From MoveOn: Swift Boats vow to attack Obama like they attacked Kerry.

[muntrv]

Dear MoveOn member,

Yesterday a top official from Swift Boat Veterans For Truth—yes, those Swift Boats—vowed to use the same tactics to take down Obama, saying, "We will attack Obama viciously."1

This race is going to get very ugly.

The only way to counter these kinds of nasty attacks is to make sure voters are armed with the facts. That's where we come in—our plan is to target 1.6 million voters in swing states and talk to them to make sure they know the truth about the candidates and the issues. That kind of personal contact will beat the negative ads every time.

But it's going to take a lot of work—and money—to build that organization. We've been in meetings all week crunching numbers to figure out how many states we can afford to work in this fall, and we need to make a decision soon. MoveOn doesn't have billionaire donors—it's just all of us, chipping in together. Can you chip in $25 to help make sure we have the resources necessary to get the truth out?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/victoryin2008sb.html?id=12662-5677375-ygCCPL&t=3

We've already seen underhanded online campaigns making false and ugly claims about race, gender, religion and patriotism. But it could get even worse—there's literally nothing that's off-limits for these people.

Our best weapon is the truth. If this election is about things that really matter to people—-bringing our troops home from Iraq, getting out of this economic mess and getting health care to millions of folks who desperately need it—McCain and the Republicans don't stand a chance.

And that's precisely what we're going to do this year. We're going to talk to voters in neighborhoods across this country about the things that matter to them most—and we're going to make sure they vote for progressives. We'll ensure folks in those key states have the facts in their hands so they can separate the lies from the truth.

Our election plan is one of the biggest, most effective efforts that progressives have ever put together.

It builds on our best practices from the past—integrating our neighbor-to-neighbor door-knocking program from 2004 with our "Call for Change" phone program that helped pave the way for big Democratic wins in 2006. And we've been working hard on it to make it even more effective this year.

The moment there's a Democratic nominee we have to be ready to start defending them against Swift Boat-style attacks. If each of us chips in a little, we can make sure they won't get away with lies and deception. Please chip in $25 today.

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/victoryin2008sb.html?id=12662-5677375-ygCCPL&t=4

Groups like the Swift Boat Veterans will tap billionaire donors to fund their politics of fear and destruction, but our movement is much stronger—it relies on millions of folks like us working for hope and change. If we all work together we can trump their divisive attacks and build a more progressive future.

Thanks for all you do.

–Nita, Peter, Patrick S., Michael, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Thursday, May 15th, 2008

[Puzzler]

1. It's amazing how...

... the same Swiftboat Veterans, who claimed to have had first-hand knowledge of Kerry's Vietnam days, also seem to have similar "first-hand" knowledge of Obama. I suppose after serving with Kerry in 'Nam, the whole lot of them came back to Obama's neighbourhood.

[Jazzgirl]

24. They "served" with Obama in the 'hood....

These guys are gonna make themselves look like the absolute idiots and fools they are!

[aasleka]

2. or we could protest outside their house or gated community 24/7

I have a feeling that would be the end of swift boat vet lying assholes

[Arugula Latte]

12. I wonder if they fear for their personal safety.

I also wonder if they have bodyguards. They are sticking themselves out there, and taking a big risk.

[Evecie]

3. It's different. This time around they are discredited

Their original attack worked because nobody knew them, therfore nobody knew the fraud they were until their lies were exposed.

This time their reputation is on the floor.

[myrna minx]

4. Agreed and welcome to DU Evecie.

:hi:

[Evecie]

8. thanks

:-)

[TBF]

7. And Obama will hand it back to them anyway. He's been gentle with Hillary, because she is a dem -

but he showed in his interview with Blitzer that the gloves will come off against the Republicans.

[AndyTiedye]

11. It Worked Because the Mighty Slime Machine Repeated Their Stuff Endlessly FOR FREE!

While REFUSING to air any rebuttals, unless paid for at their usual advertising rates of around $1Million/minute.

They declared it to be "news" and also to be fact.

The free airtime alone would have been worth about 5 billion dollars (more than 20 times all the money the we raised in the 2004 election cycle).
The credibility the networks gave to the Swift Boaters was, of course, priceless.

[SoCalDem]

36. We will need people "like" Lanny Davis et al.. people who will go on tv

ALL THE TIME AND STAY ON MESSAGE..telling the truth..

and a fact sheet would help too:

1. he is NOT a muslim..secret or otherwise
2. he is NOT anti-women..he has daughters & a wife
3. he is NOT rich
4. he is NOT reverend Wright
5. he is half white half black
6. he did NOT got to school in a Madrassa
7. he was a CHILD when that Ayers guy was "doing his thing"
8. he is NOT an "elite"..
9. he was NOT raised in a wealthy home
10. hand over heart is NOT required for the national anthem
11. flag pins made in China by 8 yr olds chained to a chair, do NOT confer automatic "patriotism"
12. he did not "swear in" with a Koran
etc etc etc

[AndyTiedye]

47. And We Need a Few Billion Dollars to Buy the Advertising Time

You don't think they will let any of our people on TV for free, do you?

