With his win in Iowa, Sen. John Kerry could be on his way to the White House. But most Americans are unaware of the real Kerry. Here are facts and quotations that reveal the character of the new Democrat leader.
Denouncing America with ‘Hanoi’ Jane: Although Wesley Clark and others have attacked former front-runner Howard Dean as a draft-dodging ski bum, Kerry is far more complex than the simple war hero he portrays himself as. He became a celebrated organizer for one of America's most extreme appeasement groups, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He consorted with the likes of “Hanoi” Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark, Lyndon Johnson’s radical former attorney general.
He attended a seminar bankrolled by Fonda in Detroit in February 1971. Watching 125 self-proclaimed Vietnam veterans testify at a Howard Johnson’s about atrocities allegedly committed by U.S. forces, the man who would be president later said he found the accounts shocking and irrefutable.
Dubbed “The Winter Soldier Investigation,” the protest attracted minimal media attention, according to the Los Angeles Times, because Fonda insisted it be held in the remote Michigan city rather than the less “authentic” Washington, D.C.
Still, the event gave Kerry an idea for a protest that was sure to be a media smash, and he immediately set out to organize one of the most confrontational protests of the war.
Operation Dewey Canyon III began on April 18, 1971, when nearly 1,000 Vietnam veterans and people claiming to be veterans gathered on Washington’s Mall for what they called “a limited incursion into the country of Congress.”
The group staged mock firefights on the steps of the Capitol and Supreme Court and defied U.S. Park Police after the Department of Justice issued an injunction barring it from camping on the Mall.
Those evil American soldiers: Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 1971, Kerry claimed that U.S. soldiers had “raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.”
‘We are not the best’: In his testimony, Kerry claimed there was no communist threat and said: “In 1970 at West Point Vice President Agnew said ‘some glamorize the criminal misfits of society while our best men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedom which most of those misfits abuse,’ and this was used as a rallying point for our effort in Vietnam. But for us, as boys in Asia whom the country was supposed to support, his statement is a terrible distortion from which we can only draw a very deep sense of revulsion, and hence the anger of some of the men who are here in Washington today. It is a distortion because we in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country ….” U.S. Veteran Dispatch noted in 1996: “Kerry's testimony, it should be noted, occurred while some of his fellow Vietnam veterans were known by the world to be enduring terrible suffering as prisoners of war in North Vietnamese prisons. Kerry was a supporter of the ‘People's Peace Treaty,’" a supposed ‘people's’ declaration to end the war, reportedly drawn up in communist East Germany. It included nine points, all of which were taken from Viet Cong peace proposals at the Paris peace talks as conditions for ending the war.”
Throw as I say, not as I do: On that same day he led members of VVAW in a protest during which they threw their medals and ribbons over a fence in front of the U.S. Capitol. Kerry later admitted the medals he threw were not his. To this day they hang on the wall of his office.
Communist stooge: The communist Daily World delightedly published photos of him speaking to demonstrators and boasted that the marchers displayed a banner depicting a portrait of Communist Party leader Angela Davis, on record stating, “I am dedicated to the overthrow of your system of government and your society,” the New American recalled in May 2003. “By frequently participating in VVAW’s demonstrations, Kerry found himself marching alongside what the Boston Herald Traveler identified as ‘revolutionary Communists.’ While noting that known Reds had openly organized these events, the December 12, 1971 Herald Traveler reported the presence of an ‘abundance of Vietcong flags, clenched fists raised in the air, and placards plainly bearing legends in support of China, Cuba, the USSR, North Korea and the Hanoi government.’"
Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry says: “As a national leader of VVAW, Kerry campaigned against the effort of the United States to contain the spread of Communism. He used the blood of servicemen still in the field for his own political advancement by claiming that their blood was being shed unnecessarily or in vain.
“Under Kerry's leadership, VVAW members mocked the uniform of United States soldiers by wearing tattered fatigues marked with pro-communist graffiti. They dishonored America by marching in demonstrations under the flag of the Viet Cong enemy.”
Sen. John McCain revealed that his North Vietnamese captors had used reports of Kerry-led protests to taunt him and his fellow prisoners. Retired General George S. Patton III angrily noted that Kerry’s actions had “given aid and comfort to the enemy.”
In recent years when Kerry has exploited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for photo opportunities on Veterans Day, some veterans, still outraged by his betrayal, have turned their backs on him.
The book he doesn’t want you to see: When Kerry ran for election to the U.S. House of Representative in 1972, “he found it necessary to suppress reproduction of the cover picture appearing on his own book, The New Soldier. His political opponent pointed out that it depicted several unkempt youths crudely handling an American flag to mock the famous photo of the U.S. Marines at Iwo Jima,” according to Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry. “Suddenly, copies of the book became unavailable and even disappeared from libraries. But the Lowell (Mass.) Sun said of the type of person shown on its cover: ‘These people spit on the flag, they burn the flag, they carry the flag upside down, [and] they all but wipe their noses with it in their efforts to show their contempt for everything it still stands for,’” the New American reported.
Even today it is hard to find this infamous photo and book.
Friendly with the enemy: Kerry’s fondness for Vietnam’s communist dictatorship, one of the most oppressive in the world, continues. As chairman of the Select Senate Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, created in 1991 to investigate reports that U.S. prisoners of war and soldiers designated missing in action were still alive in Vietnam, Kerry badgered the panel into voting that no American servicemen remained in Vietnam.
“[N]o one in the United States Senate pushed harder to bury the POW/MIA issue, the last obstacle preventing normalization of relations with Hanoi, than John Forbes Kerry,” noted U.S. Veteran Dispatch.
“But Kerry's participation in the Committee became controversial in December 1992,” reported the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, “when Hanoi announced that it had awarded Colliers International, a Boston-based real estate company, an exclusive deal to develop its commercial real estate potentially worth billions. Stuart Forbes, the CEO of Colliers, is Kerry's cousin.”
The “odd coincidence,” according to FrontPageMagazine.com, involved a deal worth $905 million.
Jeff Jacoby, the token conservative columnist at the Boston Globe, notes that Kerry continues his apologia for Vietnam's never-ending atrocities. "Far from taking the lead on the Vietnam Human Rights Bill, he has prevented it from coming to a vote. He claims that making an issue of Hanoi's repression would be counterproductive."
Kerry is also a fan of China’s communist dictatorship. “On May 19, 1994, five years after Tiananmen Square, Kerry spoke on the Senate floor against linking China's Most Favored Nation trade status to its human rights record,” Slate reported.
Kerry said: “China is the strongest military power in Asia. We need China's cooperation. We cannot afford to adopt a cold-war kind of policy that merely excludes and pushes China away.”
Limiting China's MFN status “would make us a bit player in a production of enormous proportions. We possess no stick, including MFN, which can force China to embrace internationally recognized human rights and freedoms.”
