NEW YORK — Winston Churchill often repeated Stalin’s
observation that “in wartime truth is so precious that she should
always be attended to by a bodyguard of lies.” And now that the
Democratic National Convention has ended with Kerry’s acceptance
speech concentrating on his four-month service in the Vietnam War
35 years ago, rather than his service during the past 35 years, it
appears particularly appropriate.
One of the pesky IRS Code 527 organizations that now buzz
through the campaign atmosphere like insatiable horseflies in the
aftermath of McCain-Finegold reforms has had the presumption to
raise some serious questions about the truth of John Kerry’s
Vietnam wartime service.
Called “Swift Boat Veterans For Truth,” the group has a website, airs TV ads
running in key “battleground” states, and has published a book. The
conniving and self-promoting lies of the John Kerry it portrays
make Sammy Glick look like a rank amateur.
If the incidents it details are true, Kerry was a coward who
fled in battle having unintentionally thrown his current supporter,
Jim Rassmann, overboard in his panic. Kerry tried to get his first
Purple Heart on the basis of a tiny self-inflicted wound from his
own grenade. His supporter, Max Cleland, accidentally blew both his
legs off and one hand off with one of his own grenades, but never
asked for a Purple Heart because, just as in John Kerry’s case,
there was no enemy action at the time. Kerry went behind the back
of the commander who refused his medal request and the doctor who
had treated him, and got one anyway.
Swiftvet officers watched this kind of behavior for four months
into Kerry’s 12 month “tour of duty.” Then three of them told him
pointedly that he’d better use the three Purple Heart escape clause
and return to the States fast. Kerry left the next morning. And
those are just a few of charges the Swiftvets are making. It
certainly is a very different picture of the war hero than his
campaign has been painting of their JFK: John Forbes Kerry — but
this time as John “Flashman” Kerry.
“CONSIDER THE SOURCE” INVITED Kerry campaign spokesman Luis
Vizcaino. And last week Marc Elias, General Counsel for
Kerry-Edwards 2000, and Joseph Sandler, General Counsel for the
Democratic National Committee sent a hurried and semi-hysterical
letter warning television stations not to run Swift Boat Vets ads
setting out their definition of “the source” It is well worth
reading as a reductio of Kerry campaign logic.
“The group is a sham organization,” it points out. Yet the Swift
Boat Veterans had been organized months earlier with the IRS and
Federal Election Commission, just like MoveOn.org and dozens of
other 527s, and was no more “sham” than they were. As a matter of
fact they had elected to remain unincorporated under the regulation
and take the risk of being perhaps the only 527 in which its
members were willing to accept personal liability for their
actions, unlike MoveOn which had compared Bush to Hitler. The
Swiftvets are either very brave or very dumb.
“The advertisement contains statements by men who purport to
have served on Senator Kerry’s SWIFT Boat in Vietnam… they
pretend to have served with Senator Kerry… .” Actually
nothing in the ad calls any of the men it cites as being Kerry’s
crew members. And there can be no doubt they “served with Senator
Kerry” in the same Coastal Group 11 at the same time. Worse still,
16 out of the 23 surviving officers and commanders who served with
Kerry at the base now claim he is unfit for command, much less to
become commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces. And the
Swiftvets claim to have a total of 254 members who served from
Seaman to Admiral in Kerry’s Coastal Squadron 1, including several
of Kerry’s commanding officers and some sailors who had been on
Kerry’s boat.
“Fake ‘witnesses’ speaking on behalf of a phony
organization…”? Swiftboat service was not a lone wolf
operation. Kerry’s boat ran in tandem with other Swiftboats who
were anywhere from 10 to a couple of dozen yards away, rather like
World War II aircraft using formations to protect one another in
combat. So the crews and commanders of other boats during Kerry’s
operations were witnesses all right. They kept a keen eye on
anything another boat was doing, right or wrong-particularly since
the mistakes of another boat could threaten their own survival. And
boat commanders like Kerry, rather than enlisted crew members of
his or any other crew, were more likely to have the best
understanding of how the mission was being performed by another
commander.
