"Swift boat veterans for lies and slander" (Awesome Rebuttal)

"A lie," Mark Twain wrote, "can go halfway around the world before the truth even gets its boots on."

At the time he wrote it, Twain's quip was hyperbole; today it is fact. A good example is the disinformation campaign by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is aimed at discrediting Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam war record.

Because of this group's deceptive TV ads, many people now think these veterans were members of Kerry's Swift boat crew. They were not. They "served with" him only in the sense that they were in the same war.

About two weeks ago, I received a letter to the editor from a reader who said the veterans who served with Kerry consider him unfit to be commander-in-chief, and that Kerry had gotten a Purple Heart for a scratch on his hand, caused when his weapon misfired.

I knew that wasn't right, because all the living members of Kerry's Swift boat crew had stood on stage with him at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. And I knew that Kerry had not one Purple Heart, but three, as well as a Bronze Star and Silver Star for valor. I learned that his first injury was a wound to his left arm, not a scratch on his hand. So I convinced the reader that the letter needed to be corrected.

John O'Neill, leader of the anti-Kerry veterans group, says Kerry shouldn't have gotten the first Purple Heart because it was for a slight injury -- and therefore he shouldn't have earned an early exit from Vietnam for having three.

I don't fault President Bush for avoiding service in Vietnam by joining the Texas Air National Guard. It was an unpopular war, and many avoided going. Some, like Kerry, who did serve later realized the war was wrong and spoke against it. Kerry went further. He became a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and uttered these famous words in a Senate hearing: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Kerry frightened the Nixon administration because he was a genuine war hero and a straight arrow -- not a New Left radical like Jane Fonda, who attended some of the same rallies. The GOP's dirty tricks department tried to discredit Kerry back then, and they're still at it. Yet when false accusations have arisen, the men who served with him have rallied around Kerry, as they're doing now.

His past defenders have included Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., commander of naval operations in Vietnam, and Admiral Adrian L. Lonsdale, who turned against Kerry after historian Douglas Brinkley's book, Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, portrayed him as a reckless leader.

Sen. John McCain, a Bush supporter and friend of Kerry, has called on Bush to refute what he called "dishonest and dishonorable" claims by the Swift boat veterans group. The president has refused to do so.

These claims have been shot down by journalists like Tom Oliphant of The Boston Globe and eyewitnesses such as Wayne Langhofer and Jim Rassman.

Kerry won the Bronze Star for rescuing Rassman, an Army Green Beret who fell into the water when Kerry's boat came under fire. O'Neill's group claims there was no longer any gunfire when Kerry turned his boat around to save Rassman. But Rassman, a longtime Republican, has said he was "scared to death" by the bullets hitting the water around him. And Langhofer, who was in the boat behind Kerry's, said in an interview published Sunday in The Washington Post: "There was a lot firing going on, and it came from both sides of the river."

Some of Kerry's accusers have tripped over their own misstatements. George Elliott recommended Kerry for the Silver Star after Kerry charged an enemy sniper's position, chased down a Viet Cong who was carrying a loaded B-40 rocket launcher, and killed him. Recently Elliott signed an affidavit saying the senator didn't deserve the award. Then he expressed regret the affadavit. "It was a terrible mistake," he said. "I knew it was wrong." Then he changed his mind again. Mr. Elliott seems to be confused.

But here's what Lonsdale said about Kerry's Silver Star: The medal isn't given unless the action for which it is recommended can be thoroughly corroborated by witnesses. It was.

We have learned that the Swifties' ads were funded by a wealthy Texas donor with ties to Bush. And this week an embarrassed Bush-Cheney campaign fired a volunteer who had been involved in making one of the ads. The president also called for an end to ads made by "527" soft money like O'Neill's -- but he didn't repudiate the content of those ads.

It was too little too late. The stories have taken on a life of their own and damaged Kerry, polls show.

This is what the right-wingers always do: They depict their opponents as liars or lunatics. They question their patriotism. But they delegate this dirty work to independents so that, like Pontius Pilate, they can wash their hands of it.

Al Gore never said he invented the Internet. Mike Dukakis didn't furlough Willie Horton. Max Cleland, a triple-amputee war veteran, was no friend of Osama bin Laden -- but campaigns of deception convinced enough voters of these things.

