Unfit for Command

VETS' AD GOES HEAVY 'MEDAL'

By DEBORAH ORIN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 31, 2004 -- EXCLUSIVE

Vietnam veterans against John Kerry today are launching a new TV ad that shows the Democrat renouncing his war medals ?- timed to zing Kerry just before he speaks to vets tomorrow at the American Legion convention.

It's the latest move to undermine Kerry by the group known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ?- efforts that appear to have sent him slipping in polls and have sparked rumors of a Kerry campaign shakeup.

The ad starts with video of marching Marines and paints Kerry ?- who became an anti-war activist when he came home from Vietnam ?- as one of those who "turned their backs on their brothers."

It shows a long-haired and bearded hippie-type in a military jacket ?- not Kerry ?- appearing to toss his military medals as Kerry and many other anti-war vets did at protest rallies in the early 1970s.

Then it switches to video of Kerry saying he was renouncing his medals as "the symbols which this country gives . . . and that was the medals themselves . . . I gave back ?- I can't remember ?- six, seven, eight, nine."

The 30-second ad concludes: "How can the man who renounced his country's symbols now be trusted?"

The new ad is being launched with a $400,000 TV buy in Florida ?- home to lots of veterans and active-duty troops ?- and possibly elsewhere.

At the same time, the swift vets are going national for the first time with an $800,000 cable-TV buy for a prior ad in which former POWs talk about Kerry's claims that U.S. soldiers were rapists and mass murderers.

The new swift-vets push against Kerry comes at a crucial moment for him since many analysts believe he must use tomorrow's speech to the American Legion to try to put an end to questions about his roles in the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement.

He'll have a tough act to follow, since President Bush today speaks to the American Legion with popular POW hero Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by his side ?- fresh from speaking to the Republican convention last night.

The new ad will also run in Nashville, where the American Legion convention is taking place ?- a small buy of $35,000.

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) rushed to Kerry's defense yesterday, calling the criticism "ridiculous."

The swift vets are also behind the anti-Kerry best seller, "Unfit for Command," which has already forced Team Kerry to retract his decades-old claim that he was sent on an illegal covert mission to Cambodia on Christmas 1968.

Kerry's own handpicked historian, Douglas Brinkley, told the Washington Post over the weekend that Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia claim is "obviously wrong," backing up a key claim by the swift vets who say it never happened.

Kerry at times has claimed that he only threw away his military ribbons and not his medals at anti-war protests, but the swift vets use video uncovered by ABC News that shows him saying he did in fact toss his own medals.

Bush has said Kerry served "admirably" in Vietnam and he has denounced all TV attack ads from outside groups, known as 527s ?- including ads from the swift-boat veterans.

But the swift-boat veterans have vowed to continue their ad campaign and have raised more than $2 million in contributions, averaging $64 each, through their Web site.

It ain't over til the Swifties say it's over.

Quote:

tenacious little fellas, aren't they??

i have heard kerry say, long before any of this even started with the swiftones, that what he threw over the fence of his own were the ribbons, not the medals. that he had thrown another guys medals over, on the guys request.

aaaaa. i wasn't there. i don't know. and either do they.

I just watched Bill Maher try to attack John O'Neill... and he got his ass handed to him.

Maher had to shut him up a handful of times as he prattled on trying to answer questions Maher didn't ask.

I'm guessing the audience sat there with their mouth open (like me) astounded at the man's venality.