There's an ad that will be broadcast in several states which criticizes John Kerry's military service.

A group called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have a 60-second ad features Vietnam veterans who accuse Kerry of lying about his decorated Vietnam War record and betraying his fellow veterans by later opposing the conflict.

What an absolute disgrace this group is doing to kerry and we've got to keep an eye on these future groups especially Karl Rove who i know is behind this whole thing and make sure these groups who pull these type of stunts don't get away with it again.

This group seems very credible. They have also published a book. I look forward to reading the book. It is ranked #1 on Amazon.com already, and the book has not yet been distributed.

I believe the book and commercial are by the officers that worked with him. Can't get much better (or a more credible bunch than officers) than the people he worked with. :good:

Yes, but there are just as many people who worked with him who say he was a hero and brave and all that. So whom do you believe? And I think it will still be an uphill battle for them to prove anything other than the facts--that he served two voluntary tours of duty in combat in Vietnam, that he commanded his swift boat with decisiveness and courage, and that he chose to risk his life for his country while his opponent chose to take the coward's way out in the Air National Guard. There's little they can say to change those facts.

Of course, they can lie, but the facts usually rise to the top.

As James quoted Adlaid Stevenson as saying: If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we'll stop telling the truth about them.

They lie, lie, lie. Always have, and apparently always will. It's a known fact.

This band of brothers has a different view of Kerry

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opin...6_collin05.html

snip:
Don't look now, but the Kerry campaign is about to start attacking a group of Vietnam War veterans. After making Kerry's service as a swift-boat captain a cornerstone of the Democratic National Convention last week, the campaign's new goal will be to discredit some of Kerry's fellow soldiers as (shudder) politically motivated.

Specifically, the trouble comes in the form of a band of veterans who served with Kerry during his glory tour in Vietnam and who will publish a book of their own memories of the young skipper called "Unfit for Command" in coming weeks.

snip:
For a preview of the talking points, Democrats might be directed to the recent writings of New York Observer columnist Joe Conason in the online diary, Salon. Over the past few months, he has written three pieces on the nefarious connections of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, remarking, among other things, that the group, classified as a 527 organization, has connections with well-known Republican operatives in Texas.


snip:
If Kerry wants the leadership campaign to be about his time in Vietnam, he and his emissaries should be careful about impugning the motives of his veteran detractors. As one of them said, "We didn't lose the war on the ground in Vietnam, we lost it at home, and at home John Kerry was the field general."

:?:

Aren't you just shooting yourself in the foot here, or did I read this wrong? If this group of vets has connections to a Rep. operative in Texas, are we really supposed to take what they say as anything other than political muck? How can it be taken seriously?

On CNN, they reported that none other than John McCain has come out in support of Kerry regarding the recent ads that seek to discredit Kerry's military service. McCain used the word "disgraceful" when discussing this effort. McCain, a Vietnam vet himself, who ran against Bush for the Rep. nomination in 2000, says the Bush camp used the same strategy on him when he was running.

Thank goodness McCain is an honest man and that he has the character to stand up for what's right. Bush should be ashamed of himself, and anyone who has been involved in this effort to discredit Kerry's military service should be ashamed of themselves, as well. The nerve of some people.

Lie, lie, lie. It seems that's all they know how to do.

Apparently this story just broke, so I can't find anything about it on the web. Will post it when it's available, or perhaps one of you can get to it before me, 'cause I'm going out for a while, steaming the whole way. They are vile, disgusting people who will resort to anything. Hey, they stole an election. Should I be surprised by this? :mad:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...pr/kerry_mccain
McCain Condemns Anti-Kerry Ad

41 minutes ago


By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer

WASHINGTON - Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry (news - web sites)'s military service "dishonest and dishonorable" and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well.

The White House declined.

"It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me," McCain said in an interview with The Associated Press, comparing the anti-Kerry ad to tactics in his bitter Republican primary fight with President Bush (news - web sites).

The 60-second ad features Vietnam veterans who accuse the Democratic presidential nominee of lying about his decorated Vietnam War record and betraying his fellow veterans by later opposing the conflict.

