(MRS.) KERRY'S CASH CONNECTION
March 9, 2004 -- To hear some folks tell it, families of the 9/11 victims have risen en masse to denounce President Bush for using brief images from Ground Zero in his campaign commercials.
We have no doubt that the use of the images is appropriate - given that the president's leadership in the wake of 9/11, and his conduct of the War on Terror, are under drumbeat assault by John Kerry and the Democrats.
But now it turns out that this whole furor is driven by a tiny group that's motivated by a far-left agenda and a festering hatred of the president - and has some quite dubious financial ties.
Leading the rhetorical charge has been an outfit called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows - which, the group admits, has only a few dozen members and represents relatives of no more than 1 percent of the 9/11 victims.
More to the point, the group was formed specifically to oppose the entire War on Terror: Not just the campaign against Saddam Hussein, but also the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Indeed, the group's leaders traveled to Afghanistan, drawing a detestable moral equivalence between the 9/11 attacks and U.S. bombing of the Taliban and opposing "violent responses to terrorism."
Then, before the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a Peaceful Tomorrows delegation went to Baghdad to "demonstrate solidarity" with Iraqis - a move that Saddam's deputy, Tariq Aziz, termed at the time "a very important international development."
They also demanded that Congress set up a $20 million fund to compensate Afghan "victims" of the U.S. military.
And back in January 2003, the group said had it had gotten a "verbal commitment" to the fund proposal from the junior senator from Massachusetts - John F. Kerry.
Little surprise there - because Peaceful Tomorrows' parent group, the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, has received millions from foundations controlled by Kerry's heiress wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.
A spokesman for Kerry insists that her donations to Tides were earmarked specifically for environmental charities based in Pennsylvania. But money is fungible - and the Tides Foundation has a lot more than greening the earth on its plate.
It has given millions to anti-war groups since 9/11 - particularly the extremist MoveOn.org.
Tides has also funded groups like United for a Fair Economy, which has been involved in violent anti-globalization street protests.
For example, the Ruckus Society, which was largely responsible for the anarchy in Seattle in 1999 and trains would-be environmental terrorists in the practice of "monkey-wrenching" - the willful destruction of construction equipment and so on.
Tides gets much of its funds from philanthropists like Mrs. Kerry and billionaire George Soros - who has made defeating President Bush his top personal priority.
As Richard Berman, director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, told Congress in 2002: "The Tides Foundation distributes other foundations' money, while shielding the identity of the actual donors."
Call it charitable money-laundering.
This, then, is the fringe crowd that declares itself "offended" by the Bush ads.
They're people who are offended by anything this president does - and they are working hard to put John Kerry in the White House.
Remember that the next time you hear a news report about "widespread popular outrage."
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