SwiftVets.com

[Jim]

I was perusing Evote.com ( a web site that covers politics and elections and found this blurb on Swiftvets and what it says about leader John O'Neill:

"Swift Boat Veterans For Truth
Okay, now we reach the part of the list that isn’t about currently occurring human rights abuses. Let the good times roll! SBVFT (apparently, they’re so concerned with the truth that they weren’t thinking about the acronym) is a group set up to attack John Kerry’s Vietnam record. On their website, they bill themselves as nonpartisan, which is sort of incredible considering that John O’Neill is leading the group. O’Neill, for those of you who may not be familiar with him, was the veteran recruited by the Nixon Administration to take on John Kerry 33 years ago. Despite having been recruited by a Republican President and having served in Reagan’s administration, O’Neill is apparently attacking the Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States…in a nonpartisan fashion. Those of us who are about to laugh salute him."


Is this true? Was O'Neill a former opponent of Kerry's 33 years ago? Was he appointed by Nixon and did he serve under Reagan? If these are true, then I have to admit I have to look at all this with a different perspective. Is this whole thing just political?

[Jim]

I ws bothered by this so checked on google. Apparently O'Neill debated Kerry on a 1971 Dick Cavett show. The debate apparently re-aired on C-Span March 29th, 2004 though I of course missed it. The debate was about Vietnam.

Also apparently there's a long history here.

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Was O'Neill an opponent?

Not in sense of running for public office - they didn't run against each other for office.

O'Neill did take on John Kerry on the Dick Cavett show, as O'Neill has said himself. He called John Kerry a liar back then because he knew that Kerry had not seen the "atrocities" he claimed to have seen and participated in, in Vietnam.

O'Neill was one of many who tried to get the truth out about the relatively uncommon occurrences of war crimes, but as we now know, those were voices in the wilderness.

This group of Swifts has been accused of being a bunch of bitter old alcoholics, angry men who can't get past Vietnam, all the way up to being Bush/RNC shills. More accusations are on the way - the larger the threat this group becomes to the Kerry campaign, the shriller the voices will be.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of the officers who served with Kerry in his very short four-month tour in Vietnam have come out to speak up about their opinions of this man's capacity for leading the world's greatest Armed Forces has been a frightening threat to the Kerry camp.

They've built half the platform of their campaign on Kerry's Purple Heart-bedecked 4 months in country and this group is putting the lie to Kerry's "Band of Brothers."

Why else would they focus so much attention on attacking them on personal levels?

Why don't they enumerate some of Nixon's dirty campaigning? Because they know it pales in comparison to the tricks pulled by the Kerry campaign.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[Jim]

I've been reading the site, just came across it today.

I'm torn on who to vote for in the upcoming election. I'm Vietnam era too, and had a couple of things that seemed to counter-balance.

1) Kerry served in Vietnam, and was decorated in combat, though some have suspicions about the decorations, and he may or may not have thrown his medals away, perhaps showing disrespect.

2) Bush served in the Air National Guard, though the airplanes he was certified on were not at his location, and that some question whether he was there for the whole time,and that he was able to leave early.

(The next item started to sway my opinion of Kerry.)

3) Veterans who served with Kerry complained about him.

But after i read the Joe Conason article posted below on this board, it seems clear to me the following things:

1) O'Neill and Kerry have opposed, maybe even hated each other for years.

2) O'Neill has a LOT of connections to the Nixon, Reagan and Bush White Houses, as detailed by the Conason Salon article.

3) The people involved with the Swift vets group are the same people. Some have attributed the "now known as phony" photo of Kerry and jane Fonda to these Republican politicos.

I was hopeful the SwiftVets group really, really was about truth and the experiences of non-political vets who served with Kerry, and therefore a group I should listen to... but considering the background that I have learned today, it does not seem thats the case. I'm afraid I can't accept what this group says now, its so heavily tainted with past history...I mean Chuck Colson for god's sake!...that I'll continue my own decision without considering the groups views.

I wish us all luck in finding the truth on both men,. as American voters we deserve to have it.

[skbarton13]

How reasonable of you, Jim. People who believe Joe Conason are not people who are wondering about who to vote for. O'Neill has not been a politically active guy heretofore. O'Neill does not have lots of connections to Republican administrations, he does have lots of connections to the U.S. Navy, though. Look up his family. There is a real photo of Jane Fonda and John Kerry at a 70s anti-war rally. It shows them sitting in a crowd. Jane is in the foreground, Kerry about three or four rows back -- they are not together at the rally, except for sharing the same politics of the day. How many veterans of Vietnam do you think look favorably on someone who made common cause with Jane Fonda back in that day?

