Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Lie? You sure throw that term around pretty loosely. Haven’t you Bush supporters been distinguishing between lying and not being truthful based on what the president thought he knew as it relates to our reasoning for invading Iraq?

Be that as it may, if you follow the link you provide you come to this:

“On Christmas Eve he was near Cambodia; he was around 50 miles from the Cambodian border. There’s no indictment of Kerry to be made, but he was mistaken about Christmas in Cambodia,” said Douglas Brinkley, who has unique access to the candidate’s wartime journals.

But Mr Brinkley rejected accusations that the senator had never been to Cambodia, insisting he was telling the truth about running undisclosed “black” missions there at the height of the war.

He said: “Kerry went into Cambodian waters three or four times in January and February 1969 on clandestine missions. He had a run dropping off US Navy Seals, Green Berets and CIA guys.” The missions were not armed attacks on Cambodia, said Mr Brinkley, who did not include the clandestine missions in his wartime biography of Mr Kerry, Tour of Duty.

“He was a ferry master, a drop-off guy, but it was dangerous as hell. Kerry carries a hat he was given by one CIA operative. In a part of his journals which I didn’t use he writes about discussions with CIA guys he was dropping off.”

Brinkley, unlike you, gives Kerry the benefit of the doubt. I also note that on many of the quotes (though not all) attributed to Kerry, he says “Christmas of 1968,” which could be interpreted as the Christmas season. The fact that he says it’s “seared” into his memory doesn’t help his case. But if he was in Cambodia at times, and if he was very close to Cambodia during Christmas 1968, we’re once again seeing the Right attempting to discredit Kerry with only the faintest of evidence.

Now, after the story he has used for years is questioned as an outright lie, he changes it.

First they sasid he was ‘near’ the border on Christmas eve. Now it’s ferrying ‘black ops’ CIA agents into cambodia? When? Was it just him, or were other Swift Boats involved in these activities?

There’s just too much wrong about his stories.

What about not being at that ‘assasination’ meeting? First he wasn’t there, then he couldn’t remember, then he says, “if you have evidence then I might have been.” Obviously we have to run down all the evidence about everything he says in order to find out what the truth is.

This goes to the credibility of his candidacy. Kerry says that only he can negotiate and get allies to contribute troops and money for Iraq. It’s the same pattern. He may be living in a fantasy world.

So does this story from the 2000 election go to Bush’s credibility then?

Friday morning, Hughes found herself deflecting a barrage of questions from reporters, who questioned if Bush had told the truth when asked about his arrest record by a Dallas Morning News reporter after his 1998 re-election to the Texas governor’s mansion.

That 1998 exchange, documented in a September profile of Hughes in The New Republic, ended quickly with Bush saying he hadn’t been arrested for anything after 1968, the year he was said to have been hauled in for a college fraternity prank.

Why no problem with this one, Eric?

Maybe it was just some confusion over the date, perhaps? Hey, that’s understandable. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Can you be so forgiving of Senator Kerry being off a few days on when he was in Cambodia? I’m going to take a wild guess and say, no.

But Mr Brinkley rejected accusations that the senator had never been to Cambodia, insisting he was telling the truth about running undisclosed “black” missions there at the height of the war.

I wanted to be really unfair, I could ask whether the whole Republican party has a problem with reading carefully. You instantly snap off a retort going “how dare Kerry claim this after…” when several things are obvious from the outset.

As I have highlighted, it is Brinkley who’s refuting the claims and bringing up the “ferrying” missions, not Kerry. Second, Kerry has physical evidence of it. You may say it’s fake, but as it looks currently, nobody can say “up” about Kerry without you saying “down”.
You also seem to be unable to admit that people’s memories are imperfect, and sometimes details get mixed. To you it has it has to be sinister, it has to be dishonest.

I wonder why you guys feel you have to get this negative, why you have to be this fanatical in your opposition to Kerry. Few Democrats, even those who dislike Bush strongly feel it necessary to beat up on Bush this heavily. You’re going to start making people feel sorry for Kerry, especially if evidence continues to filter back that these charges are false or misguided, as they have. You can say “we” know these things, but the only “we” will be you, Kemosabe.

Jerome,

Sure if Bush had made a big deal about how it was seared into his memory that he wasn’t arrested in 1976. And made reference every day to his heroic driving record.

Stephen,

As I have highlighted, it is Brinkley who’s refuting the claims and bringing up the “ferrying” missions, not Kerry.

No, the Kerry campaign is all over the place on this one too, Stephen.

Second, Kerry has physical evidence of it. You may say it’s fake,

We need record based proof.

You also seem to be unable to admit that people’s memories are imperfect, and sometimes details get mixed. To you it has it has to be sinister, it has to be dishonest.

Sure, except the ‘seared’ in his imperfect memory recollection was being used to argue a partisan charge against a republican president.

Few Democrats, even those who dislike Bush strongly feel it necessary to beat up on Bush this heavily.

Are you serious? That’s all they’ve been doing.

Now, however, the Kerry campaign is on a search-and-destroy mission to attack the credibility of these same men — calling them liars, all 60 of them, and saying they didn’t serve in the military with him. Really? Then why’d Kerry use their pictures in his ad campaign?

These are the same men who Kerry hailed as his “Band of Brothers,” who he implied knew him well and could vouch for him as a wonderful soldier and man.

These men, who Kerry inferred that we, the American people, could trust to tell us that he would make a great president, are suddenly liars. And why? Because they aren’t saying what Kerry wants them to say. Because they aren’t puppets. Because they’re insisting on speaking the truth, a concept with which Kerry obviously isn’t familiar. examiner.com

I am seeing huge comments generated by the Democrats here and the “third party” Blog on the Republican blog. Is this site really “fair and balanced”? I am a “yellow dog” Democrat and I see this as a bit strange. I mean one Republican post has 138 comments! i have been perusing this site and it seems to me that it is really just a bunch of Democrats and so-called “third party” people (who are way out there in my opinion) beating the living hell out of a small number of right wingers. Although that is very enjoyable reading,(I love to see the right sweat bullets over King George) it is not really realistic politically.

You guys on the right should probably just give up and go home. i think that Kerry will be a much more viable President and will bring the world closer to cooperation but i fear that i should go somewhere else to get my commentary because this site is a bit absurd.

ok..so here is what i find funny….

you republicans LOVE, as in can think of nothing you would rather do more….than rip apart liberals and democrats….

yet you hate it when we do it to you….

clinton spent how many years fighting off attacks? republicans going so far as to call him a rapist and a murderer….

yet we question bush’s coke abuse and you get your panties all in a twist…

face it…you love to dish it…so shut up and take it.

I’d be perfectly willing to accept that Bush abused coke, that he has a bad driving record—even that he went AWOL from the National Guard (if it were ever proven instead of just conjectured at by partisan bomb throwers).

I simply don’t care. Bush isn’t running on any of that stuff, and we’ve had and have now plenty of people in high office who’ve done much more serious things. Bush is running on his record as President during incredibly tense and tumultuous times—that record is an open book.

The only thing Kerry wants to run on, since for some reason he refuses to talk about his Senate record—is a four month tour of duty in a war that occured before I was even born. He wants to run on it, but he doesn’t want anybody to actually look at it, withholding documents and refusing to allow people to examine the record. Even if I were a Democrat, I hope I would be fair-minded enough to see a problem with just what Kerry has “seared on his memory.”

Kerry and his media allies remind me of the Iraqi Information Minister every time they talk about his service record. “No problem here, folks, nothing to see—we are WINNING! We have them surrounded in their tanks!”

It’s a laughable farce, and not even a deliberately blind media rooting for Kerry with every fiber of their beings will be able to hold back the truth forever.

_Unfit for Command_ has been number one on Amazon for almost a week. It’s the major topic of debate on internet sites (even one like this one, where as above posters point out, conservatives are hugely outnumbered).

Polls show it’s starting to hurt Kerry in the swing states. It’s as if the major media just decided not to cover Hurricane Charley because they have some other story they’d like to be telling. But the truth has its own hurricane-like force and Kerry’s story is as viable as a single-wide mobile home standing directly in its path.

Jake,

You guys on the right should probably just give up and go home. i think that Kerry will be a much more viable President and will bring the world closer to cooperation but i fear that i should go somewhere else to get my commentary because this site is a bit absurd.