In his book, Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy, William Greider said this about GOP strategy: "The party's method deliberately coaxes emotional responses from people -- but then walks away from the anger and proceeds to govern on its real agenda, defending the upper class interests of wealth and corporate power."

Isn't that happening now? In the past week, while attention was focused on Kerry's war record, many people missed these other news stories: the Labor Department's new rules to exempt millions of workers from overtime pay; a Census Bureau report showing that Bush's tax cuts shifted the burden even more from the wealthy to the middle class and from investment income to wages; and a study that showed the income gap has widened significantly since 1973.

Shouldn't this election be about the war against the working class and the war in Iraq -- a country that was no more a threat to our national security than Vietnam was -- rather than about a young man's military service 36 years ago? I think so, and I would rather be right than be in the majority.

Link: http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6769&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

Posted by jrsdad: (exceptional!!) This one got to me, Sue. So I spent a while writing (and emailing to Mr. Patrick and the editor) this response:

Mr. Patrick,

I just came across your 8/26 opinion piece, “Swift boat veterans for lies and slander.” While I do not write this for publication, I write to point out your own lies and slander. I wonder whether you will have the intellectual wherewithal to defend yourself or the integrity to admit your own errors? A published retraction would be appropriate.

1. “A good example is the disinformation campaign by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is aimed at discrediting Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam war record.” “Disinformation” is defined by Webster as “false information deliberately and often covertly spread.” For you to accurately and truthfully use the term, you must demonstrate by facts which are supported at least by a preponderance of evidence. As shall be demonstrated, you fail to do so. This means that, at best, your opinions vary with the statements of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVFT). You should use words more precisely as a journalist, I believe. If you fail to demonstrate that more than half of the statements of the SBVFT are false information deliberately spread (i.e., with the knowledge that it is false, not a good-faith belief in the truth of the statements) you have in effect lied when you classified the words as “disinformation.”

2. “Because of this group's deceptive TV ads, many people now think these veterans were members of Kerry's Swift boat crew. They were not. They "served with" him only in the sense that they were in the same war.” This statement is disingenuous at best. As you are well aware, these veterans did more than serve “in the same war.” Indeed, Kerry’s “band of brothers” (“BoB”) includes men who served with Kerry in exactly the same fashion as most of the members of SBVFT and the 60+ who have signed sworn affidavits (which are, as you are undoubtedly aware, legal evidence). Only 8 of the (now 14) Swift supporters of Kerry served directly under him on a Swift boat. The Kerry campaign has solicited the support of William Rood, who never served on Kerry’s boats, but was a skipper indeed serving with him in another Swift boat. Kerry also numbers among his on-platform BoB who served with him Rich McCann and Rich Baker, also skippers of other Swift boats from Coastal Division 11. When you did your exhaustive research into the issue, did you not discover this? That while you falsely claim the service of the SBVFT were merely in the same theater, like Kerry’s own BoB they were actually serving several feet away, living together, sleeping together, eating together, and going on patrols together. The Swift veterans in the first ad (“Any Questions?”) who state they served with Kerry (Al French, Bob Elder and Bob Hildreth) were all Swift boat skippers in Coastal Division 11, and indeed had their picture with Kerry used in an early Kerry campaign commercial. It is only in the strained logic of someone seeking to find fault that there would be a connection between “serving with” and “serving on the same boat.” It is never stated in the ads, and truth be told you will probably find that a majority of Americans cannot tell you that Kerry even served on a Swift boat. The false precision you are deducing just doesn’t exist. Do you only count as “serving together” men who flew in the same airplane in combat, or do you accept their squadron mates as having served together? Do you only count the guys sharing the foxhole, or is the rest of their platoon also serving with them?

3. “I knew that wasn't right, because all the living members of Kerry's Swift boat crew had stood on stage with him at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.” This is patently false, and had you done any research at all you would know that Steve Gardner served longer than any of Kerry’s BoB, in the gun tub of PCF-44. Steve is a member of SBVFT, and featured in the third ad ("Gunner") which had aired by the time you wrote your piece. If you knew this and wrote the above, you were lying. Period. If you didn’t know this easily-learned fact, you were slothful. You also betray your ignorance in saying “Swift boat crew”; Kerry skippered two Swift boats (PCF-44 and PCF-94), and thus to be accurate you would have to write “crews.”

