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WHO'S
REALLY BEHIND SBV - A GROUP THAT CALLS ITSELF
"NON-PARTISAN"?
SUMMARY
FACTS
(For detailed proof, scroll down or click here)
-
Note that Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth morphed into a new group calling itself
Swift Vets and POWs for Truth. People in this group are behind
the fraudulent anti-Kerry book "Unfit For Command" and
the fraudulent anti-Kerry film "Stolen Honor".
-
SBV claims to be a
"non-partisan" organization. Once you've stopped
laughing and picked yourself off the floor (or applied to Fox News
for a job as a substitute for Sean
Hannity if you believe it), here is what you should know. SBV's
claim is plainly false. Just because one's organization is
registered as "non-partisan" in the eyes of the
Government doesn't make it so, especially when key members of the
group are known Republicans and contributed large sums of money to
Republicans.
-
Their claim of being
"non-partisan" is belied by the fact that some of the
top people involved in SBV are staunch, right-wing Republicans,
including those with a history of creating egregious and false hit
pieces on opponents (especially Bush Sr.'s or Bush Jr.'s opponents
- e.g., Senator John McCain). John O'Neill himself is a Nixon
stooge who clerked for now-Chief Justice William Rehnquist (U.S.
Supreme Court). SBV is also funded by wealthy right-wing
Republicans. One of the co-authors of "Unfit for
Command", Jerome Corsi, has a history of writing hate-filled,
bigoted, articles on the web. Merrie Spaeth, a communications
executive behind the anti-Kerry ads (and also behind the
despicable ads that were run against John McCain in 2000) once
coached Ken Starr during the Clinton impeachment hearings. Bob Perry
is a key sponsor of SBV, and he has been "carefully
cultivated" in the past as a GOP donor by Karl Rove. Harlan
Crow is a trustee of the George Bush Foundation.
-
Moreover, the fact
that SBV
members or backers have direct or indirect connections to the
Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign has become very clear now.
-
Do scroll down and read
more about these "fine" citizens of the country...
-
ASIDE:
Not surprisingly, a bunch of hate-mongering ultra-right-wing
frauds who played a key role in cooking up myriad fake stories
about Bill Clinton in the 1990s - Citizens United - are now
taking aim at John Kerry, using the fabrications of SBV
for a new "movie". Are David Neiwert points
out, these "are guys whose ethos makes Dick Nixon
look like a choirboy".
DETAILED
FACTS
SBV's BOGUS CLAIM
OF BEING "NONPARTISAN": WHO ARE THE KEY PLAYERS BEHIND
SBV?
Swift Boat Veterans
for Truth is a non-partisan organization.
FACT
Some of the key
players behind SBV are listed below (click on the links below for more details - and
see this handy
chart from the New York Times that provides a brief summary). In
addition, I have a separate section covering SBV
members or backers who have direct or indirect connections to the
Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign.
1. Jerome
Corsi: Ultra right wing, rabid hater of Democrats, Catholics,
Muslims and God-knows what else. Expressed a desire that a plane
should have crashed into the set of the West Wing, which had Martin
Sheen acting as President. Expressed the belief that a lot of people
he didn't like were Communists and that the Pope is senile. And so on.
Recently flip-flopped and claimed to "apologize" in light of
these revelations, but the fact is that he has made countless racist
or bigoted statements.
2. John
O'Neill: Protégé of Watergate felon Chuck Colson and Richard
Nixon (the former President), who set him on the then-anti-war Kerry
to attack Kerry's high credibility - and has been a strong Kerry-hater
since. His law firm has strong connections with the Bush White House
(e.g., one of his partners was the former (scandal-involved) general
counsel to Bush Jr. in Texas). Formerly clerked with now Supreme Court
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who was Nixon's favorite. Also, Bush
Sr. had considered O'Neill for a federal judgeship.
3. Merrie
Spaeth: Highly connected Republican communications executive
who once worked to build propaganda pieces for Ronald Reagan - and
wife of O'Neill's late law partner. She was a coach for Kenneth Starr
in the Clinton impeachment hearings, via Ted Olson (until recently
Bush's Solicitor General and a participant in the dirty tricks
campaign against the Clintons). She was also responsible for creating
the egregious, false smear ads against John McCain in 2000, when he
ran against Bush.
4. William
Franke, Lewis Waterman and Stephen Hayes (of Gannon International):
Franke, a major Bush supporter, has longstanding ties to John Ashcroft
and the Missouri GOP. All of these people are part of the firm Gannon
Intl. which has had profitable dealings with Vietnam, especially
thanks to Kerry's efforts to normalize relationships with Vietnam. The
irony!
5. Bob Perry
and the Crow Family: Generous supporters of Bush and the
Republicans, Perry has given them millions of dollars. Perry is a key sponsor of SBV.
Karl Rove has "carefully cultivated" donors like Perry.
Harlan Crow is a trustee of the George Bush Foundation.
6. Robert Hahn:
Runs the Free Republic Network, part of which is the right-wing
hate-mongering, extremist website Free Republic which Corsi frequently
contributes to.
10. Others
REFERENCES
1.