Whenever anyone tells me I should give up I like to quote that great American hero Winston Churchill:

Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Eric, that is an excellent quote. It is important to take note of Churchill’s words “never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

Sometimes giving in is honorable and makes emminently good sense. The South giving in to the North at the end of the Civil War comes to mind. The U.S. giving in to N. Viet Nam’s bid to fight its own civil war without outside intervention, while not as honorable as many would have hoped, made good sense to the American people losing their youth in that venture.

Prohibition in the early part of the last century is another example where giving in to public demand was both honorable and made good sense.

Giving in, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, when the outcome of giving in yields net positive outcome. Giving up one’s money to a thief with a gun pointed at one’s head, while not honorable, makes good sense. Churchill’s comments were directed at the German expansion in Europe specifically, but the applicability of his wisdom is still immense important today.

First, Eric, I’d like to ask you what you know about Gallipoli. If you think persistence is always a virtue, especially where war and Churchill are concerned, this is a case that perfectly illustrates how you can be wrong.

You need record based proof, right? I don’t think you want proof. I don’t think you’ll accept it. I think you’ll come up with another explanation for why Kerry would make a lousy Commander in Chief, and that you would have to be confronted with the most profound of evidence in order to change your mind.

You’re entitled to that, be we are entitled to believe that you are allowing a strong bias to get in the way of an appropriately judicious examination of the evidence. You aren’t even willing to accept the word of a man who Kerry saved, a fellow Republican who nonetheless thinks the Kerry-bashing SwiftVets are full of it. He’s given you documentary evidence of his medals, and others have backed up his stories concerning them.

When we beat up on Bush, we have nothing less than his on the record pronouncements, his actions, and the testimony of several bi-partisan and Republican lead commission.

And the answer to that question that seems to be floating around, that is “Why Doesn’t Kerry focus on his twenty years in office?” Is plain as day: Your people haven’t attacked him on it. You’ve attacked him on whether he could be a good Commander in Chief, on whether he served honorably, on whether he’s a man of conviction, on the fact that he’s a bit stiff and formal, but you have raised few questions about his senate record worth answering. He is a challenger defending his right to be commander in chief against a president who campaigns on that very virtue.

And that’s the thing. You want to make Bush Defender of the realm to everybody. You want to tell everybody that only his git-tough attitude will be able to defend America. But so far that git-tough attitude has not defeated our enemies. Saddam may be in jail, but Iraq continues to be a thorn in the side of our foreign policy, and We have yet to capture the man trully responsible for the horrors of 9/11.

Why is Osama still a free man after all this time? Why are your people willing to minimalize the threat coming from Bin Laden, trying to relegate him to a bit part? I strongly doubt you were unaffected by 9/11, but it seems you’ve failed to learn the hard lessons of it.

I mean, the whole problem many Democrats, moderates and independents have with President Bush on this issue is Bush’s failure to address terrorism with even as much seriousness and due diligence as Clinton. It seems as if you’re wanting to change the conversation from being about facing terrorism to being about getting into wars with Rogue nations, and resurrecting the politics of the Cold War.

You look at the disparate, sometimes violently opposed powers of Muslim and Arab Countries, and you somehow managed to lump these countries together into this political heading of Islamofascism, which convenient for punditry, but next to useless as an accurate description of the situation. There are some deep-seated sectarian, tribal, and sociopolitical differences between the different factions of the middle east, which if ignored or misread can seriously hamper any foreign policy employed. Your label does nothing so much as paper over just the kind of nuances we need to understand and percieve correctly.

I believe that Al Quaeda style terrorism poses the worst threat of our time. I think your party, in an effort to defend it’s outdated approach to foreign affairs, is resurrecting inappropriate policies, and inappropriate stances. I believe we do need more sensitivity in our foreign policy, more understanding of the nuances of the people we’re dealing with, so we aren’t wasting lives and resources cleaning up the messes from diplomatic and military screw-ups. If you were to say we shouldn’t be so phobic about offending people that we don’t do the right thing, I’d agree. But I don’t think a whole load of needlessly offensive policies, actions should be tolerated, given their inordinate cost, and altogether nonexistent benefit. You want your people to be able to shoot their mouths off from the hip, and that’s just not something you do if you want to keep friends in this world.

Your actions, your attitudes only confirm what Clarke and others have come out and say: This administration is more concerned about asserting American power in this world than they are about confronting that all too lethal threat of the terrorists. If that’s your attitude, more Americans will die, needlessly, not just in terrorist attacks, but in wars where we play an aggressor’s role.

Worse, your people’s policies are edging us closer to the limits of what our nation can become and still remain a democracy. Did you know your new nominee for CIA director has proposed a law that would allow the CIA to work domestically? And your attorney general still backs the invasive PATRIOT act, despite withering scorn heaped upon it from both sides of the aisle. Your president is so secretive, a former member of the Nixon White House is saying its secretive. Add the intrusiveness to the secrecy, and you have a government with less checks and balance on powers which have been dramatically increased. It is a justifiable worry, in the light of world history, what will become of our democracy in the wake of 9/11, because people who otherwise would shudder at the thought of giving so much power to one man or woman, can end up pushed by their terror into backing such draconian and overextensive grants of power. And people say they will use their power for good, but power can corrupt, and ideology blind. Seeing those towers burn, the planes crash into them, those were the fear that came to my mind quickest, even before the fear of another attack, of greater destruction.

I knew at that point our history had changed, and that there would be forces that would try and lead us to more authoritarian government, more aggressive military adventures, and greater intolerance for the world beyond our borders.

More than anything else, I think this is the dark thought in the back of our minds, when we deal with Bush. His elitist, ideological, militarily aggressive policies come at the right time for the wrong temptations. He is willing to compromise much of what makes America free and enviable to the world, in order to defend us.

The greatest priority, I think is that when everything is said and done, the country we become should resemble the country we were, and not have become some dark parody of it for the sake of our fears.

Hey, what’s Bush’s environmental policy? What’re his healthcare plans? How is he going to save Social Security? Can anyone give me a summary of his foreign policy? What’s his plan for Iraq? What is Bush’s energy plan? Based on a couple years of NCLB, does Bush have any plans to improve it? Pharmaceutical companies have raised prices to negate the discounts in Bush’s Medicare prescription drug plan, what’s Bush going to do about it?

Oh, wait… This is the “I hate Kerry” column, isn’t it. Where can I go for answers to these questions?

A.P.-

I am not a Bush supporter, as you probably know, but I will try to do my worse on some of these questions:
1. I have attemped to outline some of the positive things on bush’s environmental agenda (like the Clear Skies Initiative that uses the same mechanism to reduce polution as the highly succesful Acid Rain reduction of the 1990, and is a key part of the Kyoto Protocals), but I keep getting ignored by statements like “well everyone knows Bush hates the environment.” Take a look again, I think the clear skies intiative, and the trading of polution vouchers has proven to be an extraodinarily good idea. Its such a good idea, in fact, that some people are proposing that we extend the model to other field (which is how I learned about it, in relation to some other legal topic where someone wanted to the extend the idea of cyber-safety).

2. His healthcare plan is to put more and more money into the sinkhole of medicare so he can get the AARP’s support and the votes of old people from Florida. This is the same strategy that both parties have (sorry, couldnt defend him on that one).

3. His foreign policy is very ambitious. I BELIEVE his goal is to try to establish a democracy in the middle east (Iraq) and use that as a model to push change throughout that region. I think he believes that the only way we can win the war on terror is to substantially change the political make up of that part of the world (whic, by the way, is true). Iraq was just the first major step in that direction.

Thats all I got for right now. I would love to see more policy-based discussions from all sides- both on watchblog AND on the campaign trail.

I think it can be argued that Bush’s atempt to democratize Iraq can be defended as a geopolitical remapping of the middle east. The only problem is that there isn’t a democracy or even stable government in Iraq yet. The viability of this policy remains a question as yet unanswered associated with high costs in life, and U.S. dollars.

The problem with Kerry’s recollection of events over 30 years ago are another non issue that Bush is trying to raise to avoid scrutiny of his poor handling of Iraq, taxes and the economy.

