Misleading statements in their ad, misleading statements in the letter. Tit for tat for Tet.
Sam, I used to work in law, and the letter is pretty par for the course. What used to be making a compelling case is really just threatening to throw the biggest, scariest, piece of poop you can and hope the other side backs down. Just google “cease and desist” for some fine examples of lawyerly feces flinging. It’s hardly the sole domain of the DNC attack dogs.
I can believe that. But coming from a political campaign, it’s dangerous. If Kerry is perceived as trying to intimidate critics, it could be a problem. And two wrongs don’t make a right. Again, if the Bush administration had tried this on Michael Moore, we’d still be hearing squealing about the crushing of dissent.
I dunno, I waited 6 months for the swift boat vets to bubble up to the surface. Since it represents the official start of Mud-fest 2004 I expected it in mid-September.
Theresa Heinze is a 2 part story, one of which she has not written yet. Can’t discuss it yet because mama always told me not to talk ill of folks (and I have always enjoyed the wait).
Sam, I’m behind you a thousand percent! I think MoveOn.org should sponsor the ad to run everywhere! With all the facts out there, who’s talking, what their actual relationship to Kerry was/is. An annotated version, as it were.
America should see the ad. It is a classic, it is the acme of insinuation. I want a PBS special on the ad, bringing out every detail. Like that guy who claims there was no action on the day Kerry earned his bronze star. The same guy who accepted a bronze star for his part in the non-existent action.
I want profiles of the men who made this ad, who they worked for, what they’ve accomplished in their professional lives.
Kerry shouldn’t try to squelch this ad. Kerry should flaunt this ad. Maybe there’s some way to work in that quote from McCain, about how its exactly what they did to him.
[Cartman] Sweeeeeeet![/Cartman]
OK, that made me laugh out loud. Liberals have a sense of humor.
Hey I heard the Swift Boat guys got their clock cleaned by net dogs. Do you think this is a precursor to the expected disruption of the Republican convention that has been alleged by talk radio?
So who’s bankrolling the ads?
Texan Bankrolls Anti-Kerry Vets Group
I hope they’ve gotten another $350,000 from somewhere, so the checks don’t bounce. 
But on to Bob J. Perry: The Council for National Policy (Motto Seek God… Trust God… Love God…) website has this short biography of Perry:
What’s the CNP? In addition to such luminaries as Oliver North, and Anita Bryant, “Many Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Catholic, Mormon and other ecumenically-minded leaders are members of the Council for National Policy,the 500+ member organization which plans the strategyof the Religious Right in the United States.” ibid
How big a republican is Bob Perry? Pretty big:
GOP Group Discloses Fundraising Sources
Does dirt stick to Bob Perry? Not yet, but it’s trying pretty hard:
Did Bob Perry use and influential lobbying firm to circumvent judicial campaign caps?
**Is Bob Perry a close personal friend of president Bush? **Well, whitehouse.gov doesn’t list him as having stayed overnight in the Lincoln bedroom. Maybe Mr. Bush and Mr. Perry have never even met. Texas is a BIG state :dubious:
Rush does better most everyday.
Rush is a true master of language.
Rumsfled sounds like a tongue tied teenager compare to Mr. Limbaugh.
These guys are good. I’ll give you that. But the acme? Pert near.
Oh, give me a break. That’s the best you can do for a conspiracy? Let’s see… A big rich Texan turns out to be a Republican? Who’d a thunk it? And he decides to slide some money to a bunch of guys who are going to stick it to Kerry. From this, you deduce that he’s a shill for the Bush campaign.
And why do these funding cpnspiracies only crop up when it’s a Democrat being attacked? When Republicans get attacked by someone, I don’t see a lot of handwringing over whether there are shadowy Liberals pulling the strings behind the scenes.
After Ken Lay donated that money, didn’t he and George Bush almost never met?
No, Ken Lay was a supporter of Anne Richardson. They almost didn’t meet, but not quite.
Well, now, speaking of brandishing lawyers at one’s opponent:
Why Sam, I suggested no conspiracy. I made no deduction that Perry is a shill for Bush. I satisfied my curosity as to who the guy was. I’ll bet quite a few people were wondering who was behind the ad. Didn’t you want to know? Why are you trying to put words in my mouth that I didn’t say?
The administration’s denial of Kenneth Lay was a work of ART, Simonx 
They didn’t? Then why do all the pundits I’ve read who support/believe the ad say that they were?
Or am I somehow misinterpreting them? They may have said that all these men “served with” Kerry, which I guess is different from being shipmates with him. Or perhaps I’m mixing them up with the man who wrote the book on the same subject, or conflating this with the claim that only one of Kerry’s former shipmates actually supports him for President. Hrm.
Hey, you’ve got to allow a little leeway for hyperbole. Ike and I served together in the ETO. And while I’m on the subject, he made a couple of real blunders.
