Oooh, a fighting mood, huh? I wish Kerry would get in a grownup mood and deal with these charges like a man instead of trying to pressure the President and the FEC to use coercion to take care of his SwiftVets problem for him.

This whole experience is giving us a great look into Kerry’s problem solving abilities and frankly I have to say I’m not very impressed; notice the lackey at his side attacking Bush’s military record— still! Unbelievable.

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed at August 29, 2004 09:42 AM

I too am not impressed with the reaction that Sen. Kerry has taken on this whole affair. I’ve yet to hear him offer anything similar about the President as the President has rightfully stated about Kerry’s Viet Nam service. He has not shown Presidential-like qualities in his emotional responses to date to the Swift Boat Ads.

The whole Democratic response appears to be so scripted and planned as if from one of their war rooms and crisis response cells.

I get turned off by all the dodging when it comes to getting any type of response about the 527s from the Democrats. They keep pretending that their 527s are ok but the other side’s is not, even when almost 90% of the money raised goes to the anti-Bush and pro-Kerry side.

Before anyone bothers to point out that the Republicans also practice by-the-book damage control and run with scripted responses to negative publicity, I acknowledge that too. It is just that the Kerry camp needs to do better than what I’ve seen so far… they are the challenger and whining about the other side’s activities just doesn’t cut it with me.

Posted by: steve at August 29, 2004 11:17 AM

When someone accuses you of lying in order to get a medal — something that really can’t happen if you know how medals are awarded, of falsifying your medal citation in order for him to get his own — something that simply didn’t happen in Kerry’s case, then what should be a “presidential” reaction?

Were someone to do that to me, I wouldn’t react in a Presidential way. I’d be Deeply and Personally Pissed Off about it. I wouldn’t react at all “presidentially” — I’d damned well take it Personally! Not to do so would be to deny one’s own fundamental humanity. I expect my presidential candidates to be human — not mere automatons. I’m not displeased when that happens.

The SwiVets have now been unmasked as the partisan prevaricators they truly are. From Thurlow — who now says that his medal citation was a lie written by Kerry (arguably the most seriously single outrageous comment I’ve ever heard wrt wartime service — just unbelievable on its face, save amongst the Wingnut set), to French — who submitted an affidavit that he Personnaly knew the Facts about the incidents in question, when he did not, and what he really did is rely on the statement of his friends (this is known as Hearsay, and the OR State Bar does not take kindly to public prosecutors deliberately falsifying affidavits in any public manner), the SwiVets ongoing rant about the incidents in question has now also been demonstrated to be False by the only actual Official documentation available that comes from the time these things happen.

Nevertheless, the charge has been made, the Wingnuts believed it because they were predisposed to do so, and in a joyful willingness to simply ignore the Actual Evidence of the falsehood of the SwiVets account, will continue to promulgate this nonsense well into the future of this election contest.

It is despicable, and it’s utterly dishonorable — not just from the SwiVets but from the Wingnuts who will happily repeat “information” now known not to be true.

I don’t have Any problem with partisanship, in its appropriate venue. But when it lapses over into this sort of crap, it simply goes too far.

But you’re going to see more of it — right here on this blog.

Posted by: Don at August 29, 2004 11:34 AM

Obtw, y’all might enjoy being made aware of a little Republican “push poll” now playing at a venue near you. (If you don’t know how PP’s operate, the important thing to remember is that they are Not Polls at all, and polling data is not their purpose. They are Persuasion calls instead.)

Seems as how a Bush operative calls up and discusses the election pleasantly enough. Toward the end of the conversation, the question is asked “Did you know that Kerry has cancer?” This is followed by a discussion of how a cancer patient isn’t “really cured” until five years after any operation/chemo treatment, and Kerry hasn’t yet been five years into that process.

Like it so far?

Of course, the entire question of Prostate Cancer among men indicates that it’s generally slow-moving, that most men can live with it more or less indefinitely, and that unless there is Actual Evidence that it’s metastatized, early intervention and treatment is usually more than sufficient to delay any other symptoms until well into Old Age.

But hey — this is Politics! The cancer card is now on the table, being actively pushed in a Not Poll by the Bush side of things.

Interesting, yes? Just thought y’all might like to know What Else is being brought up by the GOP this cycle.

Posted by: Don at August 29, 2004 11:59 AM

Brian, Jones — further to our brief discourse of several days ago (re my being fed up with the “service record” bullshit) — I watched this interview yesterday. Imo, Bush hit a frickin’ GRAND SLAM!!!!!!! He came across to me (a skeptic on several other issues, such as the environment and tne economy), as completely honorable, sincere, positive. Took the issue right off the table, as far as I’m concerned, and my pending vote for GWB was completely stabilized. Too bad about the Swift Vote Veterans, but if they want to waste their money on hate mongering, so be it. To me, Bush said it all, perfectly, when he said (essentially) that “the issue isn’t what we did 35 years ago, but who is the better person to lead us through the next four years.” It was great.

