SwiftVets Have Wind-Swept Kerry "Bouncing Off Walls"

Rush ^ | 8-31-04

[hope]

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Any of you watching the convention last night, even if you weren't watching, you may have heard about this. A couple delegates out there have little Band-Aids that they're wearing. They're little Purple Hearts that are painted on Band-Aids. The story today by Will Lester of the Associated Press. "A GOP delegate handed out bandages with purple hearts on them Monday night at the Republican National Convention in a swipe at Democratic nominee John Kerry's war record, but national GOP officials have asked him to stop. The bandages were handed out by Morton Blackwell, a longtime GOP activist from Virginia, with the message: 'It was just a self-inflicted scratch, but you see I got a Purple Heart for it.' Kerry won three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a bronze star for his service in the Vietnam War." The swift boat veterans, by the way, they got a new ad. Let's listen to the new swift vet ad. Let me find the audio sound bites for this. Number 5, yeah, it is number 5, let's listen to the new swift vet ad, ladies and gentlemen. This is, well, just listen to it. It's pretty self-explanatory.

VOICE: Symbols. They represent the best things about America: freedom, valor, sacrifice. Symbols, like the heroes they represent, are meant to be respected. Some don't share that respect and turned their backs on their brothers.

KERRY: I renounced the symbols this country gives, and that was the medals themselves. I gave back, I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine.

VOICE: How can the men who renounced his country's symbols now be trusted? Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is responsible for the content of this advertise.

RUSH: These guys are not going to go away. Now, what's interesting about this, Mr. Snerdley, let me ask you. As a student of politics, as your own version of political science, what's different about this swift vet ad from any of the others? I mean, it just stands out at you. It just glares out at you. It just slaps you upside the head. What is it? This is the first swift vet ad that uses John Kerry's own words! And this is about the medals, and this is about throwing them away, and I watched the president today at the American Legion, and one of the biggest applause lines was early on in his speech when he talked about the flag and how he's going to protect it as a symbol, and he's not going to allow desecration. It sounded like, I didn't get a shot of the audience, but it sounded like he got a standing O. So here comes this swift vet ad, and this ad starts actually tomorrow, and it's, I don't know, it's an amazing coincidence out there. It starts tomorrow, the same day John Kerry shows up at the American Legion convention and as I say, this ad uses his own words.

Now, as we mentioned Al Hunt has a peace today in the Wall Street Journal, the headline of which: "Kerry Campaign Weighs Shake-Up
As Bush Gains Upper Hand in Race." And, by the way, here's some poll numbers from states. In Florida, Bush is up by two. Pennsylvania is dead even. Bush up by three in Wisconsin. Bush down by ten in Iowa. The Gallup poll today, approval of the way Bush is handling the war and the need to conduct the war, up in Pennsylvania, up in Wisconsin, up in Iowa, to a majority now, two weeks ago the sum total here, I guess the average, 54-31% against approval for the war and the way it was being conducted. Now it's up to a bare majority. This is the kind of momentum. This is the sense that the tide is turning out there, and it has infected the Kerry campaign. ABC's The Note, it was just two weeks ago that they were all giddy. They couldn't contain themselves over there. Why, they were saying this is Kerry's race to lose. Now, that means Bush has no chance, it's up to Kerry. If Kerry stays on the straight and narrow, Kerry does the right thing, this is over. And all of a sudden from then to now, they're panicked out there, they're panicked at ABC's The Note. They're hoping for a shakeup, they don't know what's happened. You heard Andrea Mitchell, our sound bite earlier from last night on MSNBC after Giuliani's speech. She was just beside herself. What's Kerry going to do? I can't believe that Bush is defining him, Giuliani defined Kerry. Well, they gotta do something about this in two days.