4. “John O'Neill, leader of the anti-Kerry veterans group, says Kerry shouldn't have gotten the first Purple Heart because it was for a slight injury -- and therefore he shouldn't have earned an early exit from Vietnam for having three.” If you had bothered, as a good journalist, to read what the qualifications are for receiving a Purple Heart you would have to agree with Mr. O’Neill even as you mischaracterize what O’Neill states. As I am sure you are aware, having done the basic research before slandering a public figure (which subjects you to civil liability if your malicious intent can be demonstrated even in a newspaper), the Purple Heart as authorized by Public Law 104-106 requires that the wound be significant enough to have "required treatment by a medical officer.” Expert legal testimony, provided by Dr. Louis Letson in affidavit form, demonstrates that the wound was insignificant and could have been treated by an enlisted medical person, and did not require “medical officer” treatment. Indeed, the Kerry rebuttal to the affidavit of Dr. Letson, the treating physician, is that there is no evidence Dr. Letson treated Kerry, as the form was signed by J. C. Carreon. J. C. Carreon (deceased) was a Hospitalman First Class (an enlisted medic or corpsman) and not a “medical officer.” If the Kerry campaign is correct, on the face of it, Kerry’s wound did not meet the requirements of a Purple Heart wound. You simply cannot have it any other way. Thus O’Neill’s statement is factual, even eliding the other factors which play an important part in O’Neill’s statements.

5. “Somebody should remind O'Neill that Kerry didn't give himself these medals.” This begs the question that the Kerry campaign refuses to address – who did? We know from sworn affidavits by Grant Hibbard (then the Lieutenant Commander who was Kerry’s operational superior officer on 2 December 1968 when Kerry received the wound for the first Purple Heart) and Vice Admiral William Schachte (ret.) (then Lieutenant Schachte who was Officer in Charge of the mission) that Kerry was turned down by his superior officers for recommendation for a Purple Heart for the wound. The actual award occurred in February 1969, over 2 months later and after everyone who had direct knowledge of the event had rotated back to the US. Who put Kerry in for the medal, after the officers in charge of the operation refused to do so? Where is the recommendation from Kerry’s file showing who applied for the award? Why is it that every piece of documentation that would confirm or deny the SBVFT allegations will not be released by the Kerry campaign? Why is your sensitive reporter’s nose not twitching at this? Since you cannot state who did give Kerry the medals, you cannot state that Kerry did not give himself the first Purple Heart (i.e., make his own recommendation).

6. “Some, like Kerry, who did serve later realized the war was wrong and spoke against it.” Your scholarship on Kerry is sadly deficient. Kerry was against the war before he enlisted in the Naval Reserve. In 1965, he was invited as head of the Yale Political Union to deliver a speech at Choate prep school; he spoke against the war in Vietnam. (Brinkley, Tour of Duty, p. 54-55.) Also in 1965 he won the Ten Eyck Speech Prize at Yale, also with a speech against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. (Id at p. 57.) When he gave the class oration at Yale in 1966, he once again voiced his disapproval of U.S. “imperialistic” intervention in Vietnam. (Id at p. 61.) Kerry had a long history of dissent before he enlisted. Thus your statement is false.

7. “The GOP's dirty tricks department tried to discredit Kerry back then, and they're still at it.” Please cite any substantive evidence that the GOP is behind SBVFT. Not lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg, for then you must admit that the DNC is behind the 527’s MoveOn.Org represented by Joseph Sandler who also represents the DNC, and America Coming Together, which is represented by Robert Bauer (chief counsel to the Kerry-Edwards campaign). Did you, as an enterprising journalist, even know that? Do you care? Please cite one bit of evidence of direct collaboration between anyone in the Bush campaign and Swift vets. Not shared acquaintances. Not using PR firms that have done business with Republicans in the past (else you find yourself going after MoveOn.Org for using @dvocacy, Inc., which specializes in Democratic campaigns and represents over 20 current Democratic politicians). You have no evidence, and thus your statement in simple slander. I can give you pages on ties the Democrats have with 527s from a financial angle (think Steven Bing, for instance) if you want to discuss Bob Perry’s contributions to SBVFT. I can point to places on the DNC web sites that proudly proclaim working in partnership with 527s. I can point to DNC insiders who formed 527s. I can point to folks like Zack Exley who went from MoveOn.Org to help run the Kerry campaign, or Jim Jordan who went from the Kerry campaign to Media Fund. Don’t pick the fight of connections, because you will lose.

