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Post by SweetNadine on Aug 17, 2004 19:02:47 GMT -5
Alice, I agree with Maher on this, although I suspect that the Vietnam thing is not the ONLY reason Maher has voiced support for Kerry. After all, it's not like Maher and Bush are on the same ideological page. I think Maher is on the money with this issue. Bill Maher is very respectful of the VietNam Veterans. And he is also respectful of the Soldiers in Iraq. I heard him on Larry King Live state that he watches the reality shows and wonders why the Soldiers in Iraq want to fight. He had a heaping helping wheelbarrel of respect for those kids in Iraq, unlike Paul Wolfowitz. Every time I think of Paul Wolfowitz not knowing how many Soldiers had died in Iraq during the 9-11 Commission Hearings, I can literally upchuck.
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snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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Post by snizz on Aug 20, 2004 15:38:14 GMT -5
Myself, I don't give a rats behind who served in Vietnam and who didn't. The one fact that gets overlooked is that during the Vietnam era, 60% of all those eligible never served in Vietnam. That means more Americans did not serve than served. And they weren't only the rich kids. I could pop a gut getting into that argument. There were too many issues in play during that war. I greatly honor and respect those who chose to serve, but I won't condemn those who chose not to. I served my time after the military went all volunteer. I'll be frank and say the military is not something everyone can handle. Frankly speaking again, I'd have been grateful that someone like Bush didn't serve in combat. He already had a substance abuse problem, his National Guard record shows he was not a disciplined person and on the morning of 9-11 he demonstrated how to run away. He's not someone I'd want with me under enemy fire. I do have a beef with those who didn't serve and then strut around acting like they are qualified and experienced in military matters and understand the concept and execution of war, putting the lives of soldiers at great risk. Clinton at least left those things to experienced military advisors. Even daddy Bush, who had military experience, had the sense to leave the Gulf War in the hands of experienced military personnel. My other beef is, as Hack puts it, the fratricide being committed by this group of vets out of malice. Their beef with Kerry is because of his anti-war stance when he got home. Hack is right again and he was far from alone. This bunch says that the claims that "U.S. troops committed war crimes with the knowledge of their officers up the chain of command" in Vietnam are all lies. It proves their memories of the war are more than a little hazy. It looks to me like they've forgotten names like Cpt. Ernest Medina and Lt. William Calley and places like My Lai (aka Me Lie), My Khe and Co Luy. War is hell where anything and everything can happen. Most soldiers do fight with courage and honor, but not all of them do. Atrocities do happen, sometimes premeditated and sometimes things occur in the heat of battle. If anyone really thinks Abu Ghraib is an isolated incident perpetrated by a only a few rogue soldiers, they'd better think again. Once More a Nation DividedBy (Retired Col.) David H. Hackworth The Vietnam War rages on. Witness the barrages being fired by Viet vets on the right and the left: “George W. Bush is a draft-dodger”; “John F. Kerry isn’t a war hero.”<br> Once again, that tragic war divides America – and this time around it’s vet pitted against vet. Sure, Bush dodged the draft, along with a reported 14 million other Americans with the savvy to work out that Vietnam was a no-win, sorry war. But although he had the luck and the connections to land a spot in the Air Guard, he did put his butt on the line flying a machine for which he was entitled to hazardous-duty pay – and that's because zooming around in a jet fighter was and still is highly dangerous. And sure, Kerry’s campaign push on how he Ramboed his way through the war – for four months – rubs a lot of vets the wrong way. And it does take its toll on those of us who prefer our heroes to be modest, unassuming types like Alvin York – who stayed the course until it was “Over, over there.”<br> But politics and style aside, Kerry did serve with distinction in Vietnam when he easily could have avoided that killing field. His service to his country shouldn’t be diminished by the same despicable, politically motivated tactics visited upon Sens. John McCain in South Carolina and Max Cleland in Georgia, also Viet vets. This kind of gutter-bashing doesn’t belong in American politics, and vets shouldn’t allow themselves to be used as ammo for cheap shots at one of their own. The stalwart Brown Water Navy warriors who fought at Kerry’s side say he was A-OK, which is good enough for me. The muckrakers such as John O’Neill and his Swiftboat snipers – who didn’t sail on his boat but served anywhere from 100 meters to 300 miles away – are now coming off like eyewitnesses when in fact not one of their