T. Boone Pickens rejects submissions refuting Kerry swift boat ads
"Unfortunately, key aspects of my offer of $1 million have not been accurately reported," Mr. Pickens wrote in a letter to the crewmen. "My offer, reiterated in a letter to Senator Kerry not long after the challenge was made, was to pay $1 million for information that would prove any of the ads - which I helped fund - inaccurate. In reviewing your material, none of the information you provide speaks specifically to the issues contained in the ads."
Conservative blogs reporting on his offer last fall described it as applying to anything Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said, not just the group's TV ads.
"I guess now we know the 'T' in T. Boone doesn't stand for 'truth,' " said Del Sandusky, one of the crewmen. "I really hoped we could've taken him at his word. ... We won't rest until he admits the truth that he bankrolled a big lie."
Pickens plays the Bush game - if you can't win , move the goal posts. After issuing his challenge last week and having Kerry personally respond, Pickens wrote this:
T. Boone Chickens And The Swift Boat Liars
In order to disprove the accuracy of the Swift Boat ads, I will ultimately need you to provide the following:
1) The journal you maintained during your service in Vietnam.
2) Your military record, specifically your service records for the years
1971-1978, and copies of all movies and tapes made during your
service.
When you have done so, if you can then prove anything in the ads was materially untrue, I will gladly award $1 million. As you know, I have been a long and proud supporter of the American military and veterans' causes. I now challenge you to make this commitment: If you cannot prove anything in the Swift Boat ads to be untrue, that you will make a $1 million gift to the charity I am choosing - the Medal of Honor Foundation.
The blogger at Liberal Values explains why these are both unfair and deal breakers. He also calls Pickens out as a welsher and the banker to the Swift Boat liars. All I can add is that we have know what kind of guy T.Boone is for a long time here in Texas.
T.Boone's says he is sitting this election out, but others are taking up the Swift Boater mantle and gearing up for 2008. Witness:
The "Swift Boaters" from 2004 are back at it.
A group of top Republican contributors who financially fueled the famous "Swift Boat" campaign ads that helped sink Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign back in 2004 are starting to regroup.
[snip]
The GOP is raising tons of cash for the Republican Governors Association, which is a so-called 527 group and permits donors to exceed the $2,300 individual cap that applies to presidential campaigns. Although these groups are barred from soliciting money for presidential candidates, the association is telling prospective contributors that money for the association will ultimately help out McCain at the top of the ticket.
Of course the association's fund is getting cash from big corporations like Pfizer, Bank of America Corp. and Travelers, which have given $150,000 or more. But that's not the main target of this fund raising effort.
Rather, the pitch is aimed at individuals, including many top contributors to the controversial Swift Boat group that targeted Sen. Kerry. Texas developer Bob Perry, the largest financial backer of the Swift Boat group, also is the largest individual donor to the governors group, at $250,000. Carl Lindner, a retired insurance executive in Ohio and another top Swift Boat financier, has contributed $100,000 to the governors' fund. The campaign-finance lawyer for the Swift Boat group in 2004 now serves the same role for the governors association. The McCain campaign and the individual contributors all declined to comment on their involvement.
Given Obama's tactics so far and his large campaign chest , I suspect these tactics will meet with a far different response this time around.
I am oddly pleased that these weasels want to fund Swift Boaters again. I have thankfully not seen anything further on the Willie Horton redux that its creator has insisted he has ready. Maybe even these power weasels have some threshold of indecency beyond which they will not go this time, but I doubt it. |