8. “Yet when false accusations have arisen, the men who served with him have rallied around Kerry, as they're doing now.” Some 14 men who served with Kerry support him. Over 250 men, many of whom stand to lose a great deal from attacks such as yours and the Kerry campaign, have come forward to sign a statement against Kerry. Over 60 have gone so far as to sign legal affidavits, something none of Kerry’s BoB has been willing to do, which could expose the signers to legal prosecution. Why do you give credence only to the people who support Kerry, to the sailors under him (many of whom also received dubious medals in the same problematic incidents and who now are receiving benefits from supporting him) and the officers who served in his unit, yet deny the credibility of many more who served on his boats and skippered boats alongside him? How do you dispute testimony that runs 18 to 1? How are you honoring those decorated veterans? By calling them all liars.

9. “His past defenders have included Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., commander of naval operations in Vietnam, and Admiral Adrian L. Lonsdale, who turned against Kerry after historian Douglas Brinkley's book, Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, portrayed him as a reckless leader.” This is simply bad scholarship (I am trying to be charitable). First, ToD does not portray Kerry as a “reckless leader.” It is a campaign biography designed to present Kerry as a war hero and principled protestor. You do have one fact right in this whole piece – it was ToD which catalyzed the organization of the SBVFT. What did so were the statements both from the biography and Kerry’s journals as to what had happened. Many of the men had paid no attention to Kerry’s rise and claims up to this point because they were unpublicized. ToD made many realize that Kerry had lied and embellished his few months in Vietnam, had taken credit for the actions of others, and had managed to bypass normal channels to get awards they were unaware of.

10. “Sen. John McCain, a Bush supporter and friend of Kerry, has called on Bush to refute what he called "dishonest and dishonorable" claims by the Swift boat veterans group. The president has refused to do so.” How can Bush refute what he does not know of personally? How can McCain state that these men are dishonorable and dishonest? He was not in Coastal Division 11. He was not on John Kerr’s Swift boats. You cannot have it both ways – you cannot claim that the only people who know the truth are those who served directly under Kerry, and then accept the claims of knowledge of those who did not. How can McCain know whether Kerry is telling the truth or not other than as a character witness? How can he question the honor of the SBVFT members when he neither knows them nor knows of the events they witnessed? Perhaps you need to dig out the ol’ dictionary again, and look up “refute.” It means “to prove wrong by argument or evidence.” Why should the President be charged with compiling evidence to disprove an independent group like the SBVFT? Shouldn’t the Kerry campaign be charged with defending their candidate? Shouldn’t they take the easiest course if the charges are false – have Kerry sign the SF 180 and release all his military records? Were you one who asked President Bush to do the same thing?

11. “These claims have been shot down by journalists like Tom Oliphant of The Boston Globe and eyewitnesses such as Wayne Langhofer and Jim Rassman.” You have 6 people who witness an event and give one story, you have 6 others who disagree. Who is right? Does the testimony of one group automatically “prove” something? Oliphant, a blatant Kerry partisan who should not be considered impartial, has not “shot down” claims, he has merely highlighted unresolved issues. To claim that this is some definitive proof is to act as a trier of fact and make a determination on the merits. Since you have demonstrated a great deal of ignorance of the basic facts, you are in no position to judge.