“The entire advertisement, therefore, is an inflammatory,
outrageous lie”… and should stations run it
anyway…”your station is responsible for the false and
libelous charges made by this sponsor.” Remarkable. On the face of
the simple facts recited above, Elias and Sandler may have written
the first legal letter in campaign history that actually commits
the violations it charges its target with… making “false and
libelous charges.” It also raises a clear question of tortious
interference with existing and proposed contracts between Swiftvets
and the stations they had lined up to run the ads.
THEN THERE ARE THE “chilling effect” First Amendment violations of
Swiftvets’ perfectly ordinary 527 conduct in using its donors’
funds to make its point of view heard without supporting a
particular candidate. Ironically the real question is, who do Elias
and Sandler represent? Who retained them? From their signatures as
General Counsel it appears that both are working on behalf of and
being paid by the taxpayer-funded Kerry campaign
But to do what? To threaten television stations that they may be
sued for libel, purely on the basis of Kerry campaign assertions of
false statements by individuals who are likely lack actual malice
and were certainly in a position to have relevant opinions, if
fallible memories, of events that happened 35 years ago? This is
long before Kerry had any professional association with the
Democratic Party. Let’s assume Elias and Sandler are absolutely
correct in their assertions and there is no statute of limitations
on this kind of outrageous libel (there is, and it has passed).
Isn’t this Kerry’s personal case to prosecute, not the Democratic
Party’s?
What if, for example, the Democrats had decided to run
commercials based on what they felt was valid information attacking
Richard Nixon for getting rich by cheating his shipmates at poker
on those boring supply runs in the South Pacific during his naval
service 25 years earlier and perhaps running a black market
operation on the side out of naval stores at various ports? Should
the Republican Party have used donor money to prosecute a case that
has nothing to do with Nixon’s political service?
Whatever the truth of the Swiftvets charges, they are a credible
organization and their members were certainly in a position to have
informed opinions. And in their unincorporated 527 status they are
easy to sue and they are now on the record. So where are all the
lawsuits against them for libel? Imagine the awards John Edwards’
trial lawyer buddies can get out of an operation which, according
to Al Hunt — in one of his most embarrassingly often wrong but
never in doubt rants, is “significantly funded and directed by
Texas fatcats and political operatives.”
In the New Republic yesterday, a naif named Kenneth
Baer begs the Democratic Party to commence a major lawsuit against
the Swiftvets for libel, lèse majesté,
whatever. And given the sloppy work Elias and Sandler have done so
far, that would be the answer to the Swiftvets’ prayers.
Wait till those expedited depositions start to leak — forget the
trial. Baer was a speechwriter for Al Gore. He runs “a Democratic
consulting firm.” The GOP should be so lucky as to have him gain
influence.
In the meantime, Dick Morris, John McCain, Bill O’Reilly and
others should stop twittering about how rude and crass and
dishonorable and counterproductive it is to even explore such nasty
possibilities in public and take a look at the charges and
supporting documentation brought forth by the Swiftvets. Does it
matter whether they are funded by Richard Mellon Scaife, George
Soros, or The Tooth Fairy? What does matter in a close presidential
election is if there is significant evidence that some or all of
the Vietnam service Kerry has elected to make the center of his
campaign to move from “war hero” to “war president” is a tissue of
lies.
And it is time for the press to look into the charges brought by
the Swiftvets. The Swiftvets have depositions, phone numbers, on
the record statements, and for all of the innuendo from the Kerry
apparatchiks, not one of the Swiftvets has enjoyed a fancy hotel
room paid for by the Bush campaign, much less gone on a campaign
tour with the candidate. It is easy to see what the nine Kerry crew
members are getting out of their 15 minutes of fame. But what’s in
it for the 254 Swiftvets? It is important to answer that question
in considering their charges.