I recall a vitriolic debate about sixteen words in the state of the union address, now Eric wants to make an issue of one word, namely “seared.”

The electorate is usually fairly wise over time in this country, and hollow arguments such as this will not help Mr.Bush. He can run from his record but he cannot hide.

The shifting of the tax burden to the middle class is the latest story that Mr. Bush will be hard pressed to explain. Perhaps he is hoping for some great tragedy to occur that will rally voters around him. I hope he hasn’t sunk to that level, but these feeble snipes are not winning him votes.

>>Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

a lovely quote eric, however, you are using this to describe democrats…..

we are a two party system……BOTH OF WHICH KEEP THIS COUNTRY RUNNING!

this is why i get so angry…i may disagree with well, just about everything that falls out of your face, however, i despise the attempt to demonize anyone who is out of step with the conservative agenda…

look…im a liberal and a democrat…but you know what….i still fly an american flag out front of my house….my family is decended from the mayflower, and i resent being considered “the enemy” just because you don’t like my political ideals….

two parties work…..lets please try to understand that both parties think they are doing the best thing for the country, and that by the struggle of both parties, a middle ground is usually found that balances everything out for all americans to enjoy…most of the time…

i admire many of the republican parties policies, however, this administration is a very right wing one…even by the standards of many republicans…and that is what i have a problem with….

yes the republicans are in power for now, and they have an opportunity to affect change in our country….but it seems they are more obsessed with pointing out how evil democrats are than actually pushing for positive change in policy from their party base….

am i wrong?

and personally…the democrats are no better right now….because they have found that they need to be strong…how can they be strong? use republican tactics! and then people like yourself blame them for attacking the president….

again…..if you can dish it….you should be able to take it….

> The only thing Kerry wants to run on… is
> a four month tour of duty in a war that
> occured before I was even born.

Martin, this is preposterous. Kerry is running on a platform full of specific policies on a host of issues important to the American people, and he is running on a host of distinctions between himself and Bush. His stump speech - and indeed his acceptance speech - is crammed with this stuff. Yes, he does talk about his service, but he does so to show us what he is like in times of crisis, and he certainly does not do so to the exclusion of other subjects.

On the other hand, what does Drudge report about nearly every day? What are all the right wing blogs yammering about every day? Four of the last ten WB Republican threads have been dedicated to this topic, and the ones that weren’t always quickly devolved into becoming about Kerry’s service record.

In other words, it is the right who keeps putting Kerry’s service record on the top of the agenda, not Kerry, not the Democrats. You may be thinking about Kerry’s Vietnam service record 24 hours a day, trying to dig up ways to smear it and find flaws in it, but that’s not John Kerry’s fault.

In your efforts to distract from the disastrous leadership of President Bush, and in your desperate efforts to take potshots at the fact that Kerry actually is a war hero, you invariably bring Kerry’s war record to the forefront over and over again.

It’s not Kerry’s who’s doing it. It’s you.

You should be proud that, at least in the blogosphere, the right seems to be setting the agenda. In the blogosphere, your side has successfully, for now, distracted us from talking about real issues, the issues about which your candidate is a loser. I don’t know for sure about TV news, since I don’t watch TV, but I am thankful that the blogosphere’s psychotic fixation on speciously attacking (and in my case, defending) Kerry’s record instead of talking about actual issues hasn’t bubbled up into the mainstream news media.

-Cf

Kerry is not only a liar, but also a traitor. People need to take off their blinders and see Kerry for who he really is. A dangerous man to the United States. God help us all if he gets elected.

you know kerry personally?

you were there with him in vietnam?

you have seen him perform traitorous acts?

you know for a fact he plans to do harm to the united states?

wow….you might want to share that with fox news….

you know there used to be a time when selling plans for nuclear subs was the only thing that could get you labeled a traitor….

now adays all you have to say is, yeah i don’t like bush…..

Misha, I usually enjoy your posts, but I’ve got to say that you couldn’t be further off with your praise of President Bush’s Clear Skies Initiative.

This policy, as much as any other, illustrates how beholden this administration is to industries that pollute. It shows that Bush and company haven’t learned the lesson that profit motive always wins out when oversight of the environment is delegated to industry.

“Clear Skies” is the Bush Administration saying that we’ve made some strides with the environment over the last few years and it’s probably up to taking a few hits right now.

And if you think the Left’s disapproval of Bush’s environmental record is simply partisan politics, consider this:

The head of the EPA under Nixon and Ford called Bush’s environmental policy “dismal.”

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency for two Republican presidents criticized President Bush’s record on Monday, calling it a “polluter protection” policy.

Russell E. Train, who headed the EPA from September 1973 to January 1977 — part of the Nixon and Ford administrations — said Bush’s record on the environment was so dismal that he would cast his vote for Democrat John Kerry.

Eric Schaeffer, who served under Bush as the Director of EPA’s Office of Regulatory Enforcement, had this
to say:

Finally, there’s the Bush “Clear Skies” proposal, featuring a snazzy website and colorful charts, but no actual legislative language. Clear Skies, of course, applies only to power plants and asks nothing of refineries, pulp mills, and other factories that will benefit from EPA’s new, polluter-friendly interpretation of the Clean Air Act. For power plants and refineries, EPA enforcement actions would cut sulfur dioxide emissions about 70% over the next ten years, as does North Carolina’s new state law. The Bush Administration thinks we should take about 20 years to get that much from power plants, and proposes nothing but Clean Air rollbacks for refineries and other polluters. The Administration is free to make its case, but ought not to blackmail Congress and the public by refusing to enforce the law until it is changed to the energy industry’s liking.

Christie Whitman wrote the following in a memo to the president on March 6, 2001.

“I would strongly recommend that you continue to recognize global warming is a real and serious issue…Mr. President, this is a credibility issue for the U.S. in the international community. It is also an issue that is resonating here at home. We need to appear engaged…”

The failure of the administration to enforce the New Source Review rules, which “Clear Skies” is designed to undermine if not eliminate, was a major reason she left the administration. And she was only one of many who fled the EPA because they felt their mission was being usurped by the administration’s policies and practices.

The Washington Post acknowledges that Bush’s “Clear Skies Initiative” could reduce the number of lawsuits filed against polluters, replacing a system of enforcement with the emissions trading system you prefer. But it adds this:

Although environmental groups and the Environmental Protection Agency hotly dispute the numbers, it is far from clear that the emissions levels of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide would be lower with this legislation than if the EPA simply applied the current law with appropriate vigor. Levels of mercury almost certainly will be higher, or at least will stay higher longer — an ominous sign in a week in which the EPA, separately, announced that one in 12 American women have mercury levels in their blood high enough to harm an unborn fetus. Local and state pollution regulators also dislike the bill because, they say, it removes regulatory tools they’ve used in the past, making it more difficult for states to meet air quality standards in particular places.

Given that there are laws on the books that regulate these pollutants, it seems to us that the overwhelming burden of proof is on the proponents of this legislation to explain why it needs to be imposed instead of, and not in addition to, the current clean air regulations. If this bill is really about cleaner air and not about providing comfort to the power utilities, its supporters should prove that it will lead to earlier and higher emissions reductions.

Finally, this is how about.com compares the two plans.

With “Clear Skies,” I get the sense that the Bush Administration is almost laughing at the American public, smugly convinced we’ll swallow anything they dish out if they put a pretty name on it.

I don’t believe I need to know Kerry personally. He’s a public figure, and as such, his life is an open book, to some extent.

Kerry is/was known as a traitor even before he decided to run for president. The fact that he opened the door by running for the presidency on his 4 months in Vietnam has made his traitorous more public.

“now adays all you have to say is, yeah i don’t like bush…..”

I think you know better than that.

Jerome, excellent response to Misha. Misha wants government intervention to disappear. That is his libertarian bias and agenda. It was very appropriate that you pointed out the dismal failure that self-regulation of corporate industries is and has always been. Remember the tale of Erin Brockovich? There is only one reason a person would refuse to acknowledge the long and vast record on the subject, a blind and prejudiced eye.

That is not to say you and I don’t have our own blind and prejudiced eyes on some issues.

bobbie, you mean traitor the way Bush is a traitor by aiding and abetting the terrorist cause by invading Iraq and increasing their army of terrorist recruits, right?