[Window]

15. Also, this time we have a candidate who will respond swiftly and surely.

[karynnj]

18. The media already had more on the truth than they needed to

act honestly and reject it. Kerry was a war hero - this was not,like most Clinton issues, something negative that had to be spun. The way anyone who was 100% in the right has always been to give the media proof - which is exactly what Kerry did. Since then he has admitted that they needed to spend more on ads. The problem was that that would come out of the money he was limited to for his 13 week general election. (Bush had an 8 week general election - Thanks Mr McAuliffe!) That's the motivation for Obama NOT to take public financing. I suspect that it might not have helped - but added to the he said/they said nature. the problem was that the media by giving it a huge amount of time tacitly gave it credibility. The fact is that Kerry, was rewarded for serving his country, by a media condoned character assassination followed by a second character assassination by elements in his own party (who later had the utter chutzpah to whine that after all they did he didn't endorse them) which blamed not the media, but Kerry for not responding.

When the issue first came up in April 2004, the Senator put over 100 pages of Naval records on his website. There were fitness reports, which spanned the entire interval, and they were all glowingly positive - and many were written by future SBVT. This made them go away then.

In August when they returned, the media already had: - those Navy records
- the knowledge that every man on his boat when he got any medal was 100% behind him. - Nixon tapes, never intended for us to hear, showed they investigated him found he was a war hero and clean - Brinkley, was an academic historian, who was well thought of enough to be the editor of Reagan's diaries. Kerry had no editorial control and many future SBVT were interviewed around 2 years before the election and only one had any problems with him then - and that guy simply didn't like him and likely resented that the guys who reported to both of them loved Kerry.

in addition, the Kerry campaign gave the media a 36 page report disputing specific claims and they showed that the SBVT were funded by Bush supporters out of Texas.

In any previous election, providing a fraction of this proof against allegations with no proof behind them would have blown them out of the water and it would have backfired. The Clinton war machine never provided anything like this - on most things even in the end allegations were in fact not completely discredited but sometimes admitted.

Kerry also did speak against the charges in front of the firefighters - but the media which gave thousands of hours of free coverage to the liars didn't give it much coverage. (click on the picture of the Senator to see what he said: http://www.kerryvision.net/2007/08/jk_the_fire_fighters.html
If you still doubt the media was biased on this ask yourself why the media treated the purple heart bandaids as if they were campaign novelty hats. Where was the outrage that the medal all military people who are wounded get was mocked. This showed how real the respect for the troops really was in the media. It did send a signal that the media thought this was fair - which hurt.

In spite of this by November any fair minded person knew the truth - Senator Kerry was a war hero per the Navy - and it was the Navy that said he was.

[politicasista]

20. Exactly

I am glad Obama is taking the senator's advice. He is running a very smart campaign.

[karynnj]

26. Some of you are taking it too literally

The element of the SBVT that is back are the BIG money people behind it. It will obviously have nothing to do with the military or military service. What it could have in common is the same techniques - they will take something in Obama's background - likely something important to his story (the community organizing as one suggested) and create their own alternative narrative. What they learned in 2004 are methods to spread it - not just ads, but all the ways they created word of mouth against Kerry.

The scary thing about 2004 is that there are few things about anything more well documented than Kerry's war service was. There has been a huge right wing effort on things related to Israel - from the American Thinker stuff in February to the Boehner/Cantor smear earlier this week to Bush himself today. For any of you with concerned Jewish friends - here is a good Jewish anti -smear site that would be great to direct people to. http://njdc.typepad.com/stopthesmears/


Here's a link to some February Dkos diaries on the return of the SBVT - the link is to an OLD JK group thread here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=273&topic_id=146568

[politicasista]

31. True

I remember reading that link. The GOP party is trying to do the similar to Michelle Obama too.

Those are good links by the way. (If this post was directed at me or the OP. :shrug:)

[karynnj]

32. It was placed completely in the wrong spot -

:blush: But at least in the right thread.

[politicasista]

34. Oh. ok

:)

[walldude]

37. Thing is Kerry never fought back, he looked the other way

Obama will stuff this shit right up their asses. And they have the problem of trying to destroy Obama without looking like racists. Obama is too good an orator to be defeated by lies like Kerry was. No matter what Hillary supporters think of him, there can be no doubt that he can deflect any attacks with a simple speech.