Posted by: j at August 29, 2004 12:09 PM

Don :
If you can give me a reputable second source for your scoop, I’ll write an article bringing it to everyone’s attention.

I suggest you let a newspaper know about it, they have the resources on the ground to verify it. then I can quote them, and give you credit. Unless you have a better idea?

Posted by: aebrain at August 29, 2004 12:13 PM

I know about it from folks who have told me about it. Being a long-time political junkie puts me in the loop for a bunch of this sort of thing.

But funny you should ask — just this Very Morning came a pair of letters in the Oregonian that describe the occurrence elsewhere.

You’ll find them the first two at:

http://oregonlive.com/letters/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/109360834947360.xml

Does that work for you?

Posted by: Don at August 29, 2004 12:22 PM

Don :

I’m afraid not, Letters to the Editor count the same as comments on TCP. Maybe a little more, but frankly, I trust you personally rather more than I trust some unknown letter-writer. Trust /= agree with of course.

I know about it from folks who have told me about it.

Doesn’t work either, hearsay etc. Now if you could get The Oregonian to write a report (rather than an Op-Ed) about it… one naming names would be good, but not essential.

Just think on it this way : if it had been a Dem allegedly doing it for Kerry, I’d require the same standard of proof. Some Dirty Tricks are more subtle than others, and a whispering campaign about a fictitious push-poll is difficult to recognise. Had you personally been polled, I could discount that, but I’d still need a mainstream article to quote.

Or I could write an article tomorrow morning (it’s 0236 local time) in the Op Ed section of TCP about it, but that would be ‘weary flat unprofitable and stale’ in comparison.

You see, I really, really dislike dishonest push-polling. I’d like nothing better than to catch some political hacks red-handed. All the better if they’re GOP, it would balance karma.

Posted by: aebrain at August 29, 2004 12:48 PM

If your are a veteran against kerry they will block you from his blog on the kerry for president website

Did anyone notice kerrys statement “troops come first period” the man has no shame at all

checkout

http://www.redwhiteblueproductions.com/

1 of many veterans against kerry

Posted by: navyvetagainstkerry at August 29, 2004 01:12 PM

AEB: Your demurral is Terribly convenient, but not terribly Realistic.

Push Polling is designed to come in “under the radar.” Noozemeeja types don’t Ever get called — those names are culled out early on. In fact, PP’s are rather carefully aimed Only at those folks who are Swing Voters — never at the opponents Base Vote.

They are never publicized. They only come up as the result of someone saying something to someone else. The idea is, as was alluded to hereon a couple of weeks back, to start a Whispering Campaign on the issue, but never Ever to make a Public Statement on the matter.

They are designed to operate only in the short term in one geographic area, and as soon as their existence becomes Public Knowledge and a little sunshine is shone on them, they immediately shut down that specific topic in that specific area, and introduce an entirely different topic there, while moving the initial topic elsewhere. That’s the way to ensure that Plausible Deniability is maintained at all times. And if you have Caller ID, you’ll find that the number is blocked on your end. Always. Likewise, *69 won’t work either.

In my own case, I’m highly unlikely to be the recipient of a PP call — ever. No clueful GOP PP operation would want to call me, given their careful preparation of a Voter ID program. My wife, however, has received such calls — mostly because on a Voter ID, she inevitably refuses to make any comment or commitment at all. And in most cases, our phone records messages anyway — and PP’s just Never allow themselves to be recorded on a message machine. I don’t show up as a potential Swing Voter. On the 5-pt scale, I’m a 5; on a 7-pt scale, a 7. She’s a Possible 3 or 4, respectively. So she’s open for a Persuasive PP, while I am not.

When no less than three good and trusted friends — none of whom are Political Operatives fwiw — tell me that they’ve received such calls, then I tip my hat to a well-done PP operation. It’s acting Precisely as it should. I got my first report two days ago, and two again yesterday. We are of that age cohort where a Cancer Scare in a PP would have some actual salience, since our age cohort is presently experiencing the onset of cancer of various sorts.

But the appearance of Two local LTE’s the same day ought to at least pique your curiosity, and allow you to draw some proper inferences. On the one hand, we have someone who apparently just Spontaneously decided to write a LTE expressing concern about a matter that, just coincidentally, another person picked up and wrote about in their own LTE about the PP call.

In an election cycle where a Potential Swing of a few tenths of a percentage point is the possible deciding margin, then a PP such as this would be Precisely the sort of campaign tactic to undertake. Its effect will be small, but possibly significant. Best to do it as a H&R operation, but to keep it out of sight as much as possible otherwise.

It doesn’t have to work Well — it only has to work Some. If you are a student of T&T polling research, PP’s do precisely that.

One of the iron rules of Politics is that there are essentially no “spontaneous” LTEs that are well focused on a specific issue. The LTE campaign is, start to finish, mostly the result of careful planning, the drafting of Talking Points and in some cases the provision of Actual Letters to folks turning them in. In the modern-era campaign, there are LTE coordinators working with the overall Volunteer Coordinator who are specifically responsible for handling those details. LTE letter campaigns regularly have early drafts of several dozen letters available to those “spontaneous” letter writers.

