Kerry's shipmates....

[Mike AI]

mms://a1281.v125028.c12502.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1281/12502/v0001/eaglepub.download.akamai.com/12502/swift_boat.wmv

[PornoDoggy]

I'm quite sure you were profoundly disturbed, Mike. Gimme a fucking break. It will play well to the bobblehead choir who are already disturbed about Kerry - I suspect most everybody else will recognize it for the bullshit it is.

So lets see what we got here ... you got one cocksucker who people remember. Some remember him favorably, some remember him unfavorably. It's also really hard to tell whether their memories of him stem from his service, or his activities after his service. And, you got another cocksucker that nobody fucking seems to remember.

You got one cocksucker who joined the Navy and volunteered for Vietnam. You got another cocksucker who dodged the draft the way the priviledged did it - he joined the Guard (and don't give me that "besmirching the dignity of current Guard/Reservists horseshit - the only insult to the Guard and Reserve of today is when you compare them to the slackers that made it up in the 60s and 70s).

Now, I know perhaps a little more than you do about how the Navy awards medals. John Kerry lying by his lonesome would not get him a medal. You don't just submit a request chit for a Bronze Star. So ... either a whole bunch of people lied, or some of the people who were there don't think he deserved it for the actions in question while the Chain of Command did, or some of the people who were there were jealous that he got one and they didn't, or some of the people there have revised their memories based on his later antiwar activities.

Mikey, I realize you think us left-wingers do nothing but sit up nights and think up lies about Bush ... but let me give you a bit of advice. Vietnam is fucking over. I think you right wing bobbleheads used that up with Clinton.

That's Meni-quality drivel, Mike.

[Vick]

PornoDoggy - what do you have against cocksuckers? :P

For the most part I like cocksuckers, after all isn't getting your cock sucked a good thing? Enjoyable to say the least


Now to call them clowns is a different thing, who likes clowns anyway :yowsa:

[PornoDoggy]

I have absolutely nothing against cocksuckers.

Now, clowns ... I used to like clowns. However, after watching Killer Clowns From Outer Space under the influence of a number of substances I have since learned just to (regretably) say no to (not to mention Pennywize from It) I am not so sure about clowns. :blink:

[Vick]

Just where is Pat Paulson when you need him?

Or better yet ...
Would would Pat Paulson do if he were here now?

[TheEnforcer]

Not to mention shipmates implies they actually served on Kerry's boat with him which is a load of shit in and of itself. The men who know him best and saw his actions up close, the people actually on his boat and under his command, stand by him 100%. These clowns are nothing more than a bunch of jealous wanna-be crybabies and isn't it a coincidenmce that the EXACT same company that produced the rumors and such that smeared McCain in the 2000 primaries is the one being used to smear Kerry now.

[PornoDoggy]

Originally posted by TheEnforcer@Aug 5 2004, 10:56 AM
Not to mention shipmates implies they actually served on Kerry's boat with him which is a load of shit in and of itself. The men who know him best and saw his actions up close, the people actually on his boat and under his command, stand by him 100%. These clowns are nothing more than a bunch of jealous wanna-be crybabies and isn't it a coincidenmce that the EXACT same company that produced the rumors and such that smeared McCain in the 2000 primaries is the one being used to smear Kerry now.
Now, now, now, TE ... we all know that can't be true.

If it's said by a Republican it is legitimate political discourse.

If it's said by a Democrat it is a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts in order to smear the reputation of a good man.

Just ask Mike.

[Mike AI]

Originally posted by PornoDoggy+Aug 5 2004, 11:03 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (PornoDoggy @ Aug 5 2004, 11:03 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-TheEnforcer@Aug 5 2004, 10:56 AM
Not to mention shipmates implies they actually served on Kerry's boat with him which is a load of shit in and of itself. The men who know him best and saw his actions up close, the people actually on his boat and under his command, stand by him 100%. These clowns are nothing more than a bunch of jealous wanna-be crybabies and isn't it a coincidenmce that the EXACT same company that produced the rumors and such that smeared McCain in the 2000 primaries is the one being used to smear Kerry now.
Now, now, now, TE ... we all know that can't be true.

If it's said by a Republican it is legitimate political discourse.

If it's said by a Democrat it is a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts in order to smear the reputation of a good man.

Just ask Mike. [/b][/quote]


I continue to here contradictory information on this. I will keep on looking.

[JR]

funny how everyone gets so pumped up about what we all know is a futile and pointless argument that solves nothing and changes no opinions. ... ah... polics.

[RawAlex]

Even Drudge has admitted that this group appears to paid for and support by a big money Bush backer in Texas.