[karynnj]

38. Read what I posted - it is hard to image a more

solid case proving the truth than Kerry made. In fact, I do not have as much to prove my employment history, marriage or that I have children!

Obama has a few things in his favor - many people are completely fed up with that and in 2006, all the vets - who were swiftboated by the Republicans and defended by Kerry won. The tide may have turned. Kerry faced an election where the economy was better than today and the majority of people thought we could win in Iraq - which is now not the case. Kerry, himself, was part of causing that change via Kerry/Geingold. (which Obama whimped out on). Obama also has Kerry and many other Democrats protecting his back - Kerry had only the loyal Cleland and a small group including Clark and Dean.

Obama is an incredible orator - but that can not stop everything. Kerry is a very good orator himself - his words, more than anyone else's, changed the US opinion on Vietnam in 1971. His speeches were great, but very few minutes of them was covered on network or the cable news shows. He also was far better at debates and very quick on his feet in interviews - better than Obama.

The worst thing to do is to convince yourself that Obama is immune - no one is.

[blm]

51. You're wrong. The difference is the media is letting you see Obama's counters, while they refused

to give Kerry's speech attacking the swifts and Bush for hiding behind them, and few even reported that it happened, though the speech was in freont of the Firefighters Convention, in front of the many union firefighters who endorsed Kerry. The corporate media had to be complicit since we see how readily they will cover a speech, any speech, but in the first election after 9-11, there was no way that Bush's pals wanted Kerry being seen supported by Firefighters and in full attack mode on the swifts and Bush.

And Obama is not a one man band - he has great Dems like Kerry and Biden who will answer smears put up - Kerry had the last Dem president and many Dems publicly siding with Bush on his decisions, and most of the party in fear of sticking their necks out to draw fire from Bush and Rove when they were at their most powerful.

BIG difference. We have men like Kerry and Dean who took a hell of a lot of hits for years so an Obama CAN come along and take on a weakened GOP.

[blm]

52. Baloney - we have a candidate who will have BACKUP from a Dem party that was too frigid in 2004 to

back up Kerry.

In fact, the best known Dems at the time, especially the last Dem president, were publicly siding with and DEFENDING Bush on the very attacks Kerry directed at him.

[politicasista]

55. Thank you

I don't know why fellow Obama supporters can't see that.

[Window]

59. True that.

[sniffa]

5. I served with Barack Hussein Obama as a community organizer, and he is not telling the truth

[bigdarryl]

9. or I grewup with Obama and his mother was not white as he said she was

[sniffa]

13. And his grandmother was not a racist

In fact, she birthed a black, love child.

[DarienComp]

6. What the hell are they going to say?

"I served with Barack Obama... He lied about going to Cambodia"?

:shrug:

[aasleka]

14. They're going to say, " he inhaled!" he'll say that was the point

and we'll all nod and think, yeah we did too. At least he's honest.

[NewHampshireDem]

19. LOL! I was thinking the same thing!

That would be some funny--and typically moran Republican--thing, wouldn't it?

[Hutzpa]

10. Heres how we take those bastard down

you take each and every one of them and post something about them on youtube,
besides, who is afraid of Virginia Wolfe? These asswipes figure they got away
with it the last time so they can again this time.

Obama was not a Military guy so they have nothing on him.

[gcomeau]

16. Hope they try. No, seriously.

Because as soon as they do the one single thing it's going to demonstrate beyond any doubt for people across the country is that their nonsense had everything to do with taking down Democratic presidential candidates and nothing to do with some kind of serious ethical need to communicate any kind of serious concerns.

What exactly does a group of Vietnam veterans declaring their outrage over a claimed misrepresentation of a Vietnam war record have to with Obama, who was never anywhere near the Vietnam war or a swift boat in his entire life seeing as he was 14 years old when the war ended? Nothing. So why are they doing this? Pure dirty politics. And they're not going to be able to hide that in even a superficial manner. This will bounce off Obama like he's made of Teflon coated superball.

And you know what people will wake up to when it becomes impossible to deny what these people really are? Kerry got screwed by a bunch of immoral lying bastards and he's a decent guy who should have kicked Bush's backside. So by all means swift boat idiots, try to attack Obama. Exonerate Kerry from the smears you directed at him in the eyes of the nation once and for all and destroy your own credibility... we'll make absolutely sure it happens as soon as you open your mouths. Idiots.

[Erin Elizabeth]

17. Did anyone see the Kings of Comedy concert movie?

I don't remember which comedian said it, but he was talking about how whites hope and blacks wish.

He said before showing up to the concert, the white couple said they hope no one is in their seats.

The black couple said "oh I wish there WOULD be someone in my seat!"