10. “Kerry won the Bronze Star for rescuing Rassman, an Army Green Beret who fell into the water when Kerry's boat came under fire. O'Neill's group claims there was no longer any gunfire when Kerry turned his boat around to save Rassman. But Rassman, a longtime Republican, has said he was "scared to death" by the bullets hitting the water around him. And Langhofer, who was in the boat behind Kerry's, said in an interview published Sunday in The Washington Post: "There was a lot firing going on, and it came from both sides of the river."” Which version told by Rassmann do you favor? That he was on PCF-3 or PCF-94? That he was eating a cookie on the pilothouse roof or was working his way along the starboard side of PCF-94? That PCF-94 was lifted 2 feet out of the water after hitting a mine or was rocked by an explosion “close aboard” by a rocket or grenade? That Rassmann was hurled from the boat when PCF-94 made a hard turn to starboard, or by the explosion? That all the boats left the scene and only Kerry returned (Rassmann’s version) or that only Kerry’s boat left while the other three undamaged boats set about keeping the damaged PCF-3 afloat and tending to the injured sailors who were on PCF-3 and had been dumped in the river (the current Kerry campaign version)? Rassmann has stated that he dived 5-6 times underwater to avoid the propellers of the boats above – these propellers could not have been from Kerry’s PCF-94, because he has acknowledged being downstream. How great a view of what was going on above water did Rassmann have if he was underwater by his own statements most of the time? Why, if there was heavy firing, was there no bullet damage to any of the boats during the 1 ½ hour salvage operation? Why were there no bullet wounds? Why would this engagement be so different from any other Viet Cong ambush (a quick attack then melting away before the boats could bring their heavier weapons to bear)? Why did a subsequent sweep of the area by Special Forces yield no spent brass? You’re the reporter who claims to have researched this – what are your answers?

11. “Some of Kerry's accusers have tripped over their own misstatements. George Elliott recommended Kerry for the Silver Star after Kerry charged an enemy sniper's position, chased down a Viet Cong who was carrying a loaded B-40 rocket launcher, and killed him. Recently Elliott signed an affidavit saying the senator didn't deserve the award. Then he expressed regret the affadavit. "It was a terrible mistake," he said. "I knew it was wrong." Then he changed his mind again. Mr. Elliott seems to be confused.” Elliott has stated that if he knew then what he knows today, he would not have made the recommendation. Is it possible that when you learn new facts you change your mind? Planes were never used as missiles against skyscrapers before 9/11 – should we have changed anything given our new knowledge? As to Kranish’s recent quotes of Elliott, Elliott states that they were taken out of context. I suppose, as a veteran newspaper man, you have never heard of this happening, or done so yourself. Elliott states in his new affidavit that the only thing he should have qualified in his original affidavit is that, since he did not witness the killing of the VC (no one, according to all accounts, witnessed it) he should not have stated it in the exact words he used. Elliott based his statement on John Kerry’s own report of what happened, where Kerry states that at any moment the VC might have turned and fired. This led Elliott to deduce that the man was facing away from Kerry (why else would he have to turn to fire?). Would you deduce that someone was shot in the back if you herd a statement that he was fleeing and you worried that he might turn and fire at any moment?

12. “But here's what Lonsdale said about Kerry's Silver Star: The medal isn't given unless the action for which it is recommended can be thoroughly corroborated by witnesses. It was.” Really? How many witnesses are there on the Silver Star application? Who were they? Were they also recommended for an award that day? Who else was involved in the action? Were other boats given medals that day? You don’t know? Then don’t write on the subject.

13. “We have learned that the Swifties' ads were funded by a wealthy Texas donor with ties to Bush.” Horrors! A Republican who donates money to a group that is against the challenger to the Republican President! Who would have thought that could ever happen? And Republican Bob Perry has given $200,000 to a 527! Obviously a direct tie between the White House and SBVFT. Of course, George Soros has given about $16 million to 527s against Bush. Democrat Peter Lewis gave about $14 million to 527s. Democrat Steven Bing gave about $8 million to 527s. And as a journalist you think giving $200,000 is newsworthy? Do I sense a little bias here, Mr. Patrick?

