8.20.2004

Despite President's Denials, Anti-Kerry Ad Has Direct Ties Back to His Team

Believe it or not, I'm genuinely disappointed to learn that it appears that the whole "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" (there's a name considering the Swiss cheese nature of their claims) anti-Kerry campaign goes right back to the White House.

From The Times today:

A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove.

Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.

The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the "baby killer" and the fabricator of the events that resulted in his war medals. But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements.

Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.

In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."

In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."
The really terrible folks behind the book from this group, the lashing out at a man who actually bothered to serve when Mr. Bush (and Mr. Cheney) were too privileged to do so, all of this, I thought, had the possibility that the president - while benefiting from it - had no real connection to it. Politics is replete with this kind of stuff, even if this is more vile than usual.

After all, to attack a veteran for actually serving at a time when so many men and women are in dangerous combat in a scenario that seems not so unlike Vietnam is really beyond the pale. For that reason, especially, I am geniunely very sad to learn that the Bush people are arm-in-arm with this nonsense.

And yes, this is different from the MoveOn ad I talked about yesterday and the Democrats. While MoveOn clearly does not want Mr. Bush reinstalled in the WH, the only real edge to their ad is that Mr. Bush just left his military obligation. And he did. He was missing for a good part of his service, at a time when other men who disappeared were then shipped into combat, and then he just stopped going altogether. It's not like the Viet Cong were leading bombing raids on downtown Houston.

Put as much lipstick on the pig of that fact as you want and it's still, indeed, a pig. And it matters more the more Mr. Bush's henchmen denounce Mr. Kerry's service in combat. By accounts of Mr. Bush's "break" from military service supposedly to work on a GOP campaign, other workers on the campaign said Mr. Bush just shook hands a lot and bragged about his incredible capacity to drink himself stupid. Sure sounds like a better gig than most men his age were getting in and out of Saigon.