Swift Liars

"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," an organization allegedly formed to rebut Senator John Kerry's war record, have launched a television ad campaign to make wingnuts everywhere very very proud. In fact, I am proud of them, for taking that courageous step from ordinary negative political advertising to outright slander.

This organization claims to represent a large, unspecified number of Vietnam vets who dispute the circumstances under which Kerry earned his purple hearts and silver star. Some have signed affadavits to that effect. Not one of them ever served on a boat with Kerry, but claim to have better information about Kerry's actions and injuries than his own crew or the United States Navy. This was the group that demanded Kerry release all of his service and wartime medical records, which he did.

Nothing contained in those records in any way contradicted Kerry's public descriptions of his service.

Stranger still, George Elliott, featured prominently in the ad, filed a 1969 report praising Kerry for keeping cool under fire. He also publicly supported his Senate campaign in 1996. He recently recanted his comments about Kerry's service as seen in the advertisement, saying that signing the affadavit was "a mistake." Later still, in this ever unfolding drama, members of his family were quoted as saying that George "stood by the ad."

We shall see.

The ad itself is basically a slick piece of character assassination, of the type employed by the Shrubites on the 2000 primary campaigns against Senator McCain, also a Vietnam vet. McCain has criticized the use of such ads, no doubt stung still by 2000, and the assault on a fellow military man's service record.

The "swift boat vets" organization is heavily funded by a few big Republican donors with strong ties to the current governor of Texas, a Shrub family friend. As the wisdom goes, "follow the money," and in this case, you don't have to travel very far at all.

Joe Conason wrote several articles on the swift liars.

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If you are like me, and enjoy a good ruberneck, no matter how gruesome, I'v eposted the video here. I'll keep it up as long as my ISP will allow.

Swift Boat Ad