The Veterans Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight
A 501(c)(4) called VetsVote is the latest metamorphosis of a Dean-Kos attempt to create a pretense of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans opposing Republicans, a la Kerry’s 2004 campaign, that depends for its respect on simply being veterans regardless of facts.
Now, this Democrat front group has surfaced with a manifestly untrue and disreputable hit ad against George Allen in Virginia, and is intending the same hit ads against other Republicans. If one searches the IRS filings for this 501(c)(4), one will surely find the usual suspects.
James Webb, Allen’s Democrat opponent for U.S. Senator, earned respect for his Vietnam Marine service, war novel, and as Secretary of the Navy. He’s quickly losing it by his association with the extreme Left of his Democrat Party and their grossness and gross irresponsibility. Webb must quickly, clearly and emphatically denounce such scurrilous backers, or lose what respect he’s earned in the past.
I’ve written about this Dean-Kos effort before (see links below).
FactCheck.Org just issued a report on VetsVote’s completely erroneous and scurrilous attack ad in Virginia against George Allen, “False Claims About Body Armor.”
One might expect veterans to know better, but apparently they can’t even cheap shoot straight.
The ad is shocking and visually powerful. It shows Pete Granato, an Army reservist who served in Iraq, firing several rounds from an AK-47 assault rifle into a pair of mannequins at a distance of about 50 feet. Granato then rips open the vests to show bullet holes in the abdomen of the figure wearing what he described as a "vest left over from the Vietnam War," but none in the dummy protected by what he refers to as "modern body armor, made for today's weapons."Granato says of the newer armor, "Senator George Allen voted against giving our troops this. Now it's time for us to vote against him."
That's false. Allen did not vote against giving troops modern body armor….More importantly, there was already money for buying body armor. As we explain in more detail later in this article, the Pentagon was already in the process of vastly increasing its orders for the latest-model armored vests, and the shortages that plagued some units in Iraq for the first few months of the war were due not to a lack of money, but to the inability of Pentagon contractors to manufacture the vests fast enough to meet the sudden spike in demand, and problems getting the gear shipped to the troops. A report issued in April 2005 said:
GAO: Temporary shortages of the Interceptor body armor occurred because of acquisition delays related to lack of key materials and distribution problems in theater.… The ad also exaggerates the body-armor problem by falsely claiming that troops were sent to Iraq using vests " left over from the Vietnam War." What the ad actually shows, however, is not a Vietnam-era vest at all but an improved vest the Pentagon adopted in the 1980's, and which was standard issue until the current "Interceptor" armor began to be phased in starting in 1999….
This ad is just one of many to raise this bogus issue in the 2006 House and Senate elections. We found seven ads, by candidates from both parties and from outside groups such as MoveOn.org, that mention body armor. These ads either fault an opponent for not giving our troops adequate body armor, or highlight a candidate's own support for funding for body armor.
For example, MoveOn.org has used it against six Republican incumbents, claiming they were indifferent to overcharges by Pentagon contractors "at a time when soldiers didn't have enough body armor." And Republican challenger John Raese has claimed that "Robert Byrd voted against a bill that would have provided money for body armor," sending to our troops a message "that we don't care."
But our research leads us to conclude that all these ads are off base. For one thing, all troops in Iraq (and all Pentagon civilians, for that matter) have had the bullet-stopping Interceptor body armor since January 2004. But more importantly, the shortages that existed for the first eight or nine months of the Iraq conflict weren't the fault of Congress. Furthermore, we see nothing Congress could have done that would have ended the shortage sooner.
The Democrats' '06 replay of veterans gambit
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| Sep. 21, 2006 | 1:41 AM