JEROME CORSI
Media
Matters
While much has been
written about the identity and history of John
E. O'Neill -- one of the authors of the forthcoming Regnery
book Unfit
for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry
(whose links in the GOP go back to his days as "protégé
of Nixon-era dirty trickster Charles Colson") -- little has
been said about his co-author, Jerome R. Corsi, PhD.
• Corsi on
Islam: "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion"
• Corsi on Catholicism: "Boy buggering in both Islam
and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported
by the liberal press"
• Corsi on Muslims: "RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as
clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together"
• Corsi on "John F*ing Commie Kerry":
"After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin
practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were
Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"
• Corsi on Senator "FAT HOG" Clinton:
"Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not
lesbo or anything, is she?"
...Corsi asserted
that, in 1971, Kerry's anti-war activism amounted to a proclamation
by him that "Communists were right in maintaining that American
values were corrupt and that the only solution was for America to
capitulate so Communism could continue to spread." As Media
Matters for America has
noted, Kerry was quoted expressing exactly the opposite
sentiment in a December 12, 1971, Boston Globe article:
"I don't like Communists," Kerry said. "In fact, I
hate them. I hate all totalitarians. I'm totally dedicated to
representative, pluralistic, free democracy."
...
Scott Swett, who is listed as the webmaster of the Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth website, swiftvets.com,
also appeared on FOX News Channel host Sean Hannity's August 5 radio
show to discuss the group. Swett posts frequently to
FreeRepublic.com, using the pseudonym "Interesting
Times," and is also a director of the Free Republic
Network. The wintersoldier.com website to which Swett has
contributed articles is a project of the Free Republic Network.
Corsi is also a
frequent participant in FreeRepublic.com's online forums, posting
under the pseudonym "jrlc" since 2001. (Click here
to read a full set of Corsi's posts; click here
to read the post in which "jrlc" admits to being Jerome
Corsi.)
On FreeRepublic.com,
Corsi has, among other things, said that "ragheads" are
"boy buggers"; referred to "John F*ing Kerry";
called Senator Hillary Clinton a "Fat Hog"; referred to
her daughter as "Chubby Chelsie" Clinton; referred to
Janet Reno as "Janet Rhino"; called Katie Couric
"Little Katie Communist"; suggested Kerry was
"practicing Judaism"; and expressed the wish that a small
plane that had crashed into a building in Los Angeles had instead
crashed into the set of NBC'S The West Wing, thereby killing
actor Martin
Sheen.
Atrios
(Eschaton):
Carville Today
On
Xfire:
- John Kerry, Tim
Russert, Chris Matthews, Katie Couric, CBS, NBC are all
communists. Hillary Clinton is a lesbian fat hog with fake hair.
Al and Tipper Gore are terrorists who are part of the Taliban.
The pope is senile. And pedophilia is fine with him as long as
it's not reported in the liberal press. If you think all this
sounds nutty, well, it is.
According to the organization Media Matters For America, all
this has been written by Jerome Corsi. Why do we care what
Jerome Corsi says? Well, we don't. But as co-author of the book
"Unfit for Command" about John Kerry and his service
in Vietnam, some people are making the mistake of taking him
seriously. In the world of putrid right-wing pond scum, Corsi is
one of the biggest bottom-feeders of them all.
Tim
Grieve, Salon.com
...in truth it's
really impossible to choose just one Corsi-ism to highlight...
Sept. 11:
When the infamous Aug. 6, 2001 PDB was released in April -- the one
headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." --
Corsi declared the story "DOA" and said that "the
RATS" -- Corsi's shorthand for Democrats -- on the 9/11
commission should consider themselves "disgraced" for
pursuing it.
The United
Nations: Corsi calls the
UN a "Communist, anti-American terror-ridden propaganda
pulpit." But then, Corsi calls lots of things
"communist." Hardball's Chris Matthews is "Communist
Chris." Jimmy Carter is a "Total Communist." John
Lennon is a "dead Communist guy." Katie Couric is
"Little Katie Communist," and NBC is short for
"Nothing But Communism."
Atrios
(Eschaton):
AP Does Corsi
Says
he's sorry.
Of course, he also recently
wrote:
- Finally, we all
owe a huge salute to a great American patriot, Jim Robinson.
Free Republic is a ground breaking forum, which allows us the
free and robust expression of conservative political ideas.
I am honored to be associated with Free Republic, as I am
honored to be participating in bringing the case against John
Kerry as co-author of UNFIT FOR COMMAND.
You
be the judge...
Disinfopedia:
In another message
Corsi wrote: "So this is what the last days of the Catholic
Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral
base and the lawyers rip the gold off the Vatican altars. We may get
one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that's probably about
it." Asked about his comments Corsi said they were meant as a
joke and he apologised. [24]
However, an
examination of the
full list of Jerome Corsi's Free Republic postings reveals that
Corsi has made hundreds of them, many of which are racist. A
February 2003 posting by Corsi asked "Who are the Frogs going
to cry to when the ragheads destroy the Eiffel Tower?" [25].
And in March 2004, Corsi even made the wild claim that "JaneFondaKerry
is being heavily funded by Iranians -- check out how Gore was funded
by the Chinese in 2000." [26]
2.
