The Smear Campaign Against Kerry

America needs 12 good years with Democrats in the Whitehouse, and a 55% Congress.

I hope Bush loses. I'm totally voting for Kerry.

 

You must not be surpised, this is exactly what an election campaign is, continuous punches under the belt in order to cause damage to the opponent and it happens always and everywhere.

 

I generally avoid the television, but ended up watching five hours straight of US news coverage, including Fox (Faux) News, on a flight a few days ago, and I came very close to ripping the monitor out of the seat back in front of me. The "Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth" are truly unbelievable: a crew of goons originally brought together by Nixon (!?) in 1971 to discredit Kerry, only one of whom was anywhere near Kerry during the incident in question, and even his testimony was contradicted by his own war records (as he also won a bronze star for the incident). They charge that Kerry both 1) exagerrated the danger he was in, and 2) needlessly put his boat in danger; of course, the obvious contradiction here doesn't matter, as they know that all they have to do is plant doubt in the public mind through the endless faux-debate of non-issues. And so they go through each medal and purple heart, one by one, casting doubt on each, trying to distract the public from the obvious: that even if one or the other of the incidents were exagerrated, Kerry did put himself in danger while W and Cheney either took out deferments or went AWOL.

Not that I think that military service is a necessary or even desirable thing for political leaders, but this whole Swift Boat thing is incredible in the raw cynicism of the Bush campaign. Of course, the Bush team did the same thing to McCain in the 2000 primaries, going as far as to hint that McCain was a bit crazy for having spent years as a Vietnamese POW (as well as, in South Carolina, reminding voters that McCain has a 'black' daughter: he adopted a girl from Bangladesh!)

Hopefully the US electorate are sensible, and this whole thing blows up in Bush's face...

 

You know wha's funny? Bush's spokesman is a fraternity brother of mine. We lived in the same house in college. He always was a weasly bugger!

 

Oh Please give me a break.

The amount of whining about the swift-boat veterans is so hypocritical that all the lefties should bow their heads in shame.

Does the name George Soros ring a bell? All the moaning about the SBV is that a millionaire that supports Bush put up some money to get them started. The silence is deafening regarding Soros (the billionaire) who according to the above link has funded at a minimum 15.5 MILLION dollars to get Bush voted out of office.

I guess freedom of speech only applies if you agree with what the speaker is saying.

At least the SBV are veterans and American citizens as opposed to Soros who is from Hungary

 

I still don't hear a reason why it is O.K. for Soros to fund groups whose sole purpose is to oust Bush. These groups are aggressively advertising in the "swing" states. SBV are doing the same thing and are nowhere near as well funded. I also don't hear any condemnations about Bruce Springstreen and his group of political activists that are planning concerts in "swing" states to oust Bush.

As to corruption. I have no idea what you are talking about. I haven't seen anything that links the SBV getting direct or indirect money from the Bush campaign. I also take offence at the implied insult that the veterans are being paid to lie for Bush. Veterans (and current military personnel) tend to be conservative, so their support of Bush and dislike of Kerry is not surprising.

The SBV campaign must be very effective for the Kerry people to be so upset. Seems to me that the pot is calling the kettle black.

 

Much ado about nothing again, as far as I can see. No matter how the Bush camp tries to spin this, there are some undeniable facts here:

1. Kerry fought in Vietnam, while Bush was bravely defending America by serving in Alabama's National guard. Of course that just as dangerous.

2. Regardless of the severity of Kerry's injuries, he acquired them while serving his country. He was shooting people and getting shot at and had his life on the line.

Since when do we critique veteran's anyway? It seems like they don't like HOW Kerry served his country? Is this the best we can come up with? That Kerry wasn't wounded BADLY enough. That he could have killed a few more Vietnamese while over there? OK, so Kerry received relatively minor injuries, but do we require out vets to get a limb blown off or be otherwise permanently disabled before we respect what they did?

 

I still don't understand why military experience has become some huge determing factor of presidential leadership. I think 8 out of the first 10 presidents had little or no military experience. You can be a strong leader, and not be a military hero!

 

I fail to see the relevance of this argumentation line. If it's OK for one from the former dual monarchy of Austria-Hungaria to become governor of California, why shoud others from the same patch of land not be allowed to become polticially active ? And what about that German guy... Kissinger former secretary of state ? Madeleine Albright is also from Hungary, I think. The other German guy, Rumsfeld, when did he immigrate or did his grand-parents immigrate ? Collin Powell, from the West-Indies, I think...

 

O.K. I'm feeling a little feisty today so why not.

