Republicans & Conservatives Archives

I hope that your opinion deeply resonates with Karl Rove. I hope that Bush uses 9/11 images more and more. It will only continue to backfire more and more.

Come the convention, it will turn into a cynical fake-patriotic opportunistic farce. Finally, after three years, Americans are starting to see the difference between opportunistic jingoism and true patriotism.

-Cf

Christopher is partially right—more and more people are noticing cynical fake patriotism, but it’s on the part of John Kerry who wraps himself in the flag as he tries to change the subject of every discussion to his service in Vietnam (even while voting to de-fund soldiers in harm’s way today). The problem is that he only wants to talk about the part of his record before he started repeating in public KGB-fed propoganda about American soldiers as rapists, torturers
and genocidal murderers (how long the major media will successfuly keep this story bottled up is anybody’s guess).

There isn’t even an authentic controversy about Bush’s use of those images anyway—this is just a handful of professional 9-11 victims being trotted out by Dem operatives on the orders of Terry McAullife. Talk about cynical manipulation of a tragedy! If the media weren’t skewed left, we’d hear from an equal number of 9-11 families who’d express outrage at Kerry’s attempt, in his desire to kow-tow to the likes of Chirac and Jane Fonda, to silence and forget the political and human implications of that terrible day.

The Iraq war was also a “defining” moment in the Bush presidency, yet the administration has explicitly told the media not to broadcast images of flag-draped coffins, and Bush has not attended a single soldier’s funeral.

It seems you are saying Bush can offend victims’ families when it serves his aims, but not when it has the possibility of detracting from them.

to use that 9/11 imagery in a political commercial and then refuse to testify in front of the commission researching the events of that day is just another example of this president’s poor leadership.

the american public knows that this is just an attempt to transform a “definining event” into a crass instance of political gain for mr. bush, without any regard for those involved.

I have seen a variety of polls on the issue that all say basically the same thing. The current poll at CNN is 80% opposed to the use of the ads. It’s obvious the American people agree with Kerry.

From the perspective of the Bush team, it’s got to be encouraging that Kerry and his allies in the media find it necessary to stage this “controversy.” It means that the Dems are terrified that the public will be reminded of the hard facts of why we went to war twice, why we haven’t been able to play nice with Euoropean appeasers, why the economy has struggled, why the Patriot Act was necessary (all things that are harder to smear when you’re confronted by the palpable fact that we have enemies that want to kill us, know how to do it, and have succeeded at least once spectacularly). Considering the shameless manipulations and lies of the Dems, and their clear terror of the public being reminded of the facts, I think the Bush team should up the ante and start using those pictures of falling bodies. They’ll never do it, but I’m serious—that’s what the public needs to be reminded of. That’s the reality of the evil that Kerry and the Dems refuse to contront and want to wish away because the truth makes it harder to score cheap political points against Bush.

Let’ talk about allies in the media. What about the media conglomeration owned by Rupert Murdoch? BTW, he’s not American but he still tries to influence our politics through the growing right-bias influence of Fox news. At least Ted Turner is a citizen of this country, and his network far less biased than Murdoch’s.

Matthew, Osama Bin Laden still roams free, more than two years after Bush said he’d get him dead or alive. Al Quaeda still operates, and has killed hundreds of people since it faced us in Afghanistan. We are told Iraq is part of the war on terror, but the only terrorist who we’ve encountered are either displaced Baathists, or imports after the fact.

At home, our security standards are still lax, and people have been able to slip into chemical plants and linger at will for extended periods of time and not be apprehended by security. Years after the terrorist disaster, most ports have not met the security standards needed to shield our nation against attacks.

Does Bush deserve to boast of his leadership during 9/11? Only if he’s lead us well. And the best measure of that has been the results of his actions. Have the results been good? Many people do not see things that way. Start from there, and you get a significant sense among voters that Bush deserves no points for his post 9/11 leadership.

Start from there, and then show people a commercial that says we’re safer, after playing off of pictures of the 9/11 tragedy, and you get a recipe for revulsion. Bush has not earned his self appointed status of Great American Leader in many people’s eyes.

As a Democrat (and sometime Green) I have to agree with Mr. Fahey — I hope that Bush squeezes as much 9/11 imagery into his advertising as possible. It perfectly exemplifies the arrogance and cynicism coming out of the White House. As Kerry says, “Bring it on!”

As for the idea of Kerry using 9/11 images to attack Bush, we all now that he would be crucified if he did anything of the sort. People would literally accuse him of treason.

Obviously this is the opinion of someone who didn’t have a member of their family or a friend murdered by terrorists on 9/11. The whole controversy over the 9/11 imagery is because it shows no respect for the close to 3000 Americans murdered that day. Showing remains being carried out of the rubble understandably is upsetting for people who lost loved ones that day.

Bush is welcome, in my opinion, to note whatever sort of leadership skills he used during that crisis, but showing remains being pulled from the rubble is not only going too far, but it shows a total lack of respect for the victims of 9/11.

Woody wrote:
> As for the idea of Kerry using 9/11 images to
> attack Bush, we all now that he would be
> crucified if he did anything of the sort.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be too surprised if he did, considering how campaigns twist and turn as the candidates sling accusations at each other. Bush has opened a Pandora’s Box with that stuff by clearly making it a central theme of his campaign. Who knows what the mood of the country will be about this issue once the mud starts to really fly?

-Cf

Martin wrote:
> [Kerry] only wants to talk about the part of
> his record before he started repeating in
> public KGB-fed propoganda about American
> soldiers as rapists, torturers and genocidal
> murderers (how long the major media will
> successfuly keep this story bottled up is
> anybody’s guess).

All the stuff he said in the Congressional testimony in question is being taken out of context by those who wish to paint Kerry as some kind of a traitor or tool of the KGB. Let’s get the facts straight:

What he really said was (and I am paraphrasing) “I have been speaking to Vietnam veterans who have told me stories about rapes, tortures, etc.”. He never laid the accusations himself. His intention was to point out that these stories *existed* and that our leadership should be concerned about their impact on public support of our soldiers and their impact on the image of our country around the world.