You know, I'm sitting here stunned. Why is anybody surprised that we're going to define Kerry or that Bush and the Republicans are going to define Kerry? Kerry won't define himself. Kerry can't define himself. Somebody's going to. That's why, frankly folks, during these whole six months none of this stuff has really bothered me. Even the swift vets stuff. As I told you yesterday, the swift vets stuff, the reason it works, the primary reason it works is not for what it says about Kerry in Vietnam and all this stuff, it says more about him when he got back, but what it is, is a giant spotlight on Kerry as a man, who he is. He's calculating, he's insincere, he's disingenuous. I mean, when you claim, and it's in your biography, that you have a turning point in your life that's seared, seared in you, and then it gets four different versions when people challenge your original version, it can't be too seared. Maybe it's constructed. But there is a record of Kerry's votes in the Senate. That's going to come up. That's what was largely discussed last night in an indirect way. And I guess the press thought that since they weren't -- and here's another thing, speaking of the press -- let me finish the thought. The press thought we could go through this whole campaign with Kerry not being defined because they wouldn't do it. So now the Republicans are doing it and they're beside themselves. How can they do this? Why, this is not fair! You know, swift vets are not fair, Michael Moore is totally fair, swift vets are not fair, Bob Woodward is totally fair, swift vets aren't fair, Richard Clarke totally fair, swift vets aren't fair, 60 Minutes doing whole hours with these groups, that's fair. Swift vets aren't fair, George Soros, fair. Swift vets not fair, MoveOn.org fair. Swift vets not fair. Notice that swift vets is it on the so-called Republican side. All these other things, they're perfectly fine.

Now here comes the press not defining Kerry, upset the Republicans are. And something else that they're upset about, and that is, I think Kerry is probably, as Al Hunt says in his piece, Kerry is bouncing off the walls. This is a quote. "Senator Kerry privately is said to be bouncing off the walls in frustration." And it's over the swift vet stuff. Now, I'll bet you I know what happened. I'll bet you somebody in the Kerry campaign, or Kerry himself, either somebody told him or he concluded, "This swift vet stuff isn't going to work, the press isn't going to give it any time, the press is not going to give it the time of day. Don't worry about that swift vet stuff, senator, don't even answer it, don't respond to it, because we in the press, your allies and buddies, we're not going to give them the time of day."

Well, the mainstream press is going to have to learn it's a new day out there. They no longer have their monopoly anymore. And, you know, the fact that most of them have gone in the tank for Kerry, we can quote some of them if we have to, Evan Thomas of Newsweek would be just one example. But if they've gone in the tank for Kerry and they're avoiding any bad news about him -- and they've tried to avoid the swift vet stuff as best they can -- but they aren't the only game in town anymore. So it has been covered. Kerry sitting out there a little frustrated by it, bouncing off the walls, as Hunt says in his lead,
"As the Bush campaign commands an exquisitely directed convention, the faltering Kerry campaign might be on the verge of a major shake-up. Dispirited Democrats -- prominent senators, top fundraisers, even a few Kerry confidants -- have told the candidate, who is in Nantucket--"

Where are the pictures of this? He tried to windsurf out there and there was no wind, and he kept fighting it and falling off and slipping into the water, falling off the board or whatever it was.

We hope to see pictures of this but we're not holding our breath. Are there a couple? There are a couple? Oh, well, I haven't seen 'em. I take it back. I take it back, I haven't seen the pictures. He went out there and windsurfed. He's on vacation, of course, observing the time-honored rule that the opposition candidate goes dark for a week during the other candidate's convention week, other than a brief appearance at the American Legion. That is symbolic of the Kerry campaign, it can't stand up, can't move forward, flip-flopping all over the place and finally falling over. And, you know, the press is just out there doing their best to prop him up, but it's just not working. So all these dispirited Democrats, and a few very well connected Democrats, are telling people like Al Hunt, who is also a well connected Democrat, that something will occur in the next few days. "One person who might assume more control is Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary to Bill Clinton and a respected public-relations figure, but one who has almost no experience in the high-stakes world of presidential campaigns. Another possibility: veteran Democratic politico John Sasso, currently at the Democratic National Committee."

