Wilson Didn't Complain About "The 16 Words" Until He Was Working On Kerry Campaign

Numerous | July 18, 2005 | Numerous

[Sam Hill]

Did he talk about this? I'm not able to listen.

[mware]

Did he talk about this?

Yes he did speak about it. He mentioned both the February and October comments.

He also mentioned that Wilson's views did not change until AFTER he became part of Kerry campaign.

Rush also mentioned that on some web blog for Kerry, someone asked him what changed his view on the President, and his response to that question was because of how the president went after McCain and his children.

So it seems we have information that Wilson was a partisan before the 2000 election.

[Ditto]

Bookmark bump. Good research.

[Sam Hill]

Great, so he read all the way down to post #72. LOL.

[bitt]

Dems_R_Losers has some very fine arguments, too. someone please forward them appropriately.

we need a special FR e-m address for dumping all theories, that can all be secretly forwarded to the appropriate venues.

[mware]

Hey Sam, I would be willing to bet you a case of Tastycakes that at least a dozen talk show hosts use FR as show prep.

[bmwcyle]

ping

[Dems_R_Losers]

Rush also mentioned that on some web blog for Kerry, someone asked him what changed his view on the President, and his response to that question was because of how the president went after McCain and his children.

So it seems we have information that Wilson was a partisan before the 2000 election.

Not necessarily. Someone else with the Kerry campaign, who was involved in the 2000 campaign, and hated Karl Rove could have fed the McCain story to Wilson and told him to cite this as his reason for disliking Bush. Wilson was too busy with his business in Africa in 2000 to have paid that much attention to the campaign. The "McCain smear" story barely made it into the media, even after the campaign was long over. But Wilson could easily have heard about it from Chris Lehane. Citing this particular story is another way to slam Karl Rove, since the moonbat left has continually flogged it as prima facie evidence of Rove's dirty tricks and smear tactics.

Here's what The Daily Kos had to say about Mr. Lehane after he was fired by the Kerry campaign on September 14, 2003:

You knew it was coming.

Kerry communications director Chris Lehane has resigned from the Kerry campaign.

John Kerry's communications director has resigned over differences in the direction of the Democrat's presidential campaign.

Chris Lehane's departure comes amid speculation of a wider shake-up in the Kerry campaign, which has been torn by internal fights and a lack of public support from the candidate.

Can campaign manager Jim Jordan be far behind?

The official line is that Lehane wanted Kerry to move more aggressively against Dean. True or not, Lehane is an asshole. Many have documented his blatantly unfair attacks on Bradley as Gore's campaign mouthpiece in 2000, such as this piece:

Lehane more than exemplifies spin-he lives it, he celebrates it, he worships it. At Gore events, Lehane relentlessly bends, manipulates, dodges or obliterates the truth [...]

The questions turned to campaign finance reform. For weeks, the Gore camp had been dumping on Bradley's call for extensive reform. In December, on Meet the Press, Gore had said, "I have fought for this for 20 years. Bill went 17 years in the U.S. Senate before he ever sponsored a campaign finance reform bill. Only after announcing his retirement and heading out to run for president did he sponsor a bill on this." Two days before the New Hampshire election, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a Bradley supporter, had read to reporters in Concord a statement written by Fred Wertheimer, a leading reform advocate in Washington. "Vice President Gore's statements about Bradley and his campaign finance reform record are not true," Wertheimer declared. He noted that Bradley had sponsored several different reform bills.

Wertheimer also observed that "Gore's own public track record over the years does not reveal him to be a 'fighter' for campaign finance reform."

So what about it, Chris? we asked Lehane. "Bill Bradley went over 6000 days [in the Senate] without authoring a piece of [reform] legislation," he replied, ignoring Gore's accusation that Bradley had not sponsored reform legislation. But, we answered, Wertheimer says you're wrong.

"Bill Bradley went over 6000 days without authoring a piece of legislation," he repeated. But, we shot back, Wertheimer says he sponsored a host of bills. "Bill Bradley went over 6000 days without authoring a piece of legislation," he said again. Wait a minute, I added, we all know that in Congress authoring legislation is not the only way of promoting an issue. Often a committee chairman authors the bill and other lawmakers work hard as cosponsors. "Bill Bradley went over 6000 days without authoring a piece of legislation," he countered.

