Posted on 08/23/2004 11:04:55 AM PDT by elephant
CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush (news - web sites) denounced TV ads by outside groups attacking both John Kerry (news - web sites) and himself on Monday and called for a halt to all such political efforts. "I think they're bad for the system," he said
The president made his comments as the Kerry campaign fought back against charges made by an outside group that the Democratic senator had lied about wartime events in Vietnam for which he received five medals.
Does this mean Kerry will denounce ads by MoveOn.org?
Now lets see if Kerry does the same. I'm not holding my breath.
Wow. Bush is on quite a roll. Maybe he should enlist the aid of his father to make sure he loses the election.
I just watched the replay of this press conference on Fox and the best part, for me, was watching Mr. Bush swagger up to the mic. I just smiled because that sort of thing just has to drive the Dems right up the wall. I could hear teeth gnashing and hair being pulled out...
"Now lets see if Kerry does the same. I'm not holding my breath."
The worm has now turned. If Kerry does not denounce moveon.org ads he is just going to draw more attention to what a lying s.o.b. he is. As usual President George W. Bush takes the high road.
The best part was Bush's dog taking a dump in the background. That was excellent.
(Hey George - WE'RE ON YOUR SIDE - remember!)
________________________
"Bush made his comments in response to a question about an ad sponsored by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that said Democrat Kerry didn't deserve his Purple Hearts, lied to get his Bronze Star and Silver Star and unfairly branded all veterans with his 1971 congressional testimony about atrocities in Vietnam."
Pretty easy to see what's happening.
The Swiftvets have already said they're not stopping.
Bush can't make them stop, that would be against the law.
But Kerry is screaming that the Swiftvets are a Bush front and propaganda machine.
So Bush announces that he would prefer that we didn't have any 527's at all, either on Dem or Republican Side. (remember Republican side only has about 2, Dems have loads).
By doing this, the ads won't stop, but Bush has completely disarmed Kerry of his gripe...i.e. that Bush is behind the ads.
Pretty good poker if you ask me.
Swift Vets to Bush, "This isn't about you, Mr. President, it's about who can best lead this country."
The president had to do this. He's taking the high road and he'll be rewarded for it.
This makes sense, since that would be used by the Kerry campaign to "prove" illegal coordination.
The whole point of "Americans Coming Together" in the first place was for George Soros to use his capital to become a kingmaker in US politics.
Give me a break. He said precisely what he should. He denounced no particular group, just a blanket statement.
Yeah, free speech is always bad for the system.
You are misinterpreting it.
Bush spokespeople said before that Bush objects to ALL ads by 527 groups, and that the Dems spent $63Million on attack ads against Bush by these 527 groups, while the SwiftVets only spent a few hundred thousand.
Bush is basically telling them the exact opposite -- he is not going to condemn the SwiftBoats, while the Dems are using their 527 to attack Bush, spending multi-millions. Either both parties can do it, or neither, not as the Dems would like, to get Bush to stop the SwiftVets, while MoveOn and Soros continues to attack Bush.
I wonder if this will deflate the charges by Kerry that Pres. Bush is behind these Swift boat vet ads. It sure does give the Bush team ammo to critisize Kerry if he levels anymore of these charges. Now, Pres. Bush should counter and ask Kerry to denounce the MoveOn.org ads!
I'll tell you what kills the Dims even more is when he goes out on the front porch of the WH with his duster and cowboy hat on when the snow is falling.
Hardly. President Bush issued a challenge to sKerry to do the same thing. The-man-with-no-integrity will not. Swiftees ads will not stop. The press should be asking questions of John McCain and Rusty Feingold why these things are on, and then ask McCain how he likes being used by sKerry to denounce Bush.
Has he ever said he regrets signing the CFR bill?
Seeing that you are brain dead, I'm not surprised by your knee jerk reaction.
Bush condemned all ads, including the ads by Kerry/Soros and company.
kerry will not condemn moveon.org.
Bush said the right thing, 527s are bad for the political system. He did not specifically denounce the Swift Boat Vets for the content of their ads. He never will.
As for Kerry, this puts the ball in his court and he can only whiff. There is no way he can order MoveOn.org to stop advertising on his behalf, so he will end up looking like a phony and hypocrite for making such demands of Bush and the Swifties.
If this was chess, Bush's move would be QxQ(ch).
That's a good one, too. I can just hear "Don't Fence Me In" playing softly in the background....
Bush said the right thing, 527s are bad for the political system. He did not specifically denounce the Swift Boat Vets for the content of their ads. He never will.
As for Kerry, this puts the ball in his court and he can only whiff. There is no way he can order MoveOn.org to stop advertising on his behalf, so he will end up looking like a phony and hypocrite for making such demands of Bush and the Swifties.
