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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (62566)	8/22/2004 12:42:14 AM
From: gamesmistress	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793801

The Dem-supporting 527s have been saturating the media with anti-Bush ads, and movies, and articles, and Kerry and Edwards have the NERVE to say this?? Friggin' hypocrites. Kerry Urges Bush to Demand Attacks Stop Aug 22, 12:02 AM (ET) By MARY DALRYMPLE EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Saturday night urged President Bush to "stand up and stop" what he called personal attacks on him over his combat record in Vietnam. At a fund-raiser attended by about 750 people, Kerry said the attacks by a group of Vietnam veterans and former Swift Boat commanders have intensified "because in the last months they have seen me climbing in America's understanding that I know how to fight a smarter and more effective war" against terrorists. "That's why they're attacking my credibility. That's why they've personally gone after me. The president needs to stand up and stop that. The president needs to have the courage to talk about it." Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group funded in part by a top GOP donor in Texas, has been running ads featuring veterans who served in Vietnam at the same time as Kerry and question his wartime record. The White House and the Bush campaign have denied any direct connection with the Swift Boat group. "The president has made it repeatedly clear that he wants to see an end to all" advertising from outside groups, said Brian Jones, a Bush campaign spokesman. But on Saturday, a former POW, retired Col. Ken Cordier, resigned as a volunteer from the Bush campaign's veterans' steering committee after it was learned that he participated in an anti-Kerry ad sponsored by the Swift Boat group. The ad criticizes Kerry's congressional anti-war testimony in the 1970s alleging U.S. troops engaged in atrocities in Vietnam. "Col. Cordier did not inform the campaign of his involvement in the advertisement," the Bush campaign said in a statement. "Because of his involvement (with the group) Col. Cordier will no longer participate as a volunteer for Bush-Cheney '04." Earlier on Saturday, Kerry's campaign released a video comparing the controversy over Kerry's Vietnam service to attacks on John McCain during the 2000 Republican primaries. The video, sent via e-mail to supporters, says, "George Bush is up to his old tricks" and shows then-Texas Gov. Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain at a debate in February 2000. McCain, sitting next to Bush, says that when "fringe veterans groups" attacked him at a Bush campaign function, Bush stood by and didn't say a word. McCain says a group of senators wrote Bush a letter that said: "Apologize. You should be ashamed." McCain, also a Vietnam veteran, says Bush "really went over the line." "I don't know how you can understand this, George, but that really hurts," McCain says. The Swift Boat group also was being challenged by a Chicago Tribune editor who was on the Feb. 28, 1969, mission for which Kerry received the Silver Star. William Rood, 61, said he decided to break his silence about the mission because recent reports of Kerry's actions in that battle are incorrect and darken the reputations of veterans who served with Kerry. "The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us," Rood said in a 1,700-word first-person account published in Sunday's edition of the Tribune. "It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there." Rood said the allegations that Kerry's accomplishments were overblown are untrue and that Kerry came up with an attack strategy that was praised by their superiors. According to the Tribune, Rood's recollection of what happened that day in South Vietnam was backed by military documents. Rood wrote that Kerry recently contacted him and other crew members, requesting that they go public with their accounts of what happened. "I can't pretend those calls (from Kerry) had no effect on me, but that is not why I am writing this," Rood said. "What matters most to me is that this is hurting crewmen who are not public figures and who deserved to be honored for what they did. My intent is to tell the story here and to never again talk publicly about it." Kerry also picked up support from Wayne D. Langhofer, who told The Washington Post he was manning a machine gun in a boat behind Kerry's and saw firing from both banks of a river as Kerry dived in to rescue Special Forces soldier James Rassmann, the basis for Kerry's Bronze Star. Until now, the Post noted on its Web site, Kerry's version of acting under fire had come from crewmen on his own boat. It quoted Langhofer as saying he was approached by leaders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth several months ago but declined to join them in speaking against Kerry. In Roanoke, Va., on Saturday, Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards also called on Bush to end the Swift Boat Veterans ads. "This is a moment of truth for George W. Bush," Edwards said at a Democratic rally. "We're going to see what kind of man he is and what kind of leader he is. ... We want to hear three words: Stop these ads."

