Contrary to the "conventional wisdom," the LNS does
not believe the Kerry-Edwards campaign was "too slow"
in responding to this Bush abomination character
assassination squad...No, the LNS thinks that this
disgusting episode is going to play out differently
than the hit on McCain in South Carolina...The LNS
thinks that Kerry-Edwards, as usual, exhibited
discipline and an extraordinary sense of timing...The
LNS thinks that Kerry-Edwards waited just long enough
for it to come to saturation and a runnning boil on
the air waves, then they struck back...forcefully...
decisively...Remember, Sen. John F. Kerry is not only
a warrior, a prosecutor and a statesman...JFK is a
hunter...
CNN: A volunteer adviser has quit President Bush's
re-election campaign after appearing in a veterans
group's television commercial blasting Democratic
presidential nominee John Kerry's involvement in the
Vietnam-era antiwar movement.
A Bush campaign statement said it did not know that
retired Air Force Col. Ken Cordier had appeared in an
ad by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The Kerry
campaign has accused the group of illegally working
with the Bush campaign.
As a so-called 527 group, Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth is barred from coordinating efforts with an
election campaign.
Kerry's camp calls it a front for the Bush campaign
and has urged the Federal Election Commission to cite
the group, the Bush campaign and the Republican
National Committee for violating federal election
laws.
Cleanse the White House of the Chicken Hawk Coup, Show
Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/21/edwards.swiftboat/index.html
Bush adviser quits after appearing in swift boat ad: Kerry has accused group of illegally working with campaign
Saturday, August 21, 2004 Posted: 11:43 PM EDT (0343
GMT)
ROANOKE, Virginia (CNN) -- A volunteer adviser has
quit President Bush's re-election campaign after
appearing in a veterans group's television commercial
blasting Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's
involvement in the Vietnam-era antiwar movement.
A Bush campaign statement said it did not know that
retired Air Force Col. Ken Cordier had appeared in an
ad by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The Kerry
campaign has accused the group of illegally working
with the Bush campaign.
As a so-called 527 group, Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth is barred from coordinating efforts with an
election campaign.
Kerry's camp calls it a front for the Bush campaign
and has urged the Federal Election Commission to cite
the group, the Bush campaign and the Republican
National Committee for violating federal election
laws.
The 527 groups are named for the federal provision
that makes such organizations tax exempt and allows
them to accept unlimited donations.
Before his departure, Cordier -- who spent six years
as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam -- was a member
of the Bush-Cheney campaign's veterans' steering
committee, campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said in a
written statement issued Saturday night.
Cordier appeared in a commercial launched Friday by
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has accused Kerry
of lying about his Vietnam service. In it, he and
other Vietnam veterans accuse Kerry, a decorated Navy
officer, of selling out his old comrades by joining
the antiwar movement upon his return home.
"He betrayed us in the past. How could we be loyal to
him now?" Cordier asks in the ad.
Schmidt called Cordier "an American hero" but said he
would "no longer participate as a volunteer for
Bush-Cheney '04" because of his appearance in the
anti-Kerry ad.
"Col. Cordier did not inform the campaign of his
involvement in the advertisement being run by a 527
organization," Schmidt said.
The Bush campaign called Kerry's FEC complaint
"frivolous" in a response released Saturday and urged
commissioners to dismiss it swiftly.
A previous ad by the swift boat group accuses Kerry of
lying to get his war medals: three Purple Hearts, a
Bronze Star and a Silver Star. Kerry and others say
the ads are false and misleading.
The latest ad, a 30-second spot released Friday, uses
segments from Kerry's testimony before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in 1971. In the ad, Kerry
says, "They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut
off heads," "randomly shot at civilians," and "razed
villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Kahn."
The ad does not include Kerry's preface, in which he
said he is reporting what others said at a Vietnam
veterans conference. Instead, a swift boat group
member refers to the statements as "accusations" Kerry
made against Vietnam veterans.
An official transcript shows Kerry was referring to a
meeting in Detroit, Michigan, that was part of what
was called the Winter Soldier investigation. Kerry has
said he regrets some of the comments but stands by his
protests.
Two speak up for Kerry
Also Saturday, two former comrades of Kerry backed up
the candidate's account of the events that earned him
his Silver Star.
William Rood, an editor at the Chicago Tribune, writes
in Sunday's editions: "Kerry's critics, armed with
stories I know to be untrue, have charged that the
accounts of what happened [in 1969] were overblown.
The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying
to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but
their version of events has splashed doubt on all of
us."
Like Kerry, Rood was a lieutenant junior grade and
skipper of one of the three boats ambushed twice while
on patrol February 28, 1969. Kerry was awarded the
Silver Star, the Navy's third-highest combat
decoration, for his aggressive response to the
ambushes.
Rood won a Bronze Star for his actions in the same
clash, and writes that criticism of Kerry " impugns
others who are not in the public eye."
He says, "It's gotten harder and harder for those of
us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be
untrue, especially when they come from people who were
not there."
John O'Neill, who wrote a book challenging Kerry's
accounts of his service, said Saturday that SBVT was
not challenging Rood's commendation. But in a
statement issued the same day, he called Rood's
account "an obvious political move" and said the
group's accusations against Kerry were drawn from two
previous books about the Massachusetts senator.
"Anyone who compares the three books on the Silver
Star incident will see that they are substantially
identical in the facts," he said.
Rood says in the first-person article that Kerry asked
him to publicly discuss his account of that mission.
"I can't pretend those calls had no effect on me, but
that is not why I am writing this," he writes."What
matters most to me is that this is hurting crewmen who
are not public figures and who deserved to be honored
for what they did. My intent is to tell the story here
and to never again talk publicly about it."
Rood writes that Kerry was in charge of the mission
and discussed with the other two skippers how to
handle the inevitable ambushes.
"We agreed that if we were not crippled by the initial
volley and had a clear fix on the location of the
ambush," he writes, "we would turn directly into it,
focusing the boats' twin .50-caliber machine guns on
the attackers and beaching the boats."
Twice on that day Kerry ordered such a maneuver,
according to Rood. Each time the ambushes were
quelled.
O'Neill's book said Kerry shot a fleeing Vietnamese
teenager to win the award.
Rood disputes that, saying he checked with another
sailor on that mission and they agreed that "he was a
grown man, dressed in the kind of garb the [Viet Cong]
usually wore."
Wayne Langhofer, who now works at a gunpowder plant in
Kansas, said he also was present for the battle.
"I was with Kerry when he won his Silver Star, and as
far as I'm concerned, he did right," he told CNN on
Saturday.
CNN's Matthew Hoye and Phil Hirshkorn contributed to
this article.