Another Vietnam Atrocity

By WILLIAM D. McTAVISH

Spend 15 minutes watching John O’Neill and you see him for what he is: A sad, bitter old partisan still fighting the demons of Vietnam.

O’Neill, author of the anti-Kerry screed, Unfit for Duty, is founder and leader of the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a collection of Vietnam vets who serve as little more than a front act for George W. Bush’s campaign to destroy Democratic Presidential candidate John F. Kerry at all costs.

Funded by two of Bush’s millionaire buddies from Houston, SBVT launched a campaign recently to question Kerry’s service in Vietnam and his fitness for command.

Ironic. A group of over-the-hill vets on one last mission for their commander in chief, a President who evaded service in Vietnam by pulling strings to get into a cushy Texas Air Guard unit and then, by most accounts, couldn’t even meet the minimum requirements of a weekend warrior.

And their mission? Destroy the reputation of a fellow Vietnam veteran, someone who actually served in-country, collecting a Bronze Star, Silver Star and three Purple Hearts along the way.

Their search and destroy mission includes a television ad where a lineup of vets who served near - but not with - Kerry question his honesty, integrity and bravery plus a book, co-authored by O’Neill and Jerry Corsi, a hate-spouting homophobe who likes to frequent right-wing bulletin boards where he calls Kerry "John Fucking Commie Kerry" and Democrats like Senator Hillary Clinton a "fat hog."

Yes, that’s service with honor all right and their leader is a known liar who has waited 33 years for his chance to get even with John Kerry.

In 1971, Charles Colson, White House counsel and chief hatchet man for President Richard M. Nixon, recruited O’Neill, fresh from Vietnam and still gung ho about a war that many others - including those who served - doubted.

Colson wanted a vet who could debate another Viet vet - Kerry, the young leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

"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," Colson told reporter Joe Klein in a January 5 interview published in The New Yorker magazine.

Kerry creamed O’Neill on The Dick Cavett show. O’Neill’s friends say he remained bitter about the experience for 33 years until opportunity came knocking when Kerry took the Democratic nomination for President. With the help of Bush backers in his hometown of Houston, O’Neill put together SBVT, which historian Douglas Brinkley, author of the acclaimed Tour of Duty, calls nothing more than a group of "malcontents who have never forgiven Kerry for his actions in speaking out against the war."

O’Neill and his cronies claim they are only interested in the truth yet he has his own problems when it comes to veracity.

"I’ve had no serious involvement in politics of any kind in over 32 years," O’Neill claimed on CNN’s Crossfire program last week.

Federal Election Commission records show O’Neill has contributed $14,650 to federal political candidates - all Republicans - since 1990. A search of newspaper databases in Houston show him mentioned often as a political activist for GOP causes. According to Texas Lawyer magazine, O’Neill lobbied former President George H.W. Bush for a federal judgeship in 1991 (and contributed to Bush’s 1992 Presidential campaign).

CNN also says he lied to them earlier this year by claiming he had not been interviewed on national television about Kerry before appearing on their network. Network executives later discovered O’Neill had, in fact, appeared on C-Span in March to discuss Kerry.

So the vets who belong to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth follow the lead of a longtime Republican operative who lies about his political past. They have embarked on one last mission for a commander-in-chief who has no qualms about using those who served their country for his own political gain.

Just like Vietnam.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_5049.shtml