JOHN O'NEILL
Joe
Conason, Salon.com
Houston attorney John
E. O'Neill, the Navy veteran who has emerged recently as a harsh and
ubiquitous critic of John Kerry's military service, tells reporters
that he has never really been interested in politics and isn't
motivated by partisan interests. In the media, O'Neill is often described
simply as a Vietnam vet still enraged by the antiwar speeches Kerry
delivered more than 30 years ago. That was when O'Neill first came
to public attention as a clean-cut, pro-war protégé
of the Nixon White House's highest-ranking dirty trickster (aside
from the late president himself), Charles Colson.
Colson, who went to
prison for Watergate crimes, saw O'Neill as a perfect foil to Kerry,
whom Nixon and his aides feared as a decorated, articulate and
reasonable opponent of the war and their regime. Indeed, O'Neill was
perfect -- a crewcut officer who had served on the same Navy swift
boat that Kerry had commanded, although their stints in the Mekong
Delta didn't overlap. In June 1971, Colson brought O'Neill up to
Washington for an Oval Office audience with Nixon. His impressions
live on in a memo filed later:
"O'Neill went
out charging like a tiger, has agreed that he will appear anytime,
anywhere that we program him and was last seen walking up West
Executive Avenue mumbling to himself that he had just been with the
most magnificent man he had ever met in his life."
...
To establish his nonpartisan credentials, O'Neill assured the CNN
anchor that he was "never contacted" by the Bush-Cheney
campaign. What he didn't mention, however, is that his law firm
boasts long-standing and powerful connections with the Bush White
House.
With an oil
and litigation practice focused on the defense of major energy
and industrial firms, the dozen partners in Clements,
O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson have clout that exceeds
their firm's small size. Their corporate clients
include Exxon Mobil, General Electric, Reliant Energy, Koch
Industries and Eastman Kodak. More important, among the name
partners is Margaret
Wilson, the former general counsel to George W. Bush during his
second term as Texas governor. (She succeeded Alberto Gonzales, who
currently serves as White House counsel.)
In 2001, Wilson went
to Washington with the new president, who appointed her deputy
general counsel in the Department of Commerce. During her tenure as
Bush's counsel in Austin, she was implicated in the Service
Corporation International funeral home scandal. State government
whistle-blower Eliza May accused Wilson of participating in an
effort to "intimidate" her from pursuing an investigation
of SCI, a major Bush campaign donor.
Among the firm's
partners with close ties to Bush was "Tex"
Lezar, who ran for lieutenant governor on the Republican ticket
with him in 1994, when Bush won and Lezar lost. An indefatigable
conservative activist and lawyer sympathetic to the most extreme
elements in Southern GOP circles, Lezar died last January at the
age of 55. Before joining the Clements firm, Lezar served in the
Reagan Justice Department, where he befriended Kenneth Starr, whom
he often defended to the press when Starr was pursuing the Clintons
as Whitewater independent counsel. In later years, Lezar held
important positions in the Federalist Society, Empower America, the Texas
Public Policy Foundation and various other right-wing
organizations.
As for O'Neill, his
Republican loyalties may well have been cemented in 1974. Three
years after Colson first brought him to the White House to meet with
Nixon, who encouraged the young O'Neill to "get" Kerry and
the protesters in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he launched his
legal career with a coveted clerkship in the United States Supreme
Court. No doubt it was mere coincidence that O'Neill clerked with
William Rehnquist, the controversial conservative who was Nixon's
favorite justice and who went on to be appointed chief justice by
President Reagan.
Media
Matters
During the CNN
interview, Blitzer reported that former President Richard Nixon had
urged O'Neill to publicly counter Kerry on The Dick Cavett Show,
but there is more to the story. O'Neill was a creation of the Nixon
administration, as Joe Klein detailed in the January 5 issue of The
New Yorker. Former Nixon special counsel Chuck Colson told Klein
that Kerry was an "articulate" and "credible
leader" of those veterans calling for an end to the Vietnam War
and therefore "an immediate target of the Nixon
Administration." As such, the Nixon administration found it
necessary to "create a counterfoil" to Kerry. Colson
recounted, "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." Articles from the April 21 Houston Chronicle and
the June 17, 2003, Boston Globe confirm close ties between
O'Neill and the Nixon administration.
Beyond his role in
the Nixon administration's strategy to undermine Kerry in the 1970s,
O'Neill is also connected to Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist
(a Nixon appointee) and to former President George H.W. Bush,
according to Houston Chronicle articles from March 31 and
April 21. In the late 1970s, O'Neill clerked for Rehnquist; in 1990,
according to an October 7, 1991, report by Texas Lawyer, the
former President Bush considered O'Neill for a federal judgeship
vacancy.
DailyKos:
We found out earlier
today that John O'Neill, the guy Bush trotted out to attack
Kerry's military service, also did Nixon's dirty anti-Kerry work (in
addition to clerking for Rehnquist). A partisan hack spanning
multiple administrations.
We also found out
that he's a partner at the Houston firm of Clements,
O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson and Fulkerson. One of his co-partners is
Margaret Wilson, who was George Bush's general counsel 1998-2000.
