Posted on 03/10/2004 4:16:45 PM PST by doug from upland
Note: I just had a conversation with the editor of the Daily Lobo (University of New Mexico) referring to the column which is printed below. He was amazed to learn of the Heinz connections to the phony outrage. He wants the info and told me I could write a letter that they would publish. Instead, I requested that Paul C. Campbell write a followup piece and do his job of fact checking this time. The editor was also amazed to hear that Kerry used the Vietnam Memorial in a commercial in violation of the law and against the wishes of the Capitol Police. What in the hell is going in journalism today? Can't they even do a minimun of homework before shooting off their mouths with their keyboard? Let's see if they actually make Campbell do another piece. It is a good homework lesson for him. If you like, you can attack the other nonsense he included in this column. I will be busy finding another reporter to go after.
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Column:Bush's campaign misses target
Published: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 by Paul C. Campbell
Daily Lobo columnist
The new ads aired last week by the Bush re-election team are making headway in the news with images of firefighters carrying a dead body out from the rubble of the World Trade Center. Victims' families and even some of the firefighters are making noise concerning the ad. Of course, Republicans respond by saying that the families and firefighters were put up to attack the president over the ad. I believe that both sides have legitimate arguments for and against using images of Sept. 11. However, I would have advised the Democrats to attack the president in a far different way.
The outrage of the victims' families and the firefighters seems to be genuine. If I lost a loved one in the World Trade Center, I would be angry that Bush is using my loss to play on the emotions and fears of the American people for his own political benefit. Democrats need to realize that it comes as no surprise that members of the Bush administration, as well as the Republicans in Washington, would use anything for their political benefit. They have always done this, and they always will.
I would have used the ads to attack the president with a different message that would resonate much longer. I would question the fact that after three-and-a-half years of being in office, President Bush has nothing to talk about other than the Sept. 11 tragedies. I would question why Bush is building his campaign upon something so terrible.
It's because his focus could not be on any other issue.
President Bush can't talk about the economy because there are still 2.9 million Americans who have lost their jobs under this administration as well as a $4.7 trillion projected deficit over the next 10 years. He can't talk about health care because more and more Americans are losing access to health care because of skyrocketing premiums. He definitely shouldn't talk about education with his No Child Left Behind Act, which is destroying our public school system because it is an unfunded mandate. The recent prescription drug plan for our seniors was supposed to be Bush's landmark piece of legislation. However, back in reality, it is just another sellout to the pharmaceutical corporations. Civil liberties and civil rights? Well, he has no idea what they are.
Despite what Republican talking heads will say, we are far worse today in terms of the threat of terrorist attacks than we were before Sept. 11. The war in Iraq has only made the United States even more ostracized from the rest of the world. The adamant refusal by the Bush administration to seek out a true world coalition to put up against Saddam Hussein by going to the United Nations was not such a smart move. Many Americans made fun of France and Germany for questioning the intentions of the United States with the war in Iraq, but it should have made Americans stop and think. It should have raised some eyebrows that two of the most war-torn countries of the last century were wary about going to war. Hmm ...
With Bush being such a dismal failure as president of the United States, it is going to take at least the next four years to repair all that has been destroyed. Most re-election campaigns say something about what they have accomplished in the first term, and they give arguments for the need of another term to finish the job they started. It is no surprise that Bush does not seem to understand this very vital point of electoral politics.
N: Ryan, Editor
Ryan, it was a pleasure speaking with you. Here is a link from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review to get you started on the connection between Heinz and Peaceful Tomorrows.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/s_169770.html
Rita Lazar, a spokeswoman for the group, was a volunteer then a paid worker in Clinton's first campaign.
NY POST STORY:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/20231.htm
WALL STREET JOURNAL:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004797
Joe Farah's piece:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37244
If Paul C. Campbell wants to have a career in journalism, he is going to have to learn to research a story. Pursuant to our conversation, I hope he will do a followup. It will be a good homework assignment.
Have him check on the Tides Foundation and the boards on which Teresa Heinz sits. They try to disguise it very nicely. Have him discover that this outrage was ready to go and that moveon.org helped set this up. How does he think these people were all over the media saying the same things? They appeared on NBC with Katie Couric immediately. If Paul checks, I think he will find that the ads did not even run in New York. Look at the language of the people involved. They were using talking points. From where does he think they received those talking points? The outraged firefighters were actually union people. Try reaching a friend of mine, fireman Mike Moran, who lost his brother at the WTC. Mike is the guy who got up on the stage at the Concert for New York and told Osama bin Laden to "kiss my royal Irish ass." Mike will tell you how the firefighters feel.
Here's another hint. In 1984, John Kerry filmed and used a TV commercial with the Vietnam Memorial as the backdrop. That was in violation of the law and contrary to the wishes of the Park Police.
I appreciate hit pieces and creative criticism that are well researched. They can be funny and thought provoking. This piece, however, was sloppy journalism and not even worthy of a junior high school newspaper.