(It also just happens to be the case that most of examples he listed did, in fact, occur in some form or another in Vietnam. There were some atrocities performed by American soldiers in Vietnam, some even ordered by commanding officers.)

His intention was clearly not to impugn Vietnam soldiers and veterans, since he of course was one of them. His point was to paint a picture of Vietnam as one which dehumanized the soldiers we sent there, an image that Nixon and many war supporters sought to cover up (even the casualty figures were covered up).

Note that he repeated these stories *in testimony before Congress*, not in the hundreds of speeches he made to anti-war groups. Again, the purpose was not to incite anti-Veteran furor, but to make those in power aware of the ugliness of the war itself.

Martin also wrote:
> Kerry’s attempt, in his desire to kow-tow to
> the likes of … Jane Fonda

John Kerry specifically disinvited Jane Fonda from events at which he was speaking. He knew she was a lightning rod and that her views didn’t coincide with his at all. The connection between these two is entirely fabricated.

-Cf

I thought the ad’s use of a flag-draped coffin to be in poor taste. There must have been other imagery that could have been used to mention Sep. 11 leadership without resorting to dead bodies. And I hadn’t even thought about the hypocracy of this until pointed out above by Bo Jackson. Funny isn’t it, that Bush banned media from broadcasting images of coffins coming home from Iraq… Guess the Democrats will have to dig some footage up to use in their ads!

How many people are related to victims of 9-11? Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand? Within HOURS of these ads being released (in markets where few of these families even live) we have all the major media reporting that families are disgusted and outraged. Does anybody seriously believe that news organizations were inundated with complaints the very second the ads aired, that they verified the identities of these individuals and then determined that this represented a reasonable consensus among family members and then got the story out all within a single news cycle? Of course not. This is a story cooked up by the Kerry campaign and disseminated with the collusion of the media—-the kind of prefabricated news story typical of yellow journalism. Those we heard from were contacted because they were already well-known to be anti-Bush, and the true cynicism and exploitation of tragedy here lies with the Kerry camp. It’s especially contemptible for the media to have been a part of this when you consider how many images of 9-11 they use in the their ads and lead-ins. Having said that, I agree that the flag-draped coffin was a bad choice. Bush addressing a crowd atop a pile of rubble would have been both more appropriate and effective.

Quite right! The media portrays opposition to the ads as coming from “aggrieved” families when in reality the opposition is from organized Democrat partisans. An open letter from 9-11 families in support of Bush and the ads gets no mention in the liberal media.

Bush needs to keep hammering away at Kerry and the Democrat hypocrisy and lies.

Don’t worry, John, we ARE bringing it on!

The dilemma your people get into is that these people chose to support it, and to discredit them, you have to practically prove that these people did not see the commercials. Yes, Kerry’s team may have gotten copies of that commercial out to them early, but their reactions to Bush are their own.

And seeing as how the Republicans are trying to convince broadcasters once more not to run Move-on’s ads, I don’t see where mere criticism ranks as high. If you want to read about it, the link’s here: RNC’s latest questionable move

I mean, this kind of behavior should tick people off, and should show the level of desperation and distrust the RNC and the president have concerning American citizens. It is entirely legal, as I understand it for private citizens not affiliated with a campaign to buy TV time, and air ads giving out their opinions.

Some of you might just say that we need to combat the biases in the media. I say leave them the hell alone. the whole point of the media is to get biases out there, to get what people think, especially as far as politics goes out into the public domain.

I’m not saying this as a raving advocate for a lack of objectivity in the media, but as skeptic who knows that nobody can be completely objective, much less all-seeing enough to see every important matter at hand. We need many different flavors of political bias in the media, if only to ensure that there are people there to call those who try to build the consensuses in American on their BS.

The conservatives running this show need to step back and decide just how much of the American way of life they are willing to sacrifice before they have declared it saved for all time.

Stephen, I’m not sure what you find obviously objectionable in the story you link to. What actually constitutes legal behavior for Section 527 organizations has yet to be explicitly resolved, and considering the current murkiness of campaign finace laws, there seems to be a legitimate question about whether Moveon.org’s actvities are in fact legal. It’s definitely illegal to take soft money and coordinate with a political campaign, which Moveon may not do in a formal sense, but neither do they merely run “issue” ads or voice abstract political concerns which is what the 527 exeption is for. They exist for one purpose—to attack Bush in tandem with efforts to elect a Democrat. Maybe this will be found to be a legal end-around for soft-money’s use in the campaign—maybe not. I tend to agree with you that disallowing would be a risky abridgement of free speech—so I hope they’ll prevail. If they do, though, look for MASSIVE counter-efforts in coming months by Republican-style organizations which could find it much easier than Dems, if history is a guide, to come up with willing contributers of soft money. In the end, Kerry has more to fear than Bush if this becomes a no-holds barred spending war of attrition.

Martin, if it is indeed in violation of the law, okay. That’s the way it’s going to have to be. But I want the courts to say that based on evidence. I don’t want the RNC taking it upon itself to be judge, jury, and executioner, especially when it comes to a situation where they have a conflict of interest like this- that is the silencing of a particularly well publicized group critical of Bush’s tenure. Whether what MoveOn is doing is bad precedent, according to your argument,merits some consideration. But you should also be very wary of the precedent that the RNC is setting by legitimizing the dominant party’s persecution of opposing viewpoints in the media by such legalistic means. If history causes your people to lose your currently dominant position in America’s government, What kind of laws, practices, and precedents would you want Democrats compelled to acknowledge?

A radio talk show host played soundbites from interviews from women that were offended by the ads. On three key points they almost quoted each other verbatim. Sounds like coaching…

Also, a group called Peaceful Tomorrows is getting press criticizing the ads. Interestingly enough, a good bit of their funding comes from Teresa Heinz’s charity foundations.

Even without coaching or other motives, I can imagine that of all the 9/11 families, there are going to be some that don’t like President Bush.

I think this hoopla will pass quickly.

Something I would like to see however is Kerry get grilled on his comments about our soldiers needing armour in Iraq. On one hand he points out how they need more, then votes against any money to give it to them. Shameful.