Well, there's more
about good ol' Margaret. She was a lawyer at Vinson & Elkins
before she worked for Bush. Vinson & Elkins was Enron's main law
firm -- the very firm that facilitated
Enron's frauds. Vinson & Elkins was also the firm that
spawned Al Gonzales -- Bush's current general counsel.
In other words,
Vinson & Elkins and COPWF are the very embodiment of the Houston
good ol' boy Republican network. That this network spawn Kerry's
harshest critic should be of no surprise (his career was probably
made thanks to the Nixon dirty work). Thus, there should be no
illusions that O'Neill is in any way an independent and impartial
critic of John Kerry.
Joe
Conason, Salon.com
Behind the Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth are...eternal Kerry antagonist and Houston
attorney John
E. O'Neill, law partner of Spaeth's late husband, Tex Lezar; and
retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman, a cigar-chomping former Vietnam
commander once described as "the classic body-count guy"
who "wanted hooches destroyed and people killed."
Spaeth told Salon
that O'Neill first approached her last winter to discuss his
"concerns about Sen. Kerry." O'Neill has been assailing
Kerry since 1971, when the former Navy officer was selected for the
role by Charles Colson, Richard Nixon's dirty-tricks aide. Spaeth
heard O'Neill out, but told him, she says, that he "sounded
like a crazed extremist" and should "button his lip"
and avoid speaking with the press. But since Kerry clinched the
Democratic nomination, Spaeth has changed her mind and decided to
donate her public relations services on a "pro bono" basis
to O'Neill's latest anti-Kerry effort.
3.
MERRIE SPAETH
Joe
Conason, Salon.com
Behind the Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth are veteran corporate media consultant and Texas
Republican activist Merrie
Spaeth, who is listed as the group's media contact; eternal
Kerry antagonist and Houston attorney John
E. O'Neill, law partner of Spaeth's late husband, Tex Lezar; and
retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman, a cigar-chomping former Vietnam
commander once described as "the classic body-count guy"
who "wanted hooches destroyed and people killed."
Spaeth told Salon
that O'Neill first approached her last winter to discuss his
"concerns about Sen. Kerry." O'Neill has been assailing
Kerry since 1971, when the former Navy officer was selected for the
role by Charles Colson, Richard Nixon's dirty-tricks aide. Spaeth
heard O'Neill out, but told him, she says, that he "sounded
like a crazed extremist" and should "button his lip"
and avoid speaking with the press. But since Kerry clinched the
Democratic nomination, Spaeth has changed her mind and decided to
donate her public relations services on a "pro bono" basis
to O'Neill's latest anti-Kerry effort. "About three weeks ago,
four weeks ago," she said, the group's leaders "met in my
office for about 12 hours" to prepare for their Washington
debut.
Although not as well
known as Karen Hughes, Spaeth is among the most experienced and best
connected Republican communications executives. During the Reagan
administration she served as director of the White House Office of
Media Liaison, where she specialized in promoting "news"
items that boosted President Reagan to TV stations around the
country. While living in Washington she met and married Lezar, a
Reagan Justice Department lawyer who ran for lieutenant governor of
Texas in 1994 with George W. Bush, then the party's candidate for
governor. (Lezar lost; Bush won.)
Through Lezar, who
died of a heart attack last January, she met O'Neill, his law
partner in Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson, a
Dallas firm. (It also includes Margaret Wilson, the former counsel
to Gov. Bush who followed him to Washington, where she served for a
time as a deputy counsel in the Department of Commerce.)
Spaeth's partisanship
runs still deeper, as does her history of handling difficult P.R.
cases for Republicans. In 1998, for example, she coached Kenneth
Starr, the independent counsel, to prepare him for his testimony
urging the impeachment of President Clinton before the House
Judiciary Committee. She even reviewed videotapes of his previous
television appearances to give him pointers about his delivery and
demeanor. The man responsible for arranging her advice to Starr was
another old friend of her late husband's, Theodore Olson, who was
counsel to the right-wing American Spectator when it acted as a
front for the dirty-tricks campaign against Clinton known as the
Arkansas Project; he is now the solicitor general in the Bush
Justice Department. (Olson also happens to be the godfather of
Spaeth's daughter.)
In 2000, Spaeth
participated in the most subterranean episode of the Republican
primary contest when a shadowy group billed as "Republicans for
Clean Air" produced television ads falsely attacking the
environmental record of Sen. John McCain in California, New York and
Ohio. While the identity of those funding the supposedly
"independent" ads was carefully hidden, reporters soon
learned that Republicans for Clean Air was simply Sam Wyly -- a big
Bush contributor and beneficiary of Bush administration decisions in
Texas -- and his brother, Charles, another Bush "Pioneer"
contributor. (One of the Wyly family's private capital funds,
Maverick Capital of Dallas, had been awarded a state contract to
invest $90 million for the University of Texas endowment.)
When the secret
emerged, spokeswoman Spaeth caught the flak for the Wylys, an
experience she recalled to me as "horrible" and
"awful." Her job was to assure reporters that there had
been no illegal coordination between the Bush campaign and the Wyly
brothers in arranging the McCain-trashing message. Not everyone
believed her explanation, including the Arizona senator.
