DNC Lawyers Work To Muzzle Swift Boat Vets' Ad

[Bonnie]

Actually if Bush id distancing himself from it, which i wouldnt be surprised if he did. It has nothing to do with whether he thinks its true or not. Its about his campaign tactics. He is focusing on the issues and how he wants to lead the country.

With all that said however, the American people have a right to the truth. And i have to wonder why Kerry is so upset if they are only lies.

Me thinks he dost protest too much!!!!!!

Bush is doing the same thing his dad did with the whole Willy Horton situation....I think it's a smart move tactically.

 

[007]

The book Unfit For Command will be out soon. Then will come the slander lawsuits.

I really doubt it. You don't see anyone suing that fatass, stinking, pig ****, liar mickey moore do you? And you won't see anyone getting sued over anything said in that book either. It just isn't worth the money and effort to these people. It's smarter to just wait until the hype surrounding that kind of stuff dies down.

 

[Annie]

First you have to be able to prove that something is false to win a slander case. Going to be tough here, since Kerry has built a record. At the swift boat site, they have a transcript of a Dick Cavette Show, not good in some ways for Kerry, but shows his debating skills and ability to divert the issue, even then. It's a 90 minute interview, so here are excerpts:

http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php?topic=KerryONeill

MR. CAVETT: Well, let's talk about that. Did you see war crimes committed and –

MR. KERRY: Well, I have often talked about this subject. I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free fire zones and I did take part in harassment interdiction fire. I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these, I find out later on, these acts are contrary to the Hague and Geneva Conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the applications of the Nuremberg principles, is in fact guilty.

Mr. O'Neill, who was representing a group called, 'Veterans for Peace':

MR. O'NEILL: that's very interesting that you would say that, John. I've got an article right now. It's from the May 8, 1971, New York Times. It concerns some of the testimony. It concerns a Danny S. Notley (phonetic spelling), who apparently is a member of your organization. The Army pursued him all the way to Minnesota to try and get him to sign a deposition regarding the allegations of war crimes that he made, and he refused to, as have all 50 people that testified there and 150 that testified in Detroit, and so I suggest that if you're honest, you ought to finally produce the depositions after all of us waiting for two months.

The effect of what you've done hasn't been to prevent one or two Kerrys (sic). It's been to label two and a half million of us as – Calleys, not Kerrys, although they may be somewhat interchangeable at times.

That's precisely and exactly what you've done. And I think in honesty, as a just and decent human being, that you'd want to do that. I think there's something particularly pathetic about me having to appear on nationwide television and trade polished little phrases with you to defend the honor of the 55,000 people that died there, the two and a half million of us that served there. I think further that the justification that Hanoi uses for keeping our POWs is that they were engaged in criminal acts there, and I think that someone who comes out and says exactly the same thing could be doing nothing but serving those purposes, although I'm not – obviously those are not your intentions. There's no question about that.

Well guess who made up the 'politics of personal destruction?' Al Gore should be ashamed!

MR. KERRY: Well, as to my being a liar, I – in my testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I did indeed say what he said. I said I represent one of the group of one thousand, which incidentally was one thousand at any one time. There were some two thousand who came through the whole time we were in Washington. And when I referred to the very much larger group within the country, I referred to our membership of our organization. I didn't say a majority; I didn't say all veterans; I said to a very much larger group, which is the some 20,000 members that we have in the country at this particular moment. And that was my reference there.

As to this question of who speaks for the majority and all this personal vindictiveness, I really think that that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about the question of this war and why it is continuing, why – [unintelligible] – and I really don't think it does just justice to those men who have to give up their lives or be maimed or something or are in Vietnam now to have two veterans of the war sit here and go at each other's throats. I really think we can do better justice to the issue than that, and the issue really is why can't we set a date. Mr. O'Neill has simply shrugged this off, saying that would be absurd.

I want to know why we can't set a date when we know that the prisoners will come home, when we know that people will stop being maimed for the most senseless purpose in the world, and when we know that that in fact can be a solution and release the forces of accommodation in Vietnam which will not be released as long as we are there and as long as we are helping the South Vietnamese.

Something to watch for in the debates coming up:

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to quote your speech, if that's satisfactory.

MR. KERRY: No wait. You've just made a charge.

MR. O'NEILL: "The country does not know it yet, but it has created a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and trade in violence who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped." I think that Mr. Kerry is trying to talk for something more than his little group of 20,000. I think that he was attempting to represent himself as representative of all of us.

Second, on the war crimes issue –

MR. CAVETT: Well, wait a minute. We're way past the thing there –

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to -

MR. CAVETT: – about whether or not your speeches were written for you or whether or not –

MR. KERRY: Somehow the group has suddenly jumped to 20,000 in the period of this –

MR. O'NEILL: Whose group has jumped to 20,000? Your group has, you mean?

MR. KERRY: The Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Two days ago in Leonard Lyons in New York – as a matter of fact, in answer to a charge made by the Vice President of the United States saying a Robert Kennedy speech writer had written my speech, I would be flattered to have one write my speech frankly, but in this letter he wrote to the Vice President, saying, "Dear Mr. Vice President, Thank you very much for insinuating that I wrote John Kerry's speech. I would have been proud to have done it, but I didn't; however, in the future please be sure to mention my name as it will – as it is sure to help me in my next election."

No, Adam Walinsky did not submit a draft to me and he did not write my speech. Now, as to the question –

MR. O'NEILL: I didn't say that, John. If I can quote Human Events of May 22nd, 1971 –

MR. KERRY: Can we move –

MR. O'NEILL: I'd like to establish this point. "Former Robert F. Kennedy staffer, Adam Walinsky, acknowledged he had helped Kerry put together his eloquent presentation. Walinsky said that Kerry, the 1966 Yale class orator, was pretty darn good with words all by himself, but added he had a hand in drafting those parts of the Kerry address which were on television." I think it is a relatively minor point. It is your speech I disagree with, not with who wrote it.

My understanding is that's what he told a number of people. The same stories appeared over and over. I think that even more important is this point: You happen to feel that you're being vilified. I think you can imagine how the two and a half million of us whom you have vilified feel at this time.