sisyphusshrugged | another astonishing coincidence

turns out there's another link between the Swift Boat group and the Bush campaign, with which they are, we are told, not coordinating activity in any way

A fourth Bush campaign official has been linked to a veterans group hammering Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam War heroism.

GOP convention Chairman David Norcross practices law in the same D.C. firm, Blank Rome, as William Schachte, a retired Navy admiral who says Kerry did not deserve one of his Purple Heart medals, Time magazine reported yesterday.

Schachte is aligned with the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has dominated the campaign in recent weeks with accusations that the former Swift boat skipper is lying about how he got his war medals.

Norcross said he did not know about Schachte's claims that Kerry got the first of three Purple Hearts in Vietnam from a self-inflicted wound; and the Bush campaign denied there is any connection.

Schachte says Kerry wounded himself by firing an M-79 grenade launcher into a nearby riverbank during a 1968 boat patrol.

Kerry says he was wounded by enemy fire and other vets point out that the single-shot weapon's explosive 40-mm. shell was designed not to arm itself and become lethal until it has flown 50 feet through the air.

The Kerry campaign also notes that Schachte was not with Kerry during the incident - despite his claims.

Quiet office parties they must have over there at Blank Rome, what with nobody talking to anybody about politics.