testimonies would hold up in a court of law. A judge would call these men liars and disallow their biased statements. I’ve been in a fair number of battles in my lifetime, first fighting for my country in several hot wars, then covering a dozen conflicts as a correspondent. And I’ve learned that if you can’t see the fight right up close, smell it, hear it and touch it, you can’t possibly bear witness. This isn’t the first time Kerry’s been sniped at. Joe Klein wrote in The New Yorker that Nixon aide Charles Colson formed the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace in 1971 solely to attack John Kerry. Colson told Klein that Kerry “was a thorn in our flesh. He was very articulate, a credible leader of the opposition. He forced us to create a counterfoil. 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.”<br> O’Neill and his chorus of haters are still in their get-Kerry mode. I suspect the decades-long fury is still fueled by Kerry’s high-profile anti-war stance when he returned home. That was a position that was taken by hundreds of thousands of other Viet vets, including myself in 1971 – which, according to Joe Califono's recent book, Inside: A Public Life, almost cost me my life. McCain has already asked President Bush to distance himself from this “dishonest and dishonorable” attack. Advice that Bush should take one step further by ordering Vietnam draft-dodger Karl Rove and the rest of the character-assassination squad who zapped McCain and Cleland to back off. And then publicly stand tall and say that this type of behavior insults every vet who’s served America in peace and war. As our commander in chief, Bush also needs to bear in mind that the U.S. Navy and its high standards for handling awards are now on trial as well. Hopefully, the president’s righteous actions will expedite that institution’s exoneration along with Lt. John Kerry’s heroism. Hopefully, too, these angry, troubled vets still haunted by the Vietnam War will eventually find closure. But one thing I know for sure – it won’t come from fratricide. www.hackworth.com
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Post by Roughneck on Aug 20, 2004 15:44:31 GMT -5
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Post by Mr._Shooter on Aug 22, 2004 19:37:15 GMT -5
I don't agree with everything Bill Maher says, but, I'll tip my hat to him for giving his audience food for thought. And he is one funny dude. I recently bought his DVD- Victory Begins At Home. I laughed myself silly. I try to catch him each time he is on Larry King Live. I like what he had to say about Bush not reading newspapers. He suggested a book that Bush ought to read. He also made a statement that was a good analogy for Bush. "When you hang around a heroin addict - you will become one." Alice, I too don't agree with everything Maher says. In fact, Maher and I don't agree on much. But I do acknowledge that Maher has a healthy respect for the troops and an interest in their safe return from Iraq. Maher should, however, be careful in throwing his intentionally morbid and oftentimes incendiary humor out there for general consumption. Personally, although I have learned to take Bill with a grain of salt, I know that he has offended more military veterans and moderates than perhaps he intended to.
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Post by Travelinman on Aug 22, 2004 19:49:28 GMT -5
The main problem you're all missing is that they ARE OFFICERS. Never trust what an officer tells you. ;D I find this whole thing absolutely deplorable, especially coming from ex-military personnel and moreso from a group of officers who never served directly with Kerry.
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Roland
Full Member
Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues
Posts: 235
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Post by Roland on Aug 22, 2004 23:19:24 GMT -5
The main problem you're all missing is that they ARE OFFICERS. Never trust what an officer tells you. ;D I've never served in the military so I have no experience there, but that's probably another very valid point.
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Post by LS on Aug 22, 2004 23:37:15 GMT -5
The main problem you're all missing is that they ARE OFFICERS. Never trust what an officer tells you. ;D Yep I noticed the same thing TM...all officers- no draftee or non-com voices to be heard. snizz...good job of not popping a gut - I know how tough that is for you on this particular subject. Very well said- some excellent points...seems a lot about that war has been selectively lost in revisionist history. This whole thing has gotten ridiculously out of hand...and the DuHbya could indeed put an end to it...if he wanted to. Issuing statements through McClellan or some other 'official' doesn't cut it...he ought to be a man and stand up and say enough is enough himself. But he won't...this brouhaha has been too convenient for them- they don't have to issue 'alerts' to distract from the latest economic reports, the ongoing mess in Iraq and the deepening abuse reports coming out about Abu Ghraib and other abuses elsewhere...