What I don't understand is why there isn't the same hoopla about this book that there was about the Moore movie... this book clearly is an attempt to change the outcome of the election, it wouldn't exist it Kerry wasn't the candidate...

Goose and gander.

Alex

[dig420]

I've just about given up posting in political threads, because Republicans can't be persuaded. It's not reason that makes them see themselves as conservative anyway, so reason won't get them out of it. This whole Swift Boat Veterans should have been discredited from day one, all the info is out there, but Fox news and Drudge will talk about them as if they have some credibility, and Americans are dumb enough to believe whatever they see on TV.
----------------

Different decade, same dirty tricks



With a little bit of help from the Drudge Report, and an ad buy that got their nasty claims in the newspapers, the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are getting more than their share of publicity today. And they'll likely get even more in some quarters (like, say, Fox News) as the group's leader, Nixon-anointed Kerry detractor Houston attorney John O'Neill, publishes his book "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," coming soon from the conservative publishing house Regnery Publishing.

Hopefully the media will do their job in exposing O'Neill's longtime ties to the GOP and the fact that, as they admit, none of the men who appear in the ads that will run in some markets in Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin today, actually served on Kerry's boat. So how did Larry Thurlow, a vet who appears in the Kerry-bashing ad know, as he claims, "When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry?" Does he know this better than Jim Rassman, who when the chips were down, counted on Kerry to save his life? Or how about James Wasser, a radar man on one of Kerry's swift boats, who says that if Kerry called his band of brothers for one last mission and said they were going to hell, "he'd have a full crew."

The facts of Kerry's service don't really matter to O'Neill, anyway. Attacking Kerry has been O'Neill's role since Nixon tapped him for the job in 1971, as Joe Conason reported in Salon in May, and his latest anti-Kerry effort is now funded and organized by Republicans:

"Behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are veteran corporate media consultant and Texas Republican activist Merrie Spaeth, who is listed as the group's media contact; eternal Kerry antagonist and Houston attorney John E. O'Neill, law partner of Spaeth's late husband, Tex Lezar; and retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman, a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described as 'the classic body-count guy' who 'wanted hooches destroyed and people killed.'"

"Spaeth told Salon that O'Neill first approached her last winter to discuss his 'concerns about Sen. Kerry.' O'Neill has been assailing Kerry since 1971, when the former Navy officer was selected for the role by Charles Colson, Richard Nixon's dirty-tricks aide."

Media Matters has more on O'Neill's GOP ties, dating back to Nixon:

"During the CNN interview [with O'Neill], [Wolf] Blitzer reported that former President Richard Nixon had urged O'Neill to publicly counter Kerry on The Dick Cavett Show, but there is more to the story. O'Neill was a creation of the Nixon administration, as Joe Klein detailed in the January 5 issue of The New Yorker. Former Nixon special counsel Chuck Colson told Klein that Kerry was an 'articulate' and 'credible leader' of those veterans calling for an end to the Vietnam War and therefore 'an immediate target of the Nixon Administration.' As such, the Nixon administration found it necessary to 'create a counterfoil' to Kerry. Colson recounted, '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.' Articles from the April 21 Houston Chronicle and the June 17, 2003, Boston Globe confirm close ties between O'Neill and the Nixon administration."

"Beyond his role in the Nixon administration's strategy to undermine Kerry in the 1970s, O'Neill is also connected to Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist (a Nixon appointee) and to former President George H.W. Bush, according to Houston Chronicle articles from March 31 and April 21. In the late 1970s, O'Neill clerked for Rehnquist; in 1990, according to an October 7, 1991, report by Texas Lawyer, the former President Bush considered O'Neill for a federal judgeship vacancy."
---------- http://salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html

John McCain is disgusted with this bullshit as well. ""Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry's military service 'dishonest and dishonorable' and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well. "

Mike, why does a smart guy like you believe transparent bullshit like this?

[dig420]

The Vets who actually served with Kerry love him, but you won't see them on network tv.

The media has a liberal bias eh? :agrin:

[JoesHO]

I heard the same guy that made the claim he saw kerry shoot an unarmed civilian kid, made an entirelly different statement concerning the account sometime in the 90's...

also if you want to play devils advocate here, lets just say that Kerry did shoot an unarmed kid in a time of war, when kids qwere blowing up our helicopters, and shooting at our guys anyway....

how does that compare with attacking a country full of kids and blowing them up to chase one man?