1. You dislike President Bush. I can accept that as everyone is entitled to an opinion
2. You are convinced that the Bush Campaign is secretly funding the SBV smear campaign. Personally I don't see how this possible as campaigns have to release tremendous amounts of documents on every dime received and spent. If the campaign was funding it would be obvious.
3. If the point is that the campaign agrees with the SBV claims and methods than you are probably right, however that is politics as usual.
4. That somehow this is completely different from the smear campaigns being run by liberal private groups and therefore it is bad.

1. That since the "prominent Texas businessman" have longtime ties to the Republicans and Bush their support of the SBV is wrong. Am I to assume that everyone who has longtime ties to the Democrats and Kerry have provided no support to moveon.org etc?

Last I checked moveon.org has been around alot longer than the SBV. However, I could be wrong.

If you are questioning how much money each side is spending you are correct. It will probably be a staggering amount by the time the elections are finally over, assuming Bush doesn't cancel the elections (one of my favorite conspiracy theories).

My point in this thread is that once again the hatred of Bush by the liberals is blinding them so they only see "evil" by Bush and their guys doing the exact same thing are the "good guys".

 

Is it the method that we are discussing here? I thought it was the message. That both parties do their best to get out as much stuff as possible I think we all can agree on. When it comes to the SBV I was under the impression that the question is whether they are anywhere near the truth and if it is ok to belittle someones tour of duty.

From what I have heard and read so are the SBV's claims very very shaky and seems to have very little to do with reality.

 

That may very well be the case. I long ago learned that in politics learning the Truth is almost impossible. I'm not sure I completely believe either side. I am convinced that Kerry was not in Vietnam to fight, but was there to make a resume. I'm sure Bush is jealous that his dad didn't think of it first.


EDIT

This just in.

Here are a few quotes from the article.

I guess now we will have to see if the Kerry campaign is willing to agree and call off the 527s. Anyone want to take any bets?

[ August 23, 2004, 20:40: Message edited by: The Great Snook ]

 

Of course you haven't.

Go to Moveon.org which is the group that Soros is backing. Just scroll down the left column and you will see all sorts of smears.

Here is a quick list

1. "The communists have Pravda, republicans have Fox" was in the NY Times
2. A fire Rumsfeld t.v. ad with the statue of liberty with a black cloth covering her head.
3. A t.v. ad calling for the censure of Bush

Surely you don't believe the media only commenting on a smear campaign aimed at Kerry is a coincidence. If we can't get the media to report fairly in our own country, why should we expect foreigners to get better information. About the only spot you could go to ever find out this information would be Fox News. But then again, the media has told everyone not believe them because they are bad. Please note the heavy sarcasm.

 

Your suggestion that "the media is only commenting on a smear campaign aimed at Kerry" is a little disengenous, it seems to me, especially given the wide coverage your Fox-identified "liberal media" gave of what turn out to be demonstrably false (and intentionally misleading) accusations.

I also can't see the equivalence between the SBV accusations, which essentially claim that Kerry didn't deserve his medals in Vietnam, and any of the three examples you cite of moveon.org advertising. None of them constitute an equivalently personal attack, nor are any of them intentionally misleading.

Please identify for me a anti-Bush smear campaign similar to the SBV campaign (i.e., an intentionally misleading personal attack) that got similar mass-media coverage. Liberal media, indeed.

 

He, he I like some of the videos they have. My favourite one was where there's a father called George and does quite a lot of funny stuff, like leaving his son behind and selling his daughter. Very funny and quite accurate, I think. In a metaphorical sense, of course. By the way, you know that I've already outed myself, I want Bush/Cheney to win, because of very deep and weird reasoning.

But I think, all those adds are fair, at least those I've seen and those you've mentioned. Some of them are rough and I don't want to any similar developments around where I live, but it's your carneval and obviously the local custom is to always go for the underwear. If in Rome, do as the Romans...

Yet I still think that Swift-Boat-One goes a little bit far. Besides being absolutely pointless of arguing the govermental procedure of giving out medals approx. 30 years after the procedure has taken place. That's like revising a balance sheet from 1972, a rather inpractical thing to do. That could have been much more enlightning around 1974 or so.

But according to what I've picked up from the net, if your political oppenent participated in a war, it's a tried and tested and often succesful approach to cast some worrying shadows over that time. That is, if you can't find no former ex-girls that like to wash dirt-laundry.

"The communists have Pravda, republicans have Fox". True, and the Russians don't get proper credit for their innovation.

Hm, by the way. I assume you speak only one language. How then could you ever really know that media outside of your country has an equally low standard like in yours ? Except you get through your own media or other channels of hearsay. (sarcasm attempted)

Edit: Looking for a synonym for party in a not politcal sense.

Edit2: Add: But I must say that you information channels are better then Italian ones, even if not so good looking.

[ August 23, 2004, 23:54: Message edited by: Iago ]

 

Well, if the US were Italy, then Rupert Murdoch would be president, not Bush...