Kate
Zernike and Jim Rutenberg, New York Times:
Another partner, Tex
Lezar, ran on the Republican ticket with Mr. Bush in 1994, as
lieutenant governor. They were two years apart at Yale, and Mr. Lezar
worked for the attorney general's office in the Reagan administration.
Mr. Lezar, who died last year, was married to Merrie Spaeth, a
powerful public relations executive who has helped coordinate the
efforts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
In 2000, Ms. Spaeth was
spokeswoman for a group that ran $2 million worth of ads attacking
Senator John McCain's environmental record and lauding Mr. Bush's in
crucial states during their fierce primary battle. The group, calling
itself Republicans for Clean Air, was founded by a prominent Texas
supporter of Mr. Bush, Sam Wyly.
Ms. Spaeth had been a
communications official in the Reagan White House, where the
president's aides had enough confidence in her to invite her to help
prepare George Bush for his vice-presidential debate in 1984. She says
she is also a close friend of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, a
client of Mr. Rove's. Ms. Spaeth said in an interview that the one
time she had ever spoken to Mr. Rove was when Ms. Hutchison was
running for the Texas treasurer's office in 1990.
When asked if she had
ever visited the White House during Mr. Bush's tenure, Ms. Spaeth
initially said that she had been there only once, in 2002, when
Kenneth Starr gave her a personal tour. But this week Ms. Spaeth
acknowledged that she had spent an hour in the Old Executive Office
Building, part of the White House complex, in the spring of 2003,
giving Mr. Bush's chief economic adviser, Stephen Friedman, public
speaking advice. Asked if it was possible that she had worked with
other administration officials, Ms. Spaeth said, "The answer is
'no,' unless you refresh my memory.''
"Is the White
House directing this?" Ms. Spaeth said of the organization.
"Absolutely not.''
eRiposte note: Yeah, right!
Information
via JohnKerry.com:
John McCain Says
It’s Dishonest & Dishonorable—Same Thing That Happened to Him
in 2000.
“Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam,
called an ad criticizing John Kerry’s military service
"dishonest and dishonorable" and urged the White House on
Thursday to condemn it as well. ‘It was the same kind of deal that
was pulled on me,’ McCain said in an interview with The Associated
Press, referring to his bitter Republican primary fight with President
Bush’.” [AP, 8/5/04]
* CBS News: “The
Press Conference Was Set Up By The Same People Who Tried To Discredit
John McCain's Reputation.” “The [May, 2004 Swift Boat Veterans
for Truth”] press conference was set up by the same people who tried
to discredit John McCain's reputation in Vietnam service when McCain
faced George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000. It's the
same strategy used to go after Georgia Senator Max Cleland, who lost
three limbs in Vietnam.” [CBS Evening News, Pitts, 5/4/04]
* Salon.Com: “Same
Vicious Techniques They Used Against McCain” “Behind the Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth are veteran corporate media consultant and
Texas Republican activist Merrie Spaeth, who is listed as the group's
media contact…In 2000, Spaeth participated in the most subterranean
episode of the Republican primary contest when a shadowy group billed
as ‘Republicans for Clean Air’ produced television ads falsely
attacking the environmental record of Sen. John McCain in California,
New York and Ohio. While the identity of those funding the supposedly
‘independent’ ads was carefully hidden, reporters soon learned
that Republicans for Clean Air was simply Sam Wyly -- a big Bush
contributor and beneficiary of Bush administration decisions in Texas
-- and his brother, Charles, another Bush "Pioneer"
contributor.” [Salon.com, Conalson, 5/4/04]
4.
WILLIAM FRANKE, LEWIS WATERMAN and STEPHEN HAYES (of GANNON
INTERNATIONAL)
Joe
Conason, Salon.com
[SBV's] Web site was
put up courtesy of William
Franke, a St. Louis businessman with longstanding ties to
Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Missouri Republican
Party.
Joe
Conason, Salon.com
On closer inspection,
the ostensibly nonpartisan "Swift Boat Vets" seem to have
another pair of significant sponsors with deep and long-standing
Republican connections in Missouri. Both are officers of Gannon
International, a St. Louis conglomerate that does lots of
overseas business in, of all places, the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam.
Ties to Gannon can be
traced via the Swift Boat Vets Web
site (as an alert reader advised me last week). On April 14, the
site was registered
under the name of Lewis Waterman, Gannon's information technology
manager, at 11301 Olive Boulevard in St. Louis, the firm's
headquarters address. Although Waterman wouldn't discuss why he had
set up the Web site, he didn't deny that his boss, Gannon president
and CEO William
Franke, had asked him to do so.
"The information
about my client is confidential," said Waterman. He
acknowledged knowing, however, that his boss Franke is a Navy
veteran who served in Vietnam on swift boats. Gannon vice president Stephen
Hayes, who oversees the company's office in Alexandria, Va., is
likewise a swift boat veteran who first met Franke when they served
together in the Mekong Delta.
...
