If you hear this new anti-Kerry ad in which "swift boat veterans" speak up against John Kerry, please bear the following in mind.  None of these veterans served on Kerry's boat.  Of the six men on Kerry's swift, one is dead, and the other five support the senator.

Here is a good link about the anti-Kerry vets, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.  I haven't read it all yet myself, nor explored all the links contained herein:
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth

Here is Snopes debunking from back in February:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp

As far as I know, a soldier cannot petition for medals.  Whether to award medals is strictly up to a soldier's superiors.  Some right-wingers claim real heroes don't wear it on their sleeve.  Perhaps.  I would say a hero who talks constantly of his valor denigrates his heroism.  However, it is downright dishonorable for a group of veterans to gang up on a brother veteran for partisan political purposes, as is being done by SBVT.  I mean, in some cases it would be warranted, like if Lt. William Calley was running for the senate!  However, SBVT's claims are dubious and petty at best.

John McCain is on Kerrys side on this one.  He knows how underhanded the bush camp
can be having been unfairly mauled by them in the last campaign. He has asked the White House
to openly disassociate themselves from this rhetoric.  There is also an apology from Lt. Commander
George Elliot who signed and affidavit that suggested Kerry did not deserve his Silver Star. 

John McCain is on Kerrys side on this one.  He knows how underhanded the bush camp
can be having been unfairly mauled by them in the last campaign. He has asked the White House
to openly disassociate themselves from this rhetoric.  There is also an apology from Lt. Commander
George Elliot who signed and affidavit that suggested Kerry did not deserve his Silver Star. 


I saw an interview with one of the anti-Kerry swift boat guys and the fellow Kerry pull out of the water, who was not one of Kerry's crew, but a special forces passenger.  Both agree that there were 5 boats in two columns, Kerry's, with 2 boats near one bank and 3 boats near the other.  The rest they "remember" differently.  I wonder how wide the river was where this incident took place.  How close was the 3 boat unit to Kerry's 2 boat unit?  Lots of BS going on here, lots of mud slinging.  I certainly trust the memories of those closest to the action to those who were how far away? And engaged in rescuing people from the lead boat in their unit.  So this anti-Kerry guy (Thurlow I think is is name) was paying close attention to what was going on on the other side of the river while he was engaged in rescuing people from his lead boat which hit a mine.  Yeah, right.

I wonder who is funding this group - Richard Mellon Scaife perhaps?

the SBVT are an interesting bunch:

Larry Thurlow for instance:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/5/162248/3128

He claims there was no gun fire that day, but yet also received a citation for his actions that day. 

Or George Elliott:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/06/veteran_retracts_criticism_of_kerry/

Lieutenant Commander George Elliott said in an interview that he had made a ''terrible mistake" in signing an affidavit that suggests Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star.

Adrian Lonsdale:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/6/105056/6162

Lonsdale, who, in 1996, quite easily praised Kerry for the same conduct he is now criticizing him for it in an ad?

It's just dirty politics.  It's sad to think there are people who don't bother to think about these things past the ad they see, and go online and see what the credibility of the group making the accusations is.  One of these people funding the ad was hand picked by Nixon in the early seventies to go after Kerry.  We all know what a fine upstanding individual Nixon was.

If you hear this new anti-Kerry ad in which "swift boat veterans" speak up against John Kerry, please bear the following in mind.  None of these veterans served on Kerry's boat.  Of the six men on Kerry's swift, one is dead, and the other five support the senator.

Here is a good link about the anti-Kerry vets, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.  I haven't read it all yet myself, nor explored all the links contained herein:
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth

Here is Snopes debunking from back in February:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp

As far as I know, a soldier cannot petition for medals.  Whether to award medals is strictly up to a soldier's superiors.  Some right-wingers claim real heroes don't wear it on their sleeve.  Perhaps.  I would say a hero who talks constantly of his valor denigrates his heroism.  However, it is downright dishonorable for a group of veterans to gang up on a brother veteran for partisan political purposes, as is being done by SBVT.  I mean, in some cases it would be warranted, like if Lt. William Calley was running for the senate!  However, SBVT's claims are dubious and petty at best.