"When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry," one of the veterans, Larry Thurlow, says in the ad. Thurlow didn't serve on Kerry's swiftboat, but says he witnessed the events that led to Kerry winning a Bronze Star and the last of his three Purple Hearts. Kerry's crewmates support the candidate and call him a hero.

The ad, scheduled to air in a few markets in Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin, was produced by Stevens, Reed, Curcio and Potham, the same team that produced McCain's ads in 2000.

"I wish they hadn't done it," McCain said of his former advisers. "I don't know if they knew all the facts."

Asked if the White House knew about the ad or helped find financing for it, McCain said, "I hope not, but I don't know. But I think the Bush campaign should specifically condemn the ad."

McCain, chairman of Bush's campaign in Arizona, later said the Bush campaign has denied any involvement and added, "I can't believe the president would pull such a cheap stunt."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to condemn the ad. He did denounce the proliferation of spending by independent groups, such as the anti-Kerry veterans organization, that are playing on both sides of the political fence.

"The president thought he got rid of this unregulated soft money when he signed the bipartisan campaign finance reform into law," McClellan said. A chief sponsor of that bill, which Bush initially opposed, was McCain.

In 2000, Bush's supporters sponsored a rumor campaign against McCain in the South Carolina primary, helping Bush win the primary and the nomination. McCain's supporters have never forgiven the Bush team.

McCain said that's all in the past to him, but he's speaking out against the anti-Kerry ad because "it reopens all the old wounds of the Vietnam War, which I spent the last 35 years trying to heal."

"I deplore this kind of politics," McCain said. "I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is, none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crew have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War."

Retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, head of the Swift Boat group, said they respected McCain's "right to express his opinion and we hope he extends to us the same respect and courtesy, particularly since we served with John Kerry, we knew him well and Sen. McCain did not."

McCain himself spent more than five years in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp. A bona fide war hero, McCain, like Kerry, used his war record as the foundation of his presidential campaign.

The Kerry campaign has denounced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, saying none of the men in the ad served on the boat that Kerry commanded. Three veterans on Kerry's boat that day — Jim Rassmann, who says Kerry saved his life, Gene Thorson and Del Sandusky, the driver on Kerry's boat, said the group was lying.



They say Kerry was injured, and Rassmann called the group's account "pure fabrication."

The general counsel for the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) sent television stations a letter asking them not to run the ad because it is "an inflammatory, outrageous lie" by people purporting to have served with Kerry.

Hoffmann said none of the 13 veterans in the commercial served on Kerry's boat but rather were in other swiftboats within 50 yards of Kerry's. The group claims that there was no gunfire on the day Kerry pulled Rassmann from a muddy river in the Mekong Delta and that Kerry's arm was not wounded, as he has claimed.

___

Bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit. The fact that Bush won't condemn the ad is proof that he's happy it's out there. So what if it's a lie? It'll help him steal the election again, so, no problem.

I saw the interview today on CNN that Judy Woodruff did with both Thurlow and Rassmann. Thurlow has no authority to speak about what happened on that boat that day. He wasn't on it. He was in another boat that he says was 50 yards from Kerry's boat, with two other boats between them. Fifty yards. That's 150 feet. That's a pretty good distance, especially when there are other boats in the way. Rassmann, on the other hand, was in the water with bullets all around him, going down to the bottom to avoid them and coming up for air. Kerry turned into the enemy fire to rescue Rassmann when he saw what was happening. For Thurlow to make these comments now, after 35 years, is disingenuous, as Rassmann pointed out. If he thought the story was phony, why didn't he try to correct the record at the time that Rassmann put in for Kerry's medal? Thurlow also says Kerry wasn't wounded in the arm that day. On what does he base that? Even the doctor who pulled the shrapnel out of his arm says he did, in fact, have shrapnel in his arm. But Thurlow says he wasn't wounded at all. How would he know that when he wasn't even on the boat and he was 150 feet away? Also, since it was Rassmann that recommended Kerry for the medal, why would he have done that if Kerry didn't deserve it? Because he knew that someday Kerry would run for president and it would help him then? Come on.

