Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Dem paranoia on parade

Eleanor (over the) Clift:

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The Kerry campaign thinks it has succeeded in discrediting the scurrilous attack on Kerry’s military service, but Rove got what he wanted. Instead of talking about a failed war in Iraq and a new report that shows 1.3 million more Americans living in poverty, we’re debating what happened in the Mekong Delta in 1968. The strategy “came straight from the West Wing,” says the GOP staffer. “Nobody should be confused.” Asked to explain, this Republican says Rove is smart enough to keep technical distance. But all it takes is a well-placed wink to activate a web of Bush family hit men, confidantes and deep-pocket donors. “They know what to do—it’s like sleeper cells that get activated,” he says, likening the players to “political terrorists.”

Clift, of course, omits mention of the Christmas in Cambodia fantasy, or the inconsistancy between Kerry's war journal and his first Purple Heart claim. In fact you will find more significant contradictions in Kerry's story than in the Swiftvets.

...These men would have us believe, contrary to Navy records and countless eye witnesses, that Kerry did not act heroically and had a grand plan to manipulate medals from the military.

Actually there are more eyewitnesses who do not support Kerry's claims, and Kerry has admitted he juiced his reports to make himself look better. He has even admitted that he filed a false report on the Sanpan incident where a young boy was killed.

As for the Rove conspiracy theory, consider this report in the New York Times
which had the original conspiracy story which has not held water:

Twice in his life, in episodes more than 30 years apart, John E. O'Neill watched John Kerry on television and what he saw, he says, stirred him to angry action.

The first time was in 1971. As a young Vietnam veteran home from the very same Navy Swift boat that Mr. Kerry had commanded, Mr. O'Neill says he was so outraged by Mr. Kerry's graphic Senate testimony against the war that he threw himself into the talk show circuit to promote an opposing view. The next time was last February when, he says, he looked up from a hospital bed to see Mr. Kerry on the campaign trail and decided he had to stop him from becoming president.

..."I felt strongly he would be a terrible commander in chief," he said.

That conviction, not Republican machinations, he said in an interview in his law office on Friday, explained his campaign against the Democratic presidential nominee, which has included a book, television advertisements and blanketing media appearances. As a leader of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Mr. O'Neill has become the most public face of an effort by angry fellow veterans to discredit Mr. Kerry, who enjoys equally vehement support from other war buddies who see him as a hero.

Mr. O'Neill was disdainful of President Bush's comments Thursday that he did not believe Senator Kerry lied about his war record. "There's no indication that George Bush has read our book or made any study of it," Mr. O'Neill said. "He was not with us in Vietnam in our unit. He would definitely not have had firsthand knowledge of what we're talking about."

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But while enemies portray him as a one-dimensional partisan, Mr. O'Neill is man of intriguing contradictions. He has extensive ties to prominent Texas Republicans, but he has told friends he considers Mr. Bush an "empty suit" who is unfit to lead the country, and says he voted for Al Gore in 2000, and for Ross Perot in 1996 and 1992.

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"It's very difficult to stereotype John O'Neill," said the chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, Gerry Birnberg, a lawyer who has known and worked with Mr. O'Neill for 20 years.

Mr. O'Neill's Texas colleagues, including some who dislike him, agree on one thing: his crusade against Mr. Kerry is a personal one, the eruption of a grudge he has held for more than three decades. They say his attacks on Mr. Kerry are consistent with his overall approach to law and life, as a tenacious and aggressive litigator who rarely changes his mind once it is made up.

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Mr. O'Neill says he rarely thought about John Kerry over the three decades since their televised debate. It was not until February, he said, that he decided the time had come to take up arms again. At the time, he was in the hospital recovering after donating one of his kidneys to his wife, Anne Bradley O'Neill, who has Wegener's disease, a virulent form of lupus.

Reporters began calling his hospital room, he said. He was still very ill, but he began making calls to friends, and quickly discovered that a group of veterans was already making plans to attack Mr. Kerry. As soon as he was well enough to join them, he did. By that time, it was becoming clear that Mr. Kerry would be the Democratic nominee, and his face was everywhere on television, just as it had been back in 1971.

It ws not a wink from Bush or Rove that got the Swiftvets in gear. It was John Kerry, Eleanor. It must be hard to good analysis when you would rather believe that Bush and Rove are out to get your man.