush during the future president's stint with the National Guard in Alabama. "And we know what that means," said John O'Neill, spokesperson for the Swift Boat Veterans....