FAR RIGHT REPUBLICAN SWIFTBOATERS GO ON A VICIOUS RAMPAGE AGAINST McCAIN-- THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

The Swiftboat liars who Rove deployed in 2000 to destroy McCain in South Carolina-- and they wreck Kerry's campaign in 2004-- are at it again. Buoyed by the Bush Regime appointing one of their leaders, Sam Fox to be ceremonial ambassador to Belgium, the right-wing goon squad is at it again. The McCain campaign slammed back at his fellow Republicans today:

“Today, a shadowy political organization calling itself ‘Vietnam Veterans Against McCain’ launched a vicious attack on John McCain in an attempt to impugn his character in the closing days of the South Carolina Republican Primary,” Orson Swindle, who was a fellow prisoner of war in Vietnam with Mr. McCain, said in a statement put out by the campaign. “The group claims that John McCain turned his back on his fellow POWs in order to save his own skin.”

The head of the Rovian attack group, Jerry Kiley, insists he's not smearing McCain, just telling the truth in the face of McCain's gigantic p.r. effort to portray himself as a hero. "John McCain has created this myth that he is a hero and he is not," according to Kiley.

Kiley's group cites as evidence a May 1973 U.S. News and World Report article written by McCain in which he said on his third or fourth day of captivity after his plane was shot down in 1967 that he realized his knee was so swollen the blood might pool in it and kill him. So he offered to give military information to his captors in exchange for medical treatment.

In the article, McCain said he told the story to make the point the North Vietnamese only gave medical treatment to POWs if they thought they were going to get something in return. He never writes in the article that he went through with his end of the deal.

Kiley claims McCain told the North Vietnamese about American flight routes and that led to an increase in U.S. planes shot down in the following six months.

McCain is one of the least truthful men in American politics. He lies the way other people breath-- and he is very successful at getting away with it. The national media has consistently given him a free ride over the decades. They like him because he's "accessible." After he was caught taking bribes (as part of the Keating 5 scandal) he rescued his political career, with the help of the corporate media, by re-styling himself as an anti-corruption maverick. And yet, he's a darling of K Street and well-known as someone with the ethics of a mobster. Are the claims of Kiley's group credible? I have no idea. Are the claims of McCain's "Truth Squad" credible? Not a chance.