NIGHTLINE WHITEWASHES VIETNAM ISSUES: KERRY A HERO, BUSH A DESERTER, END OF STORY

Nightline ABC | 6/22/04

[Williams]

Anyone who saw Nightline tonight saw the power of the liberal media to completely hide facts and spoon feed a message to the American people straight from the DNC. Tonight's Nightline was a 30 minute John Kerry campaign commercial.

It was mentioned that John Kerry became a "peace activist" after the war, and we heard Karen Hughes in a 5 second clip saying that Kerry accused his fellow soldiers of horrendous acts. We were never shown what Kerry said about the soldiers.

We were told there was some controversy about John Kerry throwing medals, but not told what the controversy was. Instead, we heard only John Kerry responding to questions that I believe were raised by ABC, stating "this is done by a Republican campaign that can't even account for whether George Bush showed up in duty in Georgia." No explanation that Kerry misled people about throwing his medals away for decades, or that the George Bush National Guard issue was eliminated by a total release of all Bush records, or that Kerry didn't answer the questions about his own actions and instead stooped to the worst of the Dem campaign tactics - insinuating that the president was a deserter. No, Kerry's false accusation was presented as the end all answer to questions that we never heard.

Almost all of the show was heart wrenching testimonials by the Kerry swift boat crew. Zero mention that he uses in his campaign a photo of veterans who overwhelmingly oppose him and say he is unfit.

We were told quickly that Kerry's 3 purple hearts "meant that he could be sent home." Zero about the fact he immediately requested to come home to a cushy job in an Admiral's office.

Ted Koppel was shocked that the Republicans were making Vietnam an issue in light of Bush's questionable record. This was to the live guest, a NYT reporter who agreed.

There was nothing about what Kerry did to undermine the U.S. after the war. Zero. The entire program pretended that crazy republicans were somehow criticizing Kerry's heroic war service. Even though the real issues have been almost totally about his anti-war behavior.

We saw the footage of Kerry walking through a village with his rifle. No mention that he was the kind of man who staged the scene with his own photographer for political use.

In summary, the message was : Bush and Cheney are shirkers or worse, Kerry is an incredible war hero, and that was the end of that. After watching the show - no, after the first five minutes - you could not doubt that Koppel and the producers of this "news" show had to know exactly what they were doing. Had to know they were burying the real issues about John Kerry, that they were presenting a one sided love song to the most left wing, anti-military, anti- Cold War member of the U.S. Senate.

It was despicable, but then it was Nightline. Oh, and they topped it off with the latest casualties in Iraq, in case you missed the already overt message that we need a war veteran in the White House to clean up this mess.

[Libertina]

Didn't see it, but if one fourth of this was shown, then it WAS despicable!

[doug from upland]

Thanks for the report, disgusting as it is.

[dasboot]

You forgot to mention the all-so-subtle hint that poor J. Effin' threw his medals away because he was possibly in the throes of PTSS....not quite right from killin' a man.

Me 'n the wife were guffawin' mightily at the fiasco.

[wolf24]

Joseph Goebbels would be impressed with the 2004 version of the American media.

[Always Right]

The only thing missing was showing more photos of Americans humiliating prisoners.

[Luke21]

Glad you could stomach it. I haven't watched NIGHTLIES in many years. Koppel is another aging Bolshevik hack who should be shown the door.

[zip]

This is pathetic but predictable. Then the media has the nerve to ask "what bias?".

[MEG33]

Before cable...Nightline was "it"...I haven't watched in years , neither do I watch the alphabet national newscasts. I think the other swiftboat commanders who say he is unfit to be CIC should get equal time.

[NavySEAL F-16]

We need to organize an e-mail campaign to let Nightline know what we think of their agenda programming and the lies they perpetuate.

[staytrue]

I did see this and it was despicable.

[cyncooper]

It wasn't your imagination. A loveletter.

[seastay]

http://www.patriotsforbush.com/archives/000163.html

NEW YORK, March 11, 2004 - Mainstream news organizations may "filter" the news, as President George W. Bush claimed late last year, but not to omit good stories from their Iraq coverage, but to broadcast more negative news about the president himself, according to a report released today by MediaChannel.org and Media Tenor.

The report reveals a strong negative cast to ABC, CBS and NBC news coverage of the president thus far in 2004. Meanwhile, Senator John Kerry, Bush's certain opponent for November, has received more positive coverage by the same three networks.

According to data compiled for MediaChannel.org by international media monitoring firm Media Tenor, network news broadcasts in January and February contained on average nearly three times more negative news statements about President Bush than about Senator John Kerry.