More extreme than Hillary and Kucinich: Among the White House wannabes, long-shot Rep. Dennis Kucinich has the reputation of holding the most left-wing congressional voting record. In fact, this “honor” goes to Kerry. According to American Conservative Union, Kerry has a lifetime rating of 6 percent, compared to 13 for the demolished Rep. Dick Gephardt, 14 for Sen. John Edwards, 15 for Kucinich and 19 for Sen. Joe Lieberman.
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Tom Daschle score 13 percent. Only the likes of Sens. Teddy Kennedy and Barbara Boxer have more left-wing records than Kerry. In contrast, Sen. John Breaux, one of the upper chamber’s few remaining moderate Democrats, has a 46.
Drive as I say, not as I do: Like Al Gore and other self-described environmentalists, Kerry has a radical agenda that would devastate the U.S. economy in favor of the likes of communist China, yet he enjoys the gas-guzzling modern conveniences that greens denounce. Kerry, a delegate to the environment-destroying Earth Summit in 1992 (where he met his future wife, left-wing activist Teresa Heinz, the multimillionaire widow of GOP Sen. John Heinz), the Kyoto climate talks in 1997 and the Hague Conference of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2000, has attacked President Bush for withdrawing from the anti-U.S. Kyoto Protocol. This treaty, which then-President Bill Clinton had signed, would impose severe restrictions on the United States but not Third World polluters that already enjoy huge trade surpluses with the U.S. However, although Kerry spouts the party line on anti-U.S. ecopolicy, he doesn’t like to practice what he preaches. Kerry was humiliated in April 2002 when photographed attending a rally against energy independence and then heading back to his SUV, the symbol of all that is evil to self-described greens.
Bone to pick: Bush-hating conspiracy theorists find it alarming that the president, like his father, was a member of the secretive Skull and Bones society at Yale University. Another alum of this club: John Kerry.
Get out your wallets: One reason Kerry and Edwards did well in Iowa: Losers Dean and Gephardt admitted they'd repeal all of the president's tax relief. However, although Kerry has taken credit for middle-class tax cuts, child tax credit and relief of the marriage penalty, he voted against them, GOP.com disclosed. "Kerry will have to expend an awful lot of time and money to convince people that he's not the classic Massachusetts liberal," Larry Sabato, a respected political analyst at the University of Virginia, told the Associated Press in December 2002. "And that's going to be tough, because mainly he is."
Waffling on Iraq: Kerry has the tough job of wooing Howard Dean’s anti-war Democrats despite his support of the war in Iraq. His favorite tactic, claiming the president outfoxed him, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. On “Meet the Press” in late August, Tim Russert played a tape of Kerry addressing the Senate in October 2002 with a hard-line speech declaring Iraq “capable of quickly producing weaponizing” of biological weapons that could be delivered against “the United States itself.”
Kerry insisted: “That is exactly the point I’m making. We were given this information by our intelligence community.”
However, as columnist Robert Novak noted, “as a senator, Kerry had access to the National Intelligence Estimate that was skeptical of Iraqi capability. Being tricky may no longer be as effective politically as it once was.”
No doubt Dean, Lieberman, Clark and other rivals will now use these and other details to do to Kerry what the Democrats did to Dean.
[ 02-11-2004, 10:55: Message edited by: Klaus ]
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU FEB 12, 2004 11:45:28 ET XXXXX
CAMPAIGN DRAMA ROCKS DEMOCRATS: KERRY FIGHTS OFF MEDIA PROBE OF RECENT ALLEGED INFIDELITY, RIVALS PREDICT RUIN
**World Exclusive** **Must Credit the DRUDGE REPORT**
A frantic behind-the-scenes drama is unfolding around Sen. John Kerry and his quest to lockup the Democratic nomination for president, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.
Intrigue surrounds a woman who recently fled the country, reportedly at the prodding of Kerry, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
A serious investigation of the woman and the nature of her relationship with Sen. John Kerry has been underway at TIME magazine, ABC NEWS, the WASHINGTON POST, THE HILL and the ASSOCIATED PRESS, where the woman in question once worked.
MORE
A close friend of the woman first approached a reporter late last year claiming fantastic stories -- stories that now threaten to turn the race for the presidency on its head!
In an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, General Wesley Clark plainly stated: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." [Three reporters in attendance confirm Clark made the startling comments.]
The Kerry commotion is why Howard Dean has turned increasingly aggressive against Kerry in recent days, and is the key reason why Dean reversed his decision to drop out of the race after Wisconsin, top campaign sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.
Developing...
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
This probably isn't true because there is no source but I think it's funny.......
KERRY CALLED SECRET SERVICE AGENT 'SON OF A BITCH' AFTER SLOPE SPILL
Dem presidential candidate John Kerry called his secret service agent a "son of a bitch" after the agent inadvertently moved into his path during a ski mishap in Idaho, sending Kerry falling into the snow.
When asked a moment later about the incident by a reporter on the ski run, Kerry said sharply, "I don't fall down," the "son of a b*itch knocked me over."
The Secret Service agent in question has complained about Kerry's treatment, top sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.
Last month, Kerry began receiving Secret Service protection.
"Obviously, the complications and burden of being monitored 24-hours a day is not just an a simple inconvenience," a government source explained Friday. "But Senator Kerry should understand agents are working for his safety and well-being."
On Friday, Kerry, his snowboard strapped to his back, hiked past 9,000 feet on Durrance Peak, then snowboarded down the mountain, taking repeated tumbles. Reporters counted six falls, although Kerry was out of sight for part of the descent.
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Democratic senator - and certain presidential nominee - John F. Kerry gave the middle finger to a Vietnam veteran at the Vietnam Memorial Wall on Memorial Day morning, NewsMax.com has learned.
Ted Sampley, a former Green Beret who served two full tours in Vietnam, spotted Kerry and his Secret Service detail at about 9:00 a.m. Monday morning at the Wall. Sampley walked up to Kerry, extended his hand and said, "Senator, I am Ted Sampley, the head of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, and I am here to escort you away from the Wall because you do not belong here."
At that point a Secret Service officer told Sampley to back away from Kerry. Sampley moved about 6 feet away and opened his jacket to reveal a HANOI JOHN T-shirt.
Kerry then began talking to a group of schoolchildren. Sampley then showed the T-shirt to the children and said, "Kerry does not belong at the Wall because he betrayed the brave soldiers who fought in Vietnam."
Just then Kerry - in front of the school children, other visitors and Secret Service agents - brazenly 'flashed the bird' at Sampley and then yelled out to everyone, "Sampley is a felon!"
Kerry was referring to an incident 12 years ago when Sampley confronted Sen. John McCain's chief aide, Mark Salter, in a Senate stairwell after McCain repeatedly offended POW families at a Senate POW hearing. Sampley, whose father-in-law at that time was MIA in Laos, followed Salter into the stairwell and, when they emerged, Salter had a bloody lip and a broken nose.