The whole thing stinks. And the fact that the Bush administration thinks it's just fine and dandy speaks volumes all by itself. There are no words for how vile I think these people are. I would like to vomit all over the whole bunch of them.

Since almost all right wing positions are based on fear, greed or intolerance; the only way they can sell themselves is through lies.

Is the ad 100 percent truth? I don't know. But it raises serious allegations that must be investigated, especially as John Kerry, who famously accused his fellow soldiers of war crimes and atrocities (and admitted to some himself) in testimony before the Senate three decades ago, now wants you to elect him as Commander in Chief in war time based on his heroism and combat experience in that same war.

Kerry's pals at the DNC are also using lawyers to try to stifle dissent and criticism. Somehow, I think this would be getting more attention if Republicans were trying to suppress ads with lawyers. :unsure:

Turns out none of these people making these claims were not on the swift boat that was under Kerry's command. 11 men served with him on those boats, one of them is dead and 9 of them were at the DNC convention.

Can read some more of this at:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200408050007

And according to the Washinton Dispatch the group was founded in May this year at the National Press Club and the event was set up by Merrie Spaeth of Spaeth Communications. And this woman is speculated to have had ties with the nasty attacks against John McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries.

And one of the major members of this group is John O'neill. O'neill had ties to Nixons cheif counsel and O'neill had a group called Veterans for a Just Peace that was in opposition to Kerry's protest group. So this guy seems to have beef with Kerry way back when.

http://www.washingtondispatch.com/spectrum...ves/000464.html

IGotMail--Were you around in the late '60s and early '70s when Vietnam was in full swing? So-called "crimes and atrocities" were the rule of war. Did that make it right? No, and that's why Kerry spoke out about what happened to him and countless others under the incredible pressures of that war. Have you ever seen any of the more famous movies about the Vietnam experience? Some good ones come to mind, all equally difficult to watch: The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Hamburger Hill, Born on the Fourth of July, The Killing Fields. If you haven't already, rent a few of these. You will better understand what happened on the killing fields of Vietnam. John Kerry doesn't excuse his behavior in Vietnam. But he fought in the manner that soldiers fought in that god-awful war, and it led him to condemn our involvement in Vietnam upon his return. There was nothing new about the crimes committed by the soldiers in Vietnam. In war, civilian women have been raped, their men killed, their animals slaughtered, as far back as Ancient Rome and beyond. War is hell, right? It's ugly business, no place for gentlemen. And for president, I'd rather have a man like Kerry who has experienced first hand the horrors of war, than a man whose biggest conflicts involved whether to show up for National Guard duty on any given day.

Interesting that you should point this out. Did you give as much weight to this issue in 1992 and 1996 and vote for Bush I and Dole?

Yes, I was around in the late 60's and early 70's.

Again, John Kerry is making his Vietnam service a major reason why he should be elected. Not his Senate record, his Vietnam record. Therefore, his service record is fair game. Or should he get a pass because he is a democrat? By trotting out the lawyers to try and intimidate the TV and radio stations from airing the Swift Vet's ads, Kerry is in effect saying that his record is off-limits.

I don't recall a cadre of lawyers being posted by W regarding his service record. His team may have dragged their feet, but it is out there now for everyone to see. It has been argued and challenged, both good and bad. Discussions have been both honest and dishonest as well.

So why can't the same discussion be had about Kerry's record since he is using it as a major plank? You cannot have it both ways! :bad:

I agree that you can't have it both ways, but no one's trying to. To begin with, Bush has NOT been above-board with his service record. To this day, important documents remain unattainable because they have somehow miraculously disappeared. Oops! And no, I don't believe the situation was the same with Bush I and Dole. In '92 and '96, America wasn't embroiled in a war we didn't know how to get out of, nor had we been led into a war that had become unpopular with the majority of Americans. Whether the president was a war hero or not in the '90s was irrelevant. Clinton has never pretended to have done anything other than evade military service. Do I respect him for that? Not especially, although I certainly well understand those who didn't want to fight in that war (and that includes Bush), since my own brother, boyfriend at the time, and friends were all among that group. I will add, however, that all the men I know now who did NOT go to Vietnam suffer from some form of guilt over having not served when their peers were over there being blown to pieces. But Vietnam was a war we shouldn't have been involved in. History has proven that.

