The McCain Campaign has released an interview with Orson Swindle, another one of McCain's buds and roommates from the Hanoi Hilton, which makes it pretty clear that it wasn't five and a half years in solitary, after all.

Is this another example of a "limited hangout" which Wikipedia tells us

A limited hangout is a form of deception, misdirection, or coverup often associated with intelligence agencies involving a release or "mea culpa" type of confession of only part of a set of previously hidden sensitive information, that establishes credibility for the one releasing the information who by the very act of confession appears to be "coming clean" and acting with integrity; but in actuality by withholding key facts is protecting a deeper crime and those who could be exposed if the whole truth came out. In effect, if an array of offenses or misdeeds is suspected, this confession admits to a lesser offense while covering up the greater ones.

Orson Swindle has, of course, come to McCain's assistance for quite a while. For example, during the 2000 primary campaign, when a veteran stood up and charged that McCain had led the veterans down during his years in the House and Senate, it's Orson Swindle who was reported to have called Tom Burch and told him

"We will destroy you."

So, there's some reason to speculate that McCain's buds (in addition to Swindle, Col. George E. "Bud" Day, another roommate at the Hilton, is always willing to lend a hand) were prepared to illuminate George W. Bush's meagre military record in 2000, but then the campaign was pretty much lost when the vets turned out in South Carolina.

What I find interesting about this version of history is that the loss has always been blamed on some nasty rumors about the provenance of McCain's adopted daughter which Bush operatives were supposed to have spread and John McCain apparently did little to refute, but John Kerry, having been convinced of George W.'s guilt, did in the 2004 campaign. Which leaves me with the question why this time around, the McCain Campaign passed around baby pictures of the daughter in South Carolina to exploit his pro-life stand. Surely a teenager is more likely to feel exploited than a six year old.

So much that's not what it seems. Orson Swindle was a prominent member of the Swiftboat Veterans and POWs for Truth in 2004 when they targeted John Kerry and, while John McCain denounced the group at the time, he didn't mention that both Day and Swindle had been close friends of his from their shared time in Vietnam when they had Movie Nights and enjoyed an occasional hand of bridge. Instead, it was George W. Bush that was supposed to shut them down. What do they call it when someone claims to be a friend of someone his other friends are tearing down?

If Orson Swindle was upset that his wife didn't get the job at the Department of the Interior she was angling for and Abramoff sort of promoted through the good offices of Ralph Reed, how does that comport with the effort to derail John Kerry? For that matter, what are we to make of the fact that in the process of investigating the scamming of the Indian Nations, John McCain collected thousands of documents and then had most of them placed under seal, while only Jack Abramoff went to jail?

While I'm not keen on guilt by association, there's no question that lots of people are associated by guilt, if only because they've done something they don't want to be shared. Smearing political candidates probably doesn't rank high on the list of guilt-inducing crimes, but, at the least, Swindle and Day attacking Kerry represents a gross ethical lapse and the help they got from another Vietnam veteran, William E. Franke, might well give us pause.

The scenario laid out by William Saletan and Jacob Weisberg in August of 2004 barely mentions Franke and, in retrospect is probably wrong in accepting the rationale that the Swifties were originally organized to target John Kerry in 2004. Not only were the veterans against Kerry already on the internet in 2003, but, once they were absorbed by the Hanoi Hilton gang, the funds flowed fast and heavy and were expertly directed by Franke. Which is probably to be expected since he's the founder of the Gannon Technologies Group, Gannon International and the Gannon Pacific Group. Gannon Technologies is particularly forward looking with its proprietary computer operating system, acquired by, among others, the former Ohio Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell.

The Gannon Technologies Operating Systems The Electronic Imagery and Optical Character Recognition Operating Systems, designed and owned by The Gannon Technologies Group, permit the high speed conversion of massive amounts of data into electronic images from paper of virtually any size or condition, microfilm, microfiche or aperture cards.

