Swift Vet City

Friday, August 20, 2004
Swift Vet City
by John K. Addis on Defeat JohnJohn.com

First the Kerry campaign tried to badger and bribe television networks not to air anti-Kerry ads, then tried to stop news organizations from even talking about the organization. Now, Kerry is trying to get booksellers to refuse to carry the Swift Vets book, and if that doesn't work, stop the publisher from even being allowed to print it. Just like all the lawsuits and illegal activity the Kerry camp has engaged in to deny voters even the option of voting for Ralph Nader, so too are they committed to making sure we can't have access to any information that could possibly be negative against this particular Democratic candidate. Make no mistake -- Kerry is an enemy of free speech, free expression, and choice, and if you think Bush is sometimes good at controlling the media, Kerry's going to be far, far, far, far, far worse. We cannot elect a man who at every step shows he's an opponent of Democracy.

I think Bush has handled himself very well in this situation. When moveon.org and Michael Moore are intensely anti-Bush, even making up facts and figures or comparing the President to Hitler, Kerry said nothing, and even encouraged it. Now that he's the "victim" of an organization critical to his campaign, all of a sudden he's begging Bush for help, to condemn the ads. I'm sorry, but how many outrageous uncorroborated Bush-hating ads or articles or movies did Kerry condemn? What was that? None? Right. So Bush took the high road (of sorts), and did condemn the ads, but not specifically -- he asked Kerry to join him in supporting a ban on all 527s (the name for the type of unregulated soft money political organizations like moveon and swiftvets). Kerry, of course, can't -- he needs the anti-Bush extremist ads running if he has a prayer of winning. So he's left with the ridiculous position of saying anti-Kerry ads should be illegal and anti-Bush ads should be legal. He, he.

I don't feel any sympathy for Kerry over the Swift Vets thing, even if the claims were exaggerated. He brought this on himself. He has decided to run a campaign solely on the fact that thirty years ago he was in Vietnam for four months, ignoring his entire 20 years in the Senate. He ran ads featuring photos of Kerry with the people who didn't support him, the same people you now see in the Swift Vets ads. And, more importantly, as the new ad shows, he's far more famous for saying all soldiers, including himself, committed atrocities and rapes and beheadings and murders for fun, which regardless of the accuracy of any of all of the claims, makes his "elect me because I'm a Vietnam vet" all the more disgusting.

One other quick note that the Kerry camp and mainstream media keep pounding into the ground -- yes, the Swift Vets get a lot of funding from millionaire Republicans. But, well, duh. Who do you think is going to give them money, millionaire Democrats? Is everything moveon.org does by definition 100% wrong and lies simply because it's 100% funded by rich liberals? Funding naturally comes from those who have things to gain, not to lose. The Swift Vets didn't start with Republican funding. It was and is a non-partisan organization made up by Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who felt the last straw had been broken when Kerry, who they all despised, used pictures of them for his political ads. Naturally, to defend their positions they needed money, and asked for it. Naturally, opponents of Kerry were the first to donate. It doesn't mean everything they say is tainted just because of where the money comes from -- their message has stayed the same since Day 1, and would be unchanged if all the money happened to have come in from liberal millionaires instead.