I think the hoopla is unlikely to pass quickly. Bush has insisted so much that what he’s done he’s done for the 9/11 victims, that he can hardly remove himself from resentment of what political ends he’s used it to.

It should occur to you that 9/11 struck at a fairly liberal city, and that Bush’s use of force in Iraq, as justified by the terrorist incident, has been unpopular with many of those people. There is probably a sensibility amongst many New Yorkers that Bush conned them at their most vulnerable in order to push policies they would not have agreed to otherwise.

I know I’m going to sound a liberal dupe to you, but I’m going to have to ask some questions on the matter-

Did your Talk show host play the whole interviews, or just the parts he found similar?

How close is the association between Teresa Heinz and the charity foundations that fund the Peaceful Tommorows? Are they independent? Controlled by the heiress?

And finally, what real percentage does Heinz’s contribution add up to?

I ask these questions because I’m curious as to the meaning of what you’re saying, but yet also curious as to the real content of the situation. God is in the details, and as long your people don’t give me those, and don’t give all that are relevant, I don’t see why I should give up my default trust in these people.

Besides, you should ask yourself why it’s been such an effective tactic. You have to, in light of what that implies- that a major part of the population does not thing that Bush has done right by the victims of 9/11. If Kerry is responsible for getting these women out there, and saying that, he did so, at the very least, anticipating that people might very well feel that way, as well as the negative impact that it would have on Bush’s 9/11 prestige.

Look this is politics with the highest stakes possible in the land. This is a seat at the final table of the World Series of Poker, and both sides are going to do whatever it takes to win the pot. That means the GOP using ads that “tastefully” remind of us of 9/11 and it also means the DNC using 9/11 victims to discredit them. This is just the beginning of times where I’m sure people on either side will be either disgusted or delighted.

The amazing thing is how much traction the DNC got out of attacking the ads. You can bet they will use the same tactic again when the next round of Bush ads are set to be released.

Stephen raises an important question—why has this been such an effective tactic, and what risk does Kerry run for attacking Bush on issues generally thought to be Bush’s strengths? As far as the media is concerned, Kerry can throw mud with both hands and without consequences. The goal is to keep Bush on the defensive, hope a little of the mud sticks, and continue to defer the day when Kerry himself faces close scrutiny. Case in point: take the oft-repeated charge that Republicans “question the patriotism” of their opponents—-an accusation repeated so often by Dems and their allies that it’s almost common knowledge. The fact is that not once has any member of the administration used anything like “not patriotic” in conjunction with the name of an opponent, though Kerry, Mrs. Heinz-Kerry, Dean, Gephardt and McAullife have all done so explicitly on numerous occasions. What’s the media response? What’s the penalty for slander if you’re a Democrat? Silence—-what the heck, it’s okay to smear and lie about Republicans. The good news is that this can’t work forever-—the public is not dumb enough to live for eight more months in the Democrat’s Orwellian world where 2+2=5 (or where the Republicans are the ones operating the “slime machine”). Today there are numerous op-eds by 9-11 family members who support Bush—-the one in the WSJ is particularly good-—and the truth about this will slowly percolate through the public consciousness. Primary voters liked Kerry, apparently, more because he promised to stand up to Bush than for possessing any real substance himself. Fine, but this rabid attack-dog shtick where Bush gets attacked every time he brushes his teeth is already descending into self-parody.

Republican Ad carps on Kerry for being Rich

It’s funny that Bush can run as a man of the people himself, being the scion of the undeniably wealthy Bush family. This is truly a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Martin, I raise that question to tell you that this would not work if a great number of people did not already harbor doubts as to Bush’s leadership.

What precisely do you want Kerry to do, running against the incumbent? Ask nicely for the job? Did you not read what your positive minded leader has said about Kerry? I am willing to admit we’re going negative, but there’s a great deal to be negative about, concerning this administrations’s policies.

The GOP, at least part of it, considers 9/11 Bush’s strength. But if you look at almost every Democrat complaint, it comes down to Bush’s response to 9/11. The PATRIOT Act. The War in Iraq. Insufficient homeland security. Even the tax cuts.

9/11 is only a strength for Bush among his own partisans. But anybody who has bone to pick with his post 9/11 policies, it is the reason why they are so actively against him.

Kerry is playing to the deep dissatisfaction among Liberals and Moderates with Bush’s leadership. It would take something of a Dittohead not to recognize the controversy this country is going through concerning that leadership.

As for questioning patriotism, Bush has long fought his wars of words with proxies, remaining nice and polite himself while his friends practically go Lord of the Flies on his opponents. Case in point, the whole Hanoi Jane thing. Your people show us this oblique telephoto lens photograph showing him near in the frame to Jane Fonda. Of course, if you know what the lense is doing, you’d recognize that Kerry had to be three, four, maybe five rows back, and on the other side of a divide from the woman. Of course, that’s near enough for the Dittoheads. The fact that he would disinvite her to his proceedings later on, especially around the time of the Hanoi Jane incident somehow slipped people’s minds. And of course, they’ve been quick to paint him as an opportunist, claiming that his testimony, which contained a paragraph or two about what other people told him (and since has been confirmed from other accounts) was a betrayal of his comrades overseas. No matter than Americans and veterans alike despised the war.

No matter that the Bush white house controls their relationship with the media with an iron hand. No matter that if Bush, as leader of his party, didn’t want people smearing democrats or liberals, he could certainly stop them. He could also make his relationship with the press much easier if he didn’t stonewall or become angry at any questions that fell short of being softballs. No president in my memory has been so hostile to the press. It’s only natural, that with nowhere else to go, they either do the softball pieces, or they report on what’s going wrong with the Administration’s policies, often minus the Administrations stingily given cooperation. Bush makes his Administrations’s workings a mystery, and readers like a good mystery. So it’s his own fault the press doesn’t like him. They’re just reflecting his attitude towards them.

Your people’s bestselling books bear titles like Treason, and Deliver Us from Evil : Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism. Do you expect me to believe that there’s no questioning of patriotism on the part of the prominent figures of the conservative movement? The spin from that assertion will have me running on the walls like David Bowman from 2001: A Space Odyssey in no time. accusing liberals of being unpatriotic is almost a ancestral tradition for the republican party.