See how easy it is to throw that word traitor around. Kerry acted in the best interest of saving American soldier lives, who he cared about, by doing what he could to bring our involvement in that civil war to an end. In much the same way Bush tried to further the cause of reducing terrorism in the world. Sometimes the best of actions have unintended consequences. That does not make a person a traitor. BTW, a traitor in this country is determined by a court of law. Who the hell elected you judge and jury? If you think we should dispense with the legal system and just summarily execute Kerry as a traitor, I would suggest it is you who are the traitor against all that our founding fathers established to protect citizens from loss of liberty or life without due process of law.

David,

The U.S. giving in to N. Viet Nam’s bid to fight its own civil war without outside intervention, while not as honorable as many would have hoped…

Giving in, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, when the outcome of giving in yields net positive outcome. Giving up one’s money to a thief with a gun pointed at one’s head, while not honorable, makes good sense. Churchill’s comments were directed at the German expansion in Europe specifically, but the applicability of his wisdom is still immense important today.

I find it interesting that the fact that Kerry lied is getting short shrift here from the left.

The quote is more in reference to Jake’s comment that the conservatives on watchblog should just give up because we’re outnumbered.

Secondly, you’re right giving one’s money to a thief with a gun is what we do every April 15th, it doesn’t make it right, it’s just common sense to go along.

Stephen,

First, Eric, I’d like to ask you what you know about Gallipoli. If you think persistence is always a virtue, especially where war and Churchill are concerned, this is a case that perfectly illustrates how you can be wrong.

Pray tell, how is Iraq like Gallipolli?

You need record based proof, right? I don’t think you want proof. I don’t think you’ll accept it. I think you’ll come up with another explanation for why Kerry would make a lousy Commander in Chief, and that you would have to be confronted with the most profound of evidence in order to change your mind.

Yes, record based proof. Kerry still refuses to release all his military records. Kerry refuses to release his diary which may contradict his own public statements and his medical and military records he still refuses to release for some unknown reason.

When we beat up on Bush, we have nothing less than his on the record pronouncements, his actions, and the testimony of several bi-partisan and Republican lead commission.

Like the botched Iraq invasion which is now ‘brilliant’?

And the answer to that question that seems to be floating around, that is “Why Doesn’t Kerry focus on his twenty years in office?” Is plain as day: Your people haven’t attacked him on it. You’ve attacked him on whether he could be a good Commander in Chief, on whether he served honorably, on whether he’s a man of conviction, on the fact that he’s a bit stiff and formal, but you have raised few questions about his senate record worth answering. He is a challenger defending his right to be commander in chief against a president who campaigns on that very virtue.

Kerry is the one making Vietnam the issue of this campaign Stephen. Did you watch the convention? Do you hear every speech he makes? “I know what it’s like to carry an M-16.”

Most Kerry’s positions are not much different from the Bush Administrations. Kerry is trying to be increasingly ‘conservative’ or moderate lately. But it’s obviously for the election. Anybody-but-Bush voters will not be voting for Bush, therefore Kerry needs to sway the non-leftist’s among us who are moderate to conservative.

And that’s the thing. You want to make Bush Defender of the realm to everybody. You want to tell everybody that only his git-tough attitude will be able to defend America. But so far that git-tough attitude has not defeated our enemies. Saddam may be in jail, but Iraq continues to be a thorn in the side of our foreign policy, and We have yet to capture the man trully responsible for the horrors of 9/11.

And Kerry is going to defeat all our enemies in his first term?

It’s been one year in Iraq. One year. How long did the occupation of Germany last? I think it was a decade. And our troops are still there! Tommy Franks has said the reconstruction will take about 5 years. This has been echoed by other retired generals, both left and right which I have seen on CNN and Fox.

This is my criticism of your criticism, (not just yours but the left’s in general), not too long ago… during and immediately after, we were arguing about how botched the invasion was, supply lines were stretched too far, and what not. Now the invasion was brilliant. A marvelous example. Now we are talking about how botched the occupation was, during and after. It seems the left can’t keep itself from seeing the worst while operations are under way and all the way through talk about how bad off we are, ‘should have never done this’, should have never happened, etc etc. Like when you go to a movie there’s always someone right behind you talking through the whole thing about how bad it is through every scene. Except this is not pre-recorded and pre-determined.

Why is Osama still a free man after all this time? Why are your people willing to minimalize the threat coming from Bin Laden, trying to relegate him to a bit part? I strongly doubt you were unaffected by 9/11, but it seems you’ve failed to learn the hard lessons of it.

Where is Osama? What if we never catch him? What if no one ever sees him again, but we can never say definitively that he is dead or captured? I still think he was BBQ’ed at Tora Bora. Other than the audio recordings that are said to be by him I have no proof that he is still alive. I can’t believe that no one in the Pakistan/Afghanistan Mountains has a digital video recorder.

Osama is relegated to a bit part precisely because his organization in Afghanistan is in shambles. Precisely because we were successful. 90% of the country has registered to vote in upcoming elections.

This is a country that has been in a constant state of war for two decades. It is completely bankrupt. The Taliban is no more. Yet you ask why every taliban or person that believes that way isn’t dead. Is that what Kerry would have done? Or what you would suggest? A war of extermination?

…Bush’s failure to address terrorism with even as much seriousness and due diligence as Clinton. It seems as if you’re wanting to change the conversation from being about facing terrorism to being about getting into wars with Rogue nations, and resurrecting the politics of the Cold War.

You look at the disparate, sometimes violently opposed powers of Muslim and Arab Countries, and you somehow managed to lump these countries together into this political heading of Islamofascism, which convenient for punditry, but next to useless as an accurate description of the situation.

1) Clinton did virtually nothing to combat terrorism. He treated terror as he would any bank robbery.
2) Islamofascism is what poses the real threat, not Al Qaeda per se. Al Qaeda is only one face of the threat.

I believe that Al Qaeda style terrorism poses the worst threat of our time. I think your party, in an effort to defend it’s outdated approach to foreign affairs, is resurrecting inappropriate policies, and inappropriate stances.

I would dispute that there’s any new way to wage war here. How do you defeat terrorists, or invaders, or those who you are at war with?

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

Al Qaeda is the only real threat? What about Iran? What about the thousands of Bin Ladens Bush is supposed to have created by invading Iraq? If there are that many recruits to be had in the midst of the middle east why are they ready? Why there? Why are so many primed to become Bin Ladens in the middle east? Why would the invasion of Iraq create such a reaction if there is absolutely no connection between rogue states/dictatorships and Islamofacism?

Your actions, your attitudes only confirm what Clarke and others have come out and say: This administration is more concerned about asserting American power in this world than they are about confronting that all too lethal threat of the terrorists. If that’s your attitude, more Americans will die, needlessly, not just in terrorist attacks, but in wars where we play an aggressor’s role.

If there is a connection between rogue states and islamofacism, (as there undoubtedly is), little actions such as Kerry would propose, arresting terrorists, cruise missile strikes, special forces strikes, will have the same effect as big actions like invading Iraq. Only without any deterent effect. After all if we are afraid of projecting power because we need to be sensitive.

I’m afraid it may be you and Kerry who does not understand the fundamentalist mind, who does not grasp the psychology of extremism. Perhaps that’s to your credit. Or perhaps you are missing the lessons of history that are the most basic. Like economists proclaiming periodically the end of the business cycle, liberals hope that asserting power is not necessary to avoid war or combat terrorism.

Worse, your people’s policies are edging us closer to the limits of what our nation can become and still remain a democracy. Did you know your new nominee for CIA director has proposed a law that would allow the CIA to work domestically? And your attorney general still backs the invasive PATRIOT act, despite withering scorn heaped upon it from both sides of the aisle. Your president is so secretive, a former member of the Nixon White House is saying its secretive. Add the intrusiveness to the secrecy, and you have a government with less checks and balance on powers which have been dramatically increased. It is a justifiable worry, in the light of world history, what will become of our democracy in the wake of 9/11, because people who otherwise would shudder at the thought of giving so much power to one man or woman, can end up pushed by their terror into backing such draconian and overextensive grants of power. And people say they will use their power for good, but power can corrupt, and ideology blind. Seeing those towers burn, the planes crash into them, those were the fear that came to my mind quickest, even before the fear of another attack, of greater destruction.