Well, I had my doubts. But then I found how who was publishing their upcoming bestseller, they were dispeled. Yes, its Regnery House! That font of political wisdom, home ground of such luminaries as R. Emmet Tyrell, Anne Coulter, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy…oh! the list of luminaries too numerous to mention!
I trust this will silence all this scurrilous talk about partisan motivations!
These guys were Swiftboat skippers of Kerry’s, and all of his superior officers. They didn’t serve on the same ship, but they worked together. Swift boats often travelled in groups. The men trained together, went out together, fought together, and debriefed together. They were fully comrades of Kerry’s. They just weren’t assigned to the same boat. But they all knew him well.
I finally received the first chapter of the book, and there are more detailed descriptions of the Purple Heart citations and Kerry’s supposed adventure into Cambodia. They cite a lot of on-the-record eyewitness accounts.
I’m conflicted over this, because on the one hand the charges are lurid and one wonders why they weren’t brought out 30 years ago when Kerry was testifying in front of Congress.
But on the other hand, there are a LOT of people involved in this, including Kerry’s entire chain of command. Some of them are Democrats. I do not believe the Republicans have ‘bought off’ these guys. I think this is what they see:
Kerry comes into their unit, hogs a little glory, gets a few medals that are considered to be undeserved, and then goes home early. Once home, he starts accusing these men of war crimes. If he was claiming that he was ordered to partake of atrocities and illegally ordered into Cambodia, and those things didn’t happen, that would explain why his entire chain of command is against him. Then he disowns them, throws his medals away. These guys are furious.
Then, a couple of decades later, Kerry re-emerges, but now the political wind has shifted so suddenly he’s a war hero, supremely proud of his performance and mentioning his service every chance he can get. These guys are livid.
It’s in this type of heated atmosphere in which claims start to go a little over the top, and people start remembering things as being worse than they are. Kerry may even be the subject of a reinforced myth among them. They’ve told increasingly lurid stories about Kerry since they started hating him over the Vietnam hearings that they’ve come to really remember some of those things that way.
Or maybe these guys are telling the truth. For you newly-minted lovers of all things military, do these guys’ mountain of medals at least get them a hearing? 250 sailors willing to put their reputations on the line, knowing they were going to be subject of all kinds of smears?
I don’t think this is about partisanship at all. I think this is about a whole bunch of guys who have a blind hatred for John Kerry. He could be a Republican and they’d be going after him just as hard. After all, there are more than a few Democrats in that group.
Out of curiousity Sam, could you say how many of them are identified as Democrats and how is this fact presented in the book?
On an unrelated note, one Larry Thurlow is quoted here, for example, to the effect that there was no combat in the incident following which Kerry got the Bronze Star. In the Pit thread, elucidator quoted this site which says that Thurlow got a Bronze Star following that same incident.
I couldn’t find any other sites supporting this, and if it’s true, it was just quite literally unbelievably stupid on Thurlow’s part to say what he said, so I’m not quite sure what to believe. So, what’s the deal with that? Is there any way to find out for sure if he did or didn’t get the Bronze Star then?
In my experience, people who allow themselves to be blinded by hatred tend to be more on the partisan side, than cool rational thinkers.
Such fiery folk, with their cries of “Nuke Hanoi!” or “Obliterate Baghdad!,” make poor leaders, military or otherwise, and you have to take anything they say, including their trashing of John Kerry, with a planet sized grain of salt.
Someone in the Swiftboat Vets for Truth has overcome their blindness to the extent where they can see that spitting on someone’s silver star might not be such a good idea:
Upon further review
re: Cease and desist
The cease and desist letter from the DNC consists of the usual saber rattling of any C&D letter, with and interesting twist. The ad does list Lous Letson as a “Medical Officer - Lietenant Commander”. Letson states
It’s kinda interesting. I think that is a pretty major sticking point that the swift vets are going to have a tough time with. They’ll have to come up with some paperwork to prove that Letson did in fact treat Kerry. And that would be a medical record. And we all know the status of the Kerry medical records. The swift vets can’t prove that Letson treated Kerry, because that would require a Kerry medical record, and Kerry hasn’t released those. So the lawyers are in the enviable position of forcing the SVs to put up or shut up, when they know that the SVs can’t legally put anything up.
Now since the DNC lawyers haven’t, at least from what I’ve heard, sued the bejeebus out of the SVs for libel or slander by releasing the add on the net, there may be some meat to the claims. I’d like to see what the SVs have for records to back up the claims. That claim goes beyond the opinions stated positions of the rest of the ad.
As it stands, if I were a local television network lawyer (I am not), I’d certainly want to see this shake out a little before I gave the go ahead. If the Doctor’s claims can’t be backed up, it’s libel, and if I run the ad after being warned of the libel, i’m in hot water.