<font color=brown> I told you this dog wouldn't hunt; the more these ads run, the more they will hurt Bush! The Bush campaign is just beginning to figure that one out! <font color=black>
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Sinking the Swift Boat Veterans
Though he couldn't bring himself to come right out and condemn the ad campaign by a Republican-funded veterans' group smearing Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, President Bush did urge yesterday that the ads be stopped along with all attacks ads financed by allegedly independent groups. We don't expect that the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth will pull their ads, but with holes being shot daily in their boats, the veterans' campaign may soon be taking on water.
At issue are the events of a day 35 years ago when a swift boat commanded by John F. Kerry in Vietnam came under attack along with several other U.S. swift boats. A group of swift boat veterans have launched a campaign asserting that Mr. Kerry did not deserve the battlefield awards he won that day, but their funding sources, along with the testimony about Mr. Kerry's heroism offered by those who were actually on the boat that day, undermines their credibility. And their credibility grows weaker by the day.
William Rood, the Naval officer who commanded a swift boat alongside Mr. Kerry that day, has broken his 35-year silence about the event to condemn the Swift Boat Veterans campaign as "untrue." Mr. Rood's account dovetails with Mr. Kerry's shipmates that Mr. Kerry ordered three swift boats to turn into an ambush and go on the attack themselves, defeating their Viet Cong enemies. In essence, Mr. Kerry behaved heroically, as American soldiers do every day in Iraq, but instead of earning the praise accorded our soldiers he is being smeared by an embittered collection of GOP-funded veterans.
The New York Times last week revealed that the Swift Boat Veterans are financed by an array of Bush supporters and appointees. They are able to fund the ads through a campaign-finance loophole allowing so-called 527 groups to raise unlimited donations and run advertisements as long as they are not technically coordinated with the campaign. Any loophole that allows the Swift Boat Veterans to ooze their way through needs closing.
The Times also shot holes in the claims of the Swift Boat group. George Elliott, who says in an ad that Kerry was "not honest" about what happened in Vietnam, said at a Kerry news conference when the Democrat was running for Senate in Massachusetts in 1996 that the senator engaged in "an act of courage" in winning his medals. Adrian J. Lonsdale, who claims Mr. Kerry "lacks the capacity to lead," said at another 1996 press conference that Mr. Kerry "was among the finest of those swift boat drivers." Roy F. Hoffman, who also accuses the senator of dishonesty, told The Boston Globe last year that "it took guts, and I admire that" when Mr. Kerry won the Silver Star that fateful day. Dr. Louis Letson says Mr. Kerry lied about his first Purple Heart because he treated him for the injury, but Dr. Letson's name does not appear on any of Mr. Kerry's medical records. And so on, and so on.
There is no doubt that this smear campaign has done harm. The question is whether it has done more harm to Senator Kerry or to a president who could not bring himself to forcefully condemn the smearing of a war hero.
berkshireeagle.com |
