Molly Ivins is, as usual, a trip:

The return of the Swift Boat Veterans
By Molly Ivins, March 1, 2005, Working for Change

03.01.05 - AUSTIN, Texas -- I'm sorry, but every now and again a girl just finds it necessary to lay her head down on the table and howl with laughter. I wrote a column warning that USA Next, a Republican Astroturf (meaning "fake grass-roots") group was going to attack the AARP. The senior citizens' lobby does not support the privatization of Social Security, and so clearly incurs the wrath of all God-fearing, true-believing, highly paid Republican public relations firms. But I have to confess, even I did not see this one coming.

You may not believe it, but I swear it is true: USA Next's first salvo was to accuse the geezer lobby of being against our troops in Iraq and in favor of homosexual marriage.

No joke, what journalist-blogger Josh Marshall calls "the fogey-bund" stands accused of being anti-soldier and pro-gay-knot-tying. A charming Internet ad shows a muscular hero of the desert in combat fatigues with a big X across his picture, and on the other side are two guys in tuxedos getting hitched with a big check across their picture. Under these two pictures, it says, "The REAL AARP Agenda."

… Yes, our old friends from the Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" are back again. The very people who told you that John Kerry was anti-military and pro-gay -- the people who told you he didn't deserve his medals from Vietnam, who said he testified before Congress that American soldiers were all war criminals -- these same friendly folk are back again, attacking the AARP, a group largely known for advocating afternoon naps for the elderly. …

Speaking of healing laughter, the president is providing all Europe with chuckles. After he denounced the idea that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran as "ridiculous," he then promptly added, "All options are on the table.” So they laughed, apparently on the polite assumption that the man must be joking.
Not being veteran Bush-listeners, they are unaccustomed to the fact that he often contradicts himself, sometimes from one sentence to the next. They have also failed to master the key element of Bush-listening -- you must understand that George W. Bush is never, ever wrong. He does not make mistakes. And if he is against something one day and for it the next (that would be everything from opposing the 9-11 commission to the corporate law brought on by the Enron scandals), he is still never wrong.

He is right to oppose things, and he is right to support those same things. He's not a flip-flopper, like you-know-who. And if something he says turns out to be completely untrue (hard to think of such a case, but the letters WMD somehow float to mind), it is never his fault and best to ignore it.

If you do not pretend to believe everything Bush says, then you are unpatriotic, against Our Troops and probably in support of gay marriage. Those Europeans understand nothing. …

Just in case you’re wondering, the AARP was against the amendment to Ohio’s state constitution that barred all unmarried persons from making marriage-like contracts - whether or not they were gay. That annoyed the hell out of a lot of the elderly who were (shockingly) living in sin. Now the AARP is against BushCo’s destruction of Social Security.

USA Next is the group who is behind this campaign. They will spend $10 million dollars to libel the old farts lobby. What’s remarkable is that this really is a vast right-wing conspiracy: the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, and groups of that ilk have been waiting for this opportunity since the eighties. George Bush, a man with no apparent values, has given that opportunity to them.

There is more at the link.