Kerry Spot [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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Clinton teams up with Kerry in Philadelphia, October 25, 2004.
GILLESPIE GETS IN THE GAME [10/26 08:47 PM]
Interesting strategy from the RNC - encourage the grassroots to point out just how wrong the New York Times got this story.
Dear [E-mail recipients name],
It's October, but it's no surprise. Remember last week, when I highlighted a quote by Newsweek editor Evan Thomas that the media's desire to see John Kerry elected may be worth five-to-twenty million votes, and urged you to be on the look-out for evidence of that desire in articles and news programs?
Well, yesterday the front page of New York Times featured a flawed article asserting, "The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives — used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons — are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations. The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday."
CBS News' "60 Minutes" admitted today they were saving the same story to air the Sunday before the election.
John Kerry seized on the New York Times headline to launch a political attack on President Bush, saying U.S. troops "failed to guard those stockpiles" and that is "one of the great blunders" of the war.
Senator Kerry and the New York Times leave the impression that these weapons went missing recently and U.S. troops were derilict in their duty to guard the stockpile — neither of which is true.
Network and cable news programs repeated the incomplete report and Sen. Kerry's attacks more than 100 times on Monday.
But last night NBC "Nightly News" reported that on April 10, 2003, one day after Baghdad fell, U.S. troops entered Al Qaqaa, accompanied by an embedded reporter from NBC, and found no such weapons.
It also turns out that our troops have found and destroyed or are destroying 400,000 tons of weapons and explosives.
There was no mention of either one of these facts in today's New York Times front page story, which regurgitated yesterday's charges and Senator Kerry's attacks based on them.
Liberal groups like MoveOn.org have already blasted out e-mails repeating the discredited report and urging people to vote against President Bush based on the flawed coverage.
We can not count on the media to set the story straight. We have to get the truth out to our friends and neighbors ourselves.
We are counting on YOU to set the record straight. Please forward this e-mail and the attached fact sheet to family and friends, call your local network, call talk radio, write letters to the editor, and post facts on blogs.
I suspect you'll be hearing from me again in the course of the next seven days as Mr. Thomas's prediction proves true again.
Sincerely,
Ed Gillespie
Chairman, Republican National Committee
CHENEY RESPONDS TO KERRY/TIMES/BARADEI OCTOBER SURPRISE [10/26 08:36 PM]
This is more like it. From the AP:
"If our troops had not gone into Iraq as John Kerry apparently thinks they should not have, that is 400,000 tons of weapons and explosives that would be in the hands of Saddam Hussein, who would still be sitting in his palace instead of jail," the vice president told supporters in his first comment on the controversy that erupted Monday.
Cheney, the most senior administration official to comment on the latest development in Iraq, complained that Kerry does not mention the "400,000 tons of weapons and explosives that our troops have captured."
Nearly 400 tons of explosives have disappeared from a former Iraqi military installation. The International Atomic Energy Agency had warned the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq to secure the explosives, fearing they could fall into the wrong hands. The materials are key components of plastic explosives like those insurgents have used in car bomb attacks.
Speaking to a crowd in an area of Florida with several military bases, Cheney also said, "It is not at all clear that those explosives" that were lost "were even at the weapons facility when our troops arrived in the area of Baghdad." ...
Cheney also invoked the name of retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, to rebut another of Kerry's criticisms — that the Bush administration wasted a chance to catch terrorist leader Osama bin Laden when the United States had al-Qaida fighters surrounded in Tora Bora in Afghanistan.
Franks "stated repeatedly it was not at all certain that bin Laden was in Tora Bora," said Cheney. "He might have been there or in Pakistan or even Kashmir."
"Now John Kerry sitting 6,000 miles away, he is trying to cast doubt on these amazing performances" by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, Cheney said.
Kerry frequently asserts that the administration "outsourced" the job of hunting down bin Laden to Afghan warlords.
"U.S. Special Forces were on the ground, and in charge of the operation around Tora Bora," Cheney said. "They relied on Afghan fighters to help them kill and capture Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Tora Bora. They knew the landscape."
If the Bush campaign, in the next couple days, ends up effectively refuting the joint attack by John Kerry, Mohamed El Baradei, and the New York Times, then I'll readily concede that my earlier comment that this demanded a tougher response was premature.
Interestingly, that comment generated more profanity-laden hate mail from the uncivil lefties than anything else I've ever written.
BUSH TEAM RESPONSE [10/26 05:40 PM]
Steve Schmidt, Bush-Cheney '04 Spokesman, today: "John Kerry demonstrated today that he is not going to let the facts get in the way of his political attacks. He is a candidate who will say and do anything if he perceives there to be an opportunity for political gain. The fact is that John Kerry does not have a plan or vision to fight and win the War on Terror, and he is resorting to a series of baseless attacks and distortions that have been proven false."
Come on, guys. The New York Times, international bureaucrats like Mohamed ElBaradei and the Kerry campaign are coordinating October-surprise hit pieces on President Bush. This is screaming for a tougher response. Something like an attack ad stating, “Kerry is playing Monday Morning Quarterback with the 101st Airborne’s performance in Iraq. In 1971, John Kerry smeared our troops as rapists and butchers then... He’s smearing them as incompetent now. This Nov. 2, show John Kerry what you think of his attacks on our troops." |