That a first LTE would show up simultaneously with the report of a PP operation asserting precisely the same Talking Point tells all that really needs to be known, at least to anyone with any experience on the inside of modern campaign management. It’s unlikely altogether that an LTE such as the first one would just sorta coincidentally show up with an LTE exposing a PP operation if such an operation really didn’t exist.

It’s happening. It’s happening Precisely as it’s supposed to — below the radar of the Noozemeeja, only within selected demographic groups, and Very specific as to how it’s expressed.

Folks like to challenge the NoozeMeeja for their uncovering of various sorts of matters in a campaign. It all depends on whose oxe is being gored as to what the reaction to those actions are.

But when two citizens, each apparently acting in accordance with their recent experience and concerns, provide evidence that is mutually consonant, best to pay attention as to what’s really going on Out There.

Unless, of course, you’d Simply Rather Not. Many scriveners take that attitude.

But the PP is happening. Here for a while; there for a while; somewhere else entirely after that.

But it decidedly IS happening.

Posted by: Don at August 29, 2004 02:36 PM

Don, 2 questions:

1. Is Kerry’s health a legitimate issue in the campaign?

2. If someone wanted to smear the Bush campaign and generate a little sympathy for Kerry by falsely accusing Bush of push polling on Cancer issues, do you think they could generate some buzz and a couple of letters to the editor?

Just asking.

Posted by: ter0 at August 29, 2004 03:24 PM

While you think over those two questions, I’ll tell you why I ask.

There’s obviously an attempt by the Dems to paint Bush as a smear artist on the Swift issue by drawing a parallel to McCain in South Carolina and Clelland in his Senate reelection race. Is this just more of the same?

Posted by: ter0 at August 29, 2004 03:30 PM

Kerry campaign attacks President over ‘war honour he did not earn’

After weeks of denigration of the Democratic challenger’s Vietnam war record, Mr Kerry’s backers have responded with allegations against the President - including the claim that he was once photographed in uniform wearing a medal ribbon he had not earned.

As polls showed that Mr Bush had edged ahead of Mr Kerry for the first time, a pro-Kerry organisation labelled the President an “impostor” over the photograph, taken in 1970 and discovered in his father’s Presidential Library in Houston, Texas.

The ribbon is an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award - which was not awarded to the 111th Fighter Intercept Squadron in which Mr Bush served until 1975, five years after the photograph was taken, according to the group US War Report.

“Why is this fraud important? Because it betrays the Honour Code that every officer learns and carries throughout his or her career,” said Walt Starr who investigated the medals for the group. Separately a new book, Deserter, by Ian Williams, a British-born author, challenges the President with details of how he used his father’s influence to join the Texas Air National Guard as a trainee pilot, thereby avoiding service in Vietnam, and then allegedly disappeared from his base without fulfilling his duty.

“Bush has set himself up, and now that the issue is coming up he is going to have to answer questions on his own documented record,” said Williams.

Williams’s book offers evidence that Mr Bush stopped training in 1972, and failed to take an annual physical examination demanded of all pilots. Deserter also claims that Mr Bush failed to turn up for duty in Alabama, an omission which could have resulted in a charge of being absent without leave, or even desertion.

MoveOn.com, an independent organisation, has repeated the claim in television advertisements that Mr Bush abandoned his military post and the American media has taken up the story. “Alabama is where serious questions arise over whether or not Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Guard,” said William McTavish, a Republican, and editor of the Washington on-line political magazine Capitol Hill Blue.

Mr Bush has strongly denied abandoning his duties. He says he left his Texan unit after requesting transfer to Alabama, so that he could also work on a political campaign.

Asked about the medal ribbon, a White House spokesman said he could not respond until the record had been checked.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/29/wbush129.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/08/29/ixworld.html

Posted by: rdelephant at August 29, 2004 05:48 PM

rdelephant : Definitely worthy of the Front page.

Posted by: aebrain at August 29, 2004 10:12 PM

Don :

Your demurral is Terribly convenient, but not terribly Realistic.

Smile when you say that, pardner.

Posted by: aebrain at August 29, 2004 10:38 PM

Don:

Oh yes, I forgot.

:-)

Posted by: aebrain at August 29, 2004 10:39 PM

Don: “lying in order to get a medal — something that really can’t happen if you know how medals are awarded, of [sic] falsifying your medal citation in order for him to get his own — something that simply didn’t happen in Kerry’s case”

Actually, I am someone who knows how medals are awarded and believes it is entirely possible for somone to lie about their actions in order to get a medal, especially if they are the person writing the after-action report. Both your matter-of fact assertion that this “can’t happen” and your unreserved assurance that any falsification “simply didn’t happen” are both only expressions of faith.

rde: I believe Air Force unit awards are worn by all members of the unit for as long as they are attached to the unit earning the award, regardless of when the award was made. After detaching, the individual would no longer be entitled to wear the award unless it was earned while they were a part of the unit. That’s similar to how the Army does it.

Posted by: submandave at August 30, 2004 04:31 PM