Republican Pranks

Yesterday I noted a Boston Globe story that told of how a pro-Kerry veterans group cleverly named Veterans for Kerry tried to hand deliver a letter to Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. This letter was the same letter that Max Cleland had tried to hand deliver to President Bush in Crawford, Texas asking him to condemn the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth TV ads.

The Veterans for Kerry were met by another veterans group calling themselves Veterans for Working Senators who are protesting Kerry's poor attendance record in his day job. According to this Berkshire Eagle report the Veterans for Working Senators complaint boils down to:

"We have no reason to question your [Kerry's] service in the jungles of Vietnam. But we have many questions about your service in the jungles of Washington, D.C.," the letter stated. "To use a military term, you have been absent without leave from the halls of Congress. Even worse, you have continued to accept your full salary for what amounts to a no-show job."

The only problem I have with this is I can't find any evidence of the Veterans for Working Senators ever existing prior to Friday's protest at the Massachusetts State House. A Google search comes up with no matches and a search of the Boston Herald also comes up with no record of Veterans for Working Senators being a real group.

Also present at the State House was Massachusetts Republican Party chairman Darrell Crate who offered to accept the letter from the Veterans for Kerry on behalf of Mitt Romney if the Veterans for Kerry would in turn accept a letter to be delivered to Kerry from the Veterans for Working Senators.

Was this a set up by Darrell Crate? Has the Kerry campaign become a joke to be treated as such by tongue in cheek organizations like the so-called "Veterans for Working Senators"?

This whole episode brings to mind Heywood Jablome and his counter protest of Martha Burk and her NCWO at Augusta National. It was his "Make My Dinner" and "Iron My Shirts" protest signs that exposed Burk and her New York Times sponsored protest as a sham.

Too bad that most people missed Darrell Crate's prank on Friday because it was a good one.