During these two months the networks devoted the bulk of their reporting on Kerry to the candidate's string of victories in early primaries and caucuses. Network coverage of President Bush during this period tended to focus on questions about his WMD intelligence in the run-up to the war with Iraq, his military service record during the Vietnam War, analysis of his performance during the State of the Union address, and comparisons of his re-election campaign with the hotly contested race involving Democratic candidates.
Of the 2,895 statements made about Bush during the nightly half-hour network broadcasts, Media Tenor analysts counted 834 (or 28.8 percent) of statements as negative. Only 10.4 percent of the 1191 network statements about Senator Kerry were negative.

Over the same period, the networks shone a more benevolent light on Kerry. In the first two months of the year, more than 35 percent (or 422 of 1191 statements) of network coverage of Kerry was counted as positive. Bush's positive coverage rating amounted to only 11.9 percent of the total statements made about the president during the half-hour network broadcasts.

CBS Evening News with Dan Rather leads the networks in negative coverage of the president and positive coverage of Kerry. More than 35 percent of the Bush-related statements made during CBS' nightly broadcast portrayed the president in a negative way. Only 8.9 percent of Bush coverage on CBS was counted as positive.
By comparison, ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings was more neutral towards the president. Media Tenor rated ABC's Bush coverage as 22.7 percent negative, 12 percent positive and 65 percent neutral.

CBS shone more brightly than the other networks when covering Senator Kerry. Media Tenor classified more than 38 percent of their coverage of the Democratic candidate as positive, ABC and NBC's news programs were positive on Kerry 33.4 and 35.9 percent of the time, respectively.

"Bush continues not to be able to leave a convincing impression on TV news," said Roland Schatz, president of Media Tenor. "While the president received the largest share of media coverage against the field of Democratic candidates, the focus was on negative, not positive, stories about Bush."

Media Tenor analysts pore over transcripts and watch the half hour-broadcasts to classify news statements as negative, positive or neutral. Their data for the first two months of 2004 show that more than 55 percent of all statements about the candidates were neutral -- or neither negative nor positive towards the candidate. When considering the remainder of statements, President Bush received far fewer high marks than his likely opponent for November.

MediaChannel earlier this week shared the data via fax with the anchors and executives at NBC Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight and CBS Evening News. They have yet to reply to requests for comment.

[CyberAnt]

"Georgia" ???

I thought the problem for the dems was Alabama ..?? How on earth did they get Georgia ..??

[cyncooper]

We have Swift Vets--impressive men who are calm and capable and reasonable in appearance and demeanor, speak up that in their opinion John Kerry is unfit to be President of the United States.

This gets ignored and instead the media flies like the wind to spin out the pro-Kerry story.

And file suit to get more GWB National Guard records.

[CyberAnt]

Hmmmm? What is nightline's ratings share now ..?? I don't think you can even count it can you ..??

I rest my case!

[Prince Charles]

Ted Floppel was not born American -- his leftist English roots have been showing for years and years...

[cyncooper]

or that the George Bush National Guard issue was eliminated by a total release of all Bush records

Heads up: The AP filed suit TODAY to get "all" the GWB records.

[JennysCool]

Once again I must post this because it keeps being relevant to nearly every media story: "Elite Media" realizes their beloved Democrats have gone and fielded the goofiest Presidential candidate in memory. There is nothing left for them to do but spin wildly and lie often and hope that no one notices.

[cyncooper]

Before cable...Nightline was "it"...

And just think...we can thank Jimmy Carter for giving us Ted Koppel!

[carl in alaska]

Nightline is so blatantly biased against Republicans that it is now an absolute disgrace to "journalism." I can't stand to watch it, even for 30 seconds. The only good thing about Nightline is their ratings are so low that it doesn't have much impact on anyone these days.

[Williams]

Sorry I typed Georgia, it was the Alabama quote

[wardaddy]

great post.

[Rodm]

Defeat the INSURGENT LEFT-WING MEDIA

[drhogan]

i remember koppel pulling this during the bush vs. clinton campaign. i gave up on nightline at that point.
i thought it had been cancelled.
koppel is a narcissistic liberal. but he probably keeps a whole stable of people employed doing his hair, which is good for the economy.

[Lancey Howard]

Anyone who saw Nightline tonight saw the power of the liberal media to completely hide facts and spoon feed a message to the American people straight from the DNC. Tonight's Nightline was a 30 minute John Kerry campaign commercial.

LOL, gee, I missed it.
As did all but a handful of people who don't have cable or dish yet.