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Aug 4 2004, 08:00 PM
mms://a1281.v125028.c12502.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1281/12502/v0001/eaglepub.download.akamai.com/12502/swift_boat.wmv
PurePropoganda

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by JoesHO1@Aug 6 2004, 07:28 PM
I heard the same guy that made the claim he saw kerry shoot an unarmed civilian kid, made an entirelly different statement concerning the account sometime in the 90's...

also if you want to play devils advocate here, lets just say that Kerry did shoot an unarmed kid in a time of war, when kids qwere blowing up our helicopters, and shooting at our guys anyway....

how does that compare with attacking a country full of kids and blowing them up to chase one man?
c'mon, Bush served his country better during the war,
him and Clinton didn't shoot anybody
;-)))))

[RawAlex]

As things move forward, the BS factor on this one starts to show...

Most of the guys involved didn't serve on the same boat(s) as Kerry, only saw him occassionally, etc. The stories tend to shift, and there has been some massive backpeddling. There is a clear link between this group and an affluence benefactor in Texas, who was responsible for a similar style of attack on McCain in 2000 campaign.

It's junk. Too bad some people will fall for it.

Alex

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Aug 7 2004, 11:13 PM
As things move forward, the BS factor on this one starts to show...

Most of the guys involved didn't serve on the same boat(s) as Kerry, only saw him occassionally, etc. The stories tend to shift, and there has been some massive backpeddling. There is a clear link between this group and an affluence benefactor in Texas, who was responsible for a similar style of attack on McCain in 2000 campaign.

It's junk. Too bad some people will fall for it.

Alex
especially when it comes from the camp of the renown war hero like GW
;-))))

[Mike AI]

Originally posted by Serge_Oprano+Aug 7 2004, 11:38 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Serge_Oprano @ Aug 7 2004, 11:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-RawAlex@Aug 7 2004, 11:13 PM
As things move forward, the BS factor on this one starts to show...

Most of the guys involved didn't serve on the same boat(s) as Kerry, only saw him occassionally, etc. The stories tend to shift, and there has been some massive backpeddling. There is a clear link between this group and an affluence benefactor in Texas, who was responsible for a similar style of attack on McCain in 2000 campaign.

It's junk. Too bad some people will fall for it.

Alex
especially when it comes from the camp of the renown war hero like GW
;-)))) [/b][/quote]
Show me a direct line from Bush's people pulling these guys strings, and I will vote for Kerry. I think these guys are operating by themelves. They are not hiding behind anonymous news reports, they are putting their names and reputations on the line. They could have legitmate issues.

[Vick]

Originally posted by Serge_Oprano@Aug 7 2004, 10:54 PM
Clinton didn't shoot anybody
;-)))))
Tell Monica's blue dress that


Ok cheap shot, didn't you ever wonder why she kept the stain dress? :zoinks:

[RawAlex]

Mike, you can read all of this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/...1278021,00.html (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1278021,00.html)

But here are some of the keys:

Therefore, neither of the parties behind the advert are part of the Republican party or the Bush campaign. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a 527, and Regnery Press is a commercial (although politically committed) publishing company. However, a look at the people who connect the enterprises reveals them to be part of a rich partisan tapestry.

Mr O'Neill is the link between them. As well as being the book's co-author, he is a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth steering committee. The group was set up with the help of Merrie Spaeth, the widow of Tex Lezar, who was Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas in the same year that Mr Bush ran for governor. He was a partner of Mr O'Neill's at their Houston law firm.

Regnery, meanwhile, proclaims itself to be the leading conservative publisher in the US. Acquired by Republican donor Thomas Philips in 1993, it is a subsidiary of Eagle Publishing, which is using its flagship Human Events magazine to promote Unfit for Command and build up its subscription base and mailing lists.

Regnery publishes on any number of topics (from threats to marriage to a defence of assault rifles), but scored a number of hits in the Clinton years with titles such as the conservative columnist Ann Coulter's High Crimes and Misdemeanors: the case against Bill Clinton.

The most notorious - Gary Aldrich's Unlimited Access: an FBI agent inside the Clinton White House - depicted the executive mansion as a den of debauchery, drug-taking and gay sex. One section claimed the president was smuggled out under a rug for trysts with a female celebrity in a nearby hotel. Mr Aldrich admitted in the book that many of his allegations were, at best, second-hand.

Mr Kerry will appreciate your vote.

Alex

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Aug 7 2004, 11:53 PM

Show me a direct line from Bush's people pulling these guys strings, and I will vote for Kerry.
Mike,
c'mon, tell me the reason WHY you wouldn't vote for Kerry.

try putting demagogy and propaganda aside when you give your reasons.

