GOP Swiftboaters Aiming Next for Ned Lamont

UPDATE (3:15 p.m.): The truth behind Swiftboaters for Freedom.

Dan Senor leads Swiftboaters for Freedom.

Okay, so we've got the Swiftboaters for Truth going after Murtha
in Pennsylvania.

Now we've got the Swiftboaters for Freedom — give me a break — going after
Ned Lamont, while Laura Bush raises funds against a disabled Iraqi war veteran. Charming, isn't it?

Funny how Dan Senor's group is listed as a 527, but is doing highly partisan
work. Does anyone actually believe that by siding with Lieberman against Ned
Lamont the Swiftboaters for Freedom are being non-partisan? It's especially
interesting given information I was handed this morning. Senor's group didn't
even file their papers until the very end of July, wherein they signed on as
a 527, which is not supposed to use any funds to directly defeat a candidate. Yeah, right.

… The paid message was placed by the Virginia-based Vets for Freedom Action Fund, established last month under Section 527 of the federal tax code as a nonpartisan organization “to communicate with the public on veterans' issues and the war in Iraq.” The group has high-level Republican connections. It has used a public relations firm that includes Taylor Gross, a former White House official, and receives volunteer advice from GOP strategist Dan Senor. But its executive director, Iraq war veteran Wade Zirkle, said its members are both Democrat and Republican and its main issue is whether someone is “simply pro-mission or anti-mission,” referring to the U.S. mission in Iraq. The ad surfaced on a day when White House spokesman Tony Snow would not commit himself on whether Republican President Bush would support Alan Schlesinger, Connecticut's Republican nominee, in the three-way race with Democrat Lamont and independent candidate Lieberman. .. `Vets For Freedom' Creates Stir Group With GOP Ties Backs Lieberman; White House Declines To Endorse Schlesinger

The Patriot Project knows exactly what's going on and as I've said before,
we're striking back.

Letters To The Editor The Hartford Courant 285 Broad St. Hartford, CT. 06115 Dear Sir: I am writing to ask that you clarify a full page advertisement that the Hartford Courant ran on August 14, 2006. The ad, paid for by the Veterans For Freedom Action Fund, was deceptive and incomplete and denied your readers the information they need to make an informed decision about the group’s claims. Far from being “non partisan” as they falsely claim in the advertisement, “Veterans For Freedom” is, in reality, a second generation spawn of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, the partisan organization that smeared a decorated Vietnam Veteran, John Kerry, in 2004. “Veterans For Freedom” was conceived and launched by a right wing consulting firm in Washington, D.C., The Herald Group. It is a right wing operated, right wing financed 527 attack group designed to confuse and mislead voters in Connecticut. By hiding behind the façade of their fraudulent ‘non partisan’ claim, “Veterans For Freedom” attempt to give credence to the lie that they “support the troops.” In fact, all this group is promoting is a partisan political agenda. Do the “Veterans For Freedom” have the right, like every American, to make their views and opinions known? Absolutely. But your newspaper also has the obligation to guarantee that the advertisements it accepts are not deliberately deceptive and misleading. James Boyce The Patriot Project

I just got off the phone with James, who is leading this fight, with help from
all of us. We're pushing back this time.

As Nancy Pelosi said so aptly, “They
are not Swift boating us on security.”

This warning goes out to Joe Lieberman and his campaign too, who evidently is willing
to make a deal with the devil, or in this case the swiftboaters, in order to escape
accountability on Iraq. It's up to us to make sure he doesn't get away with it.