One man who thinks Kerry should sue the SBV's

[AspenRose]

FYI

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20040831.html

Vietnam swift boat veteran John O'Neill has picked up just where he left off in his 1971 debate with presidential candidate Senator John Kerry. O'Neill has joined with some of his former Navy comrades to oppose Kerry's candidacy. But this time, O'Neill is interested in a different kind of debate. It is called mudslinging.

The Swiftees-- as these Navy veterans like to call themselves -- have launched a series of vicious negative campaign television ads. The ads are meant to complement O'Neill's book Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.

O'Neill's coauthor is his old friend Jerome R. Corsi, an experienced mud thrower whose prior targets have been the Pope, Jews and Muslims. In Unfit For Command, they repeat many of the 1971 charges -and add more from other Swiftees. To assert that these stories are biased, one-sided, distorted, and incomplete would be overly kind.

Will the book do what its authors hope - and help George W. Bush in the election? I doubt it. This is exactly the type of campaign activity that turns off more voters than it turns on, as shown in Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar's insightful book, Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink & Polarize the Electorate.

[Warpy]

1. Dammit! I've been saying that for WEEKS

The longer Kerry waits to sue Regenery for libel, the longer he gives a tacit admission that this stuff is true.

Somebody out there slap him and tell him it's TIME TO SUE!!

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. Wait a minute hold on a second

Kerry/Edwards sent letters to all stations airing the ads that they risked libel for possibly untrue or unfounded statements.
It was a big story a week or 2 ago.

[AspenRose]

3. I think the guy in the article is going beyond the ads

and towards O'Neill and the book.

[Warpy]

4. Emptry gesture

Political ads are exempted from slander statutes.

A libel suit would be against the publisher, and it would sic a team of rabid lawyers onto Regenery and the Smear Boat guys and they in turn would dig out any and all firm connections to the Bush team. It would be a colossal mess, and it would be done outside Kerry's campaign and not involve any of his campaign funding.

Kerry needs to do this.

[still_one]

5. If Kerry sued that would be exactly what they would want

The lawsuit would become the major issue, and people would focus on that, just like the OJ or Petersen trial, and not on what this election is about

It would be a hugh distraction

What non-Kerry groups like movon.org is throw every allegation about bush in ads

That includes everything from his drunk driving charge, cocaine use, past relationships, how he got out of Nam, to current times how he LIED about WMDs as an excuss to go to Iraq.

I also want to see ads talking about PNAC. Most people do not even know what PNAC is

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Yes, it will become all about the "whiny, crybaby trial lawyers".

tempting, but a monumentally bad idea.

The SVT thing has done all the damage it can- it can only work against Bush, as long as Kerry doesn't do anything blatantly stupid with it.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

6. Caveat Lector:

Who here remembers Whitewater? I do. Remember what they did with every single bit of information?

If Kerry sues, the Not-So-Swifties will be lawyered up in nanoseconds with every repuke legal bonebreaker on the planet. They will mummify the court with supoenas on anything and everything that Kerry has ever done. Doscovery cuts both ways. They will supoena birth records on him and anyone even distantly related to him. They will leak, and the leaks will be a marvel of inference, inconsistency and innaccuracy. They will have Sue Schmidt, CNN, Fox and others churning out the crap like a war industry assembly line on Nasty Biker Crank.

NOW is not the time, sad to say. Now is the time for Kerry to start throwing knees, elbows and headbutts.