As for the 9/11 family members speaking out for Bush, I’d suppose with so many people affected by the tragedy, it would be inevitable that many of those people would support Bush, out of previous and newly forged loyalties to him. However, that does not negate those who are Bush’s critics, it does not invalidate the larger public response to Bush’s crossing of that line, and it certainly won’t percolate as you say it will, because in essence, the default position, as it was, was precisely that kind of support. Nearly everybody started out supporting Bush, when this thing started. But as Bush made one radical decision after another, and committed one error after another following his agendas, he lost that support. Again, he only has himself to blame for the opposition he’s created. I mean, a couple years ago, I don’t think Democrats thought they had a chance. Bush had reelection locked, on the condition that he make wise, non-divisive choices from that day on. But what has he done since? He’s embarked on one controversial initiative after another, showing on multiple occasions that he could care less whether his decisions satisfied more than just his conservative base and corporate sponsors. That kind of aristocratic attitude is bound to create opposition in a country built on resisting authoritarianism.

Bush will have to earn his victories, thank you very much. And that will be a tall order for many people.

Stephen:

But don’t you think this campaign by Citizens United is just a sign of the times? Same as the efforts by MoveOn? You’ve got these new 527 Organizations who don’t have to play fair out there and who can basically claim anything they want (free speech). But it comes back to the simple point that this is all just politics on both sides, and therefore no one can claim the high ground.

Having said that, I do think the JFK has a bigger problem with the “silver spoon” argument than GWB does. That has to do with the fact of who his constituent base is, and that the Democratic motto has always been “we’re for the little guy.” I mean how can JFK “feel their pain”?

This controversy was inevitable — and the fact that the Bush White House seems a bit taken aback by the outrage is more proof that they don’t know what they’re doing. I’m not going to knock him for what he did do on 9/11 and its immediate aftermath — but, what did he do really? Read to kids in a day care center? Calmed the nation via television? Use a bullhorn. a pile of rubble and a retired fireman as props, as he copied the speech Bill Pullman made in the movie “Independence Day?” Really, he didn’t make it to NYC until 9/14 — by that time Rudy had filled any leadership void. The “Rubble Speech” was just another aircraft-carrier photo op if you ask me.

I’m also troubled by the use of the word “defining” when referring to 9/11. Karen Hughes, using the Bush script that was handed out like candy, said 9/11 “defined our future.” No doubt it surely changed our future; but it in no way can, or should, ever define our future. It’s not semantics; it’s a view of this country, its role in the world and its place in history. If 9/11 defined our future, the terrorists have won.

And please, spread the word: that photo showing Kerry and Jane Fonda was a digital forgery.

I feel that no American should ever forget that horrid day. I think that each one of us should have to see the image of what happend then and what could very well happen at any given moment as often as possible.

President Bush has the right to use those images as he sees fit, whether it be in a campaign ad or just as a patriotic reminder to us all. It was his leadership that got the WORLD through that trying time. It is a very important moment in American history and also the history and legacy of his presidency.

As I recall, in late 2001 a host of Republican-sympathetic pundits said “The Democrats shouldn’t use 9-11 for political purposes!” Where are these claims today?

A few months ago Republican-sympathetic pundits were in an uproar when two people submitted ads comparing Bush to Hitler in a MoveOn contest. These ads didn’t even come close to airing.

I find these positions rather disengenuous in the light of the Bush media team’s attempt to associate 9-11 heroism with their candidate.

The Kerry/Fonda photos most probably originated, like the Kerry-intern rumor, with operatives of the Clark campaign (esp Lehane, I think his name was). Nobody on Bush’s team had a thing to do with them, never mentioned them, but go ahead and blame him if you want to—we all know that George Bush is the cause of every wart and pimple in the universe.

Even if right-wing types were involved (and Drudge did play a part in spreading these rumors and photos), Bush can no more control everybody on the right that Dems can control the likes of Michael Moore or Louis Farrakhan on the left.

Having said this, I have to say I don’t like the Citizens United ad and think it was a waste of their money. Kerry has never really tried to position himself as “a man of the people” anyway, and who really cares about his haircuts and mansions? Americans, by and large, don’t hate the rich. If Citizens United were going to deliver a real hard-hitting attack, I’d have preffered it to be about the KGB-supplied script Kerry read at a congresssional hearing which was then used by Viet-Cong torturers to try and coerce statements from American POWs (expect MUCH more on this story in coming months). The attack on Kerry for being somehow elitist is a complete softball and adds nothing to the public record. It’s almost as if the Citizens United ad was written for John Edwards, a millionaire trial-lawyer who really did try to make a virtue of his humble backround as he went around the country spreading absurd Oliver-Twist fictions about America as a country filled with hungry little girls crying all night because daddy lost his job at the mill and big bad George Bush gave all the porridge to Hallburtin.

There were two photos that I saw, one of which featured Kerry and Fonda together on the same platform, one of them about to give a speech. That’s the one which is the fake. The real one is the one that has them sitting in an audience, and it’s that one that the photographic critique applies to.

As for the supposed Clark connection, I could believe it for the intern, but not the other photo. I hardly believe the Karl Rove that push-polled people about McCain having interracial child out of wedlock, a question that queasily coincided with McCain’s Adopted Bangledeshi child being brought on in public would have much of a problem trying to paint Kerry as a man who sold out veterans (which according to the records he didn’t- in fact he comes across as a moderate in many of the organizations he was in.)

As for the whole KGB supplied script thing, we have that coming from a defector (defectors being known to embellish facts to attain asylum) who served under Ceaucescu, the Romanian dictator, as a facilitator for his atrocities.

Besides, it’s already well established that there were real atrocities going on in Vietnam. Again, as with 9/11, controversy has to be in people hearts, before claims of problems will find their mark. Americans, around the time that Kerry served had learned that their government was underreporting casualties, making little progress, and was even illegally entering into Cambodia. The war was unpopular with Americans for it’s own reasons.