To: LindyBill who wrote (62566)	8/22/2004 12:49:21 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793801

"Turn the tables and blame it on the Bushies." The media is in a "full court press." But Maureen is scared. The Kerry camp knows the Swift boat snipers are hurting the Democrat and fears the Bush oppo campaign will soon move from tarnishing Mr. Kerry's war record to dwell on his days as a shaggy-haired antiwar spokesman. OP-ED COLUMNIST Kerry: Slo-Mo on Swifties By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON — It's easy for the Bushes to stay gallant. They delegate the gutter. There are always third-party political assassins, ostensibly independent, to do the dynasty wet work. W.'s old pal and running partner, Lee Atwater, set up the Bush modus operandi: Lay in the weeds while craftily planting plausibly deniable surrogates to slice up your rival. The New Yorker editor David Remnick, writing in Esquire in 1986, limned the 1980 Congressional race in South Carolina's Second District "between Atwater's man, Republican Floyd Spence, and a Faulknerian figure named Tom Turnipseed At one press briefing, Atwater planted a reporter who rose and said, 'We understand Turnipseed has had psychotic treatment.' Atwater played it cool and refused to comment, but later told the reporters off the record, 'In college I understand he got hooked up to jumper cables.' " Karl Rove is Atwater's protégé on jumper cable politics. The weird thing is, given how transparently the Bushes play the game of staying above the fray even as their creepy-crawly surrogates do dishonorable and undignified things, their rivals always seem caught off guard when the third parties show up to rip their throats out. The phlegmatic Michael Dukakis never knew what hit him with Mr. Atwater's Frankenstein monster Willie Horton coming at him in a third party scare ad and G.O.P. smear leaflets and letters. John McCain should have known what was coming in South Carolina, but he acted stunned and hurt when he was hit with the Atwater/Rove mud treatment by shadowy Bush supporters. Just as the Bush campaign dragged out fringe veteran surrogates in South Carolina to slime the former P.O.W. for being antiveteran, now the stomach-turning Swift boat attackers are sliming a war hero as a war criminal. They started their vengeful and brazen campaign in May, after plotting since winter. But John Kerry is only now forcefully responding - though he should have had a response ready, since the Nixon tool John O'Neill has dogged him since '71. Charging on Thursday that Mr. Bush wants the Swift boat sleazoids "to do his dirty work," Mr. Kerry reached for yet another Vietnam reference and water metaphor: "When you're under attack, the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attack." The Skipper would do well to get a swifter boat. How pathetic is it that he's playing defense on Vietnam when W. didn't even serve? Bill Clinton implied two weeks ago that Mr. Kerry was acting sluggish. "Whenever they hit me, I hit 'em back," he told Jon Stewart. "And whenever they came up with a charge I didn't believe was true, I answered back." Reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post last week made it clear that the vile Swift boaters have told wildly varying accounts, sometimes supportive of Mr. Kerry. The Times revealed that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - is that like the administration's Clear Skies Act for spewing pollution? - has a trellis of ties to Karl Rove, the Bush family and Bush supporters. "A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice," Kate Zernike and Jim Rutenberg wrote. Indeed, it was the same woman who worked for a third party group that slimed Mr. McCain on the environment in the 2000 primaries. And the group's ad was produced by the Dukakis tank ad wizards. The Kerry camp knows the Swift boat snipers are hurting the Democrat and fears the Bush oppo campaign will soon move from tarnishing Mr. Kerry's war record to dwell on his days as a shaggy-haired antiwar spokesman. The White House must tear down his heroism before it can tear down his patriotism. Meanwhile, the Bush crew is shamelessly doing to Mr. Kerry what it once did to Mr. McCain: suggesting that the decorated Vietnam vet has snakes in his head and a temperament problem. "Senator Kerry appears to have lost his cool," Scott McClellan told reporters in Crawford on Friday. And the Bush campaign chairman, Marc Racicot, said on CNN that Mr. Kerry looked "wild-eyed" responding to Swift boat muck. It makes sense for W. to use surrogates to do his fighting, just as he did when he slid out of Vietnam and just as he did when he sent our troops to fight his administration's misbegotten vanity war in Iraq. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company