Free Republic

LOS ANGELES Lawyers behind a California ballot proposal that could benefit the 2008 Republican presidential nominee have ties to a Texas homebuilder who financed attacks on Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam War record in the 2004 presidential campaign. Charles H. Bell and Thomas Hiltachk's law firm banked nearly $65,000 in fees from a California-based political committee funded almost solely by Bob J. Perry that targeted Democrats in 2006. Perry, a major Republican donor, contributed nearly $4.5 million to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that made unsubstantiated but damaging attacks on Kerry three years ago. The Perry-financed committee in California,...

Michael Dukakis has seen this script before: a Republican administration besieged by scandal and running out the clock on its second term, while wide-eyed Democrats confidently lick their chops, knowing there’s no way in hell voters will reward the G.O.P. with four more years in the White House. It was around this very moment 20 years ago, the summer when Oliver North told Congress he was “authorized to do everything that I did” and Reagan fatigue took hold, that Mr. Dukakis, then the 53-year-old governor of Massachusetts, emerged at the head of a crowded Democratic presidential pack. By the time...

When will Republicans learn to stop apologizing? The Bush administration is embroiled in the most ridiculous non-scandal scandal in human history ? set off when the administration stupidly apologized for firing its own employees. U.S. attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the President. The President may fire them for any reason at all. That includes not implementing the president's policy about criminal prosecutions. It also includes being in the way of someone else whom the president wants to appoint for patronage reasons. Why wasn't a fuss made when Bush fired Donald Rumsfeld? He is every bit...

Kerry grills nominee over Swift boat By SAM HANANEL, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago A Senate hearing that began with glowing tributes to a St. Louis businessman and his qualifications to become ambassador to Belgium turned bitterly divisive Tuesday after he was criticized for supporting a controversial conservative group. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., grilled nominee Sam Fox about why he donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential race. The group of Vietnam veterans made unsubstantiated allegations against Kerry — then the Democratic presidential nominee — and charged that Kerry did not deserve the...

The morning of Friday, April 18, 1997, Daniel Wells of McKinney took the stand in his own defense. Charged with aggravated sexual assault for fondling his girlfriend's 8-year-old daughter, Wells explained it was all a misunderstanding. Wells was a decorated Vietnam war hero, with two Purple Hearts and two Bronze Medals for valor. On cross-examination, testimony revealed that even the mother initially hadn't believed the little girl. It was the war hero's word against the child's. In desperation the prosecutor's office tracked down B.G. Burkett, a silver-haired Dallas financial adviser who has obtained a national reputation as a military researcher...

Just announced on the FNC.

video and audio also linked, of John Kerry saying: "“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”"

DES MOINES, Iowa --Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry lashed out Sunday against a group that bashed him during his last run at the White House. Kerry, who made a weekend appearance in northwest Iowa, said he is concerned that Swift Vote Veterans for Truth is again resorting to "the politics of fear and smear." The group, financed by Texas conservatives, ran commercials questioning his claim of being a decorated Vietnam veteran -- the centerpiece of his presidential campaign in 2004. "We're not going to give them an ounce of daylight," said Kerry, who is considering another run at the Democratic presidential...

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., lashed out Sunday against a group that campaigned against him during his last run at the White House. Kerry said he is concerned that Swift Vote Veterans for Truth is again resorting to "the politics of fear and smear." The group, financed by Texas conservatives, ran commercials questioning his Vietnam record - the centerpiece of his presidential campaign in 2004. Those same conservatives have formed another group this year - Economic Freedom Fund - to campaign against Democrats across the country. "We're not going to give them an ounce of daylight," said Kerry, who is considering...

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) warned potential Democratic donors that the same people who funded the “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” has now formed the “Economic Freedom Fund” to campaign for lower taxes and less government spending. “I am not exaggerating when I say, this is a greater threat to all we hold dear than the so-called terrorists ever could be,” Kerry said. “These people are right here in this country. There is no screening program to interdict them. They are completely free to roam about the country promoting the foul nostrum that we’d be better off if the government taxed people...

John Kerry recently volunteered that he was prepared to “kick [the Swift Boat Veterans’] ass from one end of America to the other” and that he would “demolish” us. He ought to take a Christmas cruise to Cambodia to calm down. Maybe he could take a side trip to tour “Genghis Khan” ruins. It is a little difficult to imagine Kerry (“I voted for it before I voted against it”) kicking the most decorated living serviceman, Bud Day, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, or our salty commander, Adm. Roy Hoffman, anywhere. Perhaps Kerry had in mind using a “Rice...

