Abercrombie’s communications director distributes anti-Obama chain email

Ian Lind reports that Governor Abercrombie’s new communications director sent an anti-Obama chain email to a list of contacts, including prominent media personalities and political movers and shakers:

Governor Neil Abercrombie’s newly appointed communications director said he didn’t read a chain email falsely attacking President Obama for planning to honor a controversial Vietnam War-era critic of U.S. policy before forwarding the email to a group of friends. Intended recipients included a conservative talk show host and the campaign manager of Linda Lingle’s Senate bid.

Contacted this morning at the Governor’s Office, Jim Boersema said he received the email “from three different people” and immediately forwarded it to several others who share his military background and interest in Vietnam.

“I didn’t even read it,” Boersema said. “I was in the Army for 37 years. I saw it was about Vietnam, and I just forwarded it to some friends.”

Boersema acknowledges it was a mistake.

A communications director who forwards a chain email he didn’t even read?  Seriously?

The email is a rehash of an old urban legend attacking Jane Fonda for supporting “the enemy” during the Vietnam War.   Lind sets the record straight about Fonda’s reputation with GIs:

Although Jane Fonda was an easy target for conservatives, she also proved very popular among much of the conscript army of the Vietnam era.

I was at the old Civic Auditorium in Honolulu on November 25, 1971, when a capacity crowd of about 5,000 people, mostly young military personnel, jammed the building to cheer Fonda’s touring FTA show (no, not Federal Transit Adminstration, in this case it stood for “F___ the Army”).

The documentary film about the FTA variety show tour was censored in the U.S. soon after its release in 1972. But a copy resurfaced and has been re-released.

The incident reveals something about the disarray of the Abercrombie administration. The governor recently purged an entire crop of cabinet members who were part of his team to usher in a “New Day in Hawaii”.  With the appointment of Boersema, a military veteran who seems to harbor a deep antipathy to peace activists, Abercrombie seems to have veered far to the right.