MEDIA ADVISORY:
GOP Rhetoric on Kerry's Voting Record Goes Unchallenged
March 8, 2004
After John Kerry emerged as the likely Democratic nominee for president,
the Republican National Committee (RNC) began criticizing his record on
military spending. The campaign against Kerry's record escalated on
February 22 when the RNC released a list of weapons systems that Kerry
allegedly "voted against."
Republican spokespeople used this list to make sweeping claims about Kerry
in the media: "I think the more that the president and the Republicans
describe accurately-- they don't have to exaggerate at all; they just have
to describe accurately and calmly-- what it means...to have voted against
every major weapon system," Newt Gingrich declared on Fox's Hannity and
Colmes (2/26/04), "I think if they stick to that and stick to the facts,
Senator Kerry will react by saying that he's being smeared by his own
record."
Partisan TV pundits like Sean Hannity quickly echoed these charges: "He's
voting against every major weapons system we now use in our military,"
Hannity told his Fox News audience (3/1/04). Hannity's participation in
the RNC's attack was perhaps to be expected, but he was not the only media
figure to simply pass on the Republican allegations without examination.
CNN anchor Judy Woodruff (2/25/04) framed the issue this way in an
interview with Rep. Norm Dicks (D.-Wash.): "The Republicans list something
like 13 different weapons systems that they say the record shows Senator
Kerry voted against. The Patriot missile, the B-1 bomber, the Trident
missile and on and on and on."
Embarrassingly, Dicks had to explain to Woodruff that most of the weapons
"votes" weren't individual votes at all, but a single vote on the
Pentagon's 1991 appropriations bill. Woodruff responded with surprise to
this information: "Are you saying that all these weapons systems were part
of one defense appropriations bill in 1991?"
But Woodruff wasn't alone. Appearing on CNN (2/3/04), Bush-Cheney
campaign strategist Ralph Reed explained to anchor Wolf Blitzer that
Kerry's record was one of "voting to dismantle 27 weapons systems,
including the MX missile, the Pershing missile, the B-1, the B-2 stealth
bomber, the F-16 fighter jet, the F-15 fighter jet, cutting another 18
programs, slashing intelligence spend by $2.85 billion, and voting to
freeze defense spending for seven years." Blitzer responded by pointing
out to guest Ann Lewis of the Democratic National Committee, "I think it's
fair to say, Ann, that there's been some opposition research done."
For many reporters, the charges against Kerry's record were recorded as
just part of the back-and-forth of a campaign: Fox News Channel's Carl
Cameron (2/27/04) explained: "With the GOP attacking John Kerry's votes to
cut defense over the years, the Democratic front-runner, once again,
counter-attacked what he calls the president's 'mishandling' of the war on
terror."
Associated Press reporter Nedra Pickler (2/27/04) noted that "the Bush
campaign has criticized Kerry in recent days for voting against some
increases in defense spending and military weapons programs during his
19-year congressional career. Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot said
Kerry's policies would weaken the country's ability to win the war on
terror."
NBC anchor Tom Brokaw (3/2/04, MSNBC) also seemed to accept the charges at
face value, noticing that "the vice president just today was talking about
his votes against the CIA budget, for example, intelligence budgets and
also weapons systems. Isn't he [Kerry] going to be very vulnerable come
the fall when national security is such a big issue in this country?
One of the few reporters to take a serious look at the RNC's list-- on
which 10 of the 13 items refer to the single 1991 vote-- was Slate's Fred
Kaplan (2/25/04). Kaplan noted that 16 senators, including five
Republicans, voted against the bill. Kaplan concluded that the claim
against Kerry "reeks of rank dishonesty."
Kaplan also pointed out that at the time of the 1991 vote, deeper cuts in
military spending were being advocated by some prominent Republicans--
including then-President George H.W Bush and Dick Cheney, who was
secretary of defense at the time. As Kaplan noted, Cheney appealed for
more cuts from Congress: "You've squabbled and sometimes bickered and
horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't
fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements."
Cheney went to name the M-1 tank and the F-14 and F-16 fighters-- all of
which appear on the RNC's list-- as "great systems" that "we have enough
of."
Ironically, Cheney made the rounds on the cable channels on March 2,
criticizing Kerry's record in terms parallel to the RNC's release. During
an interview with Fox News Channel's Brit Hume, Cheney said: "What we're
concerned about, what I'm concerned about, is his record in the United
States Senate, where he clearly has over the years adopted a series of
positions that indicate a desire to cut the defense budget, to cut the
intelligence budget, to eliminate many major weapons programs."
Unfortunately, Hume failed to raise an important follow-up: Why was Cheney
now criticizing Kerry for having essentially the same position Cheney
advocated back in 1991?
The Bush/Cheney campaign plans to spend $133 million over the next several
months in an effort to "redefine" Kerry (Sydney Morning Herald, 3/4/04).
If this charge is an indication of the Republicans' approach, then the
media would perform a valuable service if they took a keen interest in
evaluating the accuracy of such campaign rhetoric.
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