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 ...
Wow. And from the AP. Is the devil wearing ice skates?
Bump!
The NY slimes is out now with a chart attacking the messengers, showing the ties to Rove, W. etc.
Typical obfuscation and prevarication.
All too similar to the '92 cover-up for ex42.
Semper Fi Buddy!
Aides to Kerry said he did not want to respond immediately to the swift boat group's television advertisement because he was in the middle of a cross-country campaign tour that featured a positive, introductory message emphasizing his biography.
That trip ended last Saturday, followed by four days of vacation in Idaho; he returned to the campaign trail Wednesday for a speech to the VFW, where he did not want the controversy over his Vietnam record to detract from his new attack on Bush's plan for redeploying 70,000 troops from Asia and Europe, aides said.
To quote a wise man: "Boy, is this great!"
Read the article. He was scared shi'ite-less by the bad press and had to run to MommaT and hide out. Yeah, THIS is a good indicator of how he'd act as CinC during the next attack.
The electorate is only going to get to know him better in the coming months. *giggle*
Isn't it fun to parse this gibberish. Not everyone who reads their pap is a Jerry Springer fan.
Parse this gibberish? The (ultimately) sad conclusion is that this sociopath thinks he's imparting words of wisdom to us--and legions drink his KoolAid.
Wasn't it Ayn Rand who said it was worse to have PITY on someone than just to hate him? Well, this is one of those times.
You got that right. I read on another thread the next Swift Boat ad will cover these topics. I hope so, because what he did when he got back to the States is much more damaging than what's being debated right now.
"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."
LOL. That ain't going to work. W is going to sit back and watch the fun. If people start asking him about being AWOL for the 103rd time, he'll just say, "do we really want to talk about ancient history, or my opponents' record of being AWOL in the Senate for the past 20 years?"
He must not have remembered the meaning of,"Integrity." Falsifying a military document is a violation of the UCMJ. I presume jfn'K thinks, this is his world and we are all just tripping in it.
>>Come on GeronL. You've got to update. "Back in the day" is the cool way to describe times past. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that phrase lately! I don't know where it started or when.<<
See the movie "Things to do in Denver when you're dead."
***
BTW, does anyone find it peculiar that JFK-2 unleashed his fury--his fury, mind you--just hours befote the DemPar House Organ rolled out a bazilion word article detailing--detailing, mind you--the conspiracy behind the Swifties?
Is the New York Times registered as a 527 now?
Yes, I have seen it written that Kerry "recruited" Walinsky to write the speech.
If I had wanted Walinsky to write a speech for me in 1971, I don't imagine that it would have been possible.
It's more likely that Walinsky recruited Kerry.
Interestingly, Walinsky was a principal author of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, often attributed to Edward Kennedy.
Walinsky's hatred of America and her people must have been established at a very early age.
By now he and Adm. Lehman probably have sanitized his records and he is just waiting to release them.
O'Neill did well.
"Yoo Hoo, I was Vietnam. I served four months there and I got a chestful of medals. I am John Kerry and I approved this message."
Oh good! Kranish is here to straighten out the record! We're saved!
[spit]
As we saw in Florida, 2000, GWB is one tough SOB.
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