Day: August 23, 2004

There’s been a growing call for Kerry to authorize release of his military records by signing a “form 180”, without which the DoD is prohibited from providing them to the public (even in response to a FOIA request, is my understanding).
I’ve got another, simpler request for the Kerry campaign: post the actual FEC complaint which was filed (or maybe, wasn’t — keep reading) against Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the Bush-Cheney campaign last Friday.
I tried to find it over the weekend, with no luck, and as of today, it still doesn’t seem to appear anywhere on the Kerry-Edwards site. Oddly, I can find no official statement referring to it, either.
As I mentioned yesterday, the GOP filed an extensive, complaint (PDF) against the Kerry campaign alleging collusion with Democratic 527’s, and provided a bunch of supporting documentation. It’s a pretty impressive pile of work (at least from this legal amateur’s view), and it sure would be interesting to compare the GOP complaint to Kerry’s. But as of now, we can’t. The FEC doesn’t post matters still under review on their site (or provide status on them, to my knowledge) so it’s unclear what the status of that investigation is.
But there may actually be a simple explanation for why the complaint hasn’t been posted: maybe it doesn’t actually exist yet. Some of the news stories from Friday state that the campaign “will file” a complaint. But then there are others that say clearly that the complaint was filed Friday.
So which is the truth? If the complaint wasn’t filed Friday, why not?
And if it was filed, can we see it, please? All together now: “Senator Kerry, Post That Complaint!”
Update: The more I think about this, the more I suspect that the complaint really hasn’t been filed yet. The scenario goes like this: Kerry’s campaign is still finishing the complaint — not a trivial task, if they want to match the GOP’s in level of detail and thoroughness. Knowing this, the campaign spokesperson carefully said “will file” on Friday (if anyone has a link to a story which directly quotes the spokesperson otherwise, please, speak up). But since then the media has misunderstood and misstated that into “has filed”.
So now what does Kerry do? Issue a statement saying “Er, no, we’re still working on it?”. They’d look like idiots. (Again). But if the complaint was really filed, why isn’t there even a press release mentioning it at Kerry’s web site?
By the way: Did you know that this is not the first FEC complaint filed against Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Democracy21 filed one back on August 10th — and you can actually read theirs (Word .DOC).

This was a very smart move by Bush:
Denounces Ads by Outside Groups
And Kerry, by his very dumb move of making 527’s an issue, has walked right into it. Kerry’s falling into the swamp on Vietnam, so let’s see, what’s an even worse issue where his party is in an even more indefensible position? Soft money by 527‘s! So bring it on, says Kerry.
Idiot.
More thoughts, not necessarily in agreement with mine, at:
Powerline
Vodkapundit
One Hand Clapping
Instapundit
Another thought from the Dept. of Conspiracies: Ok, now we’ve all discussed in the past how Bush is extremely good at luring his opponents out onto a limb and then sawing it off. Consider that it is entirely possible that Bush might be able to use this moment to shame the existing 527’s into withdrawing, or at least curtailing, their participation in the remainder of the campaign.
Putting on my tinfoil hat for a moment, could neutralizing 527’s have been Bush’s plan all along? With SBVT out in front showing what an impact a 527 can have on the campaign, that gave Bush the excuse to come out against all of them — which he has just done. He and the RNC are now perfectly positioned to keep the pressure on the Democratic 527’s to shut the hell up.
Is this the Mother-Of-All-Rope-A-Dopes?