Brain Hurts

Attaturk's synapsis are barely firing at the moment, so let me post this New York Newsday Editorial that I agree with:

This is the same gang of rhetorical hatchet men behind the deceptively named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. During last year's presidential campaign, they were telling vicious lies about Kerry's combat record in Vietnam. Now, they're turning their trash talk on the nation's largest and most effective senior citizens lobbying group, which they'll try to tar as an extreme left-wing cabal.

Any reason not to name names?

Ex-Marine Chris LaCivita, who wrote the incendiary Swift Boat commercials ripping Kerry's war record, is coordinating the anti-AARP media campaign.

Rick Reed, whose Virginia-based ad agency Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm handled production on the Swifties' print and broadcast ads, will be standing over the editing console again.

Creative Response Concepts of Arlington, Va., the Swifties' public relations firm, is handling PR this time, too.

And lurking in the shadows nearby, ready to rush out any late-breaking anti-AARP books, is the hard-right print shop known as Regnery Publishing. These are the ruthless knife-twisters who published the hateful anti-Kerry screed, "Unfit for Command."

Keep a jaundiced eye out for "Unfit to Get Old."

Money certainly won't be a problem, not with the deep-pocketed Republican donors and well-crafted direct-mail network this crowd can depend on. Bringing the old gang together and coughing up the dough - $10 million just for starters, by one estimate - is an organization called USA Next.

Founded as the United Senior Association by legendary Republican direct-mail jockey Richard Viguerie in 1991, USA Next is a bare-knuckles conservative lobbying group masquerading as a senior citizens association. Viguerie and the group's current president, Charlie Jarvis, have developed quite a knack for scaring old people with dire warnings about their Social Security checks.

Now they'll try to demonize the insufficiently compliant AARP.

In reality, this is our opportunity to take this malevolent a-holes down.

No quarter from Democrats, and that includes you lonely Joe.