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Skriven 2004-08-09 02:50:42 av RICHARD JOHNSON (1:10/345)
Ärende: Swift Boat Liars
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From Capitol Hill Blue

CHB Investigates. . .
Anti-Kerry Vets Led by Longtime GOP Operative, Bankrolled by Bush Cronies
By WILLIAM D. McTAVISH
Capitol Hill Blue Staff Writer
Aug 9, 2004, 00:00

Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, the so-called ÿindependentö group of Navy
Vietnam vets who have launched attacks against Democratic Presidential
Contender John F. Kerry, is led by a longtime Republican operatives and
financed by GOP contributors with strong tries to President George W. Bush.

The Republican roots of the group stretch back to former Republican President
Richard M. Nixon when one of the group’s leaders, former Swift Boat commander
John O’Neill, was recruited by White House chief counsel Charles Colson to
debate Kerry on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971.

"We found a vet named John O'Neill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans
for a Just Peace. We had O'Neill meet the President, and we did everything we
could do to boost his group," Colson told reporter Joe Klein in a January 5
interview published in The New Yorker magazine.

O’Neill did not serve with Kerry in Vietnam and did not know him but Nixon was
anxious to find a veteran, any veteran, to debate veteran and antiwar activist
Kerry. The plan failed. The eloquent Kerry wiped the floor with O’Neill and
those closest to the Republican O’Neill say he never forgave Kerry for
embarrassing him on national TV.

O’Neill went on to clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, a Nixon
appointee, and became a lawyer in Houston where he was active in Republican
politics. In 1991, Texas Lawyer magazine reported O’Neill was on the short list
for appointment to a federal judgeship in Texas by Bush’s father, former
President George H.W. Bush. He didn’t get the appointment.

O’Neill is still working for the Republican Party as lead author of Unfit for
Command: Swift Boat for Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, scheduled for
release next week by right-wing publishing house Regnery. The group also bought
$500,000 of airtime for a 60-second attack ad against Kerry to air in the
battleground states of Wisconsin, Ohio and West Virginia.

Republicans gleefully claim Unfit for Command, is their Fahrenheit 9/11 in
reference to the Michael Moore documentary that has earned more than $100
million and raises questions about Bush’s fitness for office.

It is a dubious comparison at best and ironic since Republicans also claim
ÿFahrenheitö is a work of fiction and those who have studied Kerry’s record in
Vietnam say the same of Unfit for Command.

ÿThese are malicious fabrications in the heat of the election,ö says historian
Douglas Brinkley, author of highly-acclaimed Tour of Duty, who has investigated
Kerry’s service record extensively and says the claims in Unfit for Command are
nothing more than the grumbling of ÿmalcontents who have never forgiven Kerry
for his actions in speaking out against the war.ö

Brinkley points out that O’Neill’s primary source for Unfit for Command,
Retired Admiral Roy Hoffman, has changed his claims against Kerry and has told
conflicting stories.

ÿThey seek retribution by fabricating stories to destroy Kerry,ö Brinkley says.
ÿHoffman, in particular lacks credibility.ö

On May 6, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Steve Schultze, interviewed
Hoffman and wrote ÿHoffmann acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to
discredit Kerry's claims to valor and said that although Kerry was under his
command, he really didn't know Kerry much personally.ö

On August 5, however, Hoffman told Sean Hannity on his ABC radio show that "I
knew him (Kerry) well, because I operated very closely with him and, uh, many
of the operations, uh, most of the operations were-were conducted with multiple
boats."

Another prominent figure in the anti-Kerry book as well as the ad denouncing
Kerry, retired Lt. Commander George Elliott, recanted his statement this week
in interviews with at least two news sources and then recounted his recant.
Elliott also supported Kerry in his 1996 campaign and told a Boston audience
that he felt the Senator "deserved the medals he won in Vietnam."

O’Neill further destroyed his credibility by appearing on CNN after assuring
the network he had not spoke out publicly about Kerry this year. CNN later had
to retract their claim of an ÿexclusiveö interview after they learned O’Neill
appeared on C-Span to discuss Kerry in March.

According to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s IRS and FEC filings, the group is
bankrolled by two Bush friends: Texas GOP backer Bob J. Perry, who has donated
more than $100,000 and Crow Holdings, a Dallas development company run by
Harlan Crow, a trustee for the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. Crow
provided the bulk of the remaining budget for the group's operations, including
the anti-Kerry television ads -- more than $400,000. 

Perry, a Houston homebuilder, is a major financial backer of both Bush and
Texas Congressman Tom DeLay.  In the 1999-2000 election cycle, according to
Federal Election Commission records, Perry gave more than $260,000 to
Republican candidates and party committees. FEC filings show Crow gave more
than $300,000 to GOP causes in the same cycle.

St. Louis businessman William Franke, a Missouri Republican with close ties to
Attorney General John Ashcroft, is paying for the group’s web site, according
to the IRS filings. Robert A. Hahn, the web site designer is a director for The
Free Republic Network, a conservative Republican activist organization, as is
webmaster Scott Swett.

ÿ Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue

 
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