From the Stamford Advocate:
George Jepsen, former state Democratic Party chairman and a Lamont supporter, yesterday compared Vets For Freedom to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. That group attacked Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's decorated Vietnam War record.
"This is a familiar process where the far right uses their money to tear down a Democrat," Jepsen said. "They did it to John Kerry on his war record two years ago. They're doing it to Ned Lamont now on the war in Iraq."
One of the first organizations to find Vets for Freedom's ties to prominent Republicans was the Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit group that does investigative reporting on corporate and governmental spin campaigns.
Center founder John Stauber said Vets For Freedom's advisers, including Dan Senor, formerly of the Iraq Provisional Authority, and Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, are proof "these guys are a front group for the Republican agenda for November."
More at:
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-vets2aug15,0,43712.story?coll=stam-news-local-headlines The Center for Media and Democracy had this post on their web site about the Vets for Freedom group and their Republican ties:
"Vets for Freedom" Fight for Rove and Lieberman
Submitted by John Stauber on Fri, 08/11/2006 - 11:03.
The Republican lobby group Vets for Freedom is the 2006 equivalent of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Republican 527 committee whose attack advertisements in battleground states helped sink John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race by smearing him as a phony war hero and a traitor to his country.
Vets for Freedom (VFF) made lame claims to be "non-partisan" when in early 2006 it first appeared out of the blue online and in op-ed pieces in the New York Times and other major papers and in TV interviews. An investigation of the group by citizen journalists at SourceWatch and by the Buffalo News blew the VFF claim of non-partisanship out of the water. For instance, the Buffalo News revealed in June that former White House flack Taylor Gross, who left Scott McClellan's office in 2005 to start his own PR firm, represented VFF and pitched them to papers as non-partisan journalists who would embed for these newspapers and report accurately and cheaply for them from Iraq. Now the camouflage has fallen completely off. Vets for Freedom has registered itself as a 527 committee and is going to run a full page advertisement in Connecticut's Hartford Courant on behalf of Joe Lieberman's renegade run for re-election to the US Senate as a 'stay the course in Iraq' candidate.
The Wall Street Journal reports that VFF is being handled now by Republican strategist Dan Senor and that it "hopes to run other print and radio ads in the fall, and is also planning on campaign door-to-door for Mr. Lieberman and holding a rally on his behalf."
Connecticut is a heavily Democratic state, and normally any Democrat who wins the nomination would be expected to cruise to victory in the general election this November. However, Lieberman's refusal to bow out after losing to Ned Lamont in last Tuesday's primary creates a window of opportunity for a Republican victory. By supporting Lieberman, the Republicans hope to split the Democratic vote so that their candidate can get elected. This strategy is bound to produce an ugly and divisive political campaign, another advantage for the Republican cause nationally as Tony Snow and others in the White House paint pro-peace Democrats as a party of appeasement in the war on terror.
More at:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5077 So, just whose side is Lieberman on? He was backed by the entire Democratic establishment in 2000 when he ran for President. He repays that by allowing a viciously anti-Democratic group to work for him in his re-election race. Democrats should shun this self-serving opportunist and send a message that it's not okay to 'do anything to win,' and it's certainly not okay to accept help from the liars associated with the SBVT.
Posted in GD Politics:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2780378&mesg_id=2780378