Your point is valid but overstated. Very few people are going to be swayed by a boring, stale old news show like Nightline or its has-been host, Koppel. That scumbag and his show are gasping for air at this point. It is on its last legs largely BECAUSE it is strictly a Democrat operation. Decent people are sick of it.
Hopefully, the whole franchise will die soon.

Regards,
LH

[ex-Texan]

What the F@$^&*** are you doing watching Ted Koppel? He died over 8 years ago. That is just his ghost or a shadow person inhabiting his earthly shell.

[ridesthemiles]

I used to enjoy Nightline. Now I won't turn on that channel at that time of night.

[Howlin]

Williams description was dead on; there was no mention of the Swift Boat veterans - the vets on the show were the same 3 or 4 that are always with him, the ones he called in 1996 to rescue his campaign for the Senate.

It was very slanted. Not a word about what he accused his fellow veterans of.

[Interesting Times]

It appears that Kerry and his media allies have decided to put all their eggs in a remarkably flimsy basket...

[Howlin]

That's all they have -- but the press seems determined to hand him the presidency.

[Howlin]

Evidently Clinton will be interviewed by Charlie Gibson in the morning on Good Morning America. It looked like Clinton got pretty upset with Gibson.

[line drive to right]

I wonder....We have become so used to the outrageous media, and as disgusted as we are, do we even recognize the magnitude of what the media is trying to do - essentially determine the outcome of an election in a free republic? What does the media and its political allies really want? If Kerry wins - and if he does, it can all be attributed to the media - what does it bode for future elections? In Kerry's 4-8 years, will things become so stacked in favor of the Communi...er, I mean, Democrats...that the conservative voice will be, essentially, silenced? Limbaugh doesn't get it. He says liberalsim is all but dead. Yet, it runs the college campuses and is, in an understatement, the dominant ideology in the media and entertainment industry. I think that if Kerry wins, regulations and such will be so enacted that conservatism will be totally hamstrung. Now, AP is suing the Pentagon for all of Bush's military records. The story of the election is not Iraq or the economy. It is that the media is so blatantly trying to win a national election for the side it prefers, with no pretense of objectivity and fairness.

[Interesting Times]

That's all they have -- but the press seems determined to hand him the presidency.

No doubt about that.

The question is whether they still have that much power.

[lennydetroit]

My take.

To: Contact Nightline, http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/Nightline/Nightline_email_form.html

How can ABC News, in good conscience, deny after tonight's Nightline that it does not have a liberal bias and an ongoing "Dump Bush" agenda? Your far-left news programing has driven me and most of my friends to the more "fair and balanced" Fox News as the only alternative to the propagandist alphabet networks.

Regards,
Lenny

[Howlin]

IMO, it's looking pretty grim. In my life, I've never seen such out and out lies spoken as fact.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Bush did not win.

[Mo1]

It appears that Kerry and his media allies have decided to put all their eggs in a remarkably flimsy basket,

It also proves how worried they are about this topic

[ApesForEvolution]

I believe Saudi Arabia owns a large interest in ABCommunists. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The islamocommie model is alive and well in America - the enemy of my enemy is my friend...today.

[potlatch]

Ping about another awful 'Howdy Doody' Nightline show!!

[stillnoprotestsagainstmuslims]

He undermined the Viet war when he got home and he was just a soldier. Imagine what he`s going to do as President. Democ-rats keep saying "This may be the most important election of your life" Damn straight it will be. If this moron wins, we can expect terror attacks that will make 911 look like a baby burp by comparison. Sort of like Pol Pot 2. Johnny Kerry said leave the animal alone back then and the animal ended up slaughtering 2 million people.

[Interesting Times]

IMO, it's looking pretty grim. In my life, I've never seen such out and out lies spoken as fact.

They do this at no small risk. Merely slanting the news can be hidden or explained away, but anyone who sees this sort of coverage and then finds out the truth will never believe them again. There's also a whiff of desperation in the air, as if the old establishment media has suddenly noticed that it's dying at about 5% per year.

So how much do these aging mastodons have left? Can they really bury the truth about Kerry's actions during and after Vietnam? We're going to find out...

[devolve]

$O WHY DID YOU LEAVE THEM?

         
          

  CUT AND RUN KERRY

[PhilDragoo]

[weegee]

I figure that Kerry would "pledge" protection with UN deployment of our own troops. Then the terrorists would get inside leaks from the UN as there was with the inspection teams. A losing battle and one where we citizens have no electoral process to "end the war".

[CyberAnt]

LOL! I thought there was part of the story I didn't know.

[devolve]

That's where I got the idea when I found those .gifs and made their BGs transparent.

The "metro-hotpink" text and border works good too.