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Roland
Full Member
Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues
Posts: 235
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Post by Roland on Aug 22, 2004 23:54:49 GMT -5
This whole thing has gotten ridiculously out of hand...and the DuHbya could indeed put an end to it...if he wanted to. Issuing statements through McClellan or some other 'official' doesn't cut it...he ought to be a man and stand up and say enough is enough himself. But he won't...this brouhaha has been too convenient for them- they don't have to issue 'alerts' to distract from the latest economic reports, the ongoing mess in Iraq and the deepening abuse reports coming out about Abu Ghraib and other abuses elsewhere... Those thoughts have been running through my mind too.The reports on the medical staff being implicated in Abu Ghraib, the 8.8 billion given to Iraq that's turned up missing, the charges at Halliburton, the new reports issued by the 9-11 commission, all that and more that's been overlooked in favor of this mudslinging party. Yes, it has been very beneficial to Bush, hasn't it?
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Post by Roughneck on Aug 23, 2004 0:21:07 GMT -5
Plenty of folks have said before, their service 30 years ago in and of itself is irrelevant to today's election. The truthfulness of what they did is extremely relevant. Whether or not George Bush served his full term in the ANG, and then what he says about it, clues you in to his credibility-or lack thereof. Same as the way that Kerry got his medals. If Kerry had been proven a liar, then yeah, it'd be reason not to vote for him. they of course haven't been able to prove this, but in this sense, it is relevant.
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Post by Roughneck on Aug 23, 2004 0:22:28 GMT -5
Those thoughts have been running through my mind too.The reports on the medical staff being implicated in Abu Ghraib, the 8.8 billion given to Iraq that's turned up missing, the charges at Halliburton, the new reports issued by the 9-11 commission, all that and more that's been overlooked in favor of this mudslinging party. Yes, it has been very beneficial to Bush, hasn't it? Yup, save those terror alerts to come out on say November 1, or possibly postpone the election if it looks like he's toast, give people time to brood over the "threat," and then let them vote...
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snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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Post by snizz on Aug 24, 2004 15:43:49 GMT -5
The main problem you're all missing is that they ARE OFFICERS. Never trust what an officer tells you. ;D No brother, that fact hasn't gone unnoticed.
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snizz
Full Member
I'm sure I'd be more upset if I weren't quite so heavily sedated
Posts: 322
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Post by snizz on Aug 24, 2004 15:46:48 GMT -5
Plenty of folks have said before, their service 30 years ago in and of itself is irrelevant to today's election. The truthfulness of what they did is extremely relevant. Whether or not George Bush served his full term in the ANG, and then what he says about it, clues you in to his credibility-or lack thereof. Same as the way that Kerry got his medals. If Kerry had been proven a liar, then yeah, it'd be reason not to vote for him. they of course haven't been able to prove this, but in this sense, it is relevant. Kerry's been in Washington for how many years? I'm sure by this time he knows the score that in modern politics when you run for office, every aspect of your life is fair game and open to public scrutiny. If there were any question about the medals, especially after what happened to McCain, I'm confident that neither Kerry or his advisors would have played it up in his resume. But based on your statements, this whole thing is still irrelevant. You're saying truthfulness about what they did is relevant because it offers an indication of a person's overall character. Questions about Bush's record came up during the 2000 election and he refused to release his records to set the story straight even back then. Gore served and no one questioned his record. Yet enough people still voted for Bush in 2000 despite his spotty record which, according to your view, would show he was lacking in character. This load of insignificant bull amounts to nothing but the perfect distraction for the Bushies away from all their failings.
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Post by LS on Aug 24, 2004 23:37:00 GMT -5
Kerry Fends Off Attacks Over War Record
By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press Writer
August 24, 2004, 9:39 PM EDT
PHILADELPHIA -- Democrat John Kerry defended his Vietnam War record Tuesday night from accusations that he didn't deserve his medals and invited voters to judge his 1970s anti-war activism as an indication of the "kind of president I'm going to be."
Kerry, speaking at a fund-raiser that the campaign said raised $1.7 million for the Democratic Party, said criticism of his decorated service in Vietnam has "become so petty it's almost pathetic in a way."