Sampley's group, Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, has garnered huge national attention and has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post and on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country." Tens of thousands of Vietnam vets have registered their opposition to Kerry through Sampley's group.
Clearly Sampley has gotten under Kerry's skin once again.
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
*** The Boston Globe Archives | July 21, 1988 | Walter V. Robinson ***
ATLANTA -- Michael Stanley Dukakis, a self-described "very, very long- shot" candidate just 16 months ago, last night became the Democratic nominee for president and his party's best hope to win the White House since 1976. Earlier, Sen. John F. Kerry took to the convention hall podium, telling the delegates that the "moral darkness" of President Reagan's presidency will soon end.
"A Republican president once reminded us, 'There is absolutely nothing to be said for a government of powerful men with the ideals of pawnbrokers,' " Kerry said.
"That president's name was Theodore Roosevelt. And today Theodore Roosevelt would be ashamed to be a Republican."
Said Kerry: "It is time we once again had a government of laws and not of lawbreakers."
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Who describes themself as Cheeky? Strange.
I'M ONE VERY 'SEXY' SENIOR
By DEBORAH ORIN -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- June 15, 2004 -- WASHINGTON —John Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, touts herself as "sexy" and "cheeky" in an interview being broadcast tonight. "I'm cheeky, I'm sexy, whatever. You know, I've got a lot of life inside," the 65-year-old first-lady wannabe says with a giggle in an interview with CBS News.
When CBS correspondent Byron Pitts tells her that not many women her age say they're sexy, she quips, "How many of that age have you asked?"
Her comments were sparked by her husband's description of her as "saucy, sexy, brilliant."
Mrs. Kerry has spoken publicly of her fondness for Botox injections to smooth her wrinkles, a revelation that fueled rumors that her husband, 60, had used Botox, too. He denied it.
Mrs. Kerry is worth an estimated $550 million as ketchup heiress via her late first husband, Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.). And she repeats her refusal to release her full tax returns.
"Anything that I have that is joint with my children, I will not divulge, period," she says in the interview airing on tonight's "CBS Evening News."
The interview airs as Kerry and President Bush hit the campaign trail again after a week's break for Ronald Reagan's funeral.
The first polling data since the funeral, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, shows no major Reagan impact on the 2004 race, which remains a virtual tie: Kerry with 47 percent and Bush with 46.
But an ABC News analysis projected Bush is likely to have at least 254 electoral votes — 270 are needed to win — and Kerry 217, with 67 in the toss-up states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Oregon, New Mexico and New Hampshire.
Sen. Kerry had a fund-raiser last night at singer Jon Bon Jovi's Middletown, N.J., estate.
In the interview, Mrs. Kerry says she switched from Republican to Democrat in 2003 due to the GOP campaign that defeated Sen. Max Cleland (Ga.), who lost three limbs in a Vietnam grenade accident.
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
Does anyone think that this assclown will actually get elected? Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
I don't think even Joe believes that Kerry has a chance in hell of winning....
Posted by Chadwick (Member # 45) on :
Gas prices falling indefinetly....
Economy and job situation now far better than it has any buisness being durring a war and less than three years after 9/11.
Job net loss/gain is almost at zero since bush took office. That is after all the sky is falling crap about the job loses.
And over 30% of companies across america are planing to hire BIG TIME this summer.
Manufacturing is growing in leaps and bounds again.
Huge economic growth overall.
Taxes are low.
Intrest rates not yet rising very much, relativly low inflation but at least there is some.
Dollar is stabilizing in value...
Everything in this country is looking up right now.
NO.
NO CHANCE IN HELL!!!
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
OOps NYP got it wrong.....
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
CLEVELAND, July 7 -- To begin with, there's the dicey matter of the all-important first shot of John Kerry and John Edwards and their wives getting off the campaign plane. The new running mates and running matrons emerge with a triumphant wave. But at the top of the mobile staircase looms a large, unfortunate sign:
KERRY WAR COMRADES PREPARE BATTLE -- AGAINST KERRY
Capped by Kerry's primetime speech to accept the Democratic Party's nomination, Thursday's program will include appearances and remarks by Kerry's Swift Boat crewmates, the Kerry-Edwards campaign announced in a press release this morning.
But a group of veterans will soon try to convince a nation how what is presented on the convention stage tonight -- may not be the full story: "Only 2 of John Kerry's 23 fellow Swift boat commanders from Coastal Division 11 support his candidacy today."
A new bombshell book written by the man who took over John Kerry's Swift Boat charges: Two of John Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations (#1 and #3) resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire.
The startling Purple Heart accusations, outlined in detail for the first time, are found in UNFIT FOR COMMAND, Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.
And that's just the beginning.
The book, previewed by the DRUDGE REPORT, will be unleashed next month by REGNERY.
The book hit #2 on the AMAZON sales chart on the eve of the Kerry acceptance speech in Boston.
Swift Boat Veterans began to fume after Kerry's campaign used a photograph of John Kerry and 19 other Coastal Division 11 Swift boat officers [taken at Ton Sun Nuht Air Base on January 22, 1969] in a pro-Kerry advertisement.
William Shumadine, a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth pictured in the photograph, explains in UNFIT: "John Kerry's use of a photograph with his nineteen comrades, with knowledge that eleven of them comdemn him and six who cannot or do not want to be involved, is a complete misreprentation to the public and a total fraud."
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
quote:Many people are not voting for Kerry but against Bush. It's a bit of foot-gnawing. But please make no mistake: worse times are to come, whoever gets the prize. Kerry has no plans to stop attacking other countries. he only wants to get others to share the cost.
Not sure if you were being sarcastic about the article being good.......
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
I wasn't focusing on that one line, I meant more the whole article.
The reason I thought this was a good article is because it shows that most of the things that people are crying and whining about are the same things they were saying 10, 20 and 30 years ago...
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Republican McCain blasts ad questioning Kerry's military record
Associated Press
August 5, 2004 AD0806
Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry's military service ``dishonest and dishonorable'' and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well.
The White House declined.
``It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me,'' McCain said in an interview with The Associated Press, comparing the anti-Kerry ad to tactics in his bitter Republican primary fight with President Bush.
The 60-second ad features Vietnam veterans who accuse the Democratic presidential nominee of lying about his decorated Vietnam War record and betraying his fellow veterans by later opposing the conflict.
``When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry,'' one of the veterans, Larry Thurlow, says in the ad. Thurlow didn't serve on Kerry's swiftboat, but says he witnessed the events that led to Kerry winning a Bronze Star and the last of his three Purple Hearts. Kerry's crewmates support the candidate and call him a hero.
The ad, scheduled to air in a few markets in Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin, was produced by Stevens, Reed, Curcio and Potham, the same team that produced McCain's ads in 2000.
``I wish they hadn't done it,'' McCain said of his former advisers. ``I don't know if they knew all the facts.''