14. “And this week an embarrassed Bush-Cheney campaign fired a volunteer who had been involved in making one of the ads.” When will an embarrassed Kerry campaign fire Zack Exley or stop coordinating voter registration drives and initiatives with groups like MoveOn.org? When will an embarassed Media Fund fire Jim Jordan, Kerry's former campaign manager? There is a difference here, sir. On one hand there was a veteran, a former POW named Ken Cordier, who spoke in a SBVFT ad. He was a volunteer in a state veterans' support group who was asked to resign by the Bush campaign when the Bush campaign learned about. The Bush campaign then notified the press. On the other hand is the Kerry campaign which pays people who have had paid positions with 527s and refuses to terminate them. A veteran volunteering for a get-out-the-vote program in a state organization is not in a position to provide “coordination” between the campaign and a 527. A paid employee in the exact same position in the Kerry campaign that he held in a 527 who oversees the entire internet operation certainly is in a position to provide coordination, even if it is using the knowledge of the 527’s plans he carries in his head. Where is your outrage?

15. “The president also called for an end to ads made by "527" soft money like O'Neill's -- but he didn't repudiate the content of those ads.” When has Kerry repudiated the content of the anti-Bush ads run by 527s? They run about 20-to-1 to the pro-Bush 527s. Please cite your call for Kerry to denounce them, and his response. Thanks!

16. “It was too little too late. The stories have taken on a life of their own and damaged Kerry, polls show.” This is a blatantly partisan line. Too late for what? To protect your man. The stories have taken a life of their own because they resonate with people, and the members of the SBVFT are showing the same courage under fire today that they did in Vietnam. You see and hear SBVFT all over the place, on the radio, on TV, in the papers. Where are Kerry’s BoB? Nowhere to be found. Instead, Kerry uses lawyers like Lanny Davis and John Hurley to face the Swift veterans. Why aren’t Kerry’s BoB on the air with their stories? Why has David Alston, one of the speakers at the DNC for Kerry, said that the Kerry campaign must approve any interviews? Sounds like transparency to me! Wouldn’t the journalistic world love to see a debate between John O’Neill, William Schachte, Van Odell, Steve Gardner and Larry Thurlow against Rich Barker, Del Sandusky, David Alston, Rich McCann and Bill Zaldonis? Why are you not calling for this? Why are you not questioning why these “eye witnesses” only give guarded, approved interviews? Doesn’t this make your investigative reporter spider senses tingle?

17. “This is what the right-wingers always do: They depict their opponents as liars or lunatics.” This is intended as a joke, right? What is the title of your piece? “Swift boat veterans for lies and slander.” Is this not depicting your opponents as liars? What is the point of your piece? You don’t provide any evidence other than mere acceptance of the statements of others (now, that’s what I call journalism!). The SBVFT have repeatedly called for Kerry to sign the SF 180 since May 2004 to settle this matter. Kerry refuses. They are called dishonorable and dishonest. They are called part of the GOP dirty tricks machine (sound familiar?). They are attacked in the press and the workplace – Jim Zumwalt has a prior suicide attempt leaked to the press (this is really relevant, isn’t it?), and Clackamas County, Oregon prosecutor Al French has been discharged because of “dirty tricks” leaks about an affair (wasn’t it “only about sex”?) because of his involvement with SBVFT. Businessman Bob Perry has had his home picketed and vandalized because he contributed money – is this what the fourth estate thinks of free speech these days?

18. “They question their patriotism.” This is the standard refrain. If you criticize someone’s voting record, you are questioning their patriotism. If you question their medals, you are questioning their patriotism. I think this comes from those who sling the allegations not understanding what patriotism is (“Look! He’s questioning my patriotism because he says I don’t understand patriotism!”). Patriotism is love or devotion to one’s country. When you accuse someone of lying or embellishing their record, you are making no statement about their love of their country. When you point out that, while a sworn Navy officer, Kerry met in Paris with representatives of the enemy and returned to champion their cause, even then you may not be questioning his love of his country. You may be talking treason, but not patriotism. One can be patriotic and dissent; one cannot give aid and comfort to an enemy without flirting with treason. But treason and patriotism are not the same thing. When Max Cleland’s voting against creation of the Homeland Security department was used against him in his last campaign, it wasn’t about patriotism, it was about pandering to the union constituency that puts so much money into the Democratic coffers and votes in the ballot box over concern for security. It was a question of values and judgment, not patriotism. Yet the Democrats always go back to the patriotism issue. The Democrats doth protest too much, methinks.