Except that none of this is true, Stephen. Since 9/11 we have become a police state? Have you ever read any history? Lincoln suspended habeas corpus… If you want a police state Roosevelt had the closest thing to it. Hell, we were putting people in camps, we can’t even profile Arabs getting on planes. No, everyone has to have their shoes checked.

I knew at that point our history had changed, and that there would be forces that would try and lead us to more authoritarian government, more aggressive military adventures, and greater intolerance for the world beyond our borders.

More than anything else, I think this is the dark thought in the back of our minds, when we deal with Bush. His elitist, ideological, militarily aggressive policies come at the right time for the wrong temptations. He is willing to compromise much of what makes America free and enviable to the world, in order to defend us.

The greatest priority, I think is that when everything is said and done, the country we become should resemble the country we were, and not have become some dark parody of it for the sake of our fears.

I guess I can add this to the list of Republicans starving children and old people and burning black churches if they’re elected.

David, the same one in hell who made you judge and jury. You have your opinions, I have mine. There’s no need to get your boxers in a wad.

ok..bobbie:

humor me….aside from your own opinion….

what did he do to warrant treason….

specifically….did he work with the sauds for years?

did he put hussein in power in iraq? (see rumsfeld shaking hand with him in 80-something)

did he provide hussein weapons of mass distruction like regan did?

did he fly the entire bin-laden family out of the country hours after the no-fly had been established on 9-11?

honestly i don’t know….

gimmie a link or something that can show me he is a traitor to this country….and i will give you props….

so what’cha got?

I do always want to limit government regulation as much as possible! I do, however, beleive that the environment is one reason where we do need regulation (waits for shock to wear off…). I believe that people have the right to do wahtever they want as long as they arent harming others, and polution harms others. As a result, our goals in this discussion as the same- to reduce polution in the most efficient way possible, so lets try to figure out if this way is really so bad…

First, to dispell David’s misnomer- Emmissions trading is a REGULATION solution. It requires, by government mandate, a level of polution reduction across an entire industry- allowing the industry to use its best and most flexible methods to achieve that end. But note that the LEVEL OF POLUTION is non-negotiable. It also has protections in it, so there are no “hot spots” developed, thus undermining any argument that flexibility would mean a concentration of polution. As noted environmentalist Greg Easterbrook points out:

This new study from the National Research Council, a division of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that while air pollution is declining, the reduction could be accelerated by a “multi-state, multi-pollutant” approach that sets broad overall reduction targets, then allows industrial facilities to trade reduction permits with each other. (Current Clean Air Act rules generally require cumbersome site-by-site, pollutant-by-pollutant litigation.)

You can see the study he was referring to here (http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309089328?OpenDocument)

Also, you cite Christie Whitman as someone who you claim as an opponent of Bush’s policy- but, in fact, since leaving the administration he has defended Clear Skies- and has reminded people not to group this proposal with other things they may not like about the Bush admin.

Finally, that quote you finished with is very misleading. it doesnt address the fact that we could get LESS polution than we have now with more flexibility and without intrusive government enforcement. Of cousre we could applied current laws more harshly now- but why should we do taht when we have a perfectly good solution that would allow companies to be more flexible and would allow them to achieve the level of polution reduction that we desire??!!

David, It seems like the anti-Bush folks are the ones with the agenda on this one. The pollutant trading approach has worked well in the past- and there is no reason why it wouldnt work in this polution reduction area as well. If the level of polution is reduced with no hot spot creation (As happend with the acid rain reduction program of the 1990s- which is why the Kyoto Protocals adopted this approach as cental to their plan!), the only reason I have seen to oppose this new plan is orthodoxy or political oposition to Bush. Sadly, today, political opposition to Bush is good enough reason to take just about any stance…

If you guys are interested in seriously evaluation emissions trading, here is some general stuff on emissions trading from stuff I have been working on. If you take some time and read about it, I think even those of you who are very much against allowing more leway for business will find it VERY interesting:

Andreas Luthman, Emissions Trading and the Influence of Black Markets (Master Thesis
in Law and Economics) at 15 (2002) (explaining that allowing emissions trading can be effective because “the burden of changing production procedures can be shared. The abatement costs can thereby be born by the least cost avoider and allocative efficiency can be reached.”), available at http://www.frg.eur.nl/rile/emle/Theses/luthman.pdf.

Douglas R. Bohi & Dallas Burtraw, SO2 Allowance Trading: How Experience and Expectations Measure Up, RESOURCES FOR THE FUTURE (1997) (discussing the early success of the SO2 trading program), available at http://www.rff.org/Documents/RFF-DP-97-24.pdf.

A. Denny Ellerman, et al., Emissions Trading Under the US Acid Rain Program: Evaluation of Compliance Costs and Allowance Market Performance, MIT CENTER FOR ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY RESEARCH (1997), available at http://web.mit.edu/ceepr/www/napap.pdf.

It’s been one year in Iraq. One year. How long did the occupation of Germany last? I think it was a decade.

Right on, Eric. But why did Bush hand over the government to a group of unelected Iraqis with an incomplete “interim” constitution after only one year, rather than waiting a decade? Oh, that’s right… “Mission accomplished!”

Misha, thanks for the links. I agree that emissions trading can be effective, but the problem with Clean Air is the level to which output is held, not the effectiveness of the mechanism.

It’s goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions “relative to the size of the economy.” It merely slows emission growth, rather than reducing emissions.

And even then, a lot of plants are being grandfathered and given extensions on complying, so lack of enforcement is rendering even the slow growth goal of the act impotent.

Eric:
I wasn’t referring to you right wingers quitting altogether. I was referring to you quitting this site. Noone hear is being productive as the site is obviously loaded to the Democrat side with 2 blogs (thankfully) telling the truth and the right wing Blog telling a bunch of lies to cover for Bush. :)
I have only come here at the urging of friends. I have been known to give in to the siren’s song of instant gratification and so I bit. i came here to read the site and the comments and i realized something. As much as I despise the Republican chicken hawk rhetoric, I have come to realize that you are simply outnumbered here and at a severe disadvantage. That is all I am saying. I don’t want you right wingers to quit. I was just pointing out how pointless this site is as it tries to pretend to be a debate site and is actually a loaded mouthpiece for those of us on the “left”.

Jake:

I’d respectfully suggest you find another site, if you believe what you say. If the “right” is at a numerical disadvantage in this site, so be it. That does not detract from the truth. Truth does not reside in numbers. That there are those on the left who have greater numbers in this site does not mean they are correct or incorrect; simply that there is a preponderance of that viewpoint. Jake, feel welcome to stay if you choose, but accept it for what it is.

Stephen:

You say “And the answer to that question that seems to be floating around, that is “Why Doesn’t Kerry focus on his twenty years in office?” Is plain as day: Your people haven’t attacked him on it.

Your comment suggests that Kerry will talk about issues only in response to attacks. You claim his reason for not discussing his Senate career is due to Republican attacks.

Iffff this is true, I wouldnt want a President who is so malleable that he can be dissuaded from an entire topic simply by misdirecting his attention elsewhere.

The comment is also disingenous beyond belief. It is apparent to EVERYONE in the US that Kerry wants to talk about Viet Nam as a part of his strategy. Please tell me you arent gonna disagree with this commonly known statement.

Iffff Kerry is a capable leader, he will bring the debate to his areas of strength by virtue of his leadership. That he hasn’t done so by now leads me to question his leadership ability. I can say that if I had a stellar 20 year Senate career, I’d be talking about all my achievements every chance I had.

IFFF kerry has so much to talk about in his 20 year career, wouldnt talking about it be the way to blunt any attacks on his 4 month stint in Viet Nam?

Stephen, what exactly are you trying to say about Kerry. All I can see is that you are defending his as being unable to change the debate.

joe, that’s the sad part. It’s the Republicans and the media who, for different reasons, want to focus on Vietnam. For the GOP, it’s a distraction from the issues. For the media, the controversy sells ad space.

Kerry is out there every day talking about the issues, but no one is covering it. The public can’t find any news outlets covering Kerry’s plan for the economy, but every American knows that Teresa told some guy to “shove it.”