Asked if the White House knew about the ad or helped find financing for it, McCain said, ``I hope not, but I don't know. But I think the Bush campaign should specifically condemn the ad.''
McCain, chairman of Bush's campaign in Arizona, later said the Bush campaign has denied any involvement and added, ``I can't believe the president would pull such a cheap stunt.''
White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to condemn the ad. He did denounce the proliferation of spending by independent groups, such as the anti-Kerry veterans organization, that are playing on both sides of the political fence.
``The president thought he got rid of this unregulated soft money when he signed the bipartisan campaign finance reform into law,'' McClellan said. A chief sponsor of that bill, which Bush initially opposed, was McCain.
In 2000, Bush's supporters sponsored a rumor campaign against McCain in the South Carolina primary, helping Bush win the primary and the nomination. McCain's supporters have never forgiven the Bush team.
McCain said that's all in the past to him, but he's speaking out against the anti-Kerry ad because ``it reopens all the old wounds of the Vietnam War, which I spent the last 35 years trying to heal.''
``I deplore this kind of politics,'' McCain said. ``I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is, none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crew have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.''
Retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, head of the Swift Boat group, said they respected McCain's ``right to express his opinion and we hope he extends to us the same respect and courtesy, particularly since we served with John Kerry, we knew him well and Sen. McCain did not.''
McCain himself spent more than five years in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp. A bona fide war hero, McCain, like Kerry, used his war record as the foundation of his presidential campaign.
The Kerry campaign has denounced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, saying none of the men in the ad served on the boat that Kerry commanded. Three veterans on Kerry's boat that day - Jim Rassmann, who says Kerry saved his life, Gene Thorson and Del Sandusky, the driver on Kerry's boat, said the group was lying.
They say Kerry was injured, and Rassmann called the group's account ``pure fabrication.''
The general counsel for the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee sent television stations a letter asking them not to run the ad because it is ``an inflammatory, outrageous lie'' by people purporting to have served with Kerry.
Hoffmann said none of the 13 veterans in the commercial served on Kerry's boat but rather were in other swiftboats within 50 yards of Kerry's. The group claims that there was no gunfire on the day Kerry pulled Rassmann from a muddy river in the Mekong Delta and that Kerry's arm was not wounded, as he has claimed.
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
Spin, spin, spin!
quote:Originally posted by Crack_Dealer: When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry,'' one of the veterans, Larry Thurlow, says in the ad. Thurlow didn't serve on Kerry's swiftboat, but says he witnessed the events that led to Kerry winning a Bronze Star and the last of his three Purple Hearts.
Okay, he witnessed the event, but since he wasn't on the boat that makes his statement less credible?
quote:Kerry's crewmates support the candidate and call him a hero.
How many crewmates support him? Notice he focuses on the three that support him and consistently discredits those who don't?
quote:A chief sponsor of that bill, which Bush initially opposed, was McCain.
And based on this statement we believe that McCain is the good guy, Bush is evil since he opposed this. Am I reading this correctly?
quote:McCain's supporters have never forgiven the Bush team.
And?
quote: As it is, none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded.
So, once again, that makes them less credible to say something like, "I was in the boat right next to Kerry's, and we weren't under fire." Really...hmmm...
quote:Retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, head of the Swift Boat group, said they respected McCain's ``right to express his opinion and we hope he extends to us the same respect and courtesy, particularly since we served with John Kerry, we knew him well and Sen. McCain did not.''
Basically, "Shut your pie hole, McCain."
quote:A bona fide war hero, McCain, like Kerry, used his war record as the foundation of his presidential campaign.
Interesting that they're calling Kerry a "bona-fide" war hero without actually saying it.
quote:The Kerry campaign has denounced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, saying none of the men in the ad served on the boat that Kerry commanded.
Interesting. Fine, I denounce the Kerry campaign for a being a spin-crazy carnival. Don't believe the men who were there, for god's sake!
quote:Hoffmann said none of the 13 veterans in the commercial served on Kerry's boat but rather were in other swiftboats within 50 yards of Kerry's. The group claims that there was no gunfire on the day Kerry pulled Rassmann from a muddy river in the Mekong Delta and that Kerry's arm was not wounded, as he has claimed.
This is the most important part of the article, so I'm glad they waited to the very end. Okay, if Klaus stands 50 yards away from me and starts shooting at things, will I hear him?
Do any of you know how military operations work? LIEUTENANT Kerry was NOT in charge of this operation. He was in charge of his boat. So how is it that the 1, 2, 7 other boats and 50+ other crewmembers on other boats can't talk? They magically DIDN'T hear the firefight? Only heroic LT. Kerry saw this? I'm confused...
Another thing, why is it that people miss these things? People undoubtedly read this article and say, "Those other assholes are just lying about Kerry." When it's clear that there are more people saying that there was no firefight, and that Kerry and his men are exaggerating, than there are people saying the opposite.
I don't know the whole truth, so I too am speculating, but I wonder why it is that the left is so willing to believe the 3 or 4 people who are saying, "NO! THEY'RE lying. We're telling the truth." when there are 50 people saying the opposite.
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
First off – the Bush campaign has asked that the ad does not run as well. Second, McCain while I do like him is trying to keep his hopes alive of getting appointed as Sec. of Defense if Kerry gets elected. While he does support Bush he will not bash Kerry in any way.
Last night on Hannity and Colmes both the guy that was rescued by Kerry and the guy that saw the entire incident from the 50 cal tower on the next swift boat were on. First the witness from the 50 cal tower gave his account and it goes like this: Five or six swift boats are traveling down the river and one hits a mine throwing 4 crew members into the water and killing one. Kerry’s boat pulls one of the men out and two other boats pull the other guys out. The witness guy watches this from his gunner’s tower and provides protection for the boats – there was NO enemy fire from anywhere. One of the five boats leaves to head back to base – the others remain with the damaged boat until a wrecker boat comes to pick it up. No enemy fire and the only person getting a bronze start is Kerry.
Now the Kerry campaign version (short version) – boats come under fire while on a mission. A boat gets hit throwing some crew members into the river. All the boats except for Kerry’s flee down river. Kerry turns his boat around and saves the guy in the river.
The guy from the river claims that the witness from the other boat doesn’t remember after all these years.
My take is – look if you’re the guy that just got blown off your boat and are in the water of course you think whoever picked you up is a hero. But that doesn’t change the fact that according to almost everyone else there says no one ran and there was no enemy fire.
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
I pre-ordered the book...I'm sure it'll shed some light on the subject.
And then we'll see how fast they can on the authors and contrubutors to make them look like they don't know what they're talking about.
"He can't remember after all these years?"
But you can? Posted by ProfBooty (Member # 21) on :
Wouldn't you think someone just involved in an explosion who was then violently thrown into the water would be the one more likely to suffer memory loss?
And what is this "all the other boats fled" crap? I have a very hard time believing that anyone serving in the military is going to just abondon their commrades and all five boats flee because of an unspecified amount of enemy fire.