19. “But they delegate this dirty work to independents so that, like Pontius Pilate, they can wash their hands of it.” As opposed to the Democratic 527s which…?

20. “Al Gore never said he invented the Internet.” What Gore said was, “I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” Is it fair to joke that he claimed to have invented the internet? When are political jokes fair? And in trying to defend the real quote, Gore was unable to show support or authoring any significant legislation at the genesis of the internet to substantiate the claim that he took any initiative in creating it. The real statement of Gore’s is baseless, the jokes a wink and a nod to the absurdity of the self-inflating claim.

21. “Mike Dukakis didn't furlough Willie Horton.” Have you ever watched the independent “Willie Horton” ad? Perhaps you should. Consider the text:

“Bush supports the death penalty for first-degree murderers. Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times. Despite a life sentence, Horton received 1O weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man, and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes: Dukakis on crime.” http://www.ammi.org/cgi-bin/video/years.cgi?1988,17,ss,,R,,

What is inaccurate about the ad? The weekend furlough program was not instituted by Dukakis, but Dukakis opposed ending it even after hearing about the Willie Horton case. It took a crusading newspaper to force the closure of the program, and it was Al Gore who first brought it up in the primary debates in 1988. By not ending the program when asked, he allowed it to continue. The ad is factually correct. What people in the race industry make out of it is a different thing. Had Horton been white, there would have been no outcry. It just happens that of the 280 or so furloughed prisoners who escaped, he was the only one who committed murder. Don’t shoot the messenger if the message is not what your politucally-correct feelings want to hear.

22. “Max Cleland, a triple-amputee war veteran, was no friend of Osama bin Laden -- but campaigns of deception convinced enough voters of these things.” Not to hear fellow Democrat Zell Miller (who campaigned with and for his friend Cleland in the 2002 election in question). Miller says that it was Cleland’s votes against Homeland Security that didn’t sit well with Georgians. The ad did not interpose the pictures of Saddam and Cleland; it did state truthfully that Cleland voted against the Homeland Security department 11 times. Why are Senate voting records off limits in political ads according to the Democrats today? Why cannot an ad seek to remind voters of the stakes, by showing OBL or the WTC? These are very important to us, and should be part of the political dialogue. Are you saying voters should not be told of the voting records of those running for office? Is that the role of the media, to discourage the dissemination of truthful information?

23. “In his book, Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy, William Greider said this about GOP strategy: "The party's method deliberately coaxes emotional responses from people -- but then walks away from the anger and proceeds to govern on its real agenda, defending the upper class interests of wealth and corporate power."” Well, here’s an unbiased source. Look at his web site. Do I infer from references to President Bush as “Little Caesar” that he might be a bit partisan? A man who calls Michael Moore “my favorite media outlaw”? Who muses that conservatives must have microchips embedded in their brains controlled by corporate giants to keep them on message? Who writes of the “Stalinist discipline of the Republican party”? Hey, I want to use this guy as my authoritative source! http://www.williamgreider.com/

24. “… a Census Bureau report showing that Bush's tax cuts shifted the burden even more from the wealthy to the middle class and from investment income to wages” This was, indeed, horrible, horrible news. According to the Washington Post, “The CBO study, due to be released today, found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.” (.) Let me see if I can deal with this tragedy – the people who comprise 20% of the nation and consume the smallest amount of government services pay 63.5% of all taxes (while the bottom 50% pay about 3%). But wait… if you read the report (which I’m sure you did, right?) you see that the overall tax rate went from 21.5% in 2001 to 19.6 in 2004. That’s a 1.9% drop across the board. Everybody pays fewer federal taxes. That means that if more “burden” is taken by the middle class, it must be spread among more people because individual rates are down. Thus no individual will feel the “burden”, because their individual taxes have gone down. The top 20% dropped only .9%? Where is the shift here? And when you look at individual tax rates, there is another surprise – the effective tax rate on the 60-80% of incomes dropped from 7.2% in 2001 to 6.6% in 2004, for the middle quintile it dropped from 3.8 to 3.5%, and the lowest 40% of income earners went to nothing. Actually, the lowest started at nothing, the second quintile went from .3 to -0.1, but who’s counting? If the middle class is paying less, how do you make the case the burden has shifted to them? "Yes, you are paying less than before, but doesn't it feel like more because the rich guys are paying less, too?"

