Swift Boaters Resurface for GOP

The renamed Swift Vets and POWs for Truth—infamous for derailing John Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid—have returned, contributing and bundling nearly $200,000 to Republican candidates. This doesn’t “bode well” for clean politics, writes the Nation’s Christopher Hayes, who sought out Kerry’s comment on Swifties’ donations to John McCain (who once called the group “dishonest and dishonorable”): “There is such a thing as dirty money.”

Mitt Romney has been the biggest recipient of the Vets' largesse, followed by McCain and then Rudy Giuliani. Hayes infers from the group’s non-support of Mike Huckabee that their military stance is a charade: The operation’s “chiefly concerned with the continued upward redistribution of wealth.” Far from a mere “side show,” the smearers “are modern conservatism's core funders.” (More Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stories.)