Posted on 08/20/2004 1:51:34 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
For nearly two weeks, Senator John F. Kerry had refrained from commenting directly on the crescendo of attacks on his Vietnam War record. The work was being left to campaign aides, who were scrambling to control the escalating damage being done by a television ad and a book that alleged that Kerry had lied about his combat service and did not deserve his medals.
Then, Wednesday night, Kerry told his aides that he had to act. As he sat down inside his Louisburg Square home on Beacon Hill, Kerry scrawled two phrases on a yellow legal pad about his antagonists, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The group, Kerry wrote, was "a front for the Bush campaign" and "he wants them to do his dirty work."
Overnight, this new strategy by Kerry resulted in a hastily produced ad defending his war record and a speech in which the Massachusetts senator responded in detail to the group's charges. The question, however, is whether Kerry acted too late, letting the attacks grow on the Internet and talk-show circuit to such a degree that some swing voters think one of Kerry's core characteristics has been undermined.
"He had to do it," said former senator Bob Kerrey, who was tapped by the Kerry campaign to write an opinion column in The Washington Post defending the record of the Massachusetts senator.
"It was gathering a life of its own, and he had to respond. He couldn't do it through surrogates. He had to confront it himself with facts and passion."...............
Kerry had made Vietnam a centerpiece of his campaign, surrounding himself with crewmates at the Democratic National Convention and portraying his combat experience as preparation for being commander in chief.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
There must be something more damaging in that book that Kerry doesn't want attention on; he's spending too much time and energy on denigrading them personally.
Remember, Bush never said a word about Michael Moore or Moveon.org, etc.
So Nace began talking with a small group of Kerry friends known as the dog hunters......********
>>Remember, Bush never said a word about Michael Moore or Moveon.org, etc.<<
If Kerry brings the ad up in the debates, W should mention that he has been subjected to attacks, but he didn't whine about it.
Ec 9:11 I turned me to another thing, and I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favour to the skilful: but time and chance in all.
This is the first time the rats' MSM advantage hasn't been able to cover them, at least the first time for something this big.
THE MEDIA MONOPOLY IS BROKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
America will never be the same.
IT'S AS IF AMERICA'S BERLIN WALL HAS BEEN TORN DOWN!!!!!!!!!
(That's two "Quotes of the Day" in one post!)
Why did he make those fictitious claims about our activities in Vietnam with his Winter Soldier show in Chicago?
Who wrote the propaganda speech he made before Congress?
Why did he meet with the enemy in Paris?
If anybody really wants to know John Kerry, that's where they'll find him.
Good points.
So are they trying to pass off their campaign website "documents" as the official version, ignoring Kerry's refusal to sign the Form 180 that would allow total access to the real data? This will not fly.
So Nace began talking with a small group of Kerry friends known as the dog hunters. It was in 1984 that the dog hunters first organized. Kerry's Democratic primary opponent, James Shannon, had said during a televised debate that if Kerry, who became a leading critic of the war after he returned from Vietnam, "felt that strongly about the war, you would not have gone." Kerry responded that Shannon was insulting veterans, adding, "That dog won't hunt." A group of Vietnam veterans rallied to Kerry's side and became known as the dog hunters, helping Kerry in subsequent races, including in 1996, when questions were firest raised about Kerry's Silver Star. Now the dog hunters, including Nace, were mobilized for another battle at Kerry's side.
People have been questioning for 20 years!!! This sounds like Clinton's "Bimbo Eruption" squad.
He may have reponded to the ad, but he has not answered any questions.
Dumb strategy!
He's rattled and responding without really thinking it through.
Look at this quote, he can't even answer the allegations without dredging up Vietnam again:
"But Kerry had settled upon a strategy that he says he firest learned in Vietnam.
"When you're under attack," Kerry said in his speech yesterday, "the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attack."
Nothing about the Swift Boat Vets appeared in the _old_ media; no newspaper articles, no TV interviews, no magazine covers, no rock stars or Hollywood celebrities.
Just word of mouth, talk radio, and the _new_ media that is the internet.
Perhaps it is the beginning of the end for the elitist propaganda machine, and the rise to power of the a new, and free-er press...
I LOVE how the 'non-partisan' media takes its cue from what Kerry thinks.
I agree as outrageous as some of Kerry's tales about his action and adventure in Vietnam..what he said, who he slimed, defamed and who he associated with when he came home is far worse...His record in the Senate is scary,too.
I'm guessing the spin on this will be. I was defending the people who were trying to live peacefully under the writings of karl marx.
Bump!
However if they conveyed him as a frazzled political idiot trying to up seat a true leader, they would be more accurate.
But, hey, lets not bring accuracy into the picture of politics....
Lawrence O'Donnell gave out the RAT talking points last night: Kerry was doing rope-a-dope with the Swift Vets so he could get it all to this point where now he can bring W's record into this. All part of the master plan. Right.
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