In charging the Bush campaign with collusion between his staff and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and filing a complaint with the FEC, John Kerry and his campaign have opened up a can of worms that will be hard to close now. Readers have sent me a couple of examples of the Kerry campaign's interaction with MoveOn, a supposedly independent 527 that targets George Bush using tens of millions of dollars in donations from George Soros and Peter Lewis. Now, with many readers sending the same links and more to Newsmax, the right-wing news service provides hard documentary proof of collusion and coordination between the Kerry campaign, the Democratic Party, and MoveOn:

From Democrats.org, a Web site of the Democratic National Committee, May 9, 2003:

“The Democratic Party is partnering with MoveOn.org, People for the American Way, Campaign for America's Future, and dozens of other groups representing millions of Americans to organize a massive public mobilization. On Wednesday, May 14, join us by calling and emailing your representatives in Congress to let them know that the majority of Americans oppose more irresponsible tax cuts that go overwhelmingly to the wealthiest sliver of Americans.”

In its push to obstruct judges who follow the U.S. Constitution, DNC admitted elsewhere on its site that same day, “The DNC is also conducting a major petition drive in partnership with MoveOn.org. More than 310,000 Americans have signed the petition to protect our courts — with more than 172,000 of those signatures coming in the past 36 hours.”

Here’s the ultimate in hypocrisy last Nov. 13 from one of Vermont’s more extreme ideologues:

“Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, took a short break from the 30-hour Republican hypocrisy-a-thon to come and see the results of the DNC's petition drive. We collected more than 310,000 signatures and comments from Americans who stand with Senate Democrats in the fight to keep ultraconservative ideologues off the federal bench.”

An accompanying photo has this caption: “DNC Chief Operating Officer Josh Wachs (left), Senator Leahy, and Zack Exley from Moveon.org pose with the more than 310,000 signatures.”

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that MoveOn has coordinated its money and advertising with the Democrats and with Kerry (and Dean before that). It's just the result of a badly-written campaign finance reform law that supposedly took the money out of the system and replaced it with accountability, but did the reverse instead. What surprises is the lack of attention to the $60 million spent by essentially two 527s in support of John Kerry as opposed to the $250,000 spent by one 527 against John Kerry -- and not even in support of George Bush. And what's shocking is the success that the Swiftvets have had in damaging Kerry with their miniscule advertising budget. It's as though Don Quixote kept tilting at windmills -- and began to win.

Bringing up Viet Nam as a central qualification for his candidacy was Kerry's first major tactical error. Using the Swiftvet officers as a campaign prop was his second. His third will eventually be identified as his reaction last week to the controversy, and the FEC complaint that followed will invite close scrutiny of his own games of footsie with George Soros and the megamillions behind the Bush-haters on TV.

Just bringing it on, John. Just bringing it on.

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