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Well, I just visited evote.com out of curiousity and I'm laughing my butt off that anyone could take anything on that site seriously.

They quote Mike Farrell at the top of the page - one of Hollyweird's most outspoken critics of our war on terror and the Bush administration.

They have a fake yellow terror threat condition gauge with "ELEVATED. Yellow. The official color of the Bush Administration."

The stories and editorial cartoons are overwhelmingly tilted against Bush and toward Kerry.

Oh yah, that's a site to be trusted for unbiased truth!
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[Me#1You#10]

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

[JLO]

[Hen3]

I smelled a rat after reading the first sentence of Jim's first post. He's DNC or on Kery's payroll. Maybe he's even just a liberal zealot.

There is no doubt in my mind that he's a card carying conserrvative-hater, but what is worst about him is that he's a sneaky SOB who masquerades as a clueless voter in order to spread . Of course, when one considers the source it is not very surprising.

Henry
_________________
I believe John F. (F for Fraud) Kerry to be a liar.

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Masquerading is one of the tricks advocated by the folks at **

The musician Moby also recommended pretending to be a Bush supporter on conservative boards and asking questions as if you're confused. He came right out and said that you don't have to be truthful, all you have to do is drop a seed of doubt - insinuate that Bush took a young girlfriend to an abortion clinic, for instance or that he has a cocaine problem.

Board disruption is another thing that leftists specialize in. Another is inflated percentages - the same person registering for many different user names, thus inflating the number of posters who all agree with each other.

All are usually pretty easy to spot. Few will actually argue real facts with you. They dodge, distort, weasel, twist... but getting them to actually answer your points or questions with facts?

Nahhhh... if the discussion goes off of their DNC talking points, they're lost.

Did you see this bulletin board a couple of days before the press conference? It was invaded and totally trashed with a bunch of innuendo, lies and absolutely loony accusations.

Talk about a demonstration of desperation in action! You'll be able to gauge how big a threat this site is to the Kerry campaign by how many people are here who are quick to denigrate this group's motives, intentions and personal lives.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[Red_White_Blue]

OK we almost have this resolved.

I do believe that the photo that was said to be fake is indeed fake. Snopes.com did a great job of proving this. The basis that snopes.com used was by finding the two actual photos that were used to create the fake one. The method that the counterfeiter used to create the fake Fonda-Kerry photo has been used many times. This is where you are able to "free hand" draw a border around a picture and "crop" this photo out of its surroundings. This was used on the photo where Fonda is at microphone. Now that the counterfeiter has a cropped photo they go to the next step, which is they choose another photo and create a separate "layer" on top of it. This was done with the photo of Kerry sitting at a table. They then insert the cropped photo of Fonda into this second layer. When finished the photo is complete and appears to most people as a real photo.
If you look real close at the snopes.com link below you will see that the shirt that Fonda had on in the original photo, shows a that the fabric has a slight "pooching" or "rounded" effect on her back. In the fake Kerry-Fonda photo, the fabric on her back runs in a straight line (top to bottom).
I will have o say that if the fabric on Fonda's back had been in a different shape; Mr. Counterfeiter would have pulled the wool over more eyes!


Fake photo: http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/kerry2.asp

Real photo: http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040211-123002-8027r.htm

Hope this clears it all up!
_________________
Jason

[Me#1You#10]

Good post Navy.

Unfortunately, disrupting a message board takes less finesse than carrying out your garbage. This thread, which belongs in file 13, is a fine example. I mean who cares about that bogus photo story? It was dead and buried about forty gazillion news cycles ago but was introduced to simply distract.

This board needs an alert button, pronto.

[sparky]

I'm not so sure that these are the same people behind that photoshopped sleazery. Did the perpetrator of that ever come forward?

There is another example of photoshopped sleaze that suckered quite a few people...Ted Sampley's Vietnam Veterans Against Kerry placed Kerry at a podium with the Viet Cong flag draped behind him. Quite a few Kerry-haters didn't bother clicking the hyperlinked disclaimer.

Ted Sampley, now under a restraining order, promoted the idea that McCain was brainwashed by the N. Vietnamese and programmed to become president, ala Manchurian Candidate.

I doubt he has anything to do with this site.

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

I condemn the "photoshopping" of the picture of Kerry and Fonda at the same podium. It was a dirty trick, and I don't like dirty tricks on "our side."

However, because John Kerry marched under the banner of the Viet Cong with his VVAW "brethren" and "negotiated" with the enemy at the Paris Peace talks, I have a different opinion of the picture of Kerry in front of a Viet Cong flag.

First, the picture is obviously doctored and intended to be satirical.

Second, in light of Kerry's pro-VC activities, I see it as an accurate representation of where his sympathies lay.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother