By now everybody has heard about the attack ads run against Senator John Kerry by the so-call Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Of course, this assault on Kerry was not entirely unexpected. Mr. Bush has a history of resorting to some of the dirtiest campaign tactics in all of politics, thanks largely to his good friend Karl Rove. These Swift Boat Veterans ads appear to be part of a strategy very similar to what Rove pulled against Senator John McCain in the 2000 Republican Primaries. The idea is to get a lot of Republican groups that are not officially linked to the Bush campaign to keep making accusations, however baseless, against their opponent. Since any lie repeated often enough will eventually be believed, the candidate becomes associated with these false claims and rumors, and as a result he is forced to spend all of his time on the defensive. It is a low and utterly repulsive way to run a presidential campaign, but as we all saw in 2000, it works.

Since such ad campaigns never really happen without the blessing of the candidate, Kerry has called on Bush to denounce the ads. But rather than taking a stand either for or against the ads (probably because of his “strong leadership”), Bush has seized on this opportunity to call on Kerry to denounce all political ads by outside groups. The Bush campaign has been trying for some time to put a stop to such ads because these groups are predominantly anti-Bush and have been very successful at attacking Bush’s record. If the Bush campaign is successful in this, such groups as MoveOn.org would have their ads taken off the air.

As it is difficult to deny that political ads by outside groups mostly favor Kerry, many Democrats have simply been accepting Bush’s argument on this issue. What few people seem to realize is that what we are comparing in these ads is basically apples and oranges. There is a difference between the content of the Swift Boat Veterans ads and ads by groups like MoveOn, and that difference is all the difference.

The key issue is the content of the ads. The ads that MoveOn.org have run, while extremely critical of Mr. Bush, are not terribly different from what one might expect from ads run by any candidate. Note that Bush has run many ads criticizing Kerry’s record himself. None of these ever became the issue that the Swift Boat Veterans ads have become. This is because the Bush campaign never lied in those ads. His ads were misleading, unfair, and totally repulsive. But they were not lies. And so they did open up a debate which was actually legitimate, even while being misleading. Likewise, the MoveOn.org ads never lied. They opened up a legitimate debate about Mr. Bush’s record. And while conservatives might argue that they too are misleading, they do not lie.

The ironically named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads are different in that they do lie. Of all of the people on their commercial who claim to have served with Kerry in Vietnam, not one of them actually served on either of Kerry’s two swift boats.

George Elliott claims, “John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam.” Yet he himself refuted that very claim just eight years ago when he said, “The fact that he chased an armed enemy down is not something not to be looked down upon but it was an act of courage. And the whole outfit served with honor.”

Louis Letson says, “I know John Kerry is lying about his first purple heart, because I treated him for that injury.” But there is no proof that Letson ever treated Kerry’s injury. In fact, it was a person named J. C. Carreon who signed Kerry’s sick call sheet.

And Larry Thurlow says, “When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry.” He has also claimed elsewhere that during the incident for which Kerry received his bronze star, his boat was not receiving fire. This is despite the fact that he received his bronze star for his actions in the same incident.

This entire ad campaign amounts to nothing more than slander from a right-wing attack machine using veterans who are bitter over Kerry’s opposition to the Vietnam War. And in America, if somebody says something slanderous about another person, they should be held accountable. That is the difference that Mr. Bush seems to have missed.

Yet the Swift Boat Veterans ads have already done what they aimed to do. Bush has now successfully planted the seed of doubt in voters’ minds. And no matter how outrageous or ridiculous the Swift Boat Veterans’ lies may be, that doubt will follow Kerry all the way to November. Meanwhile, the Kerry campaign has once again been forced to play defense. But as they say, the best defense is a good offense. If Kerry hopes to win this he needs to get back on the offensive. It is absolutely ridiculous that in a race between Bush and Kerry, it should be Kerry who has to defend his Vietnam record. Kerry is not the one who used his wealth and influence to avoid being sent to war by joining the National Guard. Kerry is not the one who went AWOL during his military service. And Kerry is not the one who has to defend his war record.