It's all history revision driven but different agendas, I don't trust anyone's story.
[ 08-06-2004, 13:24: Message edited by: ProfBooty ]
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
Check where it says "I am depicted on his website"...the font gets a little funky there...
What's that all about?
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Kerry's war record Robert Novak (archive)
August 9, 2004 | Print | Send
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The television ad that aroused the wrath of John McCain and journalist supporters of John Kerry just begins deconstruction of the Democratic presidential candidate's war record. "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," a 214-page critique of his performance in Vietnam and the antiwar movement, is off the presses ahead of schedule.
I have read the book and found it is neither the political propaganda nor the urban legend that its detractors claim. It is a passionate but meticulously researched account of how Kerry went to war, what he did in the war and how he conducted himself after the war. The very serious charges by former comrades deserve answers but so far have produced only ad hominem counterattacks.
Why should details of what Kerry did more than 30 years ago be part of this election campaign? Only because the senator has made them integral to his strategy. Kerry as war hero received more attention at the Democratic National Convention than plans for the future. Thus, what he did in his shortened four months of combat becomes a valid campaign issue.
John E. O'Neill, co-author of "Unfit for Command," replaced Kerry as commander of Swift Boat PCF 94 in 1969 and has been confronting him since 1971. O'Neill told me he is no George W. Bush partisan and probably would have supported John Edwards had he been nominated for president, but is committed to keeping Kerry out of the Oval Office. Thus, reversing the usual formulation, the assault on Kerry is personal but not political.
O'Neill told me neither he nor his co-author (Jerome R. Corsi, a writer and expert on the Vietnam antiwar movement) has had contact with the Bush White House or the Bush-Cheney campaign. He said he and Corsi, on their own initiative, went to conservative Regnery Publishing to offer the book.
The co-authors paint Kerry as a reluctant warrior. Contrary to claims by Kerry's supporters that he served two combat hitches in Vietnam, his one-year term aboard a guided missile frigate was far from action. His four months in the brown water navy were terminated eight months early by a third Purple Heart wound, none of which required hospitalization.
The book's strength is the vehemence of testimony by swift boat veterans, alleging that Kerry "gamed" the system to win decorations and later betrayed comrades by charging war crimes. Typical is the quote by Bob Hildreth, commanding an accompanying boat: "I would never want Kerry behind me. I wouldn't want him in front of me, either. And I sure wouldn't want him commanding our kids in Iraq and Afghanistan." Some 200 "Swiftees" on May 4 signed a letter to Kerry demanding full release of his service records.
The book's weakness is support for Kerry's presidential campaign by his swift boat crewmates, presumably people who knew him best. O'Neill told me that these former sailors served with Kerry no more than five weeks. Jim Rassmann, now part of the Kerry presidential campaign, was a Special Forces lieutenant spending a few days with Kerry when he fell or was knocked off the swift boat while under fire and was fished out of the Mekong River by the future candidate.
The "band of brothers" was organized by Kerry, according to this book. It tells of a 2003 telephone call to Adm. Roy Hoffmann, who commanded swift boats in Vietnam, telling him he was running for president. Hoffmann, mistakenly thinking it was former Sen. Bob Kerrey, "responded enthusiastically." Once the admiral realized it was John Kerry, "he declined to give Kerry his support." Hoffmann is quoted as saying, "I do not believe John Kerry is fit to be commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States."
"Unfit for Command" sends a devastating message, unless effectively refuted. Perhaps most disturbing are allegations that Kerry's combat decorations are unjustified. His first Purple Heart, the book alleges, was accidentally self-inflicted. His commander, Grant Hibbard, is quoted as saying: "I didn't recommend him for a Purple Heart. Kerry probably wrote up the paperwork and recommended himself." Full release of documents demanded by his critics could settle this claim quickly if it is unwarranted.
Posted by ProfBooty (Member # 21) on :
It all reminds me of Ventura and his service record which he never released. If you have nothing to hide and didn't do anything questionable, why not make it public and put an end to all the bickering?
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
In Hindsight, Kerry Says He'd Still Vote for War
By Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 10, 2004; Page A01
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz., Aug. 9 -- Responding to President Bush's challenge to clarify his position, Sen. John F. Kerry said Monday that he still would have voted to authorize the war in Iraq even if he had known then that U.S. and allied forces would not find weapons of mass destruction.
They're bitching that we didn't find WMD's, right?
We're saying "You fuckwads gave them enough time to hide them/sell them/ship them/transfer them/bury them that they could be anywhere in the WORLD by now"
They're saying that it's Bush's fault that these WMD's "don't exist" and that Kerry never would've invaded Iraq with the info that he had.
And yet, here he is saying he would've done the same thing...with the same intelligence...and probably would've had the same outcome. Except that he would've pulled our troops with the first beheading (and pissed on the graves of those who had already died).
But I guess pissing on his fellow soldiers is not an uncommon thing for John Kerry.
Oh well, I'm sure you won't see this article in many places. Oh look, new info on the Scott Peterson trial/Kobe Bryant trial/American Idol voting/Mary-Kate and Ahslee Olson weight issue/Lynnie Englend trial/more abuse/anything to distract the masses back into their pacified anti-America stance.
Sorry, got carried away.
Oh and by the way, didn't this idiot say that "The transfer of power to Iraq by June X is a fiction."
Fuck this guy. Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Good post!
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
I just love the Kerry peoples idea - you stop speaking out against Kerry's Vietnam record and we will continue with our attacks against Bush's national guard service etc....
Cleland Tries to Deliver Letter to Bush
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
CRAWFORD, Texas - Former Democratic Sen. Max Cleland tried to deliver a letter protesting ads challenging John Kerry (news - web sites)'s Vietnam service to President Bush (news - web sites) at his Texas ranch Wednesday, but neither a Secret Service official nor a state trooper would take it.
The former Georgia senator, a triple amputee who fought in Vietnam, was carrying a letter from nine Senate Democrats who wrote Bush that "you owe a special duty" to condemn attacks on Kerry's military service.
"The question is where is George Bush (news - web sites)'s honor, the question is where is his shame to attack a fellow veteran who has distinguished himself in combat?" Cleland asked. "Regardless of the political combat involved, it's disgraceful."
Encountering a permanent roadblock to Bush's ranch, Cleland left without turning over the letter to anyone.
"I have a letter signed by nine members of the U.S. Senate, all of whom have served honorably and I'd like to hand it to a responsible officer here on the gate," Cleland said as he tried to deliver it to security personnel at the roadblock. He accused a member of the president's security detail of trying to evade him.
"I am just going to return the letter and make sure it gets in the mail," Cleland said as he returned to his car.
In their letter, the senators said, "This administration must not tacitly comply with unfounded accusations which have suddenly appeared 35 years after the fact, and serve to denigrate the service of a true American patriot."
