Swift Boat Vet “Appalled” by McCain Smear

Is the ragtag Vietnam Veterans against John McCain giving swift boating a bad name?

Yes, said Swift Boat Veterans and POW’s for Truth treasurer Weymouth Symmes. “I don’t think there’s any truth to that at all. He was a hero, in my opinion. I’d be appalled if anybody questioned his war service.”

The reason I asked is that the anti-McCain group seems to be piggybacking on the Swift Boat Vets in their recent mailer, which was sent out to 80 newspaper editors. (For a quick summary of the group’s attack and McCain’s response, see the AP.)

In the mailer (above), you can see the icon for the Swift Boat Vets for Truth in the lower left hand corner. But Symmes said that the real Swift Boat Vets isn’t affiliated with the group — or any group active in the 2008 race. In fact, he’d never even heard of the group, adding “they must be a pretty small and obscure group, I would guess.”

In fact, on closer inspection, the Swift Boat Vets icon has a North Carolina address, the same as the anti-McCain vet group. And we’ve been having an internal debate here at TPM whether, in a possible precaution against charges of infringement, it actually says Swift Boot Vets for Truth:

We’ve been playing phone tag with Jerry Kiley, one of the founders of the group, and hope to speak to him later this afternoon to sort all this out.

As for the size of the group and it’s supporters, it’s not clear. They filed papers with the FEC last February and March establishing the group, announcing in a statement of purpose that “We will collect donations to pay for a web site, radio and TV ads exposing John McCain only (negative advertizing). We are completely independant (sic) and not connected to any political organization. All of the money collected will be used for the express purpose of defeating John McCain.” But they’ve reported no contributions since then, even failing to file the required mid-year report, which won them a chiding letter from the FEC.

Kiley, along and another Vietnam vet, Ted Sampley, who’s part of the effort, also ran a Vietnam Veterans against John Kerry website in 2004. They’ve also been after McCain for a while; they registered the Vietnam Veterans against John McCain website back in 2005.

Sampley* has quite a history with McCain, going back to the 1980’s, even getting into a fight with McCain’s longtime aide Mark Salter. Here’s an account from a long piece in the Phoenix New Times back in 1999:

*Update/Correction: This post originally said that Sampley is an Arizona resident — he’s actually in North Carolina. Another of the group’s founders, Earl Hopper, is in Arizona.

In December 1992, as the Senate hearings were winding down, Sampley was making the rounds in the halls of Congress, handing out copies of his latest periodical, which featured McCain and the Queen of Diamonds on the cover with the headline: “Sen. John McCain: ‘The Manchurian Candidate.'”

The story condemned McCain for his lack of support on the live POW/MIA issue, and cited the U.S. News article and others as evidence that McCain had collaborated with the enemy and was protecting the Vietnamese for fear of being exposed. The article summarized the senator’s political career, relying on reports from daily newspapers and wire services. It touched on McCain’s role in the Keating Five and his friendship with former Arizona Republic publisher Duke Tully, who had fabricated a military career for himself, only to be exposed in the mid-Eighties.

Sampley claims he never intended to go into McCain’s office, but when he realized that’s where he was, he tossed a copy to the receptionist, requesting that it be delivered to the senator’s veterans affairs assistant.

Mark Salter happened to be standing by the front desk. Sampley’s version of what ensued goes like this:

“He [Salter] said to me, ‘You son of a bitch.’ Those were his words. He said, ‘You low-life bastard.’ . . . The dumbass followed me, yakking at me all the way down the hall. I’m thinking, ‘Why doesn’t this guy go away? I’m leaving.’ I turn to go into the stairway, he followed me in there and for some reason he felt frisky and he punched me in the back of the shoulder–not hard–and that was it. I turned around and I fried him.”

Salter claims he just tapped Sampley on the shoulder to get his attention. Security guards intervened. Sampley eventually was found guilty of assault and sentenced to two days in jail and 180 days of probation. He also was ordered to stay away from McCain and his staff.

Kiley himself has a history of brushes with the law. A U.S. District Court found Jerry Kiley not guilty of charges that he attempted to harass Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai when he was visiting Washington, D.C for a June 2005 U.S.-Vietnam Trade Council meeting in Washington. But as a result of Riley’s acquittal and pressure from the Secret Service, federal prosecutors filed a new charge of unlawful entry. He was arrested and charged on June 21, 2005 after he slipped past security at the Mayflower Hotel and then threw a glass of wine in the Prime Minister’s direction during a $1000 a plate dinner. Kiley has a history of evading security at Vietnamese functions, including an event that Khai attended at the Plaza Hotel in NYC in 1993.

We’ll let you know when we hear more.