Kerry's shipmates....

[RawAlex]

Mike, you can read all of this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/...1278021,00.html

But here are some of the keys:

Therefore, neither of the parties behind the advert are part of the Republican party or the Bush campaign. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a 527, and Regnery Press is a commercial (although politically committed) publishing company. However, a look at the people who connect the enterprises reveals them to be part of a rich partisan tapestry.

Mr O'Neill is the link between them. As well as being the book's co-author, he is a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth steering committee. The group was set up with the help of Merrie Spaeth, the widow of Tex Lezar, who was Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas in the same year that Mr Bush ran for governor. He was a partner of Mr O'Neill's at their Houston law firm.

Regnery, meanwhile, proclaims itself to be the leading conservative publisher in the US. Acquired by Republican donor Thomas Philips in 1993, it is a subsidiary of Eagle Publishing, which is using its flagship Human Events magazine to promote Unfit for Command and build up its subscription base and mailing lists.

Regnery publishes on any number of topics (from threats to marriage to a defence of assault rifles), but scored a number of hits in the Clinton years with titles such as the conservative columnist Ann Coulter's High Crimes and Misdemeanors: the case against Bill Clinton.

The most notorious - Gary Aldrich's Unlimited Access: an FBI agent inside the Clinton White House - depicted the executive mansion as a den of debauchery, drug-taking and gay sex. One section claimed the president was smuggled out under a rug for trysts with a female celebrity in a nearby hotel. Mr Aldrich admitted in the book that many of his allegations were, at best, second-hand.

Mr Kerry will appreciate your vote.

Alex