Whats even more interesting (and Hannity was talking about this) is that their is a picture with Kerry and 25 other men.  2 are dead, 1 supports Kerry, and the other 23 are against him.

Remember that one of the men in the commercial was Kerry's commanding officer, and that this was not approved by president Bush.  The Hitler-Bush commericial from moveon.org was by far worse.

Whats even more interesting (and Hannity was talking about this) is that their is a picture with Kerry and 25 other men.  2 are dead, 1 supports Kerry, and the other 23 are against him.

Remember that one of the men in the commercial was Kerry's commanding officer, and that this was not approved by president Bush.  The Hitler-Bush commericial from moveon.org was by far worse.


Where is the picture you are referring to?  Kerry was here at the DNC with the guys who were on his
swift boat, and with the guy he pulled out of the water.  There  was many more than one, all were
alive, and all were supporting him for the nation to see.

Whats even more interesting (and Hannity was talking about this) is that their is a picture with Kerry and 25 other men.  2 are dead, 1 supports Kerry, and the other 23 are against him.

Remember that one of the men in the commercial was Kerry's commanding officer, and that this was not approved by president Bush.  The Hitler-Bush commericial from moveon.org was by far worse.

It certainly was not "approved" by President Bush.  McCain has also come out strongly against it.  I find it interesting that Kerry's commanding officer supported him 35 years ago, but now, as a partisan Republican, stands against him.  I heard about the picture to which you refer, and the for/against ratio sounds bloody dubious to me.  Let's say it's true, however.  Combat vets don't hate Bush because they never got the chance to serve with him.  Anyway, 23 men standing around Kerry and not liking him thirty-something years ago is not a compelling case to change my registration to Republican.  What are ya kidding?

Furthermore, if Bush and his campaign don't like the SBVT anti-Kerry ad, why should you?

And for the last stinking time, the ads comparing Bush to Hitler were submitted to Moveon.org as part of a contest.  Those ads were not created by the political action element of the organization.  They were created by individuals and sent to the organization.  Furthermore, the ads were not considered for any awards in the contest and were removed from the site when people took offense.

This is the part of the election that I HATE!!!  Whether or not I agreed with them, I would vote for ANY candidate that didn't pull this kind of BS.


While I have some disagreements with you on another thread, here I completely agree.  But check out the "sticky thread" on the electoral vote.  As long as the blue total is higher that 270, you can expect more of these "unofficial" attack ads, and note that the Bush campaign has not repudiated them in anywhere near the force that Sen. MaCain has.  How come?  And who is funding them?

While I have some disagreements with you on another thread, here I completely agree.  But check out the "sticky thread" on the electoral vote.  As long as the blue total is higher that 270, you can expect more of these "unofficial" attack ads, and note that the Bush campaign has not repudiated them in anywhere near the force that Sen. MaCain has.  How come?  And who is funding them?


That is very misleading, different polls show different results.  The current Gallup poll shows Bush ahead by 6%, and I've seen many state by state polls showing is ahead, its depends of who you poll and what you ask.  Also many polls are within the +/-4% margin of error. 

For the republicans read this, it was posted by a democrat:

Why Bush is going to win

Kerry's a captive of the overbearing, elitist wing of his party



In 1972, The New Yorker's movie critic, Pauline Kael, won herself a place in political lore by expressing astonishment at the Republicans' 49-state landslide victory. "How could that be?" she demanded. "I don't know a single person who voted for Nixon."
I don't live in such a rarified world, but most of my friends are voting for John Kerry. And I imagine that a good many will be shocked when President Bush wins in November.

It is possible that no Democrat could beat Bush this year. The President has Ralph Nader on his side, and demography. Since the 2000 election, shifts in population have added seven electoral votes to the Red Bush states and subtracted seven from Goreland.