Kerry has been reaching out to fellow soldiers for help battling the fallout from a group of veterans who accuse him of lying about his record. Robert "Friar Tuck" Brant, a member of the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said Kerry called him Sunday night and asked if he was aware of the group's activities.
"I said, `I am one, John,'" said Brant, who had appeared at a news conference announcing the group in May. "There was a moment of hesitation and he said, `I appreciate your honesty.' He said, `Well, why are you?'"
Brant said he told Kerry he was most upset about Kerry's protests after returning from the war, when he accused soldiers of committing atrocities. "I said, `You know that's not true,'" Brant said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "That's been simmering in me about 35 years."
Brant said Kerry said he didn't mean everyone in the war was involved in the atrocities. The Massachusetts senator also offered to meet to discuss their differences, Brant said. He said he declined, saying, "I know what I know."
At the fund-raiser, Kerry defended his anti-war activism as "an act of conscience."
"You can judge my character, incidentally, by that," Kerry said. "Because when the time for moral crisis existed in this country, I wasn't taking care of myself, I was taking care of public policy. I was taking care of things that made a difference to the life of this nation. You may not have agreed with me, but I stood up and was counted and that's the kind of president I'm going to be."
Brant, who like Kerry was skipper of a Navy swift boat patrolling the Mekong Delta in 1968-1969 and now lives in Virginia, said he did not witness any of the incidents that led to Kerry winning medals. Others in the swift boat group have appeared in a television ad questioning whether Kerry lied to get them.
Kerry said he earned his three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star under the process set up by the Navy "and I'm proud of them and I'm proud of my service and I'm proud that I stood up against the war when I came home because it was the right thing to do."
Kerry also struck back at people who criticize him for trying to glorify only four months of service in Vietnam.
"I was there longer than that, number one," he said. "Number two, I served two tours. Number three, they thought enough of my service to make me aide to an admiral."
Kerry served six months aboard the USS Gridley, which supported aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin, before a four-month tour in the Mekong Delta that repeatedly brought him close to gunfire. After Kerry got three Purple Hearts for injuries from enemy fire, he was reassigned out of the combat zone and got his requested assignment to be a personal aide to an admiral in New York.
Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, introducing Kerry at the fund-raiser, said by watching the group's ads, "you'd think this was a 1962 or a 1976 presidential election."
"If you want this election to be decided on the Vietnam War, then I ask you one question: Who served this country better during the Vietnam War, John Kerry or George Bush?" Rendell said.
Bush served stateside in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war, and did not see combat. Democrats have questioned whether he always showed up for duty.
During a speech earlier Tuesday at Cooper Union in New York, Kerry sought to turn the campaign debate to issues on which he thinks he can win -- and away from questions about his Vietnam service. He also tried to paint Bush as the candidate who has been dishonest.
"My duty, as I understand it, is to be a president and commander in chief who finds the truth and tells the truth instead of misleading the American people," Kerry said to 850 invited supporters in the city where Republicans will nominate Bush for re-election next week. "My duty is to be a president who tells the truth instead of hiding behind front groups, saying anything and doing anything to avoid the real issues that matter like jobs, health care and the war in Iraq."
Kerry spoke a day after Bush criticized attack ads run by outside groups -- known as 527s because of an IRS code provision -- including the commercials being aired by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Kerry has said the veterans group is a front for the president's re-election campaign. The Bush campaign denies any coordination.
Kerry's campaign will go on the air in Nevada, New Mexico and Pennsylvania on Wednesday with a commercial responding to a new ad there by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
"The Bush campaign and its allies have turned to the tactics of fear and smear because they can't talk about jobs, health care, energy independence and rebuilding our alliances," Kerry said.
Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry's attempt to declare himself a victim of negative ads is "stunning hypocrisy." He said, "His campaign has hid behind and benefited from $63 million in attack ads by shadowy 527 groups."
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Post by LS on Aug 24, 2004 23:41:29 GMT -5
Here snizzster- these are for you...
Vietnam's Messy Legacy Paul Vitello August 8, 2004
Vietnam is the war that never ended in America. It is the piece of our history that never quite squared with Americans' vision of themselves as always victorious and just.