My MAJOR reason to vote for Kerry is:
the country is at the very important junction as far as international politics are concerned and...it's NOT a time for the country to be led by C students.

[sarettah]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Aug 7 2004, 11:53 PM
Show me a direct line from Bush's people pulling these guys strings, and I will vote for Kerry. I think these guys are operating by themelves. They are not hiding behind anonymous news reports, they are putting their names and reputations on the line. They could have legitmate issues.
I don't know if you will find a "direct line" between them. The republicans, since watergate and iran-contra, have learned to leave a little bit better "plausible deniability" line between the white house and their cronies, but, this salon article from April (before the swift boats group published the book) gives a few of the connections.

http://archive.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/04/23/o_neill/

The GOP's not-so-impartial hit man
Desperate to denigrate John Kerry's war record, Republicans have trotted out a "nonpartisan" Navy Vietnam vet -- who was a protege of Nixon dirty trickster Charles Colson and whose law firm is closely tied to the Bush White House.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Joe Conason

April 23, 2004 | Houston attorney John E. O'Neill, the Navy veteran who has emerged recently as a harsh and ubiquitous critic of John Kerry's military service, tells reporters that he has never really been interested in politics and isn't motivated by partisan interests. In the media, O'Neill is often described simply as a Vietnam vet still enraged by the antiwar speeches Kerry delivered more than 30 years ago. That was when O'Neill first came to public attention as a clean-cut, pro-war protégé of the Nixon White House's highest-ranking dirty trickster (aside from the late president himself), Charles Colson.

Colson, who went to prison for Watergate crimes, saw O'Neill as a perfect foil to Kerry, whom Nixon and his aides feared as a decorated, articulate and reasonable opponent of the war and their regime. Indeed, O'Neill was perfect -- a crewcut officer who had served on the same Navy swift boat that Kerry had commanded, although their stints in the Mekong Delta didn't overlap. In June 1971, Colson brought O'Neill up to Washington for an Oval Office audience with Nixon. His impressions live on in a memo filed later:

"O'Neill went out charging like a tiger, has agreed that he will appear anytime, anywhere that we program him and was last seen walking up West Executive Avenue mumbling to himself that he had just been with the most magnificent man he had ever met in his life."

Now O'Neill has emerged from those decades of silence, roaring denunciations of the man who will become the Democratic nominee for president this summer. "I saw some war heroes," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday. "John Kerry is not a war hero."

To establish his nonpartisan credentials, O'Neill assured the CNN anchor that he was "never contacted" by the Bush-Cheney campaign. What he didn't mention, however, is that his law firm boasts long-standing and powerful connections with the Bush White House.

With an oil and litigation practice focused on the defense of major energy and industrial firms, the dozen partners in Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson have clout that exceeds their firm's small size. Their corporate clients include Exxon Mobil, General Electric, Reliant Energy, Koch Industries and Eastman Kodak. More important, among the name partners is Margaret Wilson, the former general counsel to George W. Bush during his second term as Texas governor. (She succeeded Alberto Gonzales, who currently serves as White House counsel.)

In 2001, Wilson went to Washington with the new president, who appointed her deputy general counsel in the Department of Commerce. During her tenure as Bush's counsel in Austin, she was implicated in the Service Corporation International funeral home scandal. State government whistle-blower Eliza May accused Wilson of participating in an effort to "intimidate" her from pursuing an investigation of SCI, a major Bush campaign donor.

Among the firm's partners with close ties to Bush was "Tex" Lezar, who ran for lieutenant governor on the Republican ticket with him in 1994, when Bush won and Lezar lost. An indefatigable conservative activist and lawyer sympathetic to the most extreme elements in Southern GOP circles, Lezar died last January at the age of 55. Before joining the Clements firm, Lezar served in the Reagan Justice Department, where he befriended Kenneth Starr, whom he often defended to the press when Starr was pursuing the Clintons as Whitewater independent counsel. In later years, Lezar held important positions in the Federalist Society, Empower America, the Texas Public Policy Foundation and various other right-wing organizations.

As for O'Neill, his Republican loyalties may well have been cemented in 1974. Three years after Colson first brought him to the White House to meet with Nixon, who encouraged the young O'Neill to "get" Kerry and the protesters in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he launched his legal career with a coveted clerkship in the United States Supreme Court. No doubt it was mere coincidence that O'Neill clerked with William Rehnquist, the controversial conservative who was Nixon's favorite justice and who went on to be appointed chief justice by President Reagan.

