Ethics Newsline®

“They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts. We will be the dynamite that removes them.”

– Charlie Jarvis, president of conservative lobbying organization USA Next, discussing plans to attack the AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons), which is opposing President Bush’s push to privatize Social Security. The efforts of USA Next and Jarvis, a former official in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, will be fueled by Creative Response Concepts, the PR firm that helped engineer the Swift Boat Veterans ads attacking Sen. John Kerry’s service in Vietnam with questionable claims. (“A New Target for Advisers to Swift Vets,” New York Times, Feb. 21)