Not surprisingly, the Kerry campaign has decided to flip-flop on its “condemnation” of the recent Moveon.org anti-Bush ad aimed (yawn) at George Bush’s Air National Guard record. From CNS:
The Bush campaign has suggested that Sen. John Kerry join President Bush in calling off the dogs—those “shadowy” 527 groups that run ads for and against Bush and Kerry.
The liberal group MoveOn.org and the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are both 527s, named after a section of the tax code.
But on Friday, a spokeswoman for the Kerry campaign backed away from the suggestion. She said what MoveOn.org is doing is perfectly fine, while what the Swift Boat Veterans are doing is “dishonest” and “dishonorable.”
Debra Deshong of the Kerry campaign told Fox News there’s a difference between MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: “MoveOn.org is an independent organization that existed well before the Kerry campaign,” she said, whereas Swift Boat Veterans for Truth “is not an independent group.”
Deshong invoked Friday’s New York Times article as proof: “And in today’s New York Times, it details exactly all the ties this group (Swift Boat Veterans for Truth) has to the Bush White House.”
Deshong condemned Bush for not telling Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to stop running their ad. (Swift Boats say it wouldn’t matter what Bush said—see related story)
“Again, we (the Kerry campaign) have nothing to do with these independent ads, like MoveOn.org. That is an independent organization that existed well before the Kerry campaign. They have every right to be running what they are under the campaign finance laws.” According to Deshong, “This is about the Swift Boat Vets that are running dishonorable ads that Bush refuses to condemn” (my emphasis)
Again, for those of you keeping score at home: John Kerry initially condemned the Moveon.org ad that maliciously floats disproven charges concerning George Bush’s Air National Guard service—only to have his campaign set up a press conference hours later so that Wes Clark and others could essentially repeat and reinforce the very claims Kerry was supposedly condemning. But now Kerry is taking his nuanced condemnation one step further: he’s no longer condemning the ad at all.
Instead, amid a thunderingly theatrical (and wholly unconvincing) “Bring it on!” war cry directed at the Bushies yesterday, Kerry in effect accused the President and his staff of violating campaign finance law, suggesting that the Administration is using the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as a “front group” to do the campaign’s “dirty work”—in clear violation of McCain-Feingold.
So. Is it too much to ask that Kerry be forced to prove these charges? Or would that be, y’know, questioning his patriotism?
Interestingly, John O’Neill, author of Unfit for Command, has been making the charge that John Kerry lied about his war record since at least 1971. Clever of the Bushies to start fronting the attacks on Kerry in 1971, don’t you think? Shows the kind of remarkable prescience one looks for in a Commander in Chief…
…And yet roughly half of all eligible voters continue to support John Kerry—a man whose character, should it get wet, wouldn’t support the weight of a bologna sandwich, an apple, and a dessert fruit roll up—for the most important job on earth.
Go figure.
Interestingly, John O’Neill, author of Unfit for Command, has been making the charge that John Kerry lied about his war record since at least 1971.
That’s a key piece you won’t hear discussed on any of the cable shout-shows. Not that you hear much “discussion” anyways, what with Chris Matthews and James Carville shouting down the inconvenient charges and evidence from first-hand witnesses.
O’Neill’s been dogging Kerry since his early days as a neo-hippy war protestor/criminal with a Kennedy accent.
And in the fact that this group made its debut in MAY of this year (to thundering silence from the mass media, in marked contrast to the kerfuffle over Bush’s ANG “AWOL” non-story) and you’ve got Exhibit friggin’ “A” in the iron-clad case against liberal media bias.
The second sentence says all you need to know about the content and context of the article. Moveon.org is a liberal group, while the Swiftvets are an anti-Kerry group. End of story.
And with the Kerry spokesperson invoking the NYTimes, it looks like the Kerry campaign is coordinating with big media, perhaps someone should look into that. It was bad enough that the media was already in the tank for Kerry, now they’re actively working together!
Why isn’t anyone talking about Kerry’s wife’s supporting move-on and A.N.S.W.E.R.and other leftwing groups to the tune of tens of millions though her foundation.
This can’t really be tolerated.