If this was chess, Bush's move would be QxQ(ch).
O'Neil just said on Rush that he could care less if Bush wants them to pull the ads. They're protecting their reputations and they're not going to pull the ads. Period.
Well, that's quite unfortunate since it was George Bush who signed the law that created the 527 groups.
He has definitely pulled the rug out from under Kerry with this move!
Heard John O'Neill on Rush say" Doesn't matter what Bush--or anyone else--says".
This incresed my respect and admiration for the Swifties in general and O'Neill in particular.
Question: Did anyone think Bush's call for this to end would accomplish anything when:
--Kerry Lawyers threatened radio and TV stations with lawsuits if they played the ad.
--Kerry demands that Regnery recall the book.
--Kerry lawyers file an FEC complaint.
Man this is a happy group.
Bush is playing this perfectly, for the first time in a long time the tables have turned on Kerry and the MSM.
Bush takes the high road, opposing 527 ads--the Swifties do the dirty work, keeping the mud off W. This was Kerry's approach, letting MoveOn call W Hitler and a baby killer while saying a bunch of nothing but Kerry f--- up. One, he overplayed the Vietnam thing just begging for a counter punch and two he stupidly got himself directly into the mudslinging. So W is above the fray while Kerry is in a mudpuddle with the Swifties and they are scoring, big time.
Meahwhile the MSM can't save Kerry's sorry A$$ by saying thirty years ago doesn't matter because they made such a big deal about the W's National Guard service and Kerry made Vietnam the central theme of his campaign. "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty", may very well be remembered as the key mistake in this campaign.
So lighten up guys. Bush is playing this one like a violin.
Why would you say that? You know that the rules don't apply equally to the Dems. There's not a single person in the media that will call Kerry on this.
Typical misleading headline. Bush didn't 'denounce' 527 advertising, he 'called for a halt.'
The press commissars always like to skew the headline.
Amazon #1. And more press with this announcement. Not bad.
Regardless of any attempt to prevent it, money will find its way into politics. Mr Bush did not advocate for these plans, the congress wrote the bill...Bush signed it because he had to.
Good timing on Bush's part. The ads have already done whatever damage they are going to do. There is now a potential for backlash, so it's the right time to do this.
strategery strikes the dims again
This is terrible. Bush is wrong. CFR is a huge mistake and makes me wonder what President Bush is thinking. Are they eventually going to say NOBODY can say ANYTHING about candidates at any time? I don't see any other logical stopping place for CFR. Once you start making rules about who can say what and when the can say it, it won't be long before 'fairness' will demand that nobody ever gets to say anything.
It's a government attempt to control the election process and it's flat out evil and it's very sad that it happened under Bush. He hit the ball out of the park with the WOT, but screwed up big time on CFR.
Boy - the nader people must be really confused as to what to do now since both Bush and Kerry calls for halt to the swifties. Maybe they will support them.
But the voters will...
To denounce such ads, even if it is merely self-serving and not sincere, puts him in the same class as Kerry, suggesting that certain people should be silent and and not express their opinions.
I find it sad that the choice we are given is between him or Kerry.
No way!!!!
Bush has denounced all 527 ads numberous times already this election campaign and called on Kerry to do the same... Kerry has yet to do so.
In other words, the Swities said to Bush, denounce us to give Kerry what he is asking for, but we will continue our work and Kerry will have to come after us directly. O'Neill even said over the weekend that he would invite Kerry to sue him.
It's the perfect plan.
Bush goes further than I did, since I never said the Swiftees shouldn't do ads, just that they should focus on the post-war stuff and moderate their tone. I guess Bush is therefore a "beaver" and a Kerry plant?
I've always found it amusing how liberals believed in unilateral disarmament...with everything including our own nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, when it comes to their politics, they take a completely contrary position...insisting that the other guy disarm himself. These poor people are just NUTS!
Skip I am a bit disappointed in you. Presidential campaigns are all about strategy. He hasn't done anything wrong by asking for a stop to all 527 ads. He has painted Kerry into a corner. How does Kerry react when he gets painted into corners? Just look at his track record!!!
The landslide may yet happen in November, but remember, if Bush wins by 1 electoral vote, then that is all that he needs
Actually, it's a good game of "heads I win, tails you lose." Kerry doesn't denounce the 527s and the SwiftVets pile it on. Kerry denounces the 527s and the Dem 527s stop lying about Bush. Even if the SwiftVets stop telling the truth about Kerry Bush comes out ahead. All the Kerry camp has is lies about Bush. Once they stop telling those, Kerry has nothing to run on.
Shalom.
Well, you can always vote for Nader. You know something...we've never had a president named Ralph...
Per John O'Neill on Hannity Friday: "We are not telling people to vote for George Bush. It is none of his business. It is between us and John Kerry."
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