Nixon is gone, but his political heirs possess the White House -- and no doubt the disgraced politician would be pleased and proud that they are harassing Kerry with the same zeal that first brought Karl Rove to the attention of Watergate investigators. The young veteran he once showcased is now 58 years old, but O'Neill seems just as eager to battle Nixon's old enemies as he was back then.

The credibility of Vietnam veterans like O'Neill is crucial to Republican efforts to denigrate Kerry's war record. Those efforts suffered a setback yesterday when, after angry demands for disclosure from GOP chairman Ed Gillespie, the Democrat posted hundreds of pages documenting his service and decorations on his campaign Web site. Those pages from his Navy records show that Kerry's superiors consistently rated him as an outstanding and unusually talented officer. Those pages show that he volunteered for service in Vietnam and earned a Bronze and a Silver Star for valorous conduct under fire.

So far, at least, the attempts to smear Kerry have backfired. Looking over the citations and reports, and particularly those incidents when Kerry risked his life to protect his comrades, it is natural to contrast his experience with the National Guard career of George W. Bush -- and to wonder why veterans like O'Neill are not troubled by the difference.

[JoesHO]

Yeah sarettah, but did you not know if a liberal writes it, then it has to be untrue and without legitimant issue behind it? come on now get with the program LOL

[sarettah]

From an article on disinfopedia: http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?tit..._E._O'Neill (http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=John_E._O'Neill)

"Well, there's more about good ol' Margaret," the Kos continues. "She was a lawyer at Vinson & Elkins before she worked for Bush. Vinson & Elkins was Enron's main law firm -- the very firm that facilitated Enron's frauds. Vinson & Elkins was also the firm that spawned Alberto R. Gonzales -- Bush's current general counsel

************************************************** ****************

Over and over again, it always seems to go back to Enron :blink:

[sarettah]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/5/12175/27762

George Bush connection to the Kerry hate ad?
by mikepridmore
Thu Aug 5th, 2004 at 12:17:05 GMT

See this from last May:

The "swift boat" veterans attacking John Kerry's war record are led by veteran right-wing operatives using the same vicious techniques they used against John McCain four years ago.
Behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are veteran corporate media consultant and Texas Republican activist Merrie Spaeth, who is listed as the group's media contact; eternal Kerry antagonist and Houston attorney John E. O'Neill, law partner of Spaeth's late husband, Tex Lezar; and retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman, a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described as "the classic body-count guy" who "wanted hooches destroyed and people killed."

************************************************** ************

Although not as well known as Karen Hughes, Spaeth is among the most experienced and best connected Republican communications executives. During the Reagan administration she served as director of the White House Office of Media Liaison, where she specialized in promoting "news" items that boosted President Reagan to TV stations around the country. While living in Washington she met and married Lezar, a Reagan Justice Department lawyer who ran for lieutenant governor of Texas in 1994 with George W. Bush, then the party's candidate for governor. (Lezar lost; Bush won.)
Through Lezar, who died of a heart attack last January, she met O'Neill, his law partner in Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson, a Dallas firm. (It also includes Margaret Wilson, the former counsel to Gov. Bush who followed him to Washington, where she served for a time as a deputy counsel in the Department of Commerce.)

In 2000, Spaeth participated in the most subterranean episode of the Republican primary contest when a shadowy group billed as "Republicans for Clean Air" produced television ads falsely attacking the environmental record of Sen. John McCain in California, New York and Ohio. While the identity of those funding the supposedly "independent" ads was carefully hidden, reporters soon learned that Republicans for Clean Air was simply Sam Wyly -- a big Bush contributor and beneficiary of Bush administration decisions in Texas -- and his brother, Charles, another Bush "Pioneer" contributor. (One of the Wyly family's private capital funds, Maverick Capital of Dallas, had been awarded a state contract to invest $90 million for the University of Texas endowment.)

When the secret emerged, spokeswoman Spaeth caught the flak for the Wylys, an experience she recalled to me as "horrible" and "awful." Her job was to assure reporters that there had been no illegal coordination between the Bush campaign and the Wyly brothers in arranging the McCain-trashing message. Not everyone believed her explanation, including the Arizona senator.

The veteran group's founder, Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, first gained notoriety in Vietnam as a strutting, cigar-chewing Navy captain. But it was O'Neill, by now a familiar figure on the Kerry-bashing circuit, who came to Spaeth for assistance.

The president's Texas allies -- whose animus against his Democratic challenger dates back to the Nixon era -- are now deploying the same techniques and personnel they used to attack McCain's integrity four years ago. Bush's "independent" supporters would apparently rather talk about the Vietnam quagmire than about his deadly incompetence in Iraq.