QandO

August 05, 2004

...And, here come the Lawyers
Posted by Dale Franks

Senator Kerry has evidently decided not to respond personally to the Swift Vets Ad. Instead, the DNC has called out the lawyers. DNC lawyers have written letters to TV stations that might play the ad, threatening legal jihad if it is aired.

The letter claims the ad is "false" and "libelous" and suggests, in not-so-subtle terms, that TV stations should use their "legal authority" to refuse any requests for advertising airtime, stating that "because your station has this freedom [to refuse the ad], and because it is not a 'use' of your facilities by a clearly identified candidate, your station is responsible for the false and libelous charges made by this sponsor" (emphasis added).

As their first piece of evidence of the ad's supposed lies, the DNC/Kerry lawyers claim that the veterans in the ad "purport to have served on Senator Kerry's SWIFT Boat in Vietnam" but, "in fact, not a single one of the men who pretend to have served with Senator Kerry was actually a crewmate of Senator Kerry's." The problem is that none of these men claimed to have served on Kerry's SWIFT Boat. They simply said they "served with John Kerry" -- and they did. The letter goes on to make several more misleading statements about the advertisement, in an attempt to protect Kerry's "war hero" record.

Instapundit has a roundup of reactions to the DNC's action, and opines:

Well, if Bush had threatened legal action to block Michael Moore's film from showing, I know what people would say.

But, of course, there are two standards for this kind of thing, aren't there?

UPDATE:

Apparently, this will be the Kerry Campaign's default response to ads critical of the senator. The Club For Growth reports that DNC lawyers are doing the same thing to them in reference to an ad that criticizes Kerry's record on taxes in the Senate.

Shakespeare was right.

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