I don’t expect you to find fault in the situation, since it plays to the GOP’s strength (sensationalist smear tactics), and downplays serious weaknessess in Republican policy. But it’s pretty disturbing to me, since the vast majority of Americans get their political news from an irresponsible news media.

> IFFF kerry has so much to talk about in his
> 20 year career, wouldnt talking about it be
> the way to blunt any attacks on his 4 month
> stint in Viet Nam?

If only it were so. But spectacular accusations like “He faked his injuries to get his medals!” are the kinds of stories that would have caused even George Washington to lose his election. They cannot be ignored, and Rove is loving every minute of it.

And AP is right: Bush’s supporters are the ones trying their damnedest to make Vietnam the central issue of the campaign, not Kerry.

-Cf

@joe, and piggybacking on the last couple comments-

From my own observation, this has been the republican tactic for the last couple elections. To either cast accusations about the opponent or nitpick in debates forcing the opponent to address tangential information so that the democrats’ stance is never actually heard (because he’s too busy defending and responding to side-issues). The end result is that the issue is never even discussed as it should be, but the republican appears to come out on top since he is in the power position within the confines of the debate - i.e. on the attack rather than the defense. This obviously has an effect on the viewer, but it seems to be a rather disingenious way to attract votes (not to say that the world of politics is EVER very genuine). Again - just one lefty’s opinion here ;)

Jake,
What part of Republicans controling the house, senate, most governorships, and the Whitehouse would lead you to believe that its time to just “give up”???

That makes sense?…”Like lugnuts on a birthday cake” !!

DAMN….internet liberals are TOOOO much fun !

AP, Chris, and Peezee:

First of all, to extend your logic, the Republicans must have forced Kerry to focus his convention speech on Viet Nam to the degree that he did. The visual images used, the Viet Nam vets Kerry introduced, the opening military salute, and the verbal references to Viet Nam must all have been planted in some way by Republicans, I suppose.

Be serious, guys. You know as well as anyone that Kerry has talked incessantly about Viet Nam for months and months. Now that he is being questioned on some of his comments and actions, you want the talk to go away. That is disingenous at best on your parts.

All of you claim its a Republican agenda to get Kerry to talk about VietNam (apparently this strategy was employed during the Democratic primaries as well). Lets for a moment assume it IS a Republican plot (again with the vast right wing conspiracy thought process….sheeeesh).

If you believe that, then you also must believe the Republicans are more capable of leading the charge in how people should and do think. You must believe the Republicans are more capable of shaping ideas and issues. You paint the Dems in the same way that some well meaning feminists used to paint women: too weak to stand up to men, too incapable of defending themselves against the tyranny of men, and not intelligent enough to figure out how to get ahead.

Women were never that way, and neither are Dems. They chose this topic on their own long ago. It is only when republicans entered to make it a debate that you now want the debate to end.

The issue is no longer Viet Nam, but rather is Kerry’s honesty and clarity. If he brings up issues about Viet Nam and his service there, why cannot others question a different view of the events? And if Kerry is correct, then there is nothing to fear. If he isnt, then I’d understand your trepidation.

I’m not saying Kerry would have never addressed Vietnam on his own, but becuase of personal attacks regarding Vietnam, he ends up wasting valuable airtime trying to re-legitimize when he should be moving on to other things.

But I was mostly referring to the actual debates- which we havent gotten into much yet for this election. When they get into issues, dem’s are too busy defending and clarifying to actually get much substance into the talk. Dems are not “too weak”, but they are taking the bait in the conversation. And I don’t think its about republicans ‘controlling’ democrats or ‘controlling’ the way people think so much as distracting and diverting them. I think after a certain point dems need to just ignore the diversion tactics and get into the real meat of the issues. I don’t see them doing it, and I dont see repubicans doing it either because they’re too busy attacking. Sure some attacks come from the left too- and this should stop as well, its all wasting time which should be spent on the issues.

I don’t want the debate to end just because of republicans - I want all members of the debate to quit screwing around and get down to the issues that matter.

Peezee:

You say its not about Reps “controlling” Dems, but you go on to say the Dems are taking the bait. You say they need to move on to substantive issues, yet you dont see them doing it. That’s precisely my point—-they SHOULD be doing different things, but they arent. The question is WHY? Either they feel they have a winning strategy, or they are blind to a better strategy.

Secondly, it is my viewpoint that Kerry brought up Viet Nam on his own. He made it a cornerstone of his entire candidacy, starting at the beginning of the Democratic primary. He has said, in essence, “I was in Viet Nam, and my experiences there make me qualified to lead our country”. Republicans are RESPONDING to this challenge by saying that Kerry’s experiences in Viet Nam do NOT qualify him for the presidency.

Rule number one in campaigning: If you dont want to be challenged on a statement, DONT SAY THE STATEMENT.

Rule number two: No whining when someone does challenge your statement. Answer the challenge.

As of yet, I’ve not seen a Democratic response to the Republican challenge that Kerry missed 39 of 48 Senate Intelligence Committee meetings. Any of you out there have a response from the Dems on this——I think we can all agree that Kerry would be disingenous at best to tell the Reps they can do better when he wasnt even willing to attend the meetings. Is the information correct?? Let me know

And I wonder where Bush was Christmas of 68? I’m thinking sloshed out of his mind.

I wonder where Bush says he was Christmas of 68? At least the name of the bar is not “seared-seared in him.”

Bush has an abysmal record to run on. So just spend tons of money talking about what a terrible person Kerry is. With enough money, no one will notice that our Emperor has no Clothes. Bush takes record length vacations, ignores the loss of our manufacturing base, gives tax cuts and war profits to his chronies, creates record deficits, makes preemptive war and kills in the name of Jesus. But Kerry missed some Senate votes! Eliminating the office of the President would be safer than reelecting the moron.

I googled this, Joe, in response to your question about Kerry’s supposed missed meetings. It’s not an actual release of attendance records— and short of that, I’m sure the Republicans won’t be satisfied. But here was the response.

(I know one thing: the ad that claims Kerry missed three-quarters of the Intelligence Committee meetings after 9/11 is way off— Kerry served from 1993 until early 2001.)

The Bush-Cheney Campaign is using misleading numbers and cannot pretend to have the facts. They rely only on whether Sen. Kerry made statements in one of a small number of open hearings. For example from 1993-1998 the Select Intelligence Committee held more than 329 meetings, hearings and markups. Just 65 of these were open meetings. [Senate Report 104-1; Senate Report 105-1; Senate Report 106-3]

Ad Text: “In the year after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Kerry was absent for every single one.”

Fuzzy Math Again:
Again, the Bush-Cheney Campaign is using misleading numbers and cannot pretend to have the facts. They rely only on whether Sen. Kerry made statements in one of seven open hearings. All in all, during the 103rd Congress, the Committee held a total of 103 on-the-record meetings and hearings. There were seventy (70) oversight hearings and seven (7) business meetings. Twelve (12) hearings were held on the budget including the Conference sessions with the House. Hearings on specific legislation totaled nine (9) and nomination hearings totaled one (1). [Senate Report 104-1: Oversight Over Intelligence Activities in the 103rd Congress].

The following Republican members also failed to speak at a public hearing that year: John Chaffee; Malcom Wallop, Ted Stevens, Slade Gorton, John Danforth

Kerry was part of the “most significant counterintelligence legislation ever.” According to Republican Chair and Bush Campaign Co-Chair Arlen Specter: “The Committee pioneered the most significant counterintelligence legislation ever passed in the Congress.” The legislation addressed intelligence problems uncovered by the Committees investigation of the Aldrich Ames case, including the failure of the FBI and CIA to coordinate on counterintelligence. [Senate Report 104-1: Oversight Over Intelligence Activities in the 103rd Congress].

Jerome:

Thanks for the assist…apparently your googling skills surpass mine. It appears to me that the meetings Kerry is said to have missed were the public ones. We also know there were private ones. I dont understand why the record of attendance cant simply be released, but apparently that isnt normally done. I dont see the national security being compromised by releasing an attendance record.

It may become a bigger issue for Kerry if he is seen as feckless on the issue of intelligence. If his attendance record is not released, or if it truly doesnt measure up to the standard, then the public might see him as one who complains but misses the opportunity to act.