25. “…and a study that showed the income gap has widened significantly since 1973.” Yes, it has. But if the rich get richer and control more percentage of the GDP, does that mean the poor are poorer? What was the average family income in 1973? Where does it stand today? How does that fit with inflation? Bill Gates has a lot more money than I do, wealth he created that did not take away from mine. My income is 4 times what my father’s was, yet the difference between how much I make and how much Gates makes is much greater than how much my father made and how much the richest man in America made in 1980. What is the percentage of poor people who own homes today compared to in 1973? It is much higher. Is that not a measure of wealth? How many own cars? TVs? Air conditioning? There is a big difference between having no house and a house, and having a house and a $50 million dollar home. But which is the more significant difference? Relative measures of affluence are meaningless except for ideologues. Take a nation with a guaranteed minimum income of, say, $50k a year. The richest man goes from having $5 billion to having $10 billion. The gap has widened. Something to worry about?

26. “Shouldn't this election be about the war against the working class and the war in Iraq -- a country that was no more a threat to our national security than Vietnam was -- rather than about a young man's military service 36 years ago? I think so, and I would rather be right than be in the majority.” How do you define “war against working class”? You mean that personal incomes are up above inflation since 2001? That home ownership among the middle class is at a record high? That tax rates for the middle class have been lowered, giving the middle class family of four about $2000 extra dollars to spend themselves? Is this another of those cases where American wins a war and rebuilds a country? Looking at Japan and Germany one can see where losing a war with America is a great thing. (See "The Mouse that Roared" by Leonard Wibberly.)

When you say that this is about something that happened 30 years ago, are you saying Bush’s service is not an issue? That you wrote against those asking for Bush’s National Guard records? I’m afraid I could not locate that piece. Do you have a cite? Do you think Vietnam was not an issue because of the wonders the communists have brought in light of our withdrawal? How old are you, Mr. Patrick? Ever heard of Pol Pot and the “Killing Fields”? Ever spent time with one of the Vietnamese “boat people” who survived to come to the US? I have employees who were on both sides of the Vietnam war, one of whom still has a price on his head by the communist government. Were the millions who were slaughtered or imprisoned or “re-educated” following our abandonment of South Vietnam something we should be concerned about?

Do you feel that open support for HAMAS and Hezbollah by Saddam doesn’t affect us? That his proven capability to manufacture chemical and biological weapons on quick turn around was not a threat? That his ability to share this knowledge with terrorists was not a threat? That his documented attempts (per the Senate Select Intelligence committee's report on pre-war intelligence) to obtain components and fissionables for nuclear weapons posed no threat? That we only should militarily intervene when we are threatened (and thus Haiti and the Balkans were war crimes you denounced at the time)?

Are you with Michael Moore that “there is no terrorist threat”?

Shall we discuss Kerry’s Senate record instead? No? That will be questioning his patriotism? I thought so.

I welcome your detailed response. I am not a veteran. I am not a member of SBVFT. I am a registered California Democrat who initially believed that John Kerry had earned every award he claims in Vietnam, but that it was irrelevant. I took the time to investigate the issues, to read the books, to study the military documents on JohnKerry.com, to read the maps. I found that the gaps were suspicious in Kerry’s documentation, the stories of Kerry and his BoB in conflict on too many important points (it really does matter what boat Rassmann was on; if they cannot agree on that, how can you accept anything else they say?). I believe that Kerry wrote the after action spot reports which served as the basis for his awards because he testified before Congress that he had written many of them, and he wasn’t involved in that many patrols where you could exclude these central ones and have “many” possible remaining. The absence of bullet wounds or boat damage from 13 March 1969, coupled with the nature of VC ambushes (hit, fire a few shots, run away) and the eyewitness testimony lead me to believe that there was no enemy fire when Rassmann was pulled from the river, and hence no special valor meriting a Bronze Star.

Opinion should be informed, and not just by biases. Your screed is an embarrassment to the journalism profession.

Randy XXXXX El Cerrito, CA

Last edited by jrsdad on Wed Sep 01, 2004 7:05 am; edited 1 time in total

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