This alone might be enough to put Bush over the top in a tight race. But despite the polls, I don't think this election will be close, and this time the Democratic establishment won't be able to blame the Supreme Court. If they're fair, they'll blame themselves. Since this is politics, they'll blame the candidate.

John Kerry is not a bad man. He probably wouldn't make a bad President. But he is a bad candidate in a terrible situation. He represents the wing of the Democratic Party that is imbued with a sense of its own moral, intellectual, cultural and social superiority. In short, he is the standard bearer for the unbearable.

These people don't comprise a majority of the electorate or even Democratic voters (how could they and remain an elite?), but they have convinced themselves that they and their candidate - if packaged properly - will prove irresistibly attractive to lesser Americans.

Boston, with its flag-waving and saluting and balloon-blowing was supposed to be a commercial for this new and superior brand of politics. But Americans are expert TV watchers. A lot of them voted with their remotes. Those who did watch weren't impressed. The Democrats' much anticipated post-convention bump turned into a thud. George McGovern got one of those in 1972.

Kerry now has 90 days to convince voters that a Bush victory in November would be, as his wife put it in Milwaukee on Monday, "four more years of hell."

The problem is, most Americans don't regard their lives as "hell" or Bush as Satan. The economy, after all, is not really in a Great Depression. In fact, it's doing pretty well. Iraq isn't Vietnam, and won't be unless there's a draft. The Islamic jihad against America isn't Bush's fault, either. A candidate who insists otherwise is bound to strike voters as detached from reality.

Kerry ought to know this, and he may. But his party is dominated, as it was in 1972, by people who talk only to one another and who are convinced that everybody despises Bush. They will judge Kerry by how hard he goes after the Crawford Beelzebub.

Right now the polls look even. But that's an optical illusion. The President has a Republican convention coming up and the power of incumbency to shape events between now and November. In other words, he's way ahead.

Kerry is a weak campaigner. Barring some kind of national disaster, his best shot is the debates. Democratic true believers think he'll kill Bush, one on one. That's what they thought about Al Gore, too.

Calling a presidential race in August is risky, especially a race that's supposedly close. But no guts, no glory. Bush will beat Kerry in a walk. If I'm right, you read it here first. If not, well, even Pauline Kael got it wrong once in a while.

Where is the picture you are referring to? 
Answer GWB04? What erks me isn't when someone prints any and every piece of negative trash they read or hear about as if it were the Gospel, it's that a portion of the undecided voting public read or hear it and believe it. And the White House didn't refute or come out against the SBVT BS as John McCain suggested...............no, rather, they came out with the bold, original statement that "both sides should refrain from negative campaigning"................GMAB!

GW, who was the democrat that wrote the piece about that you have cited?

That is very misleading, different polls show different results.  The current Gallup poll shows Bush ahead by 6%, and I've seen many state by state polls showing is ahead, its depends of who you poll and what you ask.  Also many polls are within the +/-4% margin of error.   

For the republicans read this, it was posted by a democrat:

Why Bush is going to win

Kerry's a captive of the overbearing, elitist wing of his party



In 1972, The New Yorker's movie critic, Pauline Kael, won herself a place in political lore by expressing astonishment at the Republicans' 49-state landslide victory. "How could that be?" she demanded. "I don't know a single person who voted for Nixon."
I don't live in such a rarified world, but most of my friends are voting for John Kerry. And I imagine that a good many will be shocked when President Bush wins in November.

It is possible that no Democrat could beat Bush this year. The President has Ralph Nader on his side, and demography. Since the 2000 election, shifts in population have added seven electoral votes to the Red Bush states and subtracted seven from Goreland.

This alone might be enough to put Bush over the top in a tight race. But despite the polls, I don't think this election will be close, and this time the Democratic establishment won't be able to blame the Supreme Court. If they're fair, they'll blame themselves. Since this is politics, they'll blame the candidate.