KEENE, N.H. - Moments before Sen. John Kerry shows up to campaign for a local politician at a backyard rally here, voter Sue Borden wrinkles her nose at the mention of the man who lost to President Bush. “You get one chance,” the Democrat tells a reporter. “If you can’t win, then it’s time to let someone else try.” But less than an hour later, after she meets Kerry and listens to him deliver an impassioned speech from a wooden deck, Borden softens and says she would consider voting again for the Massachusetts Democrat. “I always liked what he stood...

In May, U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha roused the anger of some in the military and on the political right by saying that American Marines had "killed innocent civilians in cold blood" in Iraq. Now, the Western Pennsylvania Democrat - who hopes to become majority leader if his party captures the House in the fall election - finds himself under fire on two fronts as a result of his comment, which dealt with a still-unresolved incident in Haditha, Iraq, late last year in which 24 people died. Politically, Murtha is under attack from a few of the veterans who during...

Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential hopes were sunk when he buckled under to “authoritarian” conservatives hellbent on smearing his military record as part of a larger “proto-facist” movement, says a former top White House aide whose testimony helped sink Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. John Dean, a Republican who served as Nixon’s top counsel, said Kerry slipped up during the 2004 campaign against President Bush by not suing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth when they published a book calling into question the Bay State senator’s Vietnam service. “What most surprised me is that Kerry never did anything with...

Three Vietnam War veterans who sued over a documentary about Sen. John Kerry's anti-war activities have dropped their lawsuits, leaving just one court fight pending over the 2004 film. Filmmaker Carlton Sherwood says the withdrawal of the lawsuits shows they were frivolous complaints filed by Kerry operatives to try to block the film's release in the final weeks of the presidential race. "We've always believed that Kerry controlled these lawsuits," Sherwood said Monday. The 42-minute film, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," charges that Kerry's actions as an anti-war activist after his tour in Vietnam harmed American POWs. It also...

WASHINGTON -- The comic career of Senator Jean-Francois Kerry is picking up steam, or gas, as the case may be. This inveterate windbag is, according to the New York Times, reopening the Swift Boat controversy of 2004 that did such damage to his presidential prospects when hundreds of the Vietnam War veterans who served with him deflated his reckless boasts of military gloire. He has undertaken this quixotic mission claiming that he can repristinate his military record despite the Swifties' evidence against it. Then the delusory senator from Massachusetts seems to think he will be a shoo-in for the presidency...

Kate Zernike's story on the front page of the Memorial Day Sunday New York Times, "Kerry Pressing Swift Boat Case Long After Loss," is an unfortunate reminder of the Times's embarrassingly poor coverage of Kerry in the face of the Swift Boat Veterans' for Truth charges in the 2004 election. Now as then, the Times acts as if the issues involved were between Kerry's latest representations of his record and the "unsubstantiated" charges of the Swift Boat group. The Times used the term "unsubstantiated" more than twenty times during its election coverage and continues to make no discernable effort to...

Most of the controversies from the wild 2004 presidential campaign have long been forgotten. But one is coming back, the New York Times reported this week, and we're glad it is: Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, is joining an effort to debunk the many attacks on his service in Vietnam more than two decades earlier. Kerry is a holder of three purple hearts, a bronze star and a silver star, all awarded in a four-month stint aboard Navy swift boats in Vietnam's Mekong delta.

Editorial: Kerry takes up the Swift Boat charges He deserves this opportunity to set the public record straight. Most of the controversies from the wild 2004 presidential campaign have long been forgotten. But one is coming back, the New York Times reported this week, and we're glad it is: Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, is joining an effort to debunk the many attacks on his service in Vietnam more than two decades earlier. [snip] Although they had little bearing on Kerry's qualifications to be president, his young-man's sentiments on Vietnam were a legitimate issue. But that's...

John Kerry starts by showing the entry in a log he kept from 1969: "Feb 12: 0800 run to Cambodia." Graphic: Kerry's New Evidence He moves on to the photographs: his boat leaving the base at Ha Tien, Vietnam; the harbor; the mountains fading frame by frame as the boat heads north; the special operations team the boat was ferrying across the border; the men reading maps and setting off flares. "They gave me a hat," Mr. Kerry says. "I have the hat to this day," he declares, rising to pull it from his briefcase. "I have the hat." Three...