Franke is well known in Missouri as a longtime Republican Party
activist and financier. In 1976, he managed John Danforth's
victorious Senate campaign; two years later, he ran unsuccessfully
for Congress. He also failed in an attempt to resuscitate the
defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat (which was, despite its name, a
staunchly Republican newspaper) in 1986. Before the Globe-Democrat
finally went under in 1987, Franke had obtained a commitment from
the state industrial development authority -- all of whose members
were appointed by then Gov. John Ashcroft -- to raise $9 million in
tax-exempt revenue bonds to keep the paper afloat.
Last June, Franke
gave the maximum $2,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign, and he has
since donated an additional $2,000 to House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay's political action committee, Americans
for a Republican Majority, and $2,000 more to Keep
Our Majority, the PAC operated by House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Hayes left a long
career in government to join Franke's company in 1993. His résumé
is littered with public relations posts in Republican
administrations dating back at least to 1984, when he worked as a
transition spokesman for Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. He moved
on to similar jobs at the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal
Aviation Administration and the Agency for International
Development.
Following the
departure of the first Bush administration, Hayes joined Gannon. He
maintains his conservative credentials as a director of the International
Center for Religion and Diplomacy, an organization that promotes
"faith-based diplomacy" to resolve global conflicts.
(Among this outfit's other board
members are a former Republican congressman from Ohio, an author
of books and articles arguing against evolution, and former Reagan
national security advisor Robert McFarlane, forced to resign for his
role in the Iran-Contra scandal.)
...
None of Gannon's profitable activities in the communist republic
would be possible, of course, without the approval of the Hanoi
government, which Franke has described as "strong" and
"stable." Nor would Gannon be conducting business in
Vietnam without the Clinton administration diplomacy, assisted by
Sen. Kerry, that established diplomatic and trade ties with the
United States in 1994. Franke first began traveling to Vietnam on
behalf of Operation Smile, an American charity that provides plastic
surgery to children abroad. The relationships he established during
those humanitarian missions provided a considerable advantage in
doing business under government auspices.
It was also during
those early visits to Vietnam, as he told the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, that Franke reached a clearer understanding of the
war he had once fought as a young Navy lieutenant.
"As I looked
back 20 years, I saw that it was a very imperial relationship we had
with these people," said Franke in 1989. "We were young.
We were there because we were told to be there and that they were
the enemy. This time I saw them as human beings who had fears and
hopes the same as we."
Yet he evidently
cannot forgive John Kerry for reaching the same conclusion about
that war and its victims, so many years before he finally did.
Disinfopedia
(via reader BY):
Gannon
International,
founded in 1983 by William
Edward Franke, describes itself as "the classical model of a
holding company, with the principal of Gannon International, or Gannon
International itself, owning interests in many other corporations,
partnerships or companies. Gannon International provides
administrative support for many of the companies or partnerships
within the three operational groups." [1]
...
The Gannon
Technologies Group "provides hardware configurations, software,
and services to digitize massive databases for both internal information
management and presentation across the Internet. If the Internet
is the super highway, The Gannon Technologies Group produces the
products carried along that highway.
"The Gannon
Technologies Group has provided the software support and services for
several United States federal and state agencies, including an
extensive staffing commitment to the Anti-Trust Division of the United
States Department
of Justice.
"The Gannon
Technologies Group created the electronic databases for citizenship
records for two Central American countries.
"The Gannon
Technologies Group has provided critical technical support and created
electronic databases for several high profile matters, including the Office
of Special Counsel for the Branch Davidian (Waco, Texas)
Investigation and the Federal
Election Commission's investigation of political fundraising
practices." [4]
5.
BOB PERRY and THE CROW FAMILY
FactCheck.org
The
source of the Swift Boat group's money wasn't known when it first
surfaced, but a report filed July 15 with the Internal Revenue
Services now shows its initial funding came mainly from a
Houston home builder, Bob R. Perry, who has also given millions to
the Republican party and Republican candidates, mostly in
Texas, including President Bush and Republican Majority Leader Tom
DeLay, whose district is near Houston.
Perry gave $100,000
of the $158,750 received by the Swift Boat group through the end of
June, according to its disclosure report.
Perry and his wife
Doylene also gave more than $3 million to Texas Republicans during
the 2002 elections, according to a database maintained by the Institute
on Money in State Politics. The Perrys also were among the
largest Republican donors in neighboring Louisiana, where they gave
$200,000, and New Mexico, where they gave $183,000, according to
the database.
At the federal level
the Perrys have given $359,825 since 1999, including $6,000 to
Bush's campaigns and $27,325 to DeLay and his political action
committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, according the a
database maintained by the Center
for Responsive Politics.
Josh
Marshall, Talkingpointsmemo:
If
President Bush really wants to tell the Swift Boat group's
funder, Bob Perry, that he doesn't like the ads he's paying for, maybe
he can have Rove bring it up with him at the fundraiser
Perry is hosting in
New York next week.
Former President Bush,
Karl Rove, and Tom DeLay are all scheduled to be there.
The Dallas Morning
News got the story. But when they asked Perry's spokesman what the
deal was, he suddenly hadn't heard a thing about it.
Perry's spokesman Bill
Miller says he was surprised to see his boss's name on the list.