John Kerry is not a bad man. He probably wouldn't make a bad President. But he is a bad candidate in a terrible situation. He represents the wing of the Democratic Party that is imbued with a sense of its own moral, intellectual, cultural and social superiority. In short, he is the standard bearer for the unbearable.

These people don't comprise a majority of the electorate or even Democratic voters (how could they and remain an elite?), but they have convinced themselves that they and their candidate - if packaged properly - will prove irresistibly attractive to lesser Americans.

Boston, with its flag-waving and saluting and balloon-blowing was supposed to be a commercial for this new and superior brand of politics. But Americans are expert TV watchers. A lot of them voted with their remotes. Those who did watch weren't impressed. The Democrats' much anticipated post-convention bump turned into a thud. George McGovern got one of those in 1972.

Kerry now has 90 days to convince voters that a Bush victory in November would be, as his wife put it in Milwaukee on Monday, "four more years of hell."

The problem is, most Americans don't regard their lives as "hell" or Bush as Satan. The economy, after all, is not really in a Great Depression. In fact, it's doing pretty well. Iraq isn't Vietnam, and won't be unless there's a draft. The Islamic jihad against America isn't Bush's fault, either. A candidate who insists otherwise is bound to strike voters as detached from reality.

Kerry ought to know this, and he may. But his party is dominated, as it was in 1972, by people who talk only to one another and who are convinced that everybody despises Bush. They will judge Kerry by how hard he goes after the Crawford Beelzebub.

Right now the polls look even. But that's an optical illusion. The President has a Republican convention coming up and the power of incumbency to shape events between now and November. In other words, he's way ahead.

Kerry is a weak campaigner. Barring some kind of national disaster, his best shot is the debates. Democratic true believers think he'll kill Bush, one on one. That's what they thought about Al Gore, too.

Calling a presidential race in August is risky, especially a race that's supposedly close. But no guts, no glory. Bush will beat Kerry in a walk. If I'm right, you read it here first. If not, well, even Pauline Kael got it wrong once in a while.


I hesitate to include all this gibberish.  It was writtent in response to my comment to Cheer regarding negative ads.  They will persist because Iraq is a mess, there are no WMD's, and the econoimy is heading south - 36,000 new jobs when the prediction was for over 150,000?

In 1972, The New Yorker's movie critic, Pauline Kael, won herself a place in political lore by expressing astonishment at the Republicans' 49-state landslide victory. "How could that be?" she demanded. "I don't know a single person who voted for Nixon."

Everytime I see some conservative repeat this quote, I hear them refer to her as a "REPORTER". 

I'm sorry, but a movie critic, IS NOT A REPORTER. 

I hesitate to include all this gibberish.  It was writtent in response to my comment to Cheer regarding negative ads.  They will persist because Iraq is a mess, there are no WMD's, and the econoimy is heading south - 36,000 new jobs when the prediction was for over 150,000?


Where exactly did you get -36,000 when it was +32,000 and if you use the household survey it was over 600,000 new jobs.  Unemployment claims went down, so did the unemployment rate to 5.5%, down from 6.3% in June 2003 and down from 5.6% last month.  Which is below the average Clinton rate of 5.8%.  The numbers are so much better then the 1996 economic numbers when Clinton was re-elected.  1.58 million jobs created since August 2003.

Where exactly did you get -36,000 when it was +32,000 and if you use the household survey it was over 600,000 new jobs.  Unemployment claims went down, so did the unemployment rate to 5.5%, down from 6.3% in June 2003 and down from 5.6% last month.  Which is below the average Clinton rate of 5.8%.  The numbers are so much better then the 1996 economic numbers when Clinton was re-elected.  1.58 million jobs created since August 2003.


You misinterpret the dash for a minus sign, so I gave Bush, from memory, 4,000 non-jobs (dash, not minus sign).  The figures are from the US Labor Dept., run by a Bush appointee.  Are you sisputing your guy's official figures?  According to the USLD your Lil' Georgie has presided over the biggest JOB LOSS since Herbert Hoover, still a net loss of 1.2 million jobs.