Now, we talked about Sasso yesterday, the truth squad. You know, Democrat truth squads descended on New York for the convention, and they had a crasher. Hillary Clinton crashed the truth squad. She's all over TV on Sunday, and the Kerry campaign says (doing impersonation), "What's she doing there? We didn't want her in there!" And McAuliffe said, "She's there." The story I saw said that Sasso, who's Kerry's man at the DNC, tried to get her thrown out of the truth squad and McAuliffe put the kibosh on that, telling us who's still running this party. I still say if you really dig deep you might find some Clinton PAC money laundered three or four different ways, found its way to the swift vets. But that's just me, ladies and gentlemen. So, Senator Kerry said to be bouncing off the walls in frustration. "Leading Democrats describe a command structure often frozen -- or at least tempered -- by too many chefs, a too-heavy reliance on polls or focus groups and an aversion to risks."

Well, hello, welcome to the Democrat Party. I mean, if they're going to poll for President Clinton, where he ought to go on vacation and what he ought to wear when he's there, why is this a surprise? This is a party that is hell-bent on trying to please people and do what they think people want, rather than lead. The reason they don't is because if they'd be honest about who they are, they'd be rejected by even more people. As a result, says Al hunt, "The message often is muddled and the reaction to hard-hitting attacks from Republicans often is slow and unconvincing."

You know, it's amazing to me how the candidate escapes all the blame for this. The conductor didn't stop the train. The speechwriter forgot to take the line out of the speech. Now it's the campaign screwing up everything here, while Kerry is bouncing off the walls or falling off his kite surfing board. But Kerry escapes any responsibility for his campaign. It's all these other guys' fault. It kind of reminds me of the story when he went out to Sun Valley there, got in one of the SUVs owned by the family, he just rides in it, drove up the hill to the chalet there and went skiing first time in a long time, so the press gave him a free run down the hill before the cameras went on.

So he did a flawless run down the hill. Second run, Kerry takes a tumble. And the cameras are running. We didn't see any pictures of it, cameras were running. And so reporter laughingly, lightheartedly, went up to Kerry, hey, (laughing) how about that tumble? "I don't fall," and he pointed to a Secret Service agent, "That SOB tripped me." So I guess the reason that the campaign gets all the blame is because Kerry, in his own mind, never does anything wrong. At any rate, uh, you mean the Purple Heart bandages? (talking to program observer) Yeah, they're livid at that. They ought to just ignore this kind of stuff. You know, the Republicans are taking care of that themselves. The Republicans have got rid of the Band-Aids with the Purple Hearts on it. But, you know, I'll tell you what Kerry ought to do. I can't believe, and I think that this is also a tremendous illustration of who this guy is. Okay, so Republicans are having fun with the Purple Hearts and the bandages and so forth, and the Democrats are all out of whack when they act that way. It makes you think, well, there must be something to this, why, this might really damage them, so we gotta get rid of that. It's sort of like when the swift vets came out. You know what Kerry ought to have done? And I hate to give him this advice because he's going to make a speech tomorrow and he might take it. Nah, won't take it. But if he had half a brain what Kerry would have done long ago is just apologize for any statements that may have offended any vets and blamed it on his youth. And he did say that in a way, but he didn't apologize. Just apologize for it and put it behind him. It would have been seen by a lot of people as the right thing to do. It might have ticked off some of the members of his base, but they're not going to go anywhere just because he would have done that.

Instead, what did he do? He went after the swift vets like the old KGB did. He threatened them, he tried to silence them, he went after TV stations and bookstores, the publisher, demanded the book be pulled off the shelves. I mean, I really thought the Kerry campaign had brought the old KGB back. All he needed to do was just apologize, and now it's the same thing with the Purple Heart bandages, just laugh it off! You know, it's unbelievable. All these little things get to these people. It's like they are elitists, and they're "how dare you make fun of me, how dare you insult me. Don't you know who I am? I'm John Kerry, and I'm here to save the day!" It's like we are not fully aware of how blessed we are to soon be under the reign of President Kerry. And that's the attitude these people display and it's laughable in itself.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

[Smartass]

Want to join in the fun? Click the logo to donate to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!

