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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (44325)	8/22/2004 2:18:02 PM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

What a joke Bush is. Too bad the American public is laughed at by the rest of the world for believing in him.

To: Mephisto who wrote (44325)	8/22/2004 2:19:07 PM
From: SiouxPal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

I dare you pals to NOT laugh at the speakers at the RNC, and double-dare you to keep a straight face when Dumbya speaks. :•) Sioux... or Suzie-Q as Ann the Bull Dyke says

To: Mephisto who wrote (44325)	8/22/2004 2:47:58 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 81568

Fighting a Phony War By Eleanor Clift Newsweek Friday 20 August 2004 Is the real aim of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to divert attention from Iraq? The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stopped by NEWSWEEK's Washington bureau this week to explain their version of what happened in Vietnam 35 years ago and why John Kerry doesn't deserve three Purple Hearts. None were on the Swift Boat Kerry commanded, but they had charts to illustrate their contention that Kerry's boat did not come under fire and that two of his wounds were self-inflicted, one when he hurled a grenade at a rice bin too close to his position. A generation of reporters far removed from any war experience listened respectfully to their story. Between the fog of war and the passage of time, telling the truth has more to do with politics than memory. These men fought; they didn't come home to a hero's welcome, and they?ll never forgive Kerry for protesting the war and branding them as war criminals. One member of the group recalled how each of them had been issued a 90-pound sea bag, and Kerry sacrificed 10 pounds of socks and clean underwear to pack a typewriter. At the end of a long day of patrols, Kerry would sit hunched over his typewriter plugging away at who-knows-what, the fellow said, so secretive it seemed subversive. They never understood this aloof figure, and the day that he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "April 22, 1971" is as powerful a date to these veterans as the Kennedy assassination. They can tell you exactly where they were when they heard Kerry say he had witnessed war crimes sanctioned by commanders in Vietnam. The fact that Kerry attributed the breakdown in military discipline to the policymakers in Washington is lost on these men, who take Kerry's words personally. This is not about Kerry's performance in Vietnam; it's what he said when he came home. Kerry has never made extravagant claims about his heroism in Vietnam. He never said his wounds were serious, and he never said he didn't want to get out of Vietnam. After three wounds, under military rules, he was entitled to ship out, which he did after a combat tour of four months and 12 days. Nothing these so-called Veterans for Truth have come up with contradicts what Kerry has said, but that's not the point. The Swift Boat veterans have become the Campaign 2004 version of the Scott Peterson trial, trading charges and regularly appearing on the cable-news networks. The book that lays out the charges against Kerry, ?Unfit for Command,? has been No. 1 on Amazon.com for over a week. Never mind that almost daily there's a retraction or a new story to discredit what these veterans are saying. On Thursday, The Washington Post revealed that the military records of Larry Thurlow, who commanded a boat alongside Kerry, contain several references to enemy fire directed at all five boats in the flotilla, sharply contradicting what Thurlow is saying as a leading member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group. The Post got the affidavit through the Freedom of Information Act. The Kerry campaign was curiously passive as the veterans gathered force in the media?as though responding would dignify the scurrilous charges. Kerry finally broke his silence this week, perhaps mindful that a lie unanswered becomes a lie that is believed. Flanked by firefighters in Boston, Kerry stripped the mask of patriotic valor from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by pointing out the source of their funding: a Texas Republican who wrote two checks for $100,000 to the group. Its sudden emergence is reminiscent of the "Republicans for Clean Air," which emerged during the 2000 campaign with a television spot attacking John McCain's environmental record. Long after the ad did its damage to McCain in the New York primary, it was revealed that the Wylie brothers in Texas, who backed Bush, had paid for the advertising. The group itself was a sham, and the Wylie brothers no environmentalists. If the November election is a plebiscite on who better and more courageously served their country in a time of war, Kerry would win. "Kerry gets a bye on this anyway - he was there and Bush wasn't," says John Zogby, an independent pollster who is not aligned with either campaign. He sees the battle over who's telling whose truth in Vietnam as another symptom of the great divide in the country."We are two warring nations and neither nation is listening to the other," he says. 'this is essentially a net zero politically. It's great kindling wood for the Republicans. It's the kind of stuff they need to hear just as Dems need to hear from Michael Moore." Questioning Kerry's heroism fires up the GOP base, but it leaves 'solid undecideds? cold. They?re not paying attention. Zogby says among this very narrow 5 percent of the electorate, 16 percent say Bush deserves to be re-elected; 39 percent say it's time for somebody new."You can't help but look at those numbers and conclude they?ve made up their mind about one side," says Zogby. But Kerry hasn't been able to close the deal. Zogby has him stuck at 47 percent, which isn't good. But Bush is stuck at 43 percent, which is worse."It's still the phony war period," says Zogby. For an incumbent president in as much trouble as Bush, fighting a war that's been over for nearly 30 years takes voters' minds off Iraq. CC