Another thing to keep in mind was that Nixon and Henry Kissinger were intentionally pitting Chinese, Vietnamese and Russian interests against each other at the time. So Russia may not have had that much to gain by facilitating anti-war efforts.

The origin of these photos is unknown—what is known is that they emerged in the thick of the Democratic primary, before Kerry had things sewn up and just as the other candidates were becoming desperate. It’s possible that some right wing type created the doctored photo—heck, any college freshman with Photoshop might have done it, but Karl Rove or somebody on the Bush campaign? Come on. It was an amateurish job at best and not one likely to score many political points anyway.

The defector in question has no need to lie about Kerry in order to gain asylum—the countries of Eastern Europe are not even places anymore that one needs asylum from! What is so potentially damaging to Kerry is the fact that what he says about Kerry’s slanderous congressional testimony squares so well the prexisting record of these operations. The defector is well known to have been part of KGB efforts to undermine American credibility by spreading disinformation, especially among the American anti-war movement of which Kerry was a part when he recited so many SPECIFIC allegations from the KGB-supplied script. I’m 100% sure that Kerry never knew that he was part of a KGB-disinformation campaign—he was duped—but that’s hardly an excuse. Tt’s definitely more than enough, though, considering how his testimony added to the living hell of American POWs, to raise serious questions about his qualifications to become President.

The fact that Karl Rove would angering just one the 9/11 victim’s families is either due to insensitivity, desperation or keen political maneuvering.

If the Feb job numbers were 250K+, a robust economy was in overdrive and Wolfey and Rummsey were able to take a leisurely drive thru Baghdad, I doubt we would’ve seen those images. This is how desperate they were to change the subject.

Lastly, I respectfully ask all Republicans to look up a word and it’s definition, and try to incorporate it into your vocabulary and daily routine - proof!

Just as the Kerry camp had nothing to do with the Bush AWOL press, the campaign is not pulling the strings behind these angry 9/11 families. If you disagree - prove it!

Then, there are the paranoid rants about CNN, NPR, Katie Couric, etc. I’ve yet to see evidence of a Liberal bias. Disagree? Prove it?

I now understand why you blurt out these petty, knee-jerk, baseless rants. If you had standards for credibility and the truth, Ann Coulter and Matt Drudge would be out of a job!

Martin: Let me see if I understand this correctly. Kerry, being fed misinformation by an operative of another country trying to interfere with our politics and repeating it to congress because he was fooled, raises questions about his qualifications to become president.

On the other hand, George W. Bush as the President of the United States being fed misinformation by his own people about the danger another country poses and repeating it to congress and the american people as a justification to get us to wage war on a country that has not directly attacked us, does not?

Something tells me that this is not an argument which republicans should be using to attack Kerry. Bush comes out looking a little worse, by that standard.

2 Items:

Shawn… The talk show you heard that segment on was Rush Limbaugh, and no, they did not play the interviews, but only single phrases. I’ve taken to listening to him lately, and I’ve been impressed. I’ve never heard so much bile, hatred, and name calling from one person. It’s been an eye opener over the last half a year.

Secondly, in all my months listening to Hannity, Limbaugh, and Boortz, I don’t think that I’ve ever heard them actually *address* the very real questions that are being brought up on the other side of the aisle. They address jobs by saying that Kerry takes special interest money from “Benedict Arnold Companies,” or by saying that “the majority of Americans have jobs.” That last one is one of Rush’s favorites. They address the 9/11 Commission or the WMD Investigation by saying that partisan politics is all that they are interested in. Across the board, I hear them change the subject subtly when a hard issue comes up.

What I’m saying is that I *never* hear an answer from a die-hard conservative that actually sounds like an *answer*. Similarly, in this thread, I don’t think I’ve seen a real answer to any of the issues raised (not just about the use of 9/11 flag-draped corpses). This contrasts with Kerry’s responses to questions, which I feel are forthright. Granted, some of his answers require more than a sentence for an answer, but that doesn’t make him “nuanced” (as if that was a dirty word). He answers every question with a *real* answer. An answer that actually *addresses* the question, without simply changing the subject subtly.

Gaelen: While I am no “hard core” conservative I would counter your argument by saying that this Administration has stated by practice what their answers are on all of the issues. Feel free to agree or disagree with them, but their plans are out there and in play. In fact, it appears to me that the Democrats are doing a great job of pointing out the problems (or the Administration’s failures) but are being less forthright in what they promote as a solution. That’s because many of the solutions are unpalatable to the majority of Americans (protectionism, federalizing healthcare, raising taxes).

The question is can they run a successful campaign by just being opposed to everything this Administration does? It is certainly working for the people who obviously hate GWB.

Well, let me look at this script you’ve got, Martin. Or can you? If you can’t, whose word are you taking on this? Link me to the text of Kerry’s speech. If he was unknowingly following such a script, then tell me how exactly as a honest member of the veteran’s anti-war movement was he to vett that script so as to avoid any Soviet influence on them? Ask the FBI in to investigate? This is just guilt by association, and perhaps not even that.

In terms of slander, in the face of all the evidence of incompetence at the top, and atrocities at the bottom, what can be said in Kerry’s speech not to be true? Why should what he said not be taken as true?

I would be the last person to want a corrupt, gullible leader. Leaving aside why I want Bush out of office, I’d have to ask what evidence you have that Kerry didn’t honestly believe, from his experience in Vietnam, what he testified? I’d also have to ask how much of a dupe one can consider Kerry, if I Kerry was known to be one of the more mature, less radical members of the group- that is, if he wasn’t merely going with the flow. I want to know how many connections you have to go through to make this link.

The plain truth is, the Nixon Administration treated any group that dissented from the Vietnam war as being enemies to be investigated, and that attitude has been passed down, to where many conservatives can’t think straight when they look at a person who opposed the war, even one who did so from personal experience.

If you want an example closer to home, why don’t you consider for a moment what your reaction would be, if someone made the allegation that you made your career on trying to destroy democrats by pointing out that you were part of Watchblog around the time that SoL released his rumor on Kerry. You probably had nothing to do with it, but that’s not the point of the tactic. The point would be to use people’s incomplete knowledge of the Watchblog setup against you, lumping every member of Watchblog together with SoL.