Even if his attendance is within the standard for committee members, it might look bad if the standard is low. For instance, if the average member attends 60% of the meetings, and Kerry also attended 60% of the meetings, he could be branded as being just average, whereas his comments suggest that he would be above average regarding intelligence.

It’ll be interesting to see the dance on this one. As always, there are facts and there are facts, and the facts dont always tell the story because the facts are rearranged in such a way as to almost not be facts anymore. (That was my best attempt at a well-nuanced statement befitting this campaign…:)

If true, it’s not an isolated incident for the Bush Administration. They made the single vote on the 90 billion dollar supplemental look like several votes, and counted times that Kerry didn’t vote for big enough tax cuts for their tastes, when they spoke of the number of times he voted to raise taxes.

So I guess having them judge his presence at those meeting by whether he speaks up or not would be par for the course. I’ve seen dishonesty in many campaigns before but Bush has brought things to a new low of malicious disregard for the truth.

At some point, I hope they get caught in one of these lies and get thwacked for it.

Jerome, could you provide a link to that site?

Here you go, Stephen:

http://blog.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/archives/002455.html

First of all, to extend your logic, the Republicans must have forced Kerry to focus his convention speech on Viet Nam to the degree that he did.

Duh. Which party is fond of spouting off with the fallacy that Democrats are soft on defense? Republicans forced Kerry to focus on getting some street cred for defense - and it worked. That in turn forced Republicans to hit back with the ‘swiftboat vets for Bush’ lies.

joe, do you really not understand how politics and public perception works?

You say they need to move on to substantive issues, yet you dont see them doing it. … The question is WHY?

They are. The question is, why isn’t it getting any coverage? Kerry and Edwards have been on the road continuously since the convention talking about the economy, education, health care, taxes, etc. But you’d never know it by watching the news - except that it’s mentioned off-handedly in explaining why Kerry is in Tuscon: “While campaigning in Arizona, Kerry defended himself from another totally irrelevent Bush smear campaign” That’s pretty much all you hear about the issues from the major news media.

AP:

First of all, I DO understand politics and public perception. I noted that if the Dems are being forced to do anything by what the Republicans are doing, then the Republicans are in control. That’s not a good thing if you are a Democrat. If you can explain to me why that IS a good thing, please do so.

Also, please explain why you would call one group of honorable and decorated veterans “liars” and choose to believe a second set of similar veterans? What is your basis for choosing which group to believe?

Secondly, the fact that Kerry served in Viet Nam is immaterial to being weak or strong on defense. It has as much to do with me deserving the CEO position at Domino’s simply because I was a cook at a pizza parlor 30 years ago.

What IS material is Kerry’s 20 year record in the Senate. This is where we learn the real story, not any type of positive or negative image. Think about if you were hiring a person for a job….would you consider his 4 years in college as more material than his subsequent 20 year job history? Of course not. Let’s base our knowledge of Kerry on his record, just as Bush’s record over the past 4 years should be considered more important than his tenure as Governor of Texaa at this point.

jbod, if Democrats, Independents, and third party candidates had paid a whole lot more attention to GW Bush’s Governor record in 2000, he would not be President today.

I don’t much care what Kerry’s record looks like at this point. Good or bad, Kerry is a gamble as President. Bush is far exceeded his capacity as far as the Peter Principle is concerned, and therefore, a gamble is better odds than a sure loser.

Too bad for the Democrats I am voting for Nader though. His record really does speak well for principled leadership with reason and intelligence as valuable assets.

David:

I think what you are trying to say is that if more people had viewed Bush through the lens that you view him through, he would not have been elected. That’s the great thing about our country—we have differences of opinions and our system works. Other countries might have had open warfare in the streets. The USA handled a tough situation in a constitutionally appropriate manner.

What you are saying about Kerry is that you dont know if he is good or bad, and I think many Democrats share your opinion. What he is NOT is George Bush, and that is enough for many Dems. But I dont see that as a winning strategy. We’ll find out, but I would still insist that judging a man based on his record is the best way to judge him. By that measure, you seem taken with Nader, and while I admire his committment, I dont admire his ideology.

You may view Bush’s record and find him lacking; I view his record and find him presidential. We’ll find out what the country finds him in a short while.

I noted that if the Dems are being forced to do anything by what the Republicans are doing, then the Republicans are in control. That’s not a good thing if you are a Democrat.

I agree, that was bad. That’s what the Vietnam thing and all the tough talk at the convention were about. Kerry needed to assure the public that he was willing to use all of America’s strengths to protect us, even to lay down his own life if need be - I think that was the point of the hampster story. :)

Judging by the pro-Kerry shift in the ‘who would be better at defending America’ polls, it worked.

So the GOP, needs to counter that. Hence the strong-arming of Pakistan to quickly produce some HVTs, and the ‘swiftboat liars for Bush’ attacks.

What he is NOT is George Bush, and that is enough for many Dems. But I dont see that as a winning strategy.

That’s funny, because I constantly hear Republicans saying they’re not happy with Bush, but they’d NEVER vote for a Democrat. I’m not sure that sticking with failure is a winning strategy either.

A.P.

I asked earlier why you would consider one group of honorably decorated Viet Nam veterans to be “liars” while you accept the story of a separate group of honorably decorated Viet Nam veterans, but I havent seen an answer yet.

I can speculate as to your reasons, but I’d rather hear it from you. Since we are 30 years removed from the situation, it would seem difficult for those of us now to simply assess one group of veterans as “liars”. Yet you do so.

joe, it’s because it’s a blatently partisan attack. The same reason you guys get so riled up whenever somebody points out that Bush is a deserter.

A.P.

If and when someone provides evidence that Bush deserted, I’d be happy to look at it. All I’ve seen so far is a lack of evidence to prove that he was there. It has made me wonder, but until I see proof, I’m not condemning him. The American system is innocent until proven guilty, though perhaps that doesnt apply to Republicans?

The SwiftVets are united against Kerry, but then, the other group of vets is united for Kerry, so I guess they are both partisan in their beliefs. Yet you believe one group and dismiss the other. Your explanation is that you choose to believe one “partisan” group over the other.

To attack the group is simply a tactic; to attack their funding is yet another tactic. Neither speaks to the facts or commentaries, or the right of people to make commentaries. The truth is that neither you nor I know who is telling the truth. I’m willing to admit that, yet you stand on such hallowed ground that you state unequivocally that you are correct. A bit arrogant, but then again, you ARE a pundit.

> If you dont want to be challenged on a
> statement, DONT SAY THE STATEMENT.

Its understandable that he might take for granted that he could refer to his war experience and not have it challenged. No other war vet has ever had to face the outrageous accusations he’s facing. These accusations basically say that the Navy itself is an organization of bumbling fools, and he never dreamed his team would have to spend one minute countering such insane rubbish.

Perhaps he is naive for hoping his opponents might actually be decent human beings, but my guess is that Kerry never dreamed that his opponents would stoop so low as to say that he faked his injuries and ran away from combat.

-Cf

> it would seem difficult for those of us now to
> simply assess one group of veterans as “liars”.

One group’s story is consistent with the story presented in the official Navy records, the other group’s story contradicts the official Navy records. The people who generated the Navy records were Navy officers working under the watchful eye and under the legal and ethical authority of the U.S. Navy. The SBVT are mostly retired and are not representing the Navy any more, they are regular citizens and are not legally accountable for their statements.

If I had to choose one side, I’d choose the side that the Navy records supports. If this were a court of law, and you were on the jury looking at (a) less than a dozen veterans saying “Kerry’s a hero, just like mountains of official Navy records say he is”, (b) a half-dozen veterans saying “I lied when I worked for the Navy and signed those official Navy papers and pinned those medals on Lt. Kerry, but I promise I’m not lying now”, and (c) 200 Navy veterans saying “Kerry’s a jerk”, would you conclude that the Navy records were falsified by group (b) but that they are now being truthful?

As far as I’m concerned, it’s more than he-said/she-said… it’s “he-and-the-official-documents-and-records-said/she said”. It’s cut and dry. Those guys are lying.

