Earlier this week, a lot of attention was paid to a Bush campaign lawyer who also worked for the Swiftboat Vets. He resigned from the campaign. It turns out there's a lot of this kind of thing going on between the Kerry campaign and 527s. Will they also resign, or does the appearance of hypocricy only apply to Republicans?

The Bush-Cheney campaign found itself under harsh media glare this week when its lead election lawyer, Benjamin Ginsberg, resigned after it was learned that he'd advised the Swift boat vets, a 527 group.

Under the law, there can be no coordination between presidential campaigns and 527 groups — though attorneys are specifically permitted to provide legal services to both entities.

In fact, all parties concede that what Ginsberg did for the Swift boat vets was entirely legal and above board. (He said he resigned so as not to distract attention from the president's campaign.)

Indeed, half a dozen Democratic lawyers and officials are doing pretty much the same thing for both the Kerry campaign and pro-Kerry 527 groups. Only no one in the national media is shining the spotlight on their activities — or calling for their resignations.

Hypocrisy, anyone?

Which Democratic lawyers?

Start with Robert Bauer. His Web site identifies him as national counsel to the Kerry-Edwards campaign (he's paid by the Democratic National Committee).

But he also represents America Coming Together, which is spending millions on mobilizing pro-Kerry voters and has been described as "the major ground-war vehicle for the Democratic groups."

In fact, ACT's president, Ellen Malcolm, boasts that her group is "looking for effective ways to do the work of delivering the message and getting out the vote that used to be done by the party."

Or Joe Sandler, who advises Move-On.org and also works for the DNC, which works directly with Kerry's folks.

Or Harold Ickes, the former Clinton politico, who also advises both America Coming Together and the Democratic National Committee and is president of the Media Fund.

In fact, there's been a veritable revolving door between the Kerry campaign and these super-rich 527 groups.

Zach Exley, who used to be MoveOn's organizing director, now works for the Kerry campaign, running its Web site.

Bill Knapp, who used to make TV commercials for the Media Fund, now makes campaign spots for the Kerry campaign.

And Jim Jordan, who used to manage the Kerry campaign, now helps run both ACT and the Media Fund.

All of which suggests that these groups are "independent" in name only — and that illegal coordination between the Kerry camp and their allies is under way on a massive scale.

As ABC News reported, because pro-Kerry 527s have out-raised pro-Bush ones $145 million to $9 million, "no candidate in history has benefited more from these . . . groups than John Kerry."

The same John Kerry who, in voting for the McCain-Feingold bill, declared his enthusiastic support for "eliminat[ing] altogether the capacity of soft money to play the role that it does in our politics."

But that was then.

No wonder that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson boasted last fall that "organizations like these have become the replacement for the national Democratic Party." And their ads have been just as harsh — if not harsher — against Bush than those being run by the Swift boat veterans.

As Ben Ginsberg himself put it, his activities were "precisely the same as [what] the Kerry lawyers did and the DNC lawyers did" — but are being subjected to "a different degree of scrutiny."

Perhaps that's because the Swift boat ads seem to have struck a nerve with the electorate — and are causing real political damage to John Kerry.

The fact is, the 527 groups and their ads are the inevitable result of the mis guided effort to bring about campaign-finance "reform" — which turned into a hopeless morass far worse than the system it set out to change.

Bush, at least, is consistent: He wants all 527-funded ads off the air, including the Swift boat veterans' spots. John Kerry wants to censor only the commercials that criticize him.

There's a word for that:

Hypocrisy.