A Texas state official and Vietnam veteran, Jerry Patterson, said someone from the Bush campaign contacted him Wednesday morning and asked him if he would travel to the ranch, welcome Cleland to Texas and accept the former senator's letter to Bush.
"I tried to accept that letter and he would not give it to me," said Patterson. "He would not face me. He kept rolling away from me. He's quite mobile."
Patterson, who spoke with the president on the phone, said the campaign asked him to give Cleland a letter for Kerry written by the Bush campaign and signed by Patterson and seven other veterans.
"You can't have it both ways," the letter said. "You can't build your convention and much of your campaign around your service in Vietnam, and then try to say that only those veterans who agree with you have a right to speak up."
On Monday, the president said the group's anti-Kerry advertising should stop, but he refused to denounce it.
"The moment of truth came and went for President Bush to condemn these ads, and he still could not bring himself to do the right thing," Cleland said in a statement.
The senators signing the letter to Bush included Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings of South Carolina, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Tom Carper of Delaware and Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg, both of New Jersey.
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
Kerry on The Daily Show...what a silly man.
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
My favorite part of the Daily Show interview was Kerry lowering debate expectations. He kept say how Bush has never lost a debate. Not sure if he is trying to set Bush up or if he is truly concerned about going head to head with GW.
Otherwise, most of it was silly - and Stewarts left leaning came out in several parts.
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Here is another shot of Kerry today telling Bush to condemn the Swift Boat guys.... while a guy in the background holds Bush is AWOL stickers.... Truly laughable.
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Oops miscalculation......
quote:THE BOOS THAT ROCKED THE VOTE: KERRY DAUGHTERS RECEIVE RUDE AWAKENING AT MTV AWARDS Sun Aug 29 2004 23:36:31 ET
MTV, ROLLING STONE and the rock and roll establishment -- past and present -- have cast their vote, and their man is John Kerry.
So on Sunday night when John Kerry's daughters were announced to speak at the annual MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS, the MTV youth were expected to welcome his daughter's as pop culture princesses.
Instead, in an era of the unexpected, the daughters of the Democratic candidate were met with cheers -- AND JEERS -- during the live broadcast in Miami.
From the moment Alexandra and Vanessa started speaking, the boos outweighed anything close to cheers, and the reaction turned worse when the daughters asked the VIACOM youth to vote for their father. So shocked by the reaction, the taller of the two daughters tried to 'shhhhhh' her peers to no avail.
I don't think the gun he holds is really one with a pistol grip but I guess the law he sponsored included that gun......
Posted by Mikey (Member # 42) on :
From everything I have heard his poll numbers are falling at a frantic pace so hopefully we have nothing to worry about Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Here is a nice site that tracks all polls. Here is the summary sheet.
Looks good for Bush at the moment. His speech at the RNC was pretty good and the speeches of Arnold, Rudy, and Zell Miller were also very good. I doubt the numbers will hold up but it's nice to see Bush ahead by so much.
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
NOBODY LIKES HIM
By DICK MORRIS --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September 15, 2004 -- JOHN Kerry is in deeper trouble than the polls indicate. While the Fox News survey taken last week after the Republican convention shows Bush with a small lead over Kerry, the internal data indicates big shifts against the Democrat. For example, Kerry is now seen unfavorably by a record 44 percent of the voters (his personal worst), giving him a slightly higher unfavorable ratio than Bush — whom 43 percent dislike. (Bush's edge comes from the fact that he gets 51 percent to rate him favorably, while Kerry has only a 46 percent favorable rating.)
But worse, the poll shows that Kerry must face a basic problem: His own voters don't like him very much.
The Fox News poll asked Kerry supporters if their vote for the Democrat could best be described as motivated by support for Kerry (41 percent) or by opposition to Bush (51 percent). By contrast, Bush voters emphatically say, by 82-13, that they are voting for the president rather than against the challenger.
This puts Kerry in a tough position in the coming debates. He has no real base of support and any attenuation of the dislike his voters feel for Bush will weaken him substantially. All Bush has to do is to persuade a few Kerry voters to stop disliking him, and he can get their votes. There is no residual affection for the Democrat to get in the way of their switching to the president.
The polls already have shown how Kerry's own voters break almost evenly on the issues, with half supporting the war in Iraq and half opposing it, and almost equal numbers saying we must stay the course as say we should bring the troops home.
So Kerry can't use issues to hold his own in the debates: Whatever he says will antagonize some of his base. And now it's plain that he can't rely on personal popularity to hold them, since most are just voting against Bush.
If the president gives an even moderately effective presentation and comes across as even somewhat likeable, he can cut deeply into Kerry's vote.
In addition, the poll shows that there has been a shift in the issues on which voters are focused. Those who identify terrorism or homeland security as key issues has risen from 7 percent before the convention to 22 percent afterward, and issues such as taxes and gay marriage, which did not make the polls before, now draw 4 percent each who feel they are the most important issue before the nation.
Asked which is more important in their votes, national security or the nation's economy, voters split 45-38 for security — a clear Bush win.
The electorate remains sharply divided in its loyalties based on voters' perception of the most important issue. Of those who see security as key, Bush wins by 68-28, while Kerry triumphs among those who focus most on the economy by 56-19.
Underscoring Kerry's popularity problems, voters rate Bush better on a host of adjectives. Who is the stronger leader? Bush, by 51-37. Who is more honest and trustworthy? Bush, 42-37. Who will make the United States a stronger country? Bush, 46-40. Who takes strong stands and sticks with them? Bush, 56-27.
Kerry only wins "Who understands the average American better?" — and by only 43-36.
Kerry never had time to make America like him. He won the nomination before anyone really got to know him and has coasted on anti-Bush campaigning ever since. Even now, he relies on the old National Guard records of Bush to animate his campaign, as if we are about to form our judgment of how Bush would be as a commander based on 30-year- old, possibly forged records rather than on our own observation of how he has done the job. But Kerry has got to close the most fundamental gap of his candidacy: Voters don't like him very much.
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Three-year-old Sophia Parlock cries while seated on the shoulders of her father, Phil Parlock, after having their Bush-Cheney sign torn up by Kerry-Edwards supporters on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004, at the Tri-State Airport in Huntington, WV.
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
You ever notice how there are more people making a scene, fighting with W supporters and covering their cars with anti-bush stickers?
You ever notice that the reason we don't do all that crap is because this guy has no chance?
I can't wait for the debates...
BUSH: "I say to terrorists:" KERRY: (uses a word that has 14 syllables) AMERICAN PUBLIC: BUSH: Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Now that he's decided to close the campaign as Howard-Dean-with-a-Silver-Star, John Kerry is claiming that the war he voted to authorize in Iraq is a "profound diversion" from the things that really matter -- Al-Qaida, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, even an alleged lack of firehouses in the United States. The implication is that if only we hadn't gotten involved in Iraq, the rest of the world would be in much better shape. This is a highly debatable proposition, and it is an area where President Bush should try to pin down his slippery adversary.