If the Bush campaign's 9/11 ads are as repugnant and inappropriate in the public's eye as he says, then why is the campaign continuing to run the ads? Any advertising expert worth a lick will tell you that if you put out a total bomb of an ad that only offends your customers, the first thing you do is pull it, and then determine how much damage was done and how to fix it. The 9/11 ads are still running almost a week after the media-concocted outrage story broke. Is the Bush campaign really so inept that they would continue to run an ad that's killing them?
Another young liberal journalism student who probably couldn't wipe his butt if someone gave him the paper. These students have been so brainwashed starting in public grade school that they are incapable of seeing the reality of the real world beyond their cozy corner of the campus. They have been indoctrinated in the idea that if we could all just get along, the world would be a happy place with lots of flowers and chirping birds. He has no idea of the struggles going on in the middle east, for example, or that democracy is starting to take root in Iraq as a result of our efforts.
The other night I was scanning the radio dial while driving and came across NPR's Sunday p.m. news show. They were interviewing a TV news reporter who had a question about ethics. It turns out he is a big supporter of various "social justice" groups and often attends such rallies and those of political candidates who share his views. His question to the "ethics guest expert" was how far should he go to avoid a conflict of interest with his reporting. The obvious answer from the "expert" was you don't report on those events you attend, or the candidate you support. Left out of the discussion was how his obvious support of these causes colors his whole approach to reporting of politics and candidates. Because he can not be objective when he holds such strong views, he is much more likely to color his reporting in such a way that supports his beliefs and views. This is the danger of a fourth estate that has been indoctrinated in the way described above, and this bias has now become so pervasive that the reporters themselves cannot recognize their bias and indeed deny they have one.
Doug, thanks for taking the lead on this, and I added NM to topics so others here would see it.
A change is needed in 2004
by Johnny Donaldson
March 10, 2004
Election day is approaching. We have narrowed down the pig pile of Democratic candidates to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who looks more like a melted candle than any other previous presidential hopeful. We are facing the moment of truth: the moment where we decide to either A) take a look at the state of the country and decide to fix it or B) let the fat-cat incumbent have office for another four long years.
Yep, 2004 is the year when we'll know whether America is sick of George W. Bush's inept, dangerous idea of presidential duty, or whether we are gullible enough to buy even more of his creative lies and allow him to rule for another term.
Me? You may not have guessed yet, but I'm willing to do without Bush and his cronies for the rest of my life. Who needs to be led down - yet again - the weedy path to war, to economic instability, to environmental destruction and to Bush's special brand of fundamentalist Christian, narrow-minded moralizing?
We all know by now that the war in Iraq was a sham, that Bush wasted the lives of countless American servicemen and women and even more innocent Iraqi's to cement his own bullheaded, short-sighted machismo. His now-known-to-be-false declarations of WMDs in Iraq were just the work of an angry, overgrown frat boy seeking to correct an insult on him and his property. Since that "insult" was as catastrophic as Sept. 11 that required the man with the itchy trigger finger to send over military action to a desert country, while hostile, had nothing to do with the attacks. But boy did Bush's war-mongering briefly make him - and, by extension, America - look strong and tough. (No, it just made us look more stupid and egotistical than we already are perceived to be.)
So we know all that now. Now Bush wants to move away from the controversy of the war to some new controversies that will - in his mind at least - make him look like the ideal candidate for the 2004 presidency. He wants to exploit the tragedy of Sept. 11 for his own gaining, using horrifying images of death and destruction from that day to further his own end. He's using the grief and pain of the families of victims to help promote himself as some sort of modern American hero, bravely leading the country after the worst man-made tragedy since Pearl Harbor. All hail, the self-made deity George W. Bush and his use of emotional manipulation to fraud a public still hurting - almost three years later - from one of the biggest mass murders in American history! Forget that he has, is, and probably will continue to use the terrorist attacks as his own personal "heroic" photo opportunity.
When he's not busy riding on the coattails of suffering to score himself a political victory, Bush is busy surfing the waves of ignorance and discrimination - all in the name of preserving the "sanctity" of marriage. Bush has been vigorously pushing for an amendment to the Constitution to ban gay marriage. Bush wants to take the living will of the people, the document that has, for over 200 years, protected our rights as citizens in this country of ours, and use it to forbid a percentage of those citizens from having equal rights. And this is the man that represents the American people? If he represents us, than all the strides we, as a people, have made in favor of equality the years will be rendered moot. With Bush at the helm, we are basically saying that we are nation of people who are separate but equal, where only certain folks receive freedoms. Another person has no right to tell another person what to do, unless the person's activities negatively affect others. Loving a person, regardless of his or her gender, should not come under any legal jurisdiction. No one has the right to put limits on who anyone can love, even if they don't personally find it "moral."