Observation and feedback makes these things XXXXXHD -



.......Last Kohn-Man to Dye his Hair.......



"Old Demon" alert - Slick Willie on Oprah!

[ArmyBratproud]

The only one with a record of question on this issue is Kerry. He has yet to release all of his Military records.
He still keeps a huge portion of his records private. I notice they have not made one effort to get the rest of the records from Kerry ABC is so liberal its pathetic. There has already been a guy who was a Major with the Alabama Air Guard that said Bush did show up. The one General who started this with the Boston Globe had to admit that he did not know and was not sure if he was even at the base that much. But the above mentioned Major told how it was this very same General that introduced Bush to the Major at the base. I remember seeing a newspaper article out of Alabama that interviewed a lady who worked on that campaign and states that she remembers Bush having to come to work with his uniform on because he would have to got directly to the base that day to go for his duty time.
AND, it seems that Bush even asked about a slot that allows Guard Pilots to go to Vietnam. ACCORDING TO NANCY BENAC OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS...in an article that I found from Feb 8, 2004 in the San Diego Union Tribune...she buried in the bottom of an article a part where Maurice Udell, Bush's flight instructor at Ellignton Air Force Base, state that Bush asked about a program that allowed Guard pilots to be assigned to Vietnam, but udell told him he wasn't eligible because he was certifed in the F-102 which being phased out. I am gonna did that article up and post it in another reply to this article.
I am gonna go back and dig up some of the other articles to.

[ArmyBratproud]

Yet they have not filed suit to get the huge portion of Kerry's military and medical records that he has refused to release. I just found the Nancy Benac article ...some of you folks let me know if I should post it in a new thread considering what is in the last paragraph...

[ArmyBratproud]

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE SHOWS THAT BUSH MAY HAVE SOUGHT VIETNAM PILOT SLOT.
Ok folks, here it is. THE LAST PARAGRAPH OF THIS ARTICLE STATES THAT BUSH'S FLIGHT INTSTRUCTOR SAID THAT BUSH INQUIRED INTO A VIETNAM PILOT SLOT:(and Benac is a liberal AP reporter who has bashed Bush in the past)

"Udell says Bush asked about a program under which National Guard pilots were assigned to Vietnam, but Udell told him he wasn't eligible because he was certified on the F-102, which the military was phasing out."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20040208-2301-vietnamechoes.html


Echoes of Vietnam in presidential campaign 35 years later

By Nancy Benac
ASSOCIATED PRESS
11:01 p.m. February 8, 2004

WASHINGTON – They were two years apart, these two Yale boys, these sons of privilege, and so the moment of truth came first for John Kerry, later for George W. Bush. Each faced the same life-changing question as did so many others of their generation: what to do about Vietnam.


Kerry, part of the class of 1966, signed on with the Navy late in 1965, then had months to ponder his decision before actually entering officer candidate school after graduation. The war, his decision, his doubts, all hung over him as he spoke at commencement the following June.

"What was an excess of isolationism has become an excess of interventionism," he told fellow students. He had to know his life was set on a course for Vietnam.

For Bush, a member of the class of 1968, his last year in college seemed to signal the end of a time of innocence.

"The gravity of history was beginning to descend in a horrifying and disruptive way," he wrote in his 1999 biography. "By the time the ball dropped in Times Square to welcome 1968, the situation in Vietnam had escalated from a conflict to a raging war. Every night the newscast included a body count."

Bush debated his options over Christmas break back home in Houston, took a pilot aptitude test after he got back to school in January, and chose the National Guard. He would fly planes like his father did in World War II, but he had to know the odds of going to Vietnam were low.

Nearly 40 years later, the choices made by these two young men are reverberating through the presidential campaign as part of a larger debate over patriotism, leadership, duty, character. Each man is defined in part by the path he chose, and by the level of commitment he demonstrated along the way.

"We are all hostage to decisions we made in the past," said Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at the University of New Orleans who has written a book about Kerry's war years. "The bottom line is Kerry went and Bush didn't and it's an uncomfortable fact for a president" who has so eagerly wrapped himself in the flag as commander in chief.

Yet Brinkley said the two-year age difference between Kerry and Bush is an important backdrop to the courses they set.

In 1965, when Kerry decided to enlist, students "still saw the world in black and white," Brinkley said, and "not serving wasn't really an option" for the son of a foreign service officer. "His big decision was which branch of the military to join," said Brinkley. "Did he want to go to Vietnam? No. But how could he live with himself if he finagled his way out of his duty?"

By the time Bush joined the guard in 1968, Brinkley said, the horrors of Vietnam were playing out nightly on television and sentiment against the war was hardening. "By 1968, smart kids weren't going. It became OK not to go. ... So Bush looked for a way not to go," he said.