Various
sources, via JohnKerry.com:
- Fox News:
O’Neill’s funders “are Republicans who have contributed to
and backed various Bush campaigns and causes over the decades” “Kerry’s
military service was an asset during the primaries; critics hoped
to transform it into a liability now. The GOP says it’s not
involved with the veterans criticizing Kerry, but many of them are
Republicans who have contributed to and backed various Bush
campaigns and causes over the decades.” [Fox News, Special
Report, Cameron, 5/4/04]
- Donor Harlan
Crow is a Trustee to the “George Bush Foundation” and
“Faithful” & “Consistent” Bush Donor . For
his generous contributions to the Foundation honoring former
President George H.W. Bush, Harlan Crow was named a “Trustee.”
“Crow is a faithful donor to Republican candidates and causes,
ranging from President George W. Bush to former New York City
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.”-- In his 1978 failed bid for Congress,
George W. Bush received contributions from “Harlan Crow, of the
Trammell Crow real estate family, who would be consistent
financial backers of Bush pere et fils for decades.” [American
Prospect, “George W’s Compassion”; 9/99-10/99; New Jersey
Law Journal, 6/6/02; http://www.georgebushfoundation.org/bush/asp/OverView/Trustees.asp]
- Texas’
Biggest Republican Donor antes up $200K. A major
Texas donor to the Republican Party and President Bush has given
another $100,000 to an independent group challenging John Kerry's
military service in Vietnam. Houston homebuilder Bob Perry
provided much of the early money for Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth, which recently launched a television ad and book accusing
Mr. Kerry of fabricating his war record. Mr. Perry's latest
donation brings to $200,000 the amount he has given the
organization. … Mr. Perry is a prolific GOP donor who backed Mr.
Bush in his races for governor and president and has contributed
more than $5 million to state candidates and causes in Texas since
2000 and several hundred thousand dollars to national candidates
and the Republican Party. [Dallas Morning News, 8/18/2004]
- Karl Rove
“Carefully Cultivated” O’Neill Donor Bob Perry
“By the mid-nineties, Rove had got himself into a highly unusual
position for a political consultant-functioning more in the manner
of an old-fashioned political boss than of a for-hire member of
the service sector. Rather than his pitching candidates for their
business, candidates pitched him for his commitment. The key to
his power was that he had a particularly solid connection to the
money side of politics. He carefully cultivated Texas's biggest
Republican donors, people like Peter O'Donnell and Louis Beecherl,
in Dallas, and Bob Perry and Kenneth Lay (before the fall of
Enron), in Houston; they saw him as someone whose clients usually
won, and made their decisions about whether or not to invest in a
candidate partly on the basis of Rove’s decision whether or not
to work for the campaign.” [New Yorker, “THE CONTROLLER; Karl
Rove is working to get George Bush reelected, but he has bigger
plans”; 5/12/03]
Joe
Conason, Salon.com
[SBV's] chief
financiers, according to the group's last quarterly IRS filing, are
Houston builder Bob J. Perry and the Crow family, both major
Republican donors from Texas.
Last November, the
Dallas Morning News profiled the mysterious Perry. During the past
four years, he has given more than $5 million to candidates and
causes, nearly all of them Republican and extremely conservative.
The article didn't say whether Perry himself ever served in the
military. The Crow family, a clan of megadevelopers based in Dallas,
are close Bush friends as well as generous backers. Harlan Crow is
also a trustee of the George
H.W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation.
In short, the
financial supporters of the Swift Boat Vets are not exactly
strangers to George W. Bush and Karl Rove.
Geraldine
Sealey, Salon.com:
Today, Texans
for Public Justice, an Austin-based consumer rights/civil justice
advocacy and research organization that tracks money in Texas
politics, went through its files for information on the Bush/Texas GOP
donor behind the Swift Boat group.
From TPJ: "Bob
Perry, a major Texas donor to the Republican Party, George W. Bush,
Republican candidates, and conservative, pro-business political
committees has contributed $200,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,
a group attacking John Kerry’s Vietnam service."
"The Houston-based
Perry owns Perry Homes, one of the state’s largest homebuilders with
reported revenues of $420 million in 2002. While an active political
donor since the mid-1980's, over the past three years Perry has
eclipsed the giving of Texas' elite money men and positioned himself
as the largest single political donor in Texas giving candidates and
committees more than $5.2 million since 2000. Perry worked with Karl
Rove as early as 1986 when Perry served as Campaign Treasurer for
Republican gubernatorial candidate William Clements and Rove served as
a campaign consultant and fundraiser.
"Highlights of
Perry's political contributions:
Perry contributed
$46,000 to George W. Bush's 1994 and 1998 campaigns for Texas
Governor. He has contributed the maximum allowable $2,000 to Bush’s
current reelection.
Perry was the largest
individual contributor to the Texas Republican Party during the recent
2002-election cycle (calendar 2001 & 2002) giving $905,000.
Perry is Republican
Governor Rick Perry’s (no relation) largest patron, having
contributed $225,000 since 2001.
Perry was the largest
individual contributor to Republican Lt. Governor David Dewhurst’s
2002 campaign, giving $115,000.
Perry was the largest
individual contributor to Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott’s
2002 campaign, giving $387,600. Perry's wife Doylene gave Abbott an
additional $150,000.