In Vietnam, we were sometimes just and sometimes not; sometimes victorious but mostly not. It was an ambiguous and complicated war - a category of situation Americans handle badly, as Vietnam vets learned when they came home to cool and sometimes hostile receptions.
"I always thought it would be nice to see a Vietnam veteran run for president, become president; but here it is," said a Vietnam veteran I know in Babylon. "And it's kind of a mess, just like Vietnam."
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is the first Vietnam combat vet to win either major party's nomination for president. Partly by his choosing, and partly not, his candidacy may serve as one more battle of a war Americans never quite figured out how to win - or how to lose.
It is his strategy to use his decorated service as a swift boat commander on the Mekong Delta in 1968-69 as proof of his leadership ability. He vows to serve his country as he served the men he led - the former Navy comrades, the so-called "band of brothers" who accompany him on the campaign trail bearing witness to his valor.
But, last week, in a reminder of how fractured everything about that war always was, a group of anti-Kerry Vietnam vets charged in a TV ad (paid for by a Republican Party donor) that Kerry lied about his record and didn't deserve his Silver Star, Bronze Star or his three Purple Hearts. "When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry," says one veteran in the ad, though neither he nor any others featured served on Kerry's boat.
Kerry's crewmates immediately condemned the rival vets as "the lowest" liars. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Vietnam prisoner of war, demanded that his fellow Republican, President George W. Bush, disclaim the ad (which Bush did not). Then a key figure in the anti-Kerry ambush, Kerry's former commander, Lt. Cmdr. George Elliott, retracted his claim against Kerry, while the ad continued to play in several battleground states.
In short: a mess.
"In the old days, if you were a war veteran it was automatically part of your resume," said the Babylon veteran. "I can't remember there ever being a question raised about the war records of Eisenhower, JFK or \ Dole. But this is Vietnam. I guess it carries baggage."
For reasons of his own - most of them obvious political calculations that you may or may not fault him for - Kerry made the decision not to deal with that baggage in his campaign. He acts as if his war was just like Ike's war, though he knows it was not, and knows we know, too.
In 1969, when he returned from Vietnam, he said it was a war that destroyed the souls of American soldiers. Now, as a candidate for president, he leaves that part out of the story, and it is a hole through which his ambushers have scrambled. The anti-Kerry Vietnam vets say Kerry got his Silver Star for shooting a wounded teenager in the back. It was a Vietnamese insurgent with a rocket launcher, and Kerry denies shooting him in the back, but that may not matter. It is a metaphor for the whole Vietnam disaster.
He must have known this was coming. In trying to invoke the current mess in Iraq and the spotty military record of George W. Bush during Vietnam, Kerry must have known he would remind us also of the mess of that time in the '60s and '70s: the My Lai massacre, the pitched street battles at home, Kent State, hundreds of American soldiers killed each week, thousands of Vietnamese. It was a vicious time, every bit as threatening to the character of the county as terror attacks now.
But if Kerry is elected it will be in part because people believe he engaged that previous national crisis and learned from it - both as combatant and protester - in a way that Bush never did. Bush sat out those years. He was neither hawk nor dove, just a well-born young man excused from the conflict by his service in the guard. Kerry was a hawk, and then a dove, which in one way summarizes the rap on him as a flip-flopper but also illustrates his greatest strength: his ability to think and grow.
Kerry's gamble, in reawakening those ghosts, is that Americans know in their hearts that Vietnam was the crucible of the Kerry-Bush generation, and that the better man was shaped not in the avoidance of it but in the mess of it. You can't blame him for not being more frank about the mess, but I wish he would be.
"This word, 'Vietnam,' it should have a special line in the dictionary," said the Vietnam vet from Babylon, who works for the government and did not want his name used. He was not sure what the line would say. Quagmire? Lost youth? Sad place?
He has watched the presidential campaign through the prism of his war, and it makes him feel many things - glad a Vietnam veteran is finally on the presidential ballot, resentful it took so long, worried about the emotional fallout for fellow veterans still traumatized by their war experiences. Whether Kerry talks about them or not, they know what he went through.
He is bitterly amused about the campaign to discredit Kerry's war record. After all this time, all the years of America's re-examination of the way it treated the vets (like dirt), how even this guy, a candidate for president, must come home to abuse.
