I suspected that the Swift Boat Vets (those few against Kerry) were a lot of skeezy Republican operatives. Well, that is really too kind. These guys are scum.
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth
Founding members of the group include Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann (retired), a famously aggressive commander of Swift boat forces; John E. O'Neill, a veteran and attorney who was a vociferous critic of Kerry's anti-war testimony before a Senate Commmittee in 1971, co-operating with the Nixon administration to counter Vietnam War protests against the war (see below)[30]; 13 other named veterans; and other veterans who were not members but signed the group's public statement against Kerry, for a total of 189 signatures. The statement claimed that Kerry had not been forthcoming about his military and medical records, and demanded that he make them public, which he did. The group has continued to criticize Kerry on other aspects of his record. They have also claimed that John Kerry has selectively left out key information from these records, and have called for a full disclosure.
SBVT contains many officers who praised Kerry's conduct during the Vietnam War. These include Division Commander Grant Hibbard, who wrote positive evaluations of Kerry, and Commander George Elliott, who submitted Kerry for a Silver Star. By contrast, none of the men who directly served under Kerry in his Swift boat belong to SBVT and they actively campaign on behalf of Kerry's presidential bid.
SBVT is officially nonpartisan, but has several ties to Republican Party politics. Notably, its media representative, Merrie Spaeth, was a Reagan administration press officer and an advisor to Ken Starr in the Clinton impeachment. The SBVT website states:
- "The Swift Boat Vets for Truth include the entire chain of command above Kerry: Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard, Lt. Commander George Elliott, Captain Charles Plumly, Captain Adrian Lonsdale USCG (retired) and Rear Admiral Hoffmann (retired), as well as enlisted men, officers, men who served with Mr. Kerry, men who served in the same group of Swift boats and men intimately familiar with the operations and conduct of Swift boat operations during the war. The group also includes James Zumwalt, Lt. Colonel, U.S.M.C. (retired), representing his father, Admiral Elmo Russell Zumwalt, and brother, Lt. Elmo Russell Zumwalt III, both deceased."
- Rear Admiral Roy (Latch) Hoffmann (retired), Chairman
- Weymouth (Wey) Symmes, Treasurer
According to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Information Packet, the Steering Committee consists of:
- Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman, USN (ret), Chairman
- Captain Charley Plumly, USN (ret)
- Mr. Alvin A. Horne
- Mr. Bill Lannom
- Mr. John O'Neill
- Mr. William E. Franke
- Mr. Weymouth "Wey" Symmes, Treasurer
Funding
A return filed with the Internal Revenue Service by SBVT states that between April 23, when it was formed, and June 30 it had raised $158,750. Of this amount Bob Perry, described by the Houston Chronicle last year as the single largest Texas donor to the Republican Party, contributed $100,000. O’Neill and Harlan Crow, the owner of Crow Realty Investors, both contributed $25,000. [31]
The three contributors thus accounted for over 94% of the income reported to the IRS. (Another eight donors accounted for the remainder of the groups income). [32]
ELEVEN DONORS, THREE OF WHICH PROVIDED 94 PERCENT OF THE SBVT'S INCOME! THIS IS A SMALL BAND OF LYING OPERATIVES, AND NOT THE CONSCIENCE STRICKEN NOBLE VETS THAT THEY PORTRAY THEMSELVES AS.
Writing in the Dallas Observer, John Gonzalez, noted that between its formation and reporting its financial data to June 30, SBVT spent $60,403 "for research, Web design, a private investigator, political compliance and to pay Spaeth Communications." [33]
Link to John F. Kerry's records that these assholes keep saying haven't been released
John F. Kerry's Official Navy Records.
ABOUT the SBVTs.
Roy Hoffman is one of the founding members of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group that is campaigning against John Kerry.
In an article for Salon, Joe Conason describes Hoffman as "a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described as 'the classic body-count guy' who 'wanted hooches destroyed and people killed.'" Hoffmann, he wrote, "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." [1]
"Until now," he adds, "Hoffmann has been best known as the commanding officer whose obsession with body counts and 'scorekeeping' may have provoked the February 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at Thanh Phong by a unit led by Bob Kerrey -- the Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Nam, became a U.S. senator from Nebraska and now sits on the 9-11 Commission."
Larry Thurlow (pathetic liar)
In an affadavit released in July Thurlow claimed that Kerry’s statements that the five boats on that patrol came under small arms fire as “totally fabricated”.
The claim that Kerry had not come under fire on March 13, 1969 were rebutted with the release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Washington Post reported that the military records of Larry Thurlow, one of Kerry’s chief accusers, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Both Kerry and Thurlow were awarded Bronze Stars for their actions on that day. According to the Washington Post, Thurlow’s citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him." [20]
The affadavits were organized by those involved in putting out the book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, published by the conservative Regnery Publishing.
And the fact that this rag is published by Regnery Press only deepens my impression that these ass-clowns are lying sellouts trading on false patriotism. Regnery Press primarily publishes political porno for demented Coulterites.Jerome Corsi (Freeper Nutjob)
If you are familiar with Free Republicn, home of irrational, ignorant, arch-conservative, racist dirtbags, you won't be surprised to know this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?name=jrlc
I am honored to be associated with Free Republic, as I am honored to be participating in bringing the case against John Kerry as co-author of UNFIT FOR COMMAND.
"jrlc" on Free Republic
Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D.
John E. O'Neill (lifetime crazed extremist and lowlife ratfucker)
He's been slandering Kerry for years.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200405040004
Houston lawyer John O'Neill is a Republican -- as the Houston Chronicle noted the day after O'Neill's interview with Blitzer. According to the paper, O'Neill voted in the 1998 Republican state primary. But O'Neill's ties to the Republican Party extend far beyond party affiliation. During the CNN interview, 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.
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