Part of what Kerry says is sheer demagoguery. He castigates Bush for spending $200 billion (actually $130 billion, but who's counting?) in Iraq and not spending it at home for schools, health care, firefighters and no doubt free treats for good little girls and boys. Yet in the next breath, Kerry attacks Bush for being profligate, period. Which is it? Is Bush spending too much or too little? It's hard to believe Kerry is serious in any case; this is merely pandering to leftist isolationism.
Kerry is on firmer ground when he suggests that Bush has allowed "the urgent nuclear dangers in North Korea and Iran ... to mount on his presidential watch." True, and if one advocated a get-tough policy with Pyongyang and Tehran, the fact that 130,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq might be an impediment. (Or they might help boost the pressure on next-door Iran.) But Kerry doesn't advocate such a policy. He wants to sign a generous deal that would pay these rogue states not to produce nukes. Appeasement hardly requires military muscle.
What of Kerry's claim that Bush was so focused on Iraq that he let Al-Qaida run wild? Actually, two-thirds of Al-Qaida's senior leadership has been caught or killed. And the United States is getting more cooperation in fighting terrorism now than before 9/11, even from states that aren't fans of the Iraq war. Look at the big roundups of Al-Qaida suspects recently in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. As French Arabist Gilles Kepel argues in a new book, the jihadists are losing their war to gain control of the Muslim world.
It's true that Osama bin Laden hasn't been caught, but it's far from clear that this is due to a lack of trying. NATO forces have been searching Bosnia for war crimes suspects Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic since 1995 and still haven't found them. For that matter, Eric Rudolph, the prime suspect in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing, was arrested only last year -- and he was hiding on U.S. soil. Kerry is on weak ground when he suggests that Bush's focus on Iraq has worsened the situation in Afghanistan. This may have seemed plausible amid the gloom-and-doom reporting of a year or two ago, but recent news is largely positive.
Though Human Rights Watch last week warned of continuing violence and instability, this hasn't stopped millions of Afghans from registering to vote in the Oct. 9 elections. President Hamid Karzai has sidelined two noxious warlords, Ismail Khan and Muhammed Qassim Fahim. The Afghan army is growing in size and effectiveness. NATO troops are patrolling Kabul and expanding into the provinces. In an Asia Foundation poll, two-thirds of Afghans said the country was moving in the right direction.
All this progress may be occurring not despite our troubles in Iraq but because of them. If jihadists weren't attacking U.S. forces in Iraq, they would probably be throwing more energy into attacking them in Afghanistan.
Also, if the United States didn't have all those troops in Iraq, it would be tempted to send more than the present commitment of 18,000 soldiers to Afghanistan. A greater U.S. presence could help fuel a nationalist backlash and result in greater casualties, as has occurred in parts of Iraq. The Bush administration may have stumbled onto the best strategy for Afghanistan -- a low-key, long-term commitment that relies primarily on building indigenous security forces.
In a way, of course, all this is beside the point. Whether or not Iraq was central to the war on terrorism before the U.S.-led invasion -- a point on which reasonable people can differ -- there is no question that it is central today. British Prime Minister Tony Blair (a nonveteran with more political courage in his pinkie than Kerry has in his whole body) puts it well: "I can understand why people still have a powerful disagreement about the original decision to go to war, but whatever that disagreement, surely now it is absolutely clear we have to stay and see it through. Because the consequence of not doing so is that global terrorism will get a tremendous boost." Bush understands that. Does Kerry?
Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.
[ 10-05-2004, 13:34: Message edited by: BoondockSaint ]
Posted by BoondockSaint (Member # 67) on :
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN OCT 03, 2004 14:05:38 ET XXXXX
DEBATE MYSTERY: DID KERRY HAVE CHEAT SHEET?
Section 5, pages 4-5 of the binding "Memorandum of Understanding" that was negotiated and agreed upon by both political campaigns states:
"No props, notes, charts, diagrams, or other writings or other tangible things may be brought into the debate by either candidate.... Each candidate must submit to the staff of the Commission prior to the debate all such paper and any pens or pencils with which a candidate may wish to take notes during the debate, and the staff or commission will place such paper, pens and pencils on the podium..."
So what did Dem presidential contender John Kerry take out of his jacket as he approached the stage [with his back to the auditorium's audience]?
Video replays of the Kerry maneuver played all weekend long on the internet.
[A tight zoom analysis of the Boston.Com feed shows Kerry pulling a mysterious item his jacket [14 seconds into video, after commerical]. Kerry appears to unfold some sort of paper seconds later, at his podium.]
A top Kerry campaign source explained to the DRUDGE REPORT late Sunday how Bush supporters were once again trying to distract.
"Kerry did not cheat," said the Kerry insider. "This is more lies from Republicans, who are hoping for a quick change of subject away from the president's performance, and the new polls."
When pressed on the fact that even brandishing a pen from his jacket would have violated debate rules, the Kerry staffer laughed, adding, "See you at the inauguration, Drudge".
Developing...
----------------------------------------------------------- Filed By Matt Drudge Reports are moved when circumstances warrant http://www.drudgereportArchives.com for updates (c)DRUDGE REPORT 2004 Not for reproduction without permission of the author
[ 10-05-2004, 13:39: Message edited by: BoondockSaint ]
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
Middle Class Said To Pay Higher Tax Rate Than Heinz Kerry And Kerry Mon Oct 11 2004 10:22:17 ET
Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, writes in the WALL STREET JOURNAL on Monday: "According to the Kerrys' own tax records, and they have not released all of them, the couple had a combined income of $6.8 million in income last year and paid $725,000 in income taxes. That means their effective tax rate was a whopping 12.8%.... "Under the current tax system the middle class pays far more than the Kerry tax rate. In fact, the average federal tax rate -- combined payroll and income tax -- for a middle-class family is closer to 20% or more. George W. and Laura Bush, who had an income one- tenth of the Kerrys', paid a tax rate of 30%. ...
"Here is the man who finds clever ways to reduce his own tax liability while voting for higher taxes on the middle class dozens of times in his Senate career. He even voted against the Bush tax cut that saves each middle-class family about $1,000." The Kerrys "have unwittingly made the case for what George W. Bush says he wants to do: radically simplify and flatten out the tax code. ... So before John Kerry is given the opportunity to raise taxes again on American workers, shouldn't he and Teresa at least pay their fair share?"
Posted by Klaus (Member # 66) on :
WOW - Kerry's campaign was a cluster fuck - read below.
