Swiftvet TV specialto air election eve

Building on its nine-ad campaign, Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth is featured in a half-hour television special that will air in key Florida markets just before election day.

Titled "Unfit to Lead," the program is hosted by swiftboat vet spokesman John O'Neill and includes some of the men whose testimonies about John Kerry were heard in the advertisements played in battleground states.

The TV program is based largely on the group's New York Times No. 1 best-seller "Unfit for Command," which challenges John Kerry's account of his war record and his anti-war activities.

A non-profit Florida group, Campaign Truth, is distributing the show on DVD and purchasing air time in the state this weekend.

Stations and broadcast times will be announced by tomorrow.

In the special, one of Kerry's former superior officers, Capt. George Elliott, says he believes Kerry should have been removed from command.

Elliott was commander of Coastal Division 11, where Kerry spent his four months of active duty in Vietnam.

"If I knew then what I know now, he would have been thrown out of my command and probably recommended for removal from the Navy," Elliott says of Kerry.

Steve Gardner, who served as a gunner on a swift boat under Kerry's command, says Kerry could have been court-martial if the chain of command knew then what it knows now.

The special, which took three weeks to produce, was organized by a group of Florida residents who, while waiting out Hurricane Frances, noticed the numerous TV ads for John Kerry that ran with no response.

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