Thursday, August 05, 2004

Vietnam Veterans Buy Ads to Attack Kerry

From the NY Times article.

"A doctor, Louis Letson, repeats accusations he made in newspaper interviews this spring that Mr. Kerry did not deserve his first Purple Heart because his wounds resulted from a ricochet off friendly fire, saying in the advertisement, 'I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury.' The Kerry campaign pointed out yesterday, as it had previously, that another doctor, J. C. Carreon, signed Mr. Kerry's treatment record.

Mr. Hoffman said the group was spending $500,000 to run the advertisement but would not say how long it would be on the air; a Kerry aide said the buy was far smaller, $156,000 in seven smallish markets like Green Bay, Wis., and Toledo, Ohio, suggesting it was a 'vanity buy'' intended to attract news coverage."


This ad is the same discredited tactic used to smear John McCain in 2000 done by many of the same people. Their statements have been effectively countered before but that doesn't faze them. As someone famous tried to say, "Fool me once...."

1 comment:

Kendall Miller said...

The allegations were refuted in May and have been refuted again today. So far I see we-said-they-said. Except the people on Kerry's side were there and the people dissing Kerry's Vietnam actions were not.

The money angle points to questionable honesty of the people running the ads. The amount they say they are planning to spend is more than they actually have. If they don't deliver on their spending claim it makes sense to question their credibility on other claims.