Chasing the Wind

The Swift Boat advertisements must have hit a sore spot. John Kerry is sending two aides today to George Bush’s hometown to press Bush into condemning the ads. Those ads must be hurting Kerry, both politically and personally.

I’m starting to suspect John Kerry is not only a liar, but incredibly inept as well. To stop the Swift Boat vet ads, Kerry filed suit with the Federal Election Commission, wrote legal threatening letters to television stations to tell them not to broadcast the ads, tried to get the “Unfit for Command” to stop publishing the book or move it to the fiction section. From a public relations standpoint, these were incredibly dumb moves. All he did was fire up interest in the book and the ads.

I also don’t know what he expects Bush to do; 527 plans are independent by law. It’s illegal to coodinate campaign activities with 527 groups. And it’s free speech, protected by the US Constitution. As long as it isn’t slander, it’s protected. Is it slander? Probably not – the leader of the SwiftVets dared Kerry to sue him. Another public relations no-win: if Kerry sues, it’ll be all over the news, and if he doesn’t sue, the ads will continue to run.

Yesterday Kerry called up one of the swift boat veterans and asked Robert “Friar Tuck” Brant Cdr., USN (RET) to meet with him face to face. Brant declined, citing that Kerry’s anti-war activities accusing all veterans, including Brant, of war crimes had been simmering for 30 years. Brant said that Kerry was obviously not prepared to correct the record of what happened in VietNam.

Sean McCabe, a spokesman for the 264-member (SwiftVets) organization, said it plans to send a cease-and-desist letter warning Kerry “to stop calling our members,” because it’s an independent “527” group and it’s illegal for campaigns to contact them.

So Bush takes the high road and condemns all 527 ads yesterday (which the press, of course, reported as Bush condemning just the SwiftVets). Kerry doesn’t want to condemn them all; he’s the beneficiary of $70 million of ads from MoveOn.org. He just wants that $1.5 million in ads from the SwiftVets to stop.

All around, incredibly inept political moves by Kerry.