"So Bush is up double digits. Big Deal. I was in Vietnam!"
Posted on 09/07/2004 12:08:35 AM PDT by Former Military Chick
If John Kerry loses this election, August will be seen as the time when he did. But if Kerry wins, it will be because the last month set up the circumstances for his triumph. And as Bill Clinton probably told the Democratic nominee in that pep talk from his hospital room over the weekend, the way the story turns out is, in significant measure, under John Kerry's control. Democrats outside the Kerry campaign have been in a grumpy, jumpy mood since the oxymoronically named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth pushed the media into a frenzy over what Kerry did and didn't do in Vietnam. The month of August was miserable for Kerry and Bush's post-convention bounce has left members of Kerry's party even more depressed.
It's always a bad sign for a campaign when the media run stories about impending campaign shakeups, usually in accounts full of disparaging quotations from (often anonymous) party leaders.
***
In fact, the anti-Kerry ads fit so neatly with the Republican Convention's goal of painting Kerry as soft on defense and not tough enough to deal with terrorism that it becomes ever harder to believe the Bush campaign's denials of any involvement with the Swift boat group.
***
So how could such a terrible month be a setup for a Kerry victory?
The answer lies in the word "overkill." If there is one thing that came through from last week's convention, it is that Republicans knew that Bush could not win on his own record alone. They had to frighten the country about Kerry and were willing to say anything -- to distort Kerry's record and to lie about it if necessary -- to further that end.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The more I read the astute critical analysis and thought that much of the blogoshpere has introduced into the political seen, I've lost respect for many of these "professional" journalists.
This article is an embarrassment.
Nope...no bias here.
Oh,I see. :-)
One thing I will leave with you and anyone else who reads this post. On August 22, 2004, Brit Hume, and Mr. Williams were going at it, as they usually do, this time about the Swiftees. Well, as blood veins popped out and voices got louder, Brit stopped and said to Juan something close to this, Have you read the front page article in the WP. Juan did not reply and Brit said to him, they ran a story on the Swiftee's and they as he was saying was not fond of this group but he said (challenged) Juan to read the article in its entirety. Whether Juan would take the challenge or not, I did and shared it with my husband as well.
So I went to see what his fuss was all about and there was some merit in the article, and I could see why Brit brought it up and why Juan ignored the question. He did say he has skimmed it.
On a closing note, I had a doctors appointment the next day and took my laptop to do some reading and several vets waiting at the pharmacy were reading over my soldier, so I gave them a copy and to my "shocked" reaction it was one of the only articles that they had read for a liberal leaning paper that they felt had merit.
So, take all of my words with what ever weight you may assign to it.
Here is the link to the article:
Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete /Critics Fail to Disprove Kerry's Version of Vietnam War Episode
If you cannot access it, I will send it in PM.
BTW, good morning and thank you for taking the time to read my LONG post.
What you said in post 20...and double it. Lib "journalists" like Dionne always begin with the assumption that their anointed candidate can never be wrong about anything...because they themselves are never wrong about anything. Here's a person (Dionne) who takes the word of one person's memory of events over the words of more than two hundred others. I'll bet that Dionne is deathly afraid that the Swifties might be right. So better to condemn them without proof rather than face facts. And the facts indicate Dionne's candidate is spectacularly unsuited to be CIC.
Cheney had the definitive line:
" Kerry says he sees two Americas. That's understandable since America sees two Kerrys."
Listen...
gurgle, flub, gurgle, flub...
Nah, it was just bubbles from something that sank!
I think I'll stop reading right there. If this guy thinks the Swift Boat Vets aren't telling the truth, then he's completely out of touch with reality.
Support for the Swiftees is crucial right now, so they can get these ads on the air on REGULAR TV in battleground states.
FReepers are key in getting the word out about the righteousness of the SBVFT by exposing Kerry's FRAUD.
These Swiftee window stickers get the word out to the driving public, display public support for the SBVFT, as well as displaying the website address!
Swiftee window sticker thread - get yours! Freep mail for details.
Kerry's smear campaing aginst the Swift Boat Vets is not going to work. There are too many men in the SBVFT, they're united, and they're too credible to effectively discredit them as a group. Then there's another vets group that's about to release a documentary on what Kerry did to POW's in Vietnam. That should be a gutwrenching documentary--I think it's going to be released later this month. Bush should win at least 40 states by the time this is all over. The Fat Lady hasn't even arrived at the opera yet.
In fact, the anti-Bush columns by commentators fit so neatly with the Democrat Convention's goal of painting Kerry as nuanced and Bush as a lying weasel that it become ever harder to believe the Kerry campaign's denials of any involvement with them.
Hey, E.J. didn't you read the memo? No more talk about the Vietnam era.
That reminds me...Where are all you people who stated Hillary will step up and run in '04?
I doubt she'll even run in '08!
Talk about your leaps of logic. No collusion is necessary.
Everyone is painting Kerry as weak, because he IS weak.
E. J. is wrong about everything, and always has been.
It must be strange for him, living in the real world yet writing about a nether world, a world that doesn't exist, and never will exist for anybody other than him.
His opinions aren't worth the toilet paper that he probably writes them on.
Well, EJ has got the talikng points down, all right.
Distortions of Kerry's "record" at the convention?
Name one.
That should be our answer to every charge of "distortion" or "smear" or "attack"-NAME JUST ONE.
They can't handle the truth.
Here I am!
32 days and counting!
IIRC, that was a recent Jay Leno line.
It is worse than just laziness about their jobs. The so-called "mainstream media" believes that it is their job to attack and discredit the incumbent, and only the incumbent. Thus AP can, with a straight face, SUE to get another copy of the President's already released guard records, while not even ASKING Kerry to release the service records he previously pledged to make public. If the "mainstream media" had any sense of balance, they'd SUE to get Kerry's records as well. They haven't and that tells you all you need to know about them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