Bush's nefarious recent activities also extend to include outsourcing jobs to foreign countries despite the fact that our economy has been ailing since Bush's 2001 inauguration. According to the AFL-CIO website, the economy has lost 2.9 million private sector and 2.8 million manufacturing jobs, leading to a unemployment rate that's been at it's highest since 1983. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors has said it would have established 3.9 million new jobs (upwards of almost 325,000 a month), but is currently 1.8 million shy of its goal. Bush ignores the workers he courts with his tasteless, but manipulative ad campaign designed to prey on their patriotic, full-blooded-American beliefs. He sends needed jobs overseas to, as he says, boost our economy and forgets the millions of struggling Americans lost with sources of income. How does this help? Yes, outsourcing costs less in taxpayer money than hiring within, but without jobs those Americans can't even pay their taxes. Bush serves his own special interests, not the people. Hopefully, we won't lose sight of that as November draws near.
Johnny Donaldson is a Collegian columnist.
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My retort (buried in the online version of the paper):
Oh, where to start!
Bush is a "fat cat incumbent" and Kerry is not? Kerry, the man that has taken more special interest money than any other Senator?
"inept, dangerous idea of presidential duty." Partisanship aside, why don't you define that and compare and contrast to Clinton's reign? Oh, and don't forget to list the "creative lies." Similarly, compare to Clinton and Kerry's records.
"Economic instability." Let's see, the stock market is nearly at the 11,000 level, right were it as at its peak during the 90's, and most indicators of the economy all show things to be steadily and sometimes spectacularly, improving. The dirty little secret is that jobs are usually the last thing to improve, which is why you and the Democrats are pouncing on the topic, in hopes that it won't improve before the election. Of course, I am sure that you believe that the constant tearing down of the market by the Dems has no effect on consumer confidence. No, of course not.
"We all know by now that the war in Iraq was a sham, that Bush wasted the lives of countless American servicemen and women and even more innocent Iraqi's to cement his own bullheaded, short-sighted machismo." A sham? Tell it to an Iraqi. The only Iraqis upset by Saddam's fall are the Hussein family and its supporters. And let's not forget the foreign terrorists, justifiably concerned that a free Iraq will be a model for a modern, civilized Islamic world, extinguishing their reason for being (they would have to get real jobs!). Countless American servicemen? While even one is a tragedy, the numbers have been remarkably low, compared to say, Vietnam. Ask your pal, Kerry.
The rest of your fanciful screed can be answered simply by indicating to you that every single country (yes, Germany, France and Russia too!), the UN, even Saddam himself, believed that Hussein had WMDs. None of that changed until we had unrestricted access to the ground in Iraq. So now your "now-known-to-be-false declarations of WMDs in Iraq" statement should read "now-known-to-be-false, but previously believed to be true (by everyone, including Kerry, by the way) declarations of WMDs in Iraq....." The rest of the sentence is just partisan bloviating, so I will let it die on its own.
Next: "He wants to exploit the tragedy of Sept. 11 for his own gaining, using horrifying images of death and destruction from that day to further his own end." Just as Kerry uses (in every breath) the considerable horror of Vietnam? "He's using the grief and pain of the (two at last count, both getting money from Teresa Heinz's political foundations. The head of the firefighter's union, speaking only for himself, is a self proclaimed shill for Kerry. Now who's lying?) families of victims to help promote himself as some sort of modern American hero, bravely leading the country after the worst man-made tragedy since Pearl Harbor." So the President can't use the most defining moment of his presidency for his own re-election? Since you bring it up, are you aware that Roosevelt freely used Pearl Harbor in his reelection campaign, by the way? Will he be allowed to mention that he is currently the President, or will that be using the office of the President to "further his own ends?"
On the issue of gay marriage, while I don't have a horse in this race, the real argument is about the definition of marriage, not gay rights. Homosexuals could get all the rights they demand, every single one, through civil unions, without opening the legal precedence can of worms that will do nothing but make work for lawyers. Kerry is against gay marriage and for civil unions too. So is he equally attempting to preserve the sanctity of marriage and forbidding certain citizens from having equal rights? Is Kerry "busy surfing the waves of ignorance and discrimination?" You don't seem to address this in your column. Double standards are not a good thing; they lead to rampant hypocrisy.
Outsourcing didn't start with Bush, although this column makes it sound so. Kerry signed onto NAFTA too, if you will recall. Your quotes of job loss etc. all neglect the single biggest reason for job loss and the perpetuation of the aftereffects of the Clinton recession: the tragedy of 9/11. But, unfortunately, we can't bring that up because it is somehow "politically incorrect." I guess we can't mention the economists that believe that the President's tax cuts blunted the negative effects of the recession. No, the Democrats wouldn't admit that even though they know it.
One last question: if "the millions of struggling Americans" can't pay their taxes now, how will they if a President Kerry raises them? Oh, it will only be on the rich, right? Well, with tax loopholes and the ability of the rich to outsource their income and investments overseas, the Kerry "plan" might be just so much whole cloth.
Now that you have some more facts, should you take back your accusations, or should we just brand you a "creative liar?" I will give you the benefit of the doubt, more than you see fit to give the President.
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