If Kerry is going to be so smeared, I would at least have it be in compellingly complete detail so that only the worst partisan could think it untrue. This? This is just gossip and broad brush guilt by association.

Shawn, in answer to your charges, I have here a response I gave to similar charges on Fark.Com, for which I did extensive research.

Here’s the link for the New York Post editorial (as in not journalism or even a news column) that most likely provides some of the backing for your charges. I provide it here for the sake of context: New York Post Editorial

My response on Fark.Com
Little surprise there - because Peaceful Tomorrows’ parent group, the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, has received millions from foundations controlled by Kerry’s heiress wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

A spokesman for Kerry insists that her donations to Tides were earmarked specifically for environmental charities based in Pennsylvania. But money is fungible - and the Tides Foundation has a lot more than greening the earth on its plate.

Fungible. Do you know what that means?

I’ll provide you with the Webster New World College Dictionary definition: designating movable goods, as grain, any unit or part of which can replace another unit, as in discharging a debt.

I’ve been to the Tides Foundation site, and it seems to be an omnibus funder of progressive liberal causes. Of course, many of them are probably to the left as far as their politics go, but that hasn’t yet become a crime in this country. It operates something called the Tides center, which funds projects.

So, if there is a connection to John Kerry it may go something like this: John Kerry-> Teresa Heinz-> Her Charitable Foundations-> Funds to the Tides Foundation, earmarked for East Coast environmental efforts -> A claimed, unspecified shift of funds against that earmark-> Tides Center ->September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

Six degrees of seperation, friends and neighbors, some of which obviously take the shift of funds out of Teresa Heinz’s hands, and put them into the Tides Foundation’s.

So what are they claiming? A vast left wing conspiracy. What’s more, they’re claiming that this response was only from these people, and that objections wouldn’t have otherwise been raised. I think that’s unlikely. All that group did was bring it to a focus. It’s the general dissatisfaction of many in the voting public that’s really fuelling this.

As for charges that Kerry supports the aims of this particular group, I’d be very reticent, based on Kerry’s recent votes, to make that assumption. If you want to see for yourself, these are Kerry’s votes now, which I believe are much more relevant to his electability as a defense minded president than the ancient history that the GOP are throwing at him:

Iraq force authorization.
Afghanistan use of force authorization
98 defense authorization.
99 defense authorization.
2003 defense appropriations act
Homeland Security department establishment

Being a practicing Christian, I can say you know the tree from the fruit it bears, and you know your candidate from the votes they make. Kerry authorized the use of force both times that Bush has asked for it. He has reversed his previous position, and has vote with the military every time for the last seven years, save for the recent request that Bush made. He voted for the Department of Homeland Security, he most likely voted for the Patriot Act, like everybody else.

So, it begs the question- Why would a group that so vehemently opposed the wars side with somebody who has voted consistently in the last few years for such action? It sounds to me like a good old fashion, don’t the let the facts get in the way of a good story, dittohead mudsling to me. It sounds like people want a conspiracy to be seen, and want Kerry at it’s center. They are willing to contradict the man’s record and play a game of six degrees of separation in order to damage Kerry’s reputation and impugn the opposition among the survivors of the 9/11 victims towards Bush’s administration.

The first part is bad enough. The second part is just plain disgusting. Are they demanding loyalty oaths from the victims of the tragedy they so freely invoke to further their agendas?

With that, I almost don’t need to mention who runs the New York Post: Rupert Murdoch, who keeps close ties to the administration.

My apologies on this small mistake. The following paragraph, fourth from the top-

A spokesman for Kerry insists that her donations to Tides were earmarked specifically for environmental charities based in Pennsylvania. But money is fungible - and the Tides Foundation has a lot more than greening the earth on its plate.

was intend to be part of the quote from the New York Post

critisizing kerry for being related to the heisz corp. is silly, the heinsz family gives a ridiculus amount of money to many different kinds of charity, let’s critisize bush because he uses windows, so he must be in bill gates pocket!

another poster named Martin said:

“I think the Bush team should up the ante and start using those pictures of falling bodies. They’ll never do it, but I’m serious—that’s what the public needs to be reminded of.”

What good would scaring the american public further do anyone? I don’t think that the television veiwer needs that image to be shown agian, do you really think that that would help GW Bush? Images of people taking there own lives before being burned or toppled to death? That’s what “needs to be reminded of?” Ya, show that. then show Bush smirking away, that’ll get the dems!
martin h

Well, contradictory Martin, I tend to think you’re right about not using the falling bodies—I was definitely a little hasty and ill-tempered when I wrote that. I disagree with the president on a great many issues (though I support him over Kerry by a wide margin) but think you cannot even begin to understand his presidency without constantly keeping in mind the details—even the horrific ones—of 9-11. The Patriot Act, two wars, Guantanomo Bay—all of it looks draconian, even evil, if you forget what provoked those measures, if you insist on forgetting because it makes things more politicaly convenient for a presidential challenger (who, incidentally, voted for all of those same measures, but let’s put that aside for the moment). In the same way, we can’t understand D-Day without thinking about the German invasion of Europe. Was the bombing of Hiroshima wrong? An overreaction? Perhaps—many still say so. But you can’t even begin to give a fair answer if you refuse to think about Pearl Harbor and the rape of Nanking.

Bush’s smirks, the way he walks, talks, dresses—these are cheap and petty complaints when you consider the seriousness of his responsibility. Lincoln. He has a very difficult job and on balance—not in every particular, mind you—I think he’s done a good job. The smirk you so detest is undoubtedly seen in the nighmares of the world’s Kim Jong Ils, Quaddafis and Husseins. I love that smirk—it’s a smirk of contempt for global murederers and tyrants.

Lincoln, I started to say, as well as Carter, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, were also mocked for their personal mannerisms, the way they talked, etc. Kerry will certainly come in for similar abuse—he has an incredibly pompous self-satisfied manner about him. But like his haircuts—who really cares? That’s why I dislike the Citizens United ad. There are matters of substance that seem far more important.

