Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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Dang. John O'Neill of the Swift Boat Vets for Truth ate his Wheaties and did his homework.

John O’Neill, partner in a Houston law firm and a founding member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, anticipating the controversy the TV spot would generate and the need for documentation, sent a letter to station managers on August 2 (three days before the team of [Marc Elias, Esq., General Counsel for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, joined by Joseph Sandler, General Counsel for the Democratic National Committee] shifted into gear). The letter itself, eight pages long, is buttressed with 27 exhibits—roughly 100 pages of what O’Neill correctly labeled “factual support for the advertisement.”

So by the time the legal threats from the DNC and Kerry camp were arriving at television stations, the stations' lawyers had had the rebuttal — a prebuttal? — for two days. No wonder the DNC legal threat went nowhere.

[Posted 08/17 11:38 AM]