Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: LindyBill who wrote (72438)	9/21/2004 9:33:18 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793838

Hugh Hewitt - D.C. lawyer Ben Ginsburg --general counsel for Bush-Cheney '04 until he resigned last month to avoid allowing a spurious charge of coordination between the Swift Boat Vets and Bush-Cheney to divert attention from the campaign-- joined me this evening. HH: "Would you term the CBS -Joe Lockhart-Bill Burkett trilogy as collusion?" BG: "Well there certainly is an interesting concurrence of events that occurred from the time that CBS arranged for Bill Burkett to call Joe Lockhart and Joe talked to him apparently on the Saturday before the CBS segment ran." HH: "Is there any potential here, and I mean "potential," of any criminal wrongdoing in any of the allegations that you have seen surface thus far?" BG: "No, I can't say that there is a criminal issue at work here. I think it is more certainly a black eye for CBS and the Lockhart involvement takes this sort of coordinated smear campaign right into the heart of the Kerry and Democratic national Committee operations, and that's something they will really have to answer for." HH: "Ben Ginsburg, what sort of questions should serious journalists be posing the Kerry campaign and to CBS right now?" BG: "Well, what exactly were all the contacts between CBS and the Kerry campaign, and what role did the Kerry campaign or the Democratic National Committee have with the false documents. On top of that, they have some explaining to do because of the confluence of events. CBS goes on on September 8th with the forged documents. Also on the show is Ben Barnes, a major contributor to the Kerry campaign, and remember how much was made of one $200,000 contributor to the Swift Boat Veterans by the media when they wanted to tat tacattack the Bush Campaign and Swift Boat Veterans." HH: "That's right." BG: "On top of that the Boston Globe got a document dump that was critical of the president's national guard service on that Thursday, the day after the broadcast. Nicholas Kristof, the liberal columnist for the New York Times, faithfully wrote a column on that Thursday all about the president's national guard service. Also on that Thursday, Texans for Truth began running its ads. That group got its initial funding from MoveOn.org, and of course MoveOn.org is represented by the Democratic National Committee attorney, and their pollster was Stanley Greenburg, who has now gone to work for the Kerry campaign. And lastly, Terry McAuliffe, DNC Chairman, had the press conference on that Thursday to allege that the president was AWOL. That's a lot of events at the same period of time, all a smear campaign, all centered on the forged documents, and those are the questions that the media really should be asking about the role of the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee." HH::" Now, Ben Ginsburg, you have been an insider on presidential campaigns. Is it possible that John Kerry was unaware of the CBS document contacts between Max Cleland and Joe Lockhart and his campaign?" BG: "To be honest, I do think it is possible that he was unaware of it. I think when those operations take place, they by and large are staff initiatives, and the whole concept of deniability is one that staffers would probably try and put into place. What John Kerry certainly was aware of was the impact at that time, when all those events occurred, that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisements were having, after all, those are 250 men who served closely with John Kerry in Vietnam who have serious questions about his fitness to be commander in chief, and they were taking a bite out of his hide in the polls and certainly John Kerry would be aware of that.... I think coincidences in the last six weeks of a presidential campaign are about as real as the tooth fairy."