Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

By now chances are that you have seen the commercial made by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. By now chances are you have formed an opinion about the ad and about the men who put the ad together.

Kerry supporters claim that the ad is the product of "the Republican attack machine" and that the men in the ad have no credibility.

Bush supporters believe that these men are great patriots who are just speaking the truth about a man who is truly unfit to be commander in chief.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle (like most things).

You can get many questions answered via the Swift Boat Vets FAQ page. It seems pretty clear to me that these men are who they claim to be. They opposed Kerry long before he got the nomination and they have no affiliation to any political party.

It is also true that much of the attention they are now getting is due to right leaning talk shows and Internet web sites. It would be further correct to say that much of the money that is flowing in to support them is now coming from Republicans.

I think the best way to describe the group as Vietnam Veterans who want "anyone but Kerry". They tried to stop him getting nominated (but were given little attention by the so called "main stream media"). Now that Kerry has the nomination - they have to re-double their efforts to prevent a man they truly see as unfit to become commander in chief. Now that the hour is getting late there will be some joining together of strange bedfellows under the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" banner.

The Kerry campaign has pulled out almost all the stops in combating this ad. They have threatened lawsuits against stations that carry the ad. They have pointed out that none of the swift boat veterans actually served on the same boat as Kerry. They have used a John McCain denunciation of the ad to imply that this is Republican dirty tricks. They have released John Kerry's military records on their web site. They have done everything short of have Kerry address the ad directly and forthrightly.

The ad has been damaging to Kerry but in ways that I'm not sure he appreciates right now.

First off - the initial reaction of the Kerry campaign was to threaten to sue any stations that carried the ad. If I'm the Bush campaign - I stay away from the ad completely. I say things like "neither the White House or the republican party have any affiliations to the Swift Boat Vets and we agree that so-called 527 organizations are abusing loop-holes in the campaign reform laws. However, we think it is disingenuous of the Kerry campaign to try and silence this group of veterans after embracing people like Michael Moore and organizations like MoveOn.org. Where was the outrage at 527 organizations then? Furthermore we view the threat of legal action against the veterans as nothing more than a threat meant to curb their rights to free speech. Don't we have enough frivolous lawsuits already?"

The "none of these men served on the same boat as Kerry" argument is already getting criticized as legal parsing of the truth. A reminder of the depends of the definition of the word "is" type mindset that will definitely turn off many independent voters.

The McCain denunciation of the ad both hurts and helps both campaigns. For Bush it hurts because it brings back memories of how Senator McCain was smeared by a planned whisper campaign in the South Carolina primary. For Kerry it hurts because it shows a "can dish it out but can't take it" hypocrisy in regards to the 527 ads. Does anyone remember Bush threatening to sue over the release of F/911 or ads from any of the "anyone but Bush" groups?

John Kerry has now released his military records but he hasn't released all the records. There are many missing "after action reports" for example. This is akin to Richard Nixon releasing all of his secret tapes except the missing 17 minutes. Partial release of the records will probably drag this out as an issue instead of putting it to bed as intended.

The one thing Kerry hasn't done is address the issue straight on. Until he does that this ad will plague his campaign and prevent any forward movement.

It seems to me that this would have been easy for Kerry to diffuse. If Kerry had simply made a statement along the lines of, "the Vietnam war was and still is a very divisive issue. I laid my life on the line for my country in that war and many of my friends from that war died over in Vietnam. When I came back home I felt I had an obligation to speak not just for myself but for my friends who were killed in action. I spoke out against the war and this angered many of the people I served with. That's OK. I said what I felt had to be said and they hold that against me. This is America were differing views are accepted. I accept that these men still disagree with me and that they won't vote for me in this upcoming election. I'm sorry about that but I accept their right to hold their own opinions about the war in Vietnam. That's all I have to say about that."

Instead we got intimidation and cover-up. This looks like Nixon type stuff.

Until Kerry addresses these vets directly (and now he'll have to be more expansive in his explanation over what they have to say) - his Vietnam service becomes just a big a liability as a positive to his campaign. Kerry will now have to focus on his post war activist role and his record in the Senate instead of just rolling along with "I'm a war hero - vote for me."

The anti-war activities and the Senate record are the real red meat the Republican attack machine wants to get at and Kerry's handling of the Swift Boat Vets for Truth has offered up these topics on a silver platter.

Kerry made his Vietnam war service the centerpiece of his campaign. He has also now made it a case of his credibility vs. the credibility of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Not sure if that's a battle he will be able to win.

The Bush folks are sitting back right now watching this and they are smiling. They are probably most happy that all this is happening at no cost to them. Meanwhile the Kerry campaign will have to start to spend cash from their warchest to fight off the Swift Boat Vets' ad. Karl Rove is laughing his ass off right now.

I truly believe that when the definitive book on the 2004 election is written - the central theme will be how badly the Kerry campaign was managed and how they threw away every advantage they were given. Just think of the litany already: Joe Wilson, Sandy Berger, Theresa's "shove it" comments, the NASA bunny suit pictures - it's seemingly something new every day. The Swift Boat Vets will simply be the icing on the cake about the campaign that couldn't shoot straight.