For those who don't know this (GWB?) the "unemployment rate" is a count of those people receiving unemployment benifits or actively seeking work through state employment agencies.  "Discouraged workers" are not counted.  Draw your own conclusions.

One has to ask what "jobs" people are taking to replace the jobs they lost, and at what comparitive wage.

When the economy is in terrible shape, improvement tends to appear more dramatic.  Say you have five jobs in the economy, and you add five more, that's a 100% improvement!  The line on a graph plotting the 1930s will show a dramatic improvement between 1933 and 1934, but we all know 1934 is still in the throes of the Great Depression.  A similar phenomenon is being used to exaggerate the appearance of improvement during the Bush administration.

GW, who was the democrat that wrote the piece about that you have cited?



It was easy to find on the web, just picked a sentence and random and threw quotes around it:

It was written by Zev Chafets for New York Daily News.  He is also the founding editor of Jerusalem Report Magazine.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/218595p-188030c.html

One has to ask what "jobs" people are taking to replace the jobs they lost, and at what comparitive wage.

When the economy is in terrible shape, improvement tends to appear more dramatic.  Say you have five jobs in the economy, and you add five more, that's a 100% improvement!  The line on a graph plotting the 1930s will show a dramatic improvement between 1933 and 1934, but we all know 1934 is still in the throes of the Great Depression.  A similar phenomenon is being used to exaggerate the appearance of improvement during the Bush administration.


I can't cite stats, and am too lazy to google them, but the jobs that have been created as a result of the "bush miracle" are mostly lower paying jobsd than those that were lost (still over 1.2 million).  "Fries with that sir?"

It was easy to find on the web, just picked a sentence and random and threw quotes around it:

It was written by Zev Chafets for New York Daily News.  He is also the founding editor of Jerusalem Report Magazine.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/218595p-188030c.html




I read this article, and googled a couple of articles by Chafets and I wonder what makes you
believe he is a democrat?  The article says he has friends who will vote for Kerry, but he doesn't say who he is supporting.

I read this article, and googled a couple of articles by Chafets and I wonder what makes you
believe he is a democrat?  The article says he has friends who will vote for Kerry, but he doesn't say who he is supporting.


The New York Daily News ?
What a joke!  Forget about it.  Might as well read The National Enquirer.  The most respectable journalism in NYDN is Bill O'Reilly's column!
:D ;D

Don Carlos wrote:
I can't cite stats, and am too lazy to google them, but the jobs that have been created as a result of the "bush miracle" are mostly lower paying jobsd than those that were lost (still over 1.2 million).  "Fries with that sir?"
Confronted with this fact, Professor Sean Hannity let out a frustrated sigh, and replied with a Gertrude Stein-esque, "A job is a job is a job!" 
Sigh, no it ain't, no it ain't, no it ain't!

It was easy to find on the web, just picked a sentence and random and threw quotes around it:

It was written by Zev Chafets for New York Daily News.  He is also the founding editor of Jerusalem Report Magazine.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/218595p-188030c.html




As Max said, the New York Daily News is a sensationalist rag (and quite conservative to boot).  Hardly a credible source.

The New York Daily News ?
What a joke!  Forget about it.  Might as well read The National Enquirer.  The most respectable journalism in NYDN is Bill O'Reilly's column!
:D ;D


funny you should mention O'Reilly in this thread... here's his take on the Swift Board ad

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/222652p-191113c.html#ht

how badly do you have to screw up in order to get O'Reilly to support Kerry in something like this.

funny you should mention O'Reilly in this thread... here's his take on the Swift Board ad

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/222652p-191113c.html#ht

how badly do you have to screw up in order to get O'Reilly to support Kerry in something like this.


An interesting and surprising piece, but did you notice the last few lines?  Something like "with both sides lying...".  What's that about?  When did Kerry lie (not just mix up or be confused about facts, but lie?  There is a difference.