NEWSWEEK ELECTION ISSUE: 'How He Did It' Thursday November 4, 2:37 pm ET
NEW YORK, Nov. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- When President Bush's poll numbers surged in April after a press conference where his performance was derided by the press and the chattering classes, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry was baffled, writes Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas in an exclusive report in Newsweek's special election issue. "He said with a sigh to one top staffer, 'I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot.'" The November 15 issue "How He Did It" (on newsstands Thursday, November 4) includes an exclusive behind-the-scenes account of the entire presidential campaign reported by a separate Newsweek Special Project team that worked for more than a year on the extraordinary campaign. Highlights from the report:
The Clintonista "Coups." At several critical junctures Kerry's campaign (and the candidate himself), struggled to find sure footing. Following the missteps of August, Clinton veteran James Carville confronted Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, telling her she had to step aside and let newly arrived Joe Lockhart run the campaign. So worked up, Carville began to cry, imploring Cahill: "You've got to let him do it." Carville continued, "Nobody can gain power without someone losing power." Carville threatened to go on "Meet the Press" the next day "and tell the truth about how bad it is" if Cahill didn't give effective control to Lockhart.
The "Outlandish" McCain Offer. Kerry's courtship of Senator John McCain to be his running mate was longer-standing and more intense than previously reported. As far back as August 2003, Kerry had taken McCain to breakfast to sound him out to run on a unity ticket. McCain batted away the idea as not serious, but Kerry, after he wrapped up the nomination in March, went back after McCain a half-dozen more times. "To show just how sincere he was, he made an outlandish offer," Newsweek's Thomas reports. "If McCain said yes he would expand the role of vice president to include secretary of Defense and the overall control of foreign policy. McCain exclaimed, 'You're out of your mind. I don't even know if it's constitutional, and it certainly wouldn't sell.'" Kerry was thwarted and furious. "Why the f--- didn't he take it? After what the Bush people did to him...'"
"A Marathon Man." Kerry's intensity on the trail rarely, if ever, faded. Moments after delivering his victory speech after wrapping up his party's nomination on March 2, Kerry was back in his motorcade and on his cell phone. "Dad," asked his daughter Alexandra. "Will you please appreciate this moment for 10 seconds?" Newsweek reports, "He mumbled yes, yes, he was happy, it was good, and then went back to working the cell phone." It occurred to his daughter Vanessa that her father did not match the media's clichi of him being a fourth-quarter player, he was a marathon man. Writes Thomas, "Kerry liked to say that 'every day is extra' after Vietnam, but actually every day was like the day before, a relentless march toward his goal."
Kerry's drive to self-perfection was boundless-sometimes to a fault. In early spring he sought counsel from Washington speech coach Michael Sheehan. With aides he would sometimes say, "Tell me everything you think I'm doing wrong." When John Sasso arrived on the campaign in September he found a candidate who had turned himself into a pincushion. "Kerry had been inviting personal criticism from pretty much anyone who had an opinion...Kerry was drowning in negative energy from all around," Thomas writes. Sasso wanted it to stop. There was to be no more direct criticism of the candidate, period. And Teresa and the daughters were not exempt, Newsweek reports.
Additional exclusive news reported in Newsweek's Special Election Issue:
Clinton Advice Spurned. Looking for a way to pick up swing voters in the Red States, former President Bill Clinton, in a phone call with Kerry, urged the Senator to back local bans on gay marriage. Kerry respectfully listened, then told his aides, "I'm not going to ever do that."
Kerry Anger Over Swift Boat Ads. By August, the attack of the Swift Boat veterans was getting to Kerry. He called adviser Tad Devine, who was prepping to appear on "Meet The Press" the next day: "It's a pack of f---ing lies, what they're saying about me," he fairly shouted over the phone. Kerry blamed his advisers for his predicament. (Cahill and Shrum argued responding to the ads would only dignify them.) He had wanted to fight back; they had counseled caution. Even Kerry's ex-wife, Julia Thorne, was very upset about the ads, she told daughter Vanessa. She could remember how Kerry had suffered in Vietnam; she had seen the scars on his body, heard him cry out at night in his nightmares. She was so agitated about the unfairness of the Swift Boat assault that she told Vanessa she was ready to break her silence, to speak out and personally answer the Swift Boat charges. She changed her mind only when she was reassured that the campaign was about to start fighting back hard.
Managing Teresa. Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, presented a host of behind-the-scenes drama for Kerry. Early on, the campaign staff regarded Teresa as something of a hypochondriac, and she canceled three trips in October at the last minute, usually for what was described to aides as a "nonspecific malady." Kerry's first campaign manager, James Jordan, had little patience for her strong opinions, sending emails trashing the candidate's wife...which inevitably reached his rivals within the campaign, including Bob Shrum (an old Teresa friend) and helped seal Jordan's eventual dismissal.
Later came Kerry campaign's post-convention "Sea to Shining Sea" tour: a 3,500-mile bus and train trek that was not a happy trip for Teresa. With each passing day she made less effort to hide her displeasure. Audiences were mystified when Teresa turned her back to them at daylight rallies and wore dark sunglasses and a hat at night (backstage, the candidate's wife complained of migraines and sore eyes). As they reached the climax of the tour, an hourlong "family vacation" hike in the Grand Canyon, the planned happy-family- vacation was disintegrating in plain view. Daughter Vanessa didn't enjoy being a prop, Teresa was complaining of migraines and telling her husband she couldn't walk anymore. The candidate tried to bravely soldier on, pulling his sullen wife and children to show them the magnificent condors flying overhead.
Edwards Campaigns for Veep. Hours after bowing out of the presidential nomination race on March 3, the senator from North Carolina convened a small circle of his closest advisers at his house on P Street in Georgetown. He wanted the veep nomination, Edwards told his aides, he wanted it badly, and from that moment was going to wage "a full-fledged campaign" to ensure that he got it.
Shades of Dukakis. In early August, when the Swift Boat story started to pick up steam on the talk shows, Susan Estrich, a California law professor, well-known liberal talking head and onetime campaign manager for Michael Dukakis, had called the Kerry campaign for marching orders. She had been booked on Fox's "Hannity & Colmes" to talk about the Swift Boat ads. What are the talking points? Estrich asked the Kerry campaign. There are none, she was told. Estrich was startled. She had seen this bad movie before.
Newsweek's 2004 Special Election Issue marks the magazine's sixth consecutive installment of providing a behind-the-scenes account of the entire presidential campaign. The 50,000-word inside story was written by Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and edited by Special Projects Director Alexis Gelber. The project's correspondents are: Jonathan Darman (with Kerry), Kevin Peraino (with Bush) and Contributing Editors Eleanor Clift and Peter Goldman.
Posted by Jomama (Member # 56) on :
I'll be picking that up..
In the same vein.. Last June/July there is a U.S. World and News report all about the Iowa Primary, and how the people running Deans campaing basically underestimated the effort they needed there, and the Kerry people really understood Iowa, and really beat Dean badly there because of power conflicts within the Dean campaing... his people basically lost it for him (aside from the yalp that was totally overblown..) It was interesting, it was very informative about the caucus system (f'd up)
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on the authors and contrubutors to make them look like they don't know what they're talking about.![[crazy]](graemlins/crazy.gif)
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