I saw it with my best friend, an African-American woman who was absolutely choking with laughter throughout. We talked about it later and I said "you know, that's true. I tend to say 'I hope' and you say 'oh I wish they'd TRY that'" and we laughed our asses off over that. She said, Erin, you need to WISH like I do. Don't hope.

So I adopted the wish mindset. (I really do have a point with this and it relates to Obama.) Even though it was funny, it actually caused a good thing--I used to have a big lack of assertiveness and adopting that "wish" mindset really helped, LOL!

To get this back to Obama--I don't think he's sitting around biting his nails going "oh I hope they don't try to Swift Boat me."

For some reason I get the feeling if he's saying anything about it, it's "Oh I wish they WOULD."

:rofl:

[NatBurner]

48. i haven't been here long, but

you're becoming one of my favorite posters :)

and you're right- i was JUST telling my coworker "i wish a <expletive> WOULD say some <expletive> about obama"

after wrightgate, bittergate, and now what? sweetiegate?

bring it on

and i'm pretty sure it was cedric the entertainer

[Erin Elizabeth]

53. Yes! It was Cedric!

Thank you!

And thanks for your sweet comments!

[L0oniX]

21. Maybe the Swift Boats should be attacked first. Dig up the dirt and dish it out.

My bet is that some of the groups members are just corporate hit men from companies that stand to lose if Obama is elected.

[OmahaBlueDog]

40. Tie 'em to Enron, Tie 'em to Abramoff, and find out how many do business with terrorists

[anonymous171]

54. Agree. Put them on the defensive, make sure nobody believe anything they say.

[Major Hogwash]

22. We're ready to pull the plug out of their little life rafts this time.

We're more than qualified to fight back this time.

[MojoMojoMojo]

23. Obama supporters want truth and facts ?What a joke.Obama worked on

Rezkos slum tenement case ,helping him turn off heat in the dead of winter for three months.
Is that the kind of truth they are talking about.
Oh you mean the other truth.Hope and Change.

[ekwhite]

25. Ahh - speaking of SBVT, here's one of them now....N/T

[cliffordu]

27. Enjoy your stay!!

Where will you go when she steps down and your uh, information isn't welcome anymore??

should be next week.

Enjoy!!

:hi:

[madrchsod]

28. hmmmmm.....wrong

[Bensthename]

30. Got a link to that? I thought rePubes werent allowed here? Whats up with this?

[Political Heretic]

35. You are a liar.

That's not an attack. That is an observation of fact.

[fortyfeetunder]

29. I have only two words for the swiftboaters:

FUCK OFF!

[DU GrovelBot]

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[OmahaBlueDog]

39. Listen to the Kennedy's on this one: Don't get mad: Get even

When they hit this time, don't just shut up and take it like Kerry did. Instead, hit them back so hard they'll think 2 or 3 times before they ever try a stunt like that again.

[JeanGrey]

41. Look, it won't do them any good. With Bill and Hillary already

throwing the race card at him, that STUPID man in Georgia with the Curious George tee shirts, it will just create a backlash. I've had two friends who are REPUBLICANS who are voting for him after the tee shirt incident.

I think they are going to be very surprised this time. Unless Hillary has dug some stuff up she's holding back (and nothing would surprise me).

[depakid]

42. Groups AND individuals like these need to be sued for libel

That would keep 'em honest....

[Zachstar]

43. Do not underestimate the power the swift boats can weild.

When I did the chat room for them (Yes I supported Bush in 2004 comes with being a fucktard fan of war.. sorry) they have a multitude of facets and they effectively ran multiple campaigns from their forum.

These are not the ordinary republicans so we have to work hard to defeat their lies this year. They know how to use netroots...

[ruby slippers]

44. aren't they all just a little more senile yet?

[LTR]

45. Wasn't Obama a bit young to serve in 'Nam?

IIRC, he wasn't even in the service.

So what do these fatass swiftnut losers have in store?

[anonymous171]

50. I think they are going to try and label Obama as a terrorist.

[GoldieAZ49]

46. fund drive with fear tatics, sheesh, 1.6 million out of 140 million voters?

why bother?

no wonder they were so effective against Kerry.

[anonymous171]

49. We need to attack these people on a personal level.

Make them afraid to fund this bullshit.

[snooper2]

56. Obama and his team are ready for those fuckers...

Hopefully he will expose them with pictures of their leaders in commercials, where the money comes from...take the bastards down in the World of public opinion..

[anonymous171]

57. They should throw Kerry against them.

He could avenge his campaign by aiding Obama in destroying these people.

[jeffrey_X]

58. Why would THEY attack Obama? What's the correlation?

::??::

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

60. The swift boat will hit a mine.

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