Martin-
other than contempt for global murders and tyrants, what do you beleive has GW done well, not in comparision to, but on his own what is good about GW Bush?

Martin-
“I think he’s done a good job”

you said it

Okay, how many Martins are there around here? You’re asking me what I think GW had done that’s good? His foreign policy, I believe, promises to be a huge success. I know you’ll respond by saying that it’s alienated our allies, actually made us less safe, etc, but I disagree. Although in the short term it may in fact make us less safe in certain instances (there really could be additional terrorist attacks on civilians here or abroad in reaction to Bush’s policies), I believe that what we’re doing is necessary in the long term and will be a huge net gain (see the columns of Tom Friedman, no Bush-lover, for an explanation of how all of this may profoundly change the politics of the Middle East for the better). Or watch the news, Iran’s mullahs quaking in their shoes, Libya disarming, Syria and Lebanon seriously reconsidering themselves. As for the naysayers in Europe (actually just a handful of states who resent their own lost empires), well, they can go on lecturing us on morality and international law while they prop up client dictators and their civilizations continue to sink into the morrass of socialisic crapitude and irrelevance. We don’t need their love—they’ll only love us if we’re weak anyway. The very idea of witnessing John Kerry as president licking the boots of the world’s Chiracs, Putins and Schroeders is enough in itself for me to vote for Bush.

Martin(with a capital M)… “His foreign policy, I believe, promises to be a huge success.”

Let’s think for a second about who terrorists are. The general profile starts with an Islamic male from one of the fundamentalist sects. Add to that a dose of hatred for America, and a little more indoctination from recruiters. Presto! You have a potential terrorist.

Now, think about how many people would be angered if you were murdered. Your family, certainly, but also a good many other friends. I’d call the count around 50 for me personally.

Martin-
“I know you’ll respond by saying that it’s alienated our allies, actually made us less safe”

yep you hit the nail on the head, kinda. Not just our allies but everyone. Our country has alienated everyone.

further, I don’t care if or “friends” in europe like the U.S. I care that they hate us. We have become the playground bully of the world and it makes me sad.

“The very idea of witnessing John Kerry as president licking the boots of the world’s Chiracs, Putins and Schroeders is enough in itself for me to vote for Bush”

Isn’t Putin Bushes like number one buddy? Plus just getting rid of GW will make Kerry not have to kiss, or lick as you put it, anyones boots. Europe and the rest will be happy to be rid of Bush.
martin

Doh! Hit the post button accidentally. Lousy laptop mouse. I’ll continue:

Now we’re ready for some multiplication. First, I’ll assume that my estimations are 10 times too high, just to stay on the conservative side of the overall estimate, and to take into account that not every effected survivor is as likely to turn to violence themselves.

So, lets assume that 5 people per civilian killed are angered enough to be good targets for recruitment. Given that 10000 Iraqi Civilians were killed, that produces around 50,000 new potential terrorists. Given that the Iraqi approval rating of the US Occupation wavers below 10%, I’d call this a grave concern.

Rumsfeld himself acknowledged this in that internal memo that was leaked.

How can you say that Bush’s foriegn policy has been effective when he has so obviously decreased our national security. Certainly, Saddam is gone… So that’s one totally contained “Dangerous Madman” that is gone. I s’pose that increases the national security. And look at the amazing progress he’s made with North Korea. Stellar.

The only benefit that I see has been the Khaddafi victory, and it turns out the threat there wasn’t significant anyway. It’s still an accomplishment, though.

Gaelen, national security is not a math problem. It’s time for our enemies to be the ones who look at the blood on THEIR hands and fear OUR retribution. Do your math calculations again. This time start with the number 3,000.

After you’ve finished, factor in that these 3,000 are not illiterate students in Madrassas but a proud, wealthy and resourceful people who have at their disposal aircraft carriers and Stealth bombers. Who should be afraid of war? If you’re a Democrat, apparently the answer is America. Democrats just don’t seem to get that you have to stand up to enemies and fight them—that it’s better to be feared than loved. That running (like Clinton did in Somalia) ultimately causes worse bloodshed.

Over two million Germans died in World War II. Do your math on that—according to the logic of contemporary Democrats, we should never have fought World War II because the whole point of a foreign policy is not to hurt anybody and then they’ll leave us alone.

The start of the war against Islamo-facism was 9-11. George Bush did not choose that date. He did not choose to begin a war. He HAS chosen to fight the war our enemies brought to us, and now they’re trembling in their various caves and spiderhole. There are those in the rest of the world who don’t like it, the jealous, petty tyrant-coddling European left that controls most international media, but despite Democratic/media propoganda, this is no more the whole world than those who complained about Bush’s ads were all the 9-11 familes. Are Italy, Poland, England, Pakistan, Israel, etc. not part of the world? Of course they are, and they’re allies. I’ll tell you this—the whole world is not Paris, Brussels, Moscow and whatever posh luncheon is currently being presided over by Kofi Annen.

Martin wrote:

“Are Italy, Poland, England, Pakistan, Israel, etc. not part of the world? Of course they are, and they’re allies. I’ll tell you this—the whole world is not Paris, Brussels, Moscow and whatever posh luncheon is currently being presided over by Kofi Annen.”

I’d just like to take a couple of minutes to offer you some perspective into the true nature of America’s realtions with it’s “allies”:

Italy-Is America’s ally purely because of the fact that Silvio Berslusconi is a right wing maniac, and in this case his ideologies coincide with America’s. However polls have shown that the people of Italy are far from rallying behind their president, infact the general sentiment of the people is that they hate this war.
2.Poland- Seriously? who even knows where that is. Its insignificant, in the big picture.
3.England-Again the case is similar to Italy. Blair supports the war, the majority of Britons don’t.
4.Pakistan- is on America’s side solely because they themselves are an islamic country and have been known to have terrorist links.The fear in educated Pakistan is that if they don’t co-operate they’ll be next on the list, for potential invasion. As for the right wing fundamentalists, they’re absolutely furious with Musharraf for aligning himself with the US. In the last two months there have been two attempts on his life, both of which he escaped narrowly.
5.Israel-maybe America’s only real ally, though I’m sure that most of the military and ideological support they receive from us, for the war on palestine, doesn’t hurt.