But that's Vietnam. It's never finished, he said.
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Post by LS on Aug 24, 2004 23:42:00 GMT -5
Bush Doesn't Miss The Boat Paul Vitello August 24, 2004
Before he got into politics, George W. Bush was in the oil business, a tricky industry in which he excelled at raising money, using the power of his name, but flopped at finding oil.
He drilled a lot of holes in the ground of West Texas, and never made a big score. More than once, he was rescued from the brink of bankruptcy by a few rich men.
This is an old story, mentioned here not to revisit a well-known weak spot in Bush's resume but to suggest an analogy that might explain the recent role of the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in Bush's re-election campaign.
In politics, too, Bush digs holes and needs rescuing from them.
The Swift Boat group has attacked Bush's opponent, John Kerry, these past few weeks with ads that paint Kerry's war record as a sham. Kerry, according to official Navy records, is a bona fide Vietnam War hero, winner of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.
But with money raised from several big Texas Republican contributors, and supposedly off the grid of the official Bush re-election campaign, the Swift Boat group has peddled the story that Kerry spent his 1969 tour of duty in Vietnam lying, running from danger and acquiring self-inflicted wounds.
It's a story filled with holes and, you'll excuse the expression, flip-flops by some veterans who in the past have praised Kerry's bravery and now dismiss it. George Elliot, one of the members of the attack group, was campaigning with Kerry in 1996. Another member of the group, retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, told an interviewer two years ago that Kerry was "a good man," and that his actions in winning the Silver Star "took guts." Now both say Kerry is a fraud.
Bush denies any connection with the Swift Boat group. But these ads have been the best thing to happen to his campaign in a year.
His war in Iraq has gone from bad to worse, the economy has refused to bounce, and he is trailing in several polls. But these slurs against Kerry - not to mention the slurs they imply against the dozen of his crewmates who lend eyewitness accounts of Kerry's bravery to his campaign - buoys Bush's poll numbers by double digits among a crucial voting group, veterans.
In many ways, the Swift Boat group has done for Bush's flagging presidential campaign what Republican contributors did for his flagging oil company, Arbusto Oil, back in the 1980s.
Like his oil ventures, Bush's presidency has yet to make a big score - not on the economy or against terror or on any front except the budget deficit, which he has increased profoundly.
And just as happened at the lowest ebb in his entrepreneurial days, when his first company was unable to pay its debts, along comes an infusion of support bankrolled by Texas Republicans.
In the 1980s, they were businessmen eager to curry favor with W.'s father, then-Vice President and future President George Bush. (Brokered by Texas oilman James Baker, the father's future campaign chairman and secretary of state, a deal was struck whereby W. merged his failing oil enterprise with a profitable one, and became president of the new company.)
In the recent Bush rescue, the bankrollers were businessmen of the same provenance who helped the Swift Boat group get together.
One was Texas commercial real estate executive Harlan Crow, an old friend of the Bush family and a member of the board of trustees - along with Baker and former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay - of George H.W. Bush's presidential library foundation.
The other is Texas home builder Bob J. Perry, a close friend of President Bush's political guru, Karl Rove. Each man gave more than $100,000 to the Swift Boat group.
Whether or not the dirtiest episode in the 2004 presidential campaign so far was born in the White House, its bankroller-midwives are no strangers there. And their role as behind-the-scenes helpers to a W. Bush in distress is nothing new in the president's story.
Yesterday, Bush said he was disavowing the Swift Boat ads. He stopped far short of criticizing them, and lumped them together with far less scuzzy campaign ads run by independent groups backing Kerry.
But it was a start toward dropping the attack. And Bush's timing has always been good.
Previously silent eyewitnesses have been coming forward steadily in the past few days to back Kerry's version of his Vietnam experiences. The Swift Boat critics have been caught in a number of contradictions and deceptions.
The story has done its damage. Like a stock at its peak value - something Bush recognizes, as he did when he made controversial sales in the late 1980s of his own Harken Energy oil company stocks, just weeks before reported financial losses would cut their value 75 percent - this would be a good time to cash out.
The negative ads may have flopped in finding dirt, but Bush, once again, seems poised to make out like a bandit on a dry hole.
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