While requiring several steps, each requiring software developed by The Gannon Technologies Group, the in common steps performed by The Gannon Technologies Group are imaging and optical character recognition.

Imaging is the process of converting documents from any format (paper, microfilm, microfiche, and aperature card) into an electronic image. It requires several different software applications, from image enhancement to anti-skew to compression/decompression softwares.

Presumably, a proprietary system will have to be served by specialized technicians after its installation. So, a suspicious person might ask if, while everyone was distracted over the voting machine kerfuffle in 2004, perhaps it was the tabulation that was actually compromised in a system that nobody understood too well.

Of course, the Secretary of State of Ohio is not their only client.

Within the federal government, The Gannon Technologies Group has provided services to the following federal agencies (with projected requirements of several billion images during the terms of the contracts):

* U.S. Department of Labor

* U.S. Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Prisons, the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, and the Anti-Trust Division

* The National Institutes of Health, including the National Medical Library

* U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Ships Registry

What a wealth of information at someone's fingertips! Surely not Gannon Pacific's Gannon Distribution Company of Vietnam.

The Gannon Distribution Company of Vietnam (“Gannon Distribution”) is a trading company engaged in the distribution of products from around the world into the Asean marketplace. Included within its portfolio of approximately 300 products are such brands as L'Oreal, Lancôme and Maybelline cosmetics, M&M/Mars confectionary goods, Stanley tools and hinges, Mohawk carpeting and Wyeth milk and formula products. While operations are currently centered in Vietnam and Cambodia, expansion into the markets of Thailand is currently underway.

They also have eleemosynary interests.

Gannon Distribution's interests in Vietnam stem from the long-standing involvement by the principal of Gannon International through Operation Smile International. Operation Smile is a non-profit organization based in Virginia providing reconstructive surgery to children around the world.

Echoes of Cindy McCain's visits to orphanages?

Not yet mentioned is the recent beer distribution contract.

Anheuser-Busch, Gannon to distribute Budweiser in Vietnam

St. Louis Business Journal - by Matt Allen

Anheuser-Busch signed an import and distribution agreement with the Gannon Distribution Co. to launch Budweiser in Vietnam this month, the St. Louis-based brewer said Monday.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Vietnam's rapidly growing beer industry and its large young adult population make for an ideal market for Budweiser, which will be marketed as a premium international lager, according to Gannon Group Vietnam CEO Walter Blocker. A-B said Vietnam's beer industry experienced double-digit volume growth for the past three years.

But, it's caught the attention of some bloggers. Who provide some context. Of course, the intent of the Select Committee was to put an end to the MIA/POW issue, contrary to Senator McCain's claim.

McCain did not sit on the Committee with an open mind but with a methodical agenda, that of giving then President Clinton the necessary cover to re-establish trade with Vietnam at the expense of the full and accurate accounting of our missing servicemen. Make no qualms about it, a few years later both McCain and Sen. John Kerry were there by design for the photo op with President Clinton when the official announcement regarding lifting the trade embargo with Vietnam was made public.

In the interest of balance, I have to say that I am surprised by the side MoveOn took in 2004.

What the MoveOn PAC ad flatly misrepresents isn't the Bush of three decades ago. It's the Bush of today. Bush is "allowing" the Swiftvets to air false charges against Kerry, says the ad. It concludes, "George Bush, take that ad off the air." In a press release accompanying the ad, the MoveOn PAC notes that Bush and the Swiftvets share a major donor. The PAC asserts that "with one call, George W. Bush could stop them."

Kerry had to repudiate the "support" from MoveOn that he hadn't asked for. That's an even neater trick than a "limited hangout." Something similar has surfaced this time around in an ad by the Club for Growth which accused Mike Huckabee of being a "tax and spender" (which he's not) and propelled him to the front of the Republican pack in Iowa. Instead of damning someone with faint praise, it's promoting someone with a damning falsehood.

Deceptive advertising. Perhaps it's telling that Gannon Distribution is peddling cosmetics and candy in Vietnam.