So forgetting who thinks what about the war,in America, it’s not right to believe that there is any real powerful body of support for it(the war) anywhere else in the world.

The world dissaproved of and continues to dislike the war on terrorism, and I wouldn’t be expecting that to change anytime soon.

Martin, Colonialist tactics are simply not going to work anymore. We must go about our foreign policy as if it is important to align other country’s interests with our own. Why? Because it makes things ten times easier to have somebody helping you, than resisting or outright opposing you. There’s a difference between a take-no-bull foreign policy, and one that is simply hostile to other people’s interests.

Our president is a master at dividing people into friend and foe and exploiting that divide. He calls himself a “uniter, not a divider”, but at every step, it seems his policies and his allies policies are aimed at making bright line statements that force people to take sides, often to his advantage.

Listen to the way he talks- Axis of Evil. Hmm. Can we really deal peacefully with evil? Oh No. Defending Marriage, and thereby civilization. Wow. Should I really be against civilization? For or against removing an awful dictator for power- Well, if you put it that way. For or against raising taxes on Americans. Ooh. Wow. Tough choice.

You ask me why don’t I make those choices? because I don’t agree with his logic, and have seen that sentiment confirmed as one Bush choice after another has had negative consequences.

Bush is not a very critical thinker. His challenge to people, when says “prove it” is not to justify the quality of their theories, but justify his foreign policy to an otherwise skeptical audience. That’s not intelligence. That’s PR. That’s propaganda. As useful as that might be in a campaign, it will only get Americans killed when the battlefield or the terrorist threat defies the president’s expectations.

Responding to a false threat is worse than failing to respond to a real one. Why? Because in essence the first option is both options at once. The false threat not only wastes time, money, opportunity and lives, it also means that one is still distracted from the real, unanticipated threats out there. One’s failure in attacking the wrong target is compounded by one’s failure to go after the real one.

If Iraq fails to cohere as a nation, then the failure will be double, and what rises from the ashes will certainly not be the cooperative ally we wished for. In the meantime, we could have been search as intensely for Osama Bin Laden as we are now. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think President Bush was looking for a repeat of the Saddam capture, so he could bask in the popularity spike. Better late than never, right? As much as I want to see Osama in prison, I wanted to see that two years ago. It will be disappointing seeing him in a jail cell, knowing he could have been there sooner, had our president not been such a distractable twit.

He committed his fathers own error, underestimating the conditions for victory. Victory isn’t what one says it is. Victory is defeating those one aimed to defeat, and doing so in such a way that they lose the will to further oppose you.

Victory for Afghanistan would be seeing an effective government in power that could control its own territory. It would be seeing the Taliban rounded up or permanently fugitives, and seeing Osama Bin Laden in shackles and a bright orange prison jumpsuit. In Iraq, it would be a stable government, and an end to the crippling insurgency.

Right now, we have cause to be worried that we’ll ever see those things. Right now, many Americans are concerned that all Bush has managed with his post 9/11 leadership, is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. If that is so, and honestly think that, then he does not deserve a second term.

Martin: “It’s better to be feared than loved.”

Huh… and I thought “Machiavellian” was a negative adjective. You seem to think it’s a positive one.

My point is that by going around the world squashing innocents without justification serves mainly to inspire hatred of the U.S. Is that good foriegn policy? Certianly, making someone like the Soviet Union fearful of you makes sense - there is a logical and effective detterent there. There is *no* detterrent against a father who has watched his son murdered. We cannot reliably find these people without local help, either, so pre-emption in these individual cases is absurd to consider.

I’m not saying that the whole world should just be one big love-in where everyone gets along wonderfully. I know that isn’t going to happen any time soon. But that doesn’t mean that we should go out of our way to make many thousands of brand new fanatical enemies.

Also, your mention of the 3,000 killed ties 9/11 to Iraq. Does anyone still believe that they are in any way related? This has been debunked so many times over so many months that I find it hard to believe you literally believe it. Rather, I think that the 3,000 deaths activated the protective instinct of many of our citizens, and that, just like a driver skidding, many have overcompensated. Killing all of our enemies is not possible. If it were, Israel would have silenced the Palestinians long ago. This strategy has failed resoundingly everywhere it has been tried.

Instead of Bush’s bankrupt foriegn policy, why not leverage the good will that we had gained after 9/11 into greater cooperation with locals and governments around the world. Then, rather than “serving papers to our enemies,” teams could conduct precise, informed strikes at our real enemies only. Certianly, the invasion of Afganistan was justified. Governments must understand that abetting terrorists has dire consequences. But by focusing on the true priorities of eliminating terrorists instead of pursuing an unjustified war for unknown reasons, we could have made unbelievable progress in the war on terrorism. By this time, we could have done far more damage to the visisble terrorist networks globally.

Martin: “Over two million Germans died in World War II. Do your math on that—according to the logic of contemporary Democrats, we should never have fought World War II because the whole point of a foreign policy is not to hurt anybody and then they’ll leave us alone.”

No, the point is to only fight the neccessary fights and to use diplomacy in all other cases. In fact, we embraced exactly the foriegn policy that I espouse during WWII and it’s aftermath. We defeated an enemy that needed to be defeated in a justified war, but then we healed the wounds in the country and with the people, rebuilding the countries we had defeated. The result was people that are happy with us - who are our true friends. That sort of reconstruction and reconciliation is already proving to be nearly impossible in Iraq, largely because of the vastly anti-american sentiment that we have created. Approval of the occupation among Iraqis never approaches 10%.

Do not think that because I would advocate diplomacy instead of elective war that I’m unwilling to fight. If there is an imminent threat, it should absolutely be removed. Democrats are in fact better at defending this nation than Republicans. For people that disagree with this, I have a question: do you agree that dramatically increased anti-american hatred threatens the national security? Because cavalier and unjustified war which raises hatred is the only difference between how Democrats and Republicans would handle our security. The idea that we are incapable of fighting is insulting and baseless.