Shut Up, He Explained

More crushing of dissent: John Kerry has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, asking to force the Swift Boat Vets’ ads off the air:

The Kerry campaign said it filed the complaint against the group behind the ads, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, “for violating the law with inaccurate ads that are illegally coordinated with the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign and Republican National Committee.”
The campaign said there is “overwhelming evidence” that the group is coordinating its spending on advertising and other activities with the President Bush’s campaign for reelection.”

Hypocrisy among the Democrats is never a shock, but this is really something. The Dems’ 527 organizations have spent over $50 million, compared to around $250,000 by the Vets. One of the Dems’ 527’s, America Coming Together, is virtually the Democratic Party in exile, and a top MoveOn staffer recently moved over to the Kerry campaign. So the idea that there is something fishy about the fact that Bob Perry donates to Republican politicians as well as to the Vets is ludicrous.
There is an interesting analogy between the Democrats’ hypocrisy on the 527’s and their similar hypocrisy on the special prosecutor statute. Democrats loved the special prosecutor law when they controlled the Congress and Republicans were in the White House. They used special prosecutors to endlessly and unfairly harass Republicans. But when Bill Clinton was President and their own ox was being gored, the Democrats were outraged and viewed Ken Starr as the devil incarnate. (Well, they would have if Democrats believed in the devil.) As soon as a special prosecutor investigated a Democratic president, the statute was allowed to lapse. (A good decision, in my opinion.) Same thing here. The Democrats thought 527’s would be great for them, since they have far more mega-rich donors than the Republicans, and there is no limit to how much a borderline criminal like George Soros can pump into them. But as soon as a Republican group came along and started to hurt Kerry, they demanded that they be pulled off the air. Typical.

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