HARKIN STILL CLINGING TO THIS STUFF? [09/10 09:40 AM]
KERRYSPOT
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin - who already in trouble for exaggerating his heroics as a pilot in Vietnam, is now attacking Bush over his National Guard stuff. Now Harkin, who pointed to the disputed CBS documents as a fresh indictment of Bush's credibility, is still on the attack. Interviewed on Fox a few moments ago:
Fox anchor: If these documents are forgeries-
Harkin: We don't know that. We don't know that yet. We do know he didn't report for his physical and didn't do his duty.
Also, from today's Globe:
For the second day in a row, the Democratic National Committee held a conference call with reporters on newly disclosed documents about Bush's service, with Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and Richard Klass, a retired US Air Force colonel, repeatedly questioning the incumbent's ''character" and ''honesty."
''If the president will lie about this, will he lie about how we got into Iraq, for example?" Harkin said. ''This goes right to the heart of the character and the truthfulness of the current occupant of the White House."
A group of veterans in West Virginia, organized by the Democratic National Committee, also held a news conference yesterday to challenge Bush's Guard record, and veterans in Pennsylvania and Ohio plan to do the same today. More are planned in other battleground states, Howard Wolfson, Democratic National Committee adviser, said yesterday. He said criticism will continue almost daily, ''at least until Bush himself answers these questions about his service directly." Last spring, Kerry said that he would not question Bush's decision to serve in the Guard instead of going to Vietnam but that he would challenge the president on whether he had fulfilled his Guard obligations.
Earlier this week, the Globe reported that Bush had failed to meet specific training requirements required in documents he had signed in 1968 and 1973 as a member of the Texas Air National Guard. On Wednesday, CBS News broadcast an interview with Texas lobbyist Ben Barnes who said that in 1968, when he was speaker of the Texas House, he had helped Bush gain entry into the Guard at the urging of a Bush family friend. Barnes, now a fund-raiser for Kerry, said he had helped many other sons of prominent Texas families join the Guard so that they could avoid being sent to Vietnam.
CBS also produced documents that appeared to show that in 1973 Bush's superior officer complained of being pressured to ''sugar-coat" an annual officer evaluation for Bush even though Bush had not been at the base for the year in question.
Not mentioning anything about the questions about the documents' veracity is pretty bad. But give the Globe a bit of credit for mentioning this:
Yesterday marked one month since Kerry held a news conference with reporters traveling with him, despite pledging in August that as president he would hold ''a press conference at least once a month to talk to the nation about what I'm doing, because I don't have anything to hide." Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter denied that the candidate was avoiding the media at a time when polls are going against him.
nationalreview.com |