Perry was the second
largest individual contributor to Republican Comptroller Carole
Strayhorn's 2002 campaign, giving $100,000.
Perry was the largest
contributor to Tom DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC)
giving $165,000 in the 2002 election cycle. TRMPAC is currently the
subject of a criminal investigation by a Travis Country grand jury for
allegedly misusing corporate contributions in the 2002 state
elections.
Perry was the single
largest contributor to the Texas Association of Business PAC in 2002,
giving $105,000. The Association is also under criminal investigation
for misuse of corporate funds in the 2002 Texas elections.
Perry contributed a
total of $595,500 directly to the campaigns of 23 GOP legislative
candidates in the 2002 cycle, including the 21-candidate slate
supported by TRMPAC.
Perry contributed
$95,000 to Tom DeLay's Republican Majority Issues PAC in 2001.
Perry has been a
primary funder of efforts to limit civil liability in Texas,
contributing $415,000 to Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC, the state's
largest non-party political committee.
Sources: Campaign
filings with the Texas Ethics Commission, IRS & FEC. Reports
published by Texans for Public Justice and news accounts."
6.
ROBERT A. HAHN
Joe
Conason, Salon.com
The June 30 filing
shows payments to Robert A. Hahn, a right-wing Internet activist and
Web designer who also runs something called the Free
Republic Network (apparently an affiliate of the extremist Free
Republic Web site); and to Tom Wyld, a Navy veteran and former
director of public relations for the NRA Institute for Legislative
Action, the lobbying arm of the National Rifle Association.
10.
OTHERS
Disinfopedia:
Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth appears to have sought professional help with FEC compliance. In
May 2004 it paid $7500 to Political
Compliance Services Inc., a consulting company in Fairfax, VA [30].
Political Compliance Services describes itself as "an accounting
services vendor specializing in FEC regulations. Our comprehensive
approach to your individual accounting needs will deliver you from the
headaches and legal ramifications of FEC non-compliance." [31]
However, Political
Compliance Services itself appears to have strong Republican ties. All
its known clients are conservative [32]
. And its administrative contact Susan
Arceneaux is a Republican stalwart involved with several
right-wing organizations. She is treasurer of The
Majority Leader's Fund [33],
a listed contact for FreedomWorks
[34],
and was the custodian of records for David Horowitz's defunct 527, PoliticalWar.com
Inc. [35]
[36].
On Tuesday August 24
2004 the extent of Arceneaux's involvement with SBVT became clearer.
According to The New York Times, SBVT had admitted the
previous day that Arceneaux "helped set it up and works for
it". The NYT had discovered that Arceneaux "is given as the
contact person on the post office box that Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth lists as its address." The article also pointed out that
The Majority Leader's Fund "receives significant financing from
Bob Perry", the major donor to SBVT. [37]
[38].
Joe
Conason, Salon.com
Among the other
leaders featured on the Swift Boat Vets' site
are Alvin A. "Andy" Horne; Weymouth D. Symmes, also listed
as the group's contact on its IRS filings; and Bill Lannom. Horne is
a former Houston prosecutor who was once short-listed by former Sen.
Phil Gramm, R-Texas, for an appointment as U.S. attorney. Symmes is
a retired banker from Missoula, Mont., who along with his wife has
donated more than $5,000 to Republican candidates and committees
since 2000 (including $1,000 to Bush-Cheney 2004).
Lannom works for Iowa
athletic-wear company owned by his staunchly Republican family. As
his mother once explained
to a local historian, "We've all been active, all my sons have
been active in politics." She charmingly recalled that the
Lannoms' antagonism toward Democrats dates all the way back to FDR.
The hired help
employed by the Swift Vets committee is thoroughly partisan, too.
Aside from Spaeth and Thomas Rupprath, the private
detective she recommended to provide research services, the
group's IRS filing names several experienced Washington political
operatives. The June 30 filing shows payments to Robert A. Hahn, a
right-wing Internet activist and Web designer who also runs
something called the Free
Republic Network (apparently an affiliate of the extremist Free
Republic Web site); and to Tom Wyld, a Navy veteran and former
director of public relations for the NRA Institute for Legislative
Action, the lobbying arm of the National Rifle Association.
Kate
Zernike and Jim Rutenberg, New York Times:
Another participant is
the political advertising agency that made the group's television
commercial: Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, based in Alexandria,
Va. The agency worked for Senator McCain in 2000 and for Mr. Bush's
father in 1988, when it created the "tank" advertisement
mocking Mr. Dukakis. A spokesman for the Swift boat veterans said the
organization decided to hire the agency after a member saw one of its
partners speaking on television.
Joe
Conason, Salon.com
A private detective
retained by "Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth" -- the Texas-based group seeking
to discredit John Kerry's military record -- is contacting veterans
who may have information about the incidents that led to Kerry's
Vietnam decorations. According to a former Kerry crew member,
several of the Massachusetts senator's old Navy comrades have
refused to talk with the detective, a former FBI agent named Thomas
Rupprath -- and some have complained that the detective tried to put
damaging words in their mouths.
Also see this illustrative
chart from Uggabugga, exploring high-level connections.
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