-Cf

Eeerrr, UUhhhhh I believe it was Kerry in 1971 who stated on the “Dick Cavett” show that he spent Xmas of ‘68 IN Cambodia. How far in depends on when he was /is asked. 50 miles is one answer, 5 miles is another. He has voted for regime change in Iraq, then voted against funding, and has now stated that he would vote FOR the war if voting today??!? He stated that he met with foreign leaders who apparently wanted regime change in the U.S. but refuses to say whom he met (now there’s a surprise!) He recently told George Stephanopoulos that he had a plan for peace in Iraq but stated that he was NOT going to reveal it. When George said that it sounded like Nixon’s “secret plan” for ending the war in Vietnam Kerry got a bit miffed.
Pardon me, but even yellow dog democrats can take it too far. The frenchurian candidate needs to go home, if he can decide where that is….and stick to his decision….without later changing his mind…….again and again….ad infinitum….ad nauseum !!

Yet you believe one group and dismiss the other.

I believe Kerry. All the ‘swiftboat yo-yos for Bush’ have come up with so far is some cock and bull story and a lot of opinion. Wake me when they say something I should care about.

To attack the group is simply a tactic; to attack their funding is yet another tactic.

And the group itself is a political tactic.

As points of view go yours is modest, at best. I was QUOTING Sen. Kerry and you have inadvertantly made my point for me! By the by it’s not Swifties For Bush…it’s Swifties for Truth ! Mr. John O’Neill recently stated that he “does not care if the ads hurt the Republicans”, they “are still going to run them”. Interesting position for someone who is pro-Bush.
So, I suppose if you believe Kerry you MUST believe every version of every one of his stories, That must keep you very, very busy. Oh yeah, try and drop the “Zen meets politics” thing, you’re not very good at it. G’night. :P

Gee whiz. I take a little break from this site and come back to see what is going on in here and I see a lot of people with their panties in a wad over a little Swift Boat ad and the measly $500,000 contribution made by Reps.

And now Kerry wants to file a protest after Bush has endured $60 million of negative ads from Dems and stayed even in the polls in spite of the attacks. Isn’t that grand!

I hope this is no indication of how he will fight the war on terror! Oh of course, he could file a protest!

What’s the deal about Sen. Kerry threatening to sue news media outlets that run the “Swifties” ads?? I thought that the Republicans are supposed to be, by leftist definition, anti First-Amendment bastards. Now we have petulant little Johnny stamping his little foot, sniveling that he is not universally loved.
Why is it that Democrats MUST be reminded that a constitutional republic is rough and tumble and always has been. My Grandfather once told me that if you want to “pitch” you will also have to “catch”. Democrats think little of calling Republicans “Brown Shirts” and “Cowards” but discuss their record(s) and we have, all of a sudden, ventured onto forbidden territory. What’s up with that ??

Samaritan:

Its just play #1 from the Democratic playbook. Look at recent history for other examples.

**Kerry and the other Dems spend months savaging Bush during the Dem primary, and then along comes Kerry saying he hopes the election season continues in a positive manner.

**Kerry brings up Viet Nam ad nauseum but wants it left out of the conversation once it starts looking questionable.

**Only after Kerry is called a flip flopper do Democrats NOW claim that Bush is really the flip flopper.

**Only after the right claims there is a liberal bias to the media do Democrats NOW claim that the media is really biased to the right—which directly contradicts their earlier claims that the media isnt biased at all.

Now that the “right” is using 527’s in the same manner that the “left” has been, the left no longer thinks its fair. Like I said, its just play #1.

joebagodonuts: I think you nailed it, the democrats have (for years) played it “fast and loose” and we Republicans have, hopefully, learned our lesson(s). When demos call us bastards it is, afterall, only a truth that MUST be spoken, examined and thoroughly discussed…when we PROVE that they are bastards it is suddenly an “outrage”, “dirty politics” and ALL discussions must stop immediately ! To repeat what my grandfather said (briefly) pitch=catch.
If the demos don’t want a faceful of crap (truthful as it may be) then…don’t throw crap. If they want to talk issues, then talk issues. Kerry’s politics reminds me of the young man who murdered both parents and then demanded mercy from the court due to the fact that he was an orphan!! Terrorists will eat him alive if we have the outrageous misfortune to have him for President. :P

Kerry has done a masterful job so far of orchestrating a NON review of his political career. While 4 months of his life has been talked about incessantly, his 20 year Senate career has been virtually overlooked. That will change, because Republicans know he is weak there.

Face it, simply from a political standpoint, if Kerry were confident in his career, it would be front and center. But it isnt.

He thought he could paint himself as a true hero, and since military service is a weak area for Bush, how could it fail. But fail it has. Even Kerry’s area of greatest strength is filled with nuance. I doubt the AMerican people want such nuance to pass for leadership.

Leadership is LEADING the people. Bush has demonstrated an ability to get things done. Many oppose the direction he has moved the country in, yet even they must have realized that the country has moved. THAT is leadership.

Many oppose the direction he has moved the country in, yet even they must have realized that the country has moved. THAT is leadership.

That’s leadership???!

I’ll grant that the country has moved. With Bush’s party in the majority in the House, the Senate, and on the Supreme Court, I fail to understand how it couldn’t move. But that’s not leadership.

President Bush doesn’t lead, he makes poclamations and expects them to be carried out. Bush’s party has a lock on power, so he doesn’t need to negotiate or compromise in order to advance his agenda. The US military is unequalled in the world, so he doesn’t need to lead organizations like NATO and the UN.

I have not seen a single shred of evidence that Bush has or ever will expend the effort to lead the United States as a whole. Bush directs the party-line votes in Congress and the most powerful military in the world to implement his plans. But that’s not leadership.

AP:

I do love how you try to have an answer for everything. First, its that Bush is an idiot…then Bush is led by Karl Rove…then its Bush isnt a leader…then its that he only leads because he can…

As a comparison, in Bill Clinton’s first two years of office, name a shift in the country’s direction….and mind you, this was when Democrats controlled Congress and the White House.

HMMM, lets see…health care? Nope, couldnt get that albatross passed through. Gays in the military….nope, that one failed too.

Now, DONT go off into whether those issues were good or bad—that’s not the point. The point is that Clinton—a consummate politician of high caliber, albeit with some character flaws—could not move the country in that direction, even with similar control that Bush now has. Why?????

AP,

The US military is unequalled in the world, so he doesn’t need to lead organizations like NATO and the UN.

Your idea of leadership is giving in to the world stage and letting the UN decide what is in our best interests. You along with Madelaine Halfbright have decided that we should play this political game at the expense of our own security no matter what because if we don’t, heaven forbid we will lose allies! What allies?

In this instance it takes more courage to step out of the thinking that got us into this predicament to begin with. 8 years of Clinton and Halfbright did that for us!

You may not like the way he has run this war on terror, as Joe points out, but there are a lot of us that call it leadership. And leadership it is!

name a shift in the country’s direction

Hmm… Fiscal responsibility? Balance the budget? That was his campaign theme, and that’s what he did.

Your idea of leadership is giving in to the world stage and letting the UN decide what is in our best interests.

MAW, if your idea of leading the UN is “letting the UN decide what is in our best interests,” then I understand why you don’t know what leadership is.

In fact, your uninformed viewpoints and the funny nicknames you give people have led me to officially declare: I am voting to cancel MAW’s vote. You have just been disenfranchised, my friend. :)

AP:

Very nice try, but Clinton’s vaunted fiscal responsibility began ONLY after the Republicans took over Congress. A major shift when he had control???? I havent seen one yet

AP,
Aw gee, does this mean you don’t like my Mr McGoo nickname or was it the Halfbright nickname that really got me disenfranchised?

It is a flaw in my character, I must admit. Just can’t seem to help myself.

And yes, when the UN deliberately does things that are not in the best interest of the world, I consider that egregious. How could anyone not? Of course it would be the ideal situation, but unfortunately it isn’t nor could it ever be.

And can I get my vote back if I can find Dems I really, really like?

AP

Hmm… Fiscal responsibility? Balance the budget? That was his campaign theme, and that’s what he did.

Aren’t we forgetting that little thing called the Peace Dividend that was handed down by President Reagan? I really can’t think of anything that Clinton did except ride the coattails of others. Lucky him!

Of course that just led him to decimate the US Military, which is what Dems do the best. We could at least agree on that.