Kerry Says Bush Uses Surrogates to Do 'Dirty Work'
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Thu Aug 19, 2004 04:11 PM ET
By Carol Giacomo
BOSTON (Reuters) - John Kerry accused President Bush of using surrogates to "do his dirty work," as the Democratic presidential challenger hit back on Thursday at a Republican assault on his Vietnam War record.
In his toughest response yet to questions of whether he deserved the honors he won in war, Kerry said if the president wanted to debate the issue of their respective battle records then "Bring it on."
Kerry said a group called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has attacked the Massachusetts senator's war record via television advertisements, was funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor in Texas, Bush's home state.
"They're a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the president won't denounce what they're up to tells you everything you need to know: he wants them to do his dirty work," Kerry told a convention of the International Association of Fire Fighters, a politically active union which backs Kerry.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "We will never raise questions about his (Kerry's) service. We haven't and we won't." But he added the Democratic candidate should join the president in condemning the soft money that runs the third party ads.
Kerry has been put on the defensive by weeks of Republican criticism of his Vietnam War service as a decorated Navy lieutenant. In response the Kerry campaign abandoned its plan not to run ads until later by launching its own ads with crewmen from Kerry's boat supporting the candidates' version.
"Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that," Kerry said.
"Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: 'Bring it on,"' the Massachusetts senator said, to cheers from the firefighters.
Kerry has made frequent references to his Vietnam War experience during his campaign to make the case for his strength as a military leader.
The Iraq war and fear of terrorism have made foreign policy and national security more important than economic issues in this presidential election, for the first time since the Vietnam era, the Pew Research Center said in a poll released Wednesday.
Kerry's supporters have contrasted his record with that of Bush, who spent the war in the United States serving in the Texas Air National Guard.
"Sen. Kerry knows that his latest attack is false and baseless," McClellan said. "The president has condemned all of the ads by the shadowy groups. We have called on Senator Kerry to join us in calling for an end to all the unregulated soft money activity that is going on in this campaign."
A report on Thursday in the Washington Post said military records contradicted a claim that Kerry did not come under fire during the battle that resulted in military honors for the Democratic senator.
Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has disputed that Kerry was shot at during the March 1969 raid that resulted in Bronze Stars being awarded to both men. Thurlow is a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Thurlow's military records, partially obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Washington Post, contain references to "enemy small arms and automatic fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla, the newspaper says.
In a response on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Web site, Thurlow said he believed the references came from a report Kerry wrote and were false.
Kerry noted that 30 years ago, official Navy reports documented his service in Vietnam and awarded him the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.
"Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam," he added.
Kerry's response to the ads overwhelmed his planned message for the day which was providing better health care coverage. At a later campaign stop in New Hampshire, a battleground state that Bush narrowly won in 2000, Kerry assailed the president for failing to address critical health issues that have left millions of Americans with no insurance or in debt.
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