I won't argue that Kerry is making a lot out of his service record, but hey, the war in Iraq is the defining issue of our time. Those of us who believe we had no business going into this "war of choice" feel that a man who has seen combat would better understand that you only go to war when you absolutely have to. We did not have to go to war in Iraq. Many of us knew that at the time, but the whole world knows it now, despite Bush's pathetic repetition of his talking points that the world is a better place without Saddam. Nothing in the world has changed without Saddam. We are still under threat from terrorists (because that had nothing to do with Iraq--duh). And America is definitely not better off now than we were before this war. Billions of dollars in debt, thousands of our young men and women killed or maimed, the threat of a draft hanging over our heads, loss of respect from our allies and the rest of the world. Al Gore would never have taken us into Iraq, and John Kerry won't be taking us into any other unnecessary wars. We can't say that about Bush. So it's time to show him the door, and it's time for him and his supporters to stop trashing the record of a man who served in Vietnam.

I saw the ad in question this morning. It's revolting. CNN had one of the guys from the ad on the show, along with someone who'd actually served with Kerry in Vietnam. In the ad, all the men shown say, "I served with John Kerry in Vietnam." Well, the truth is, and even they admit it, they did NOT serve with Kerry in Vietnam. They were IN Vietnam, but they didn't serve with Kerry. You want to talk about a lie? Why shouldn't Kerry (and his supporters) get upset that they are outright LYING in the ad? LYING!There isn't a grain of truth in the whole thing, and they even admit it when forced to. They're pissed off because of Kerry's testimony to Congress when he came back. Then deal with that issue! Don't start lying about what Kerry did while he was in Vietnam. Lies, lies, and more lies. They will lie, cheat, and steal (an election), and they want our respect? I don't THINK so!

The sad thing is people will believe them. People believe what they want to believe.

Absolutely people will believe them. If I didn't know better, I'd believe them, too!

The ad is very convincing. I mean, if you hear people saying, "I served with John Kerry in Vietnam," you believe them. And then when you hear them say he's lying about his service record, you would believe that, too. Of course, the ad is being aired in the states where there are still a lot of swing voters. This could be really damaging, and they know it. And Bush has shown his true colors by not condemning the ad the way McCain has. He's about as smarmy as they come. No moral character whatsoever. And yet he's the big born-again Christian with the so-called moral clarity. Please. He's a child when it comes to moral development. Literally.

Does anyone here know anything about the theory of moral development? Look up Piaget or Lawrence Kohlberg (Harvard) if you want to learn more about it. My husband and I did a lot of graduate work in this area. There are 6 stages of moral development. It's a hierarchy, not a judgmental thing. Everyone goes through these stages as they grow. I won't go through the whole theory or all the stages, but here's a rough summary: People begin as young children in the lower stages of the hierarchy where there is no true moral thinking yet. Everything they do is based on what feels good, what will help them survive, etc. Like I said, there's no judgment involved here. Young children need to survive, and that's how they respond to their environment. In the middle stages, people act to avoid pain and punishment from authority, whether it's from the police, a parent, or the church. A little later on, they enter the social contract phase, where they do things because they recognize it's what's good for the larger community (obeying laws not because you'll be put in jail if you don't, but because you know society depends on its laws to exist and because you know that you wouldn't want a crime committed against you). And the final stage, which Kohlberg argues few people ever attain (examples of those who did? Christ, Martin Luther King, Jr.). The hallmark of this stage is being able to make a decision based on reversibility of the role--in other words, everyone in a group would arrive at the same decision regardless of what role they would play in the outcome. It's more complicated than that, and I'll explain it better in another post if anyone's interested. Anyway, this is all by way of saying that Bush's behavior shows him to be stuck in a child's level of moral development. If you compare him to Kerry, they're miles apart on that yardstick.

Men that weren't even on his boat.

How can they talk?