Like I said, Lehane's an asshole. The Kerry campaign is better off without him.

Now let's hope for Clark's sake that Lehane doesn't end up in that campaign.
.....................

Unfortunately, that's exactly where Lehane ended up. An abstract of a New York Times article has this to say about Lehane's antics on behalf of General Clark:

Gen Wesley K Clark's communications strategist Chris Lehane is acknowledged master at feeding unflattering facts about opponents to press; he is such a shrewd practitioner of what is called 'political black arts' that lately, when negative story appears, rivals point to him; he has become target in fight among Democrats about whether opposition research is going too far, whether Democrats are hurting each other rather than Republicans; those who know Lehane say his skill lies in his intricate understanding of how news organizations work, and in his uncanny ability to play one reporter off another; tensions over him burst into prime time this week when Steve McMahon, consultant for Dean campaign, erupted in frustration at Lehane on MSNBC program Hardball.

Ask yourself why a high profile Democrat communications specialist, who worked on the Kerry campaign when the so-called "leak" occurred, and who hates Karl Rove and George Bush, has not appeared on a single TV program, or been quoted in a single newspaper story, about the Plame flap? A Google search shows no references to Chris Lehane in the media since he appeared on Nightline during Rathergate and tried to spin the story that the fake Guard memos were planted with CBS by Karl Rove.

Could a guy with an "uncanny ability to play one reporter off another" have been involved in spreading an untrue story among reporters about a White House smear campaign against Joe Wilson and an illegal outing of his secret agent wife?

Is Judith Miller in jail to protect him?

[CHARLITE]

Thanks for your excellent work. It is a fine addition to what Rush reported on 2 of his 3 hours this morning. He read Wilson's OpEd from a week or two following the famous State of the Union address in Jan. 2003, where Wilson said absolutely nothing about being "outraged" at the reference to British Intel and the Saddam-Niger connection.

Rush covered the entire story which all of you have now amplified here on this thread. It's vitally important now to get this "moving right along," getting it out into the general public. Blogsites might help, but we should also send this post around in emails to our lists.

Thanks once again for this post, Sam.

Char :)

[Sam Hill]

Thanks. But from what I've been told, you've got it the other way around. Rush was basing what he said on this thread.

Thanks again.

[Sam Hill]

"Blogsites might help, but we should also send this post around in emails to our lists."

Please send this around to anybody you can.

I don't feel anything proprietary about it. I'm probably not even the first person to have noticed this around here. It really sticks out if you just look at the timeline.

The great thing is there is really no arguing against it. The dates are the dates.

Thanks again.

[Peach]

Sam, I suggest you e-mail that excellent find of yours to Brit Hume and the National Review and Weekly Standard. A few letters to the editor by freepers about this matter wouldn't hurt either.

And I think we should all e-mail this to our friends.

Thanks for the ping, MM.

[Plutarch]

Hey, I listened to my Rush podcast this evening, and lo, he obviously had seen this thread. Looks like you've done okay even if your linking technique is suspect. ;-)

[Sam Hill]

hehe

Thanks.

[cyncooper]

Read down in the article a way where Wilson first saw the fake uranium docs. He knew they were fake? Then why did he take the vaca..the trip to Niger for tea and crumpets?

Wilson claimed the forged docs were tied to his trip but the fact is they weren't and he now concedes that point and says he "misspoke".

Of course it's clear he actually flat out lied. The forged documents were given to our embassy in Rome in October 2002---months after his February 2002 trip. He never saw them.

[BARLF]

"misspoke".....my foot.

[BARLF]

http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/terror.htm


Scroll down to "Patterns of Global Terrorism" The State Dept. issues a list of terrorist activity for each year. Also, list names of terrorists groups.

If anyone has any doubts that Iraq was aiding and abetting terrorist groups they should read the reports especially during the Clinton years.

I know you do a lot of research so maybe you have seen these State Dept reports. I'm almost blind from all the reading.....LOL

[Eva]

Joe Wilson met with Chris Lehane in May of that year and it was then that the story began to grow some legs. Chris Lehane was responsible for shopping the story to Vanity Faire and arranging for the NYT article.

[cyncooper]

Thanks!

[Liberty Valance]

Bump