[MeekOneGOP]

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See this group of Swift Boats patrolling together? They are NOT SERVING together!!! Only the ones on the SAME BOAT are serving together! Each group of personnel on each boat know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the personnel on the other boat, PERIOD !! If they say they do, they are Republican LIARS !! Unless the one talking is a DemocRAT. Then he is telling the truth, of course.

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This idjit needs to release HIS MILITARY RECORDS!

Help the Kerry Campaign With Its paperwork!
Email Them a Standard Form 180 Now!

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Click here to donate to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!

[Bob]

This is the first swift vet ad that uses John Kerry's own words!

This isn't the first one. El Rushbo must have missed (or forgotten) the second ad with Kerry's Senate testimony and the POWs.

[Boundless]

>> This is the first swift vet ad that uses John Kerry's own words!

> This isn't the first one. El Rushbo must have missed
> (or forgotten) the second ad with Kerry's Senate
> testimony and the POWs.

That wasn't Kerry's own testimony about his own actions.
It was just hearsay that he had heard and had no
actual evidence was true.

He didn't admit to non-specific personal war crimes
until later (and not under oath).

[Smartass]

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

ELECTION 2004 Kerry campaign in for shake-up? Sources: Democratic leaders urge changes before too late

Posted: August 31, 2004
10:15 p.m. Eastern
------------
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Democratic sources say a major shake-up in John Kerry's presidential campaign could be imminent, citing the candidate's inability to respond effectively to criticism from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

According to a CNN report, one party strategist said if changes aren't made, "it could be too late." The shake-up was anticipated to occur by Labor Day.

The network reported sources said there will be some changes in the coming days and some "evolving roles" at the campaign's senior level.

"We don't have a Carville or a Begala," CNN quotes a senior Kerry official as saying. "We can't mimic what happened in 1992."

Reportedly being targeted by high-level donors and elected officials were campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill and communications director Stephanie Cutter. Cahill was brought onboard in late 2003 after Kerry dumped Jim Jordan.

Some sources speculated if Cahill and Cutter are left in place others may be given more authority over day-to-day operations, such as Joe Lockhart, former press secretary to President Clinton who is now a Kerry communications adviser, and John Sasso, who is currently the Kerry campaign's liaison to the Democratic National Committee.

Lockhart dismissed rumors of changes.

"The campaign has a strong team in place and a strategy to win this election," he told CNN.

Said Cutter: "That's not going to happen. This is nothing new. Mary Beth is still campaign manager and will continue to be."

Four critical TV ads released by the veterans' organization have had an effect on the campaign, with Kerry's polling numbers markedly decreasing since one month ago.

Rather than respond to the specific charges of the swiftboat vets, Kerry has maligned them and attempted to get the commercials off the air.

---

Want to join in the fun? Click the logo to donate to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!

[devolve]

                     

  ST. VALENTINE'S DAY

  IN KOHNBOATIA?

-- John O'Neil

US VETS BETRAYED BY

THE GREAT PRETENDER?

I'll be back!

[Ruth A.]

later

[Smartass]

Good one...

THANKS FOR THE PING

!

[drpix]

[sonofatpatcher2]

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Donate to Swift Boat Vets for the Truth HERE.

[Christian4Bush]

bttt

[Shermy]

check out # 10

[Cicero]

I went to dinner at the house of a very liberal friend last night, and he told me that the Swift boat campaign was doing Kerry a lot of damage. He was heartbroken. I find that encouraging, that the word is getting out even to the liberals.

[COEXERJ145]

ROFLMAO!!!!!

[Lady Jag]

Thanks for the ping! Kerry's going down.

[Smartass]

GOING DOWN LIKE THE TITANIC...

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BAH, BAAHH, BAAAHHHHHHHH

[PhilDragoo]

[rintense]

That's exactly what I said when Rush said this on his show.

[christie]

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Visit my John F. Kerry Timeline.
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