An interesting and surprising piece, but did you notice the last few lines?  Something like "with both sides lying...".  What's that about?  When did Kerry lie (not just mix up or be confused about facts, but lie?  There is a difference.


yeah, you'll notice that while O'Reilly will state that it's clearly BS, he's quick to try and still jab Kerry at the same time... fair and balanced you know

yeah, you'll notice that while O'Reilly will state that it's clearly BS, he's quick to try and still jab Kerry at the same time... fair and balanced you know


You got that right!

O'Reilly has a hysteria problem, if you haven't noticed.  He was on Tim Russert a few weeks ago, and he just started hurling abuse at Paul Krugman.  He wouldn't let the guy talk!  Of course, Russert just sat there with his usual sh*t-eating-grin because he's just another right-wing dufus.  O'Reilly replayed the conflict on his own program!  Shoot, if I behaved that way on national TV, I'd go out with a bag over my head!
::)

Not that I like Nixon after he was exposed as a crook but.....just HOW did He kick Butt in the '72 election....after SO MANY were against him????  AND to be fair.....HOW did Clinton....who lied to a grand jury....win.... and then afterwards freed criminals from prison...yet the liberals STILL put him on a pedastal??????

Nixon won because people believed him when he said he would end the VietNam war. 
Nixon won every state, except one, giving birth to the bumper sticker "Don't Blame Me
I'm from Massachusetts"  People just didn't want to hear it, but the facts came out, the
majority of the people at that time actually didn't want him impeached, but the evidence
was damning and could not be ignored.  Clintons pardons, check back and you will see
that what he did was "business as usual" when it came to Presidential pardons, no more
and no less than any of his predecessors.

Nixon won every state, except one, giving birth to the bumper sticker "Don't Blame Me
I'm from Massachusetts" 


So that is where that statement came from. When we lived in Mass, my sister had a sweatshirt that said that.




Cat

Not that I like Nixon after he was exposed as a crook but.....just HOW did He kick Butt in the '72 election....after SO MANY were against him????  AND to be fair.....HOW did Clinton....who lied to a grand jury....win.... and then afterwards freed criminals from prison...yet the liberals STILL put him on a pedastal??????

What liberals put him up on a pedestal?  None I know.  On this board I have described him as "scummy," "sleazy" and a "big-business suck-up."  I wrote in Nader in '96 for chrissakes!
Now, compared to Dubya, Clinton ascends a pedestal by default! 
I have seen little willingness on the part of conservatives to criticize Dubya, unless Dubya's not being right-wing enough.
Liberals in the media were always critical of Clinton.  We didn't have a Rush Limbaugh, a Sean Hannity, or a Joe Scarborough, let alone a Dennis Miller whose adulation of Dubya resembles a five-year old's adulation of Mr. T!

Well, the neo-cons are really sinking to a new low. Check this out.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&ncid=536&e=3&u=/ap/20040820/ap_on_el_pr/targeting_media


Here is a quote from the article.

People of Color United, a Washington-based group bankrolled by a Republican insurance executive, is assailing Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, in ads on black radio stations and in mainstream newspapers that reach into heavily black neighborhoods.


One commercial says: "Our community doesn't need another wishy-washy, rich, white politician. And boy, does Kerry come across as rich, white and wishy-washy." Another says: "His wife says she's an African American. While technically true, I don' t believe a white woman, raised in Africa, surrounded by servants qualifies." Referring to Heinz Kerry, newspaper ads ask: "African-American? Or elitist, rich and white?"



Of course the same thing could be said about Dubya and Laura. However, like I said, this is really a new low. It is not a matter of the issues, it is a matter of "what" people are instead of "who" they are. To me, this is nothing but being nasty. And when people start getting nasty, it usually means that they are desperate.



Cat

Well, CW, I don't think they've sunk to a new low, you're just being prompted to look ever lower to places they sank long ago!
:P

ABSOLUTELY VILE


No offense Vile  ;)