"If he had been the class of '66, it may have been different for George W. Bush."

Bush spoke about his decision to serve in the National Guard in an interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," saying, "I put in my time, proudly so. I would be careful to not denigrate the Guard. It's fine to go after me, which I expect the other side will do. I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard, though."

Wesley Clark, a retired four-star general, is part of the campaign debate over military service, too, as he tries to keep his Democratic presidential campaign alive.

Clark, who viewed the military as a path of opportunity for a bright, middle-class kid from Arkansas, graduated first in his class at West Point in 1966, then headed off to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. He wrapped up his studies there in two years rather than three so he could get to Vietnam quicker, and came home with a Silver Star for heroism.

Clark still has scars on his shoulder, hip and leg, and his right index finger was shortened by a bullet during a firefight with the Viet Cong.

Lately, the campaign discussion has repeatedly turned to the candidates' military histories, with all sides faulting the others for exploiting the issue.

Neither Kerry nor Clark have made a point of personally raising Bush's military record on the campaign trail, but both say when asked that legitimate questions have been raised about the Bush record.

"It's almost like an inverted time warp," said Stanley Renshon, a political scientist and psychoanalyst at the City University of New York. "The point of it is that, 'I'm a war hero and you're not.' And the implication is that because you're a war hero, that gives you a special standing to talk about war and strategy. But it doesn't follow."

Hardly a speech goes by in which Kerry, a decorated war hero, does not invoke Vietnam and its legacy. Vietnam buddies travel with his campaign entourage and appear in his ads. At an emotional appearance just before Kerry's huge victory in the Iowa caucuses, he was reunited with a serviceman whose life he had saved as the skipper of a river patrol boat.

Kerry was awarded the Bronze Star for that rescue, less than a month after earning a Silver Star for beaching his boat and jumping ashore to chase down and kill a guerrilla who had a rocket launcher pointed at the Americans. After being awarded three Purple Hearts for minor injuries, Kerry's request for reassignment stateside six months early was granted.

His campaign mantra, "Bring it on," evokes the same never-back-down approach he had evinced in battle.

"The entire heart and soul of John Kerry's personna is Vietnam," said Brinkley. "What happened to him is so seared into his being that it's almost like rings in an old redwood tree."

Kerry's fierce criticism of the war upon his return to America did not sit well with some veterans, and still doesn't.

As an anti-war leader, he asserted in testimony to Congress that U.S. soldiers had "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads ... randomly shot at civilians ... poisoned food stocks" and committed other atrocities he later acknowledged he did not witness.

Bush, for his part, harked back to his fighter-pilot training last year when he climbed into a flight suit and flew in a Navy jet to land on an aircraft carrier off the California coast. He emerged from the plane with the swagger of a top-gun pilot, cradling his helmet under his arm, and shouted, "Yes I flew it!" to those on deck.

Now, he is facing a new round of questions about his guard service on issues that first came up during the 2000 campaign:

–Whether family connections helped him get into the Texas Air National Guard when there were waiting lists for what was seen as an easy billet. Bush says no one in his family pulled strings and that he got in because others didn't want to commit to the almost two years of active duty required for fighter pilot training.

–Whether he showed up for duty while assigned to guard units in Alabama, where he worked on a political campaign in 1972. Military records show no evidence he reported for duty. "There may be no evidence, but I did report," Bush told NBC, adding, "Otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged."

–Why he was allowed to end guard duty about six months early to attend Harvard Business School. Bush said on NBC he had "worked it out with the military. And I'm just telling you, I did my duty."

Maurice Udell, one of Bush's flight instructors at Ellington Air Force Base in Texas, remembers Bush as a standout student. "I'd rank him in the top 5 percent," says Udell, now 73 and retired. He rejects the notion that Bush got preferential treatment or that there was anything improper about his time in Alabama or in going to Harvard before his six-year guard commitment had ended.

"I was really a tough instructor but I was fair with him," Udell said, remembering Bush for his excellent memory and standout sense of humor. "I'd give him hell about something and he'd pop a joke and get you laughing and just break up the whole situation."

Udell says Bush asked about a program under which National Guard pilots were assigned to Vietnam, but Udell told him he wasn't eligible because he was certified on the F-102, which the military was phasing out.




Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20040208-2301-vietnamechoes.html

[Mo1]

I took the show to be a counter attack on what has been said about Kerry's service .. meaning the internal polls viewing Kerry for being a war time President don't look good

I also took it that the Kerry Camp is worried

Kerry doesn't have the vets behind him and he knows it