Instapundit has it just right this morning when he writes that mainstream media coverage and accuracy is a bigger issue than the election itself.
Elections come and go, politicians come and go, and pretty much all of them turn out to be disappointments one way or another. But the “Fourth Estate” is a big part of the unelected Permanent Government that in many ways does more to run the country than the politicians. And it’s unravelling before our very eyes, which I think is the biggest story of the election so far.
Is this blogger triumphalism? Maybe, but a chink in the armor of information control has been created — and it’s growing. “Information control?” you ask. Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration? Well, consider this: the major television networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) and The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times (not to mention others less important) all work from substantially the same world view with only the most minor variations. Some would call this “liberal.” I don’t at all, but never mind. It is nigh onto monolithic (with obvious exceptions) and it is protecting jobs, status, etc. as much as ideology. In fact, more than ideology, which seems to shift from day to day for pragmatic reasons. In that sense, these groups reflect the major political parties, which also appear more intent on winning, creating jobs for themselves, etc., than projecting specific policy.
This makes John Kerry the perfect modern candidate for the media because he is willing to switch views at the drop of the hat to preserve victory and his “culture.” The most recent example is his attack yesterday on Bush’s troop withdrawal plan, an idea which Kerry himself was backing less than a month ago. One wonders if he even remembers. Meanwhile, the major media continue to ignore the substance of the Swift Boat veterans accusations about Kerry’s “grade inflation” in Vietnam. They do this despite the almost universal belief that a presidential election is greatly about the candidate’s character and this speaks to that question in the most specific manner. Which makes the mainstream media propagandists, essentially, if you think about it.
So that leaves us renegades on the Internet. We’re propagandists too. Big time. But at least we admit it. Judge us how you will. But judge the mainstream media the same way. And, yes, there is probably a war on between us of sorts. Let’s hope it stays non-violent.
UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt has more on press malfeasance here.
MORE: Just for the record, the WaPo and others are casting aspersions on one of the Swift Boat Vets Larry Thurlow. They may be right. But frankly I don’t care. That’s about medals, arguably a pompous and silly side issue. (In warfare, they’re given out by the bucketful anyway). What is not pompous and silly is a Senator lying on the floor of that institution in order to advance his foreign policy position. Cambodia, Mon Amour… Until the WaPo et al deal with that, they remain reified. And if they don’t know what that means, they can look it up.
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227 Comments
1. CERDIP:“Well, consider this: the major television networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) and The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times (not to mention others less important) all work from substantially the same world view with only the most minor variations. Some would call this “liberal.” I don’t at all, but never mind.”
You are right. What it is has already been identified – it’s Big Brother.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:17 am 2. Ben:I have come to believe that the real problem with the MSM is cultural. The MSM lives in a echo chamber that begins in J-school and is prevalent in newsrooms and on the cocktail circuit. Most journalists have little education or experience in the fields they cover, so their perspective is informed only by water-cooler gossip in the newsroom, table talk at cocktail parties and political spin delivered by politicians and bureaucrats who are their “sources.” They don’t have sources of information outside of this arena, and many journalists either don’t know how to obtain other information or don’t care to do so (either because they are too busy, too lazy or already have the information they want to support their story).
When members of the MSM insist that they are not biased toward the left (which they clearly are), I don’t think they are telling a lie. They think they are telling a balanced story because everyone they talk to agrees with them. In short, they need to get out more.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:22 am 3. Pat Curley:I commented on this over at Captain’s Quarters the other day. It’s funny how bloggers all start blogging about stories we find and then pretty quickly we evolve into media critics because we see how biased the media are.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:45 am 4. Charlie (Colorado):Whether or not it’s “liberal” depends on what we conclude “liberal” means. It’s clear they’re not “liberal” in the sense of open government, free trade, and freedom from coercion. They might be “liberal” in the sense that they’d get a high ADA score.
What’s important is that they are in lockstep; Fox News and the blogs are all parts of the same phenomonon — information “wants to flow”, and there is a market for variety.
The networks hate it, though. Expect the derision to get worse before it gets better.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:46 am 5. marek:The MSM behaves and acts as one big cartel – their commodity is “news”. They do not only protect their own turf – jobs, markets, etc.
They protect their “ideology” – as fluid and transient as it is. Their profits are both material and political. I believe that many more analogies can be drawn between this “news cartel” and any other, i.e. OPEC.
The next big question is – can MSM be charged with racketeering and conspiracy?
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:48 am 6. Godzilla:I haven’t bought a newspaper in I don’t know how many years. And life is still good.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:54 am 7. D Anghelone:The withdrawal of troops from Europe is not a new policy. We’ve reduced those forces before and lastly, IIRC, under Clinton.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:58 am 8. ambisinistral:Kerry is now responding to the Swiftboat Vets charges which means Plan A, ignoring them, hasn’t worked. The media’s outright disdain or silence on the issue likewise didn’t work.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:00 am 9. Rick Ballard:Roger,
I have stopped calling the press “liberal” for a bit. I agree with your assertion that there is nothing liberal about the media. I will, however, continue to use DNC/ in front of any MSM, NYT, WaPo, LAT or any other party organ.
I do believe this to be a culminating point for the brontosaurus stuck in the tar pit. The forebrain is stuck 20 feet down in the tar and and dying rather quickly while the hindbrain sends frantic messages to the tail to thrash about in a vain effort to get out.
Interesting that the DNC/NYT and DNC/WaPo collectively decided to begin forfeiting the last remnants of their integrity on the same day. They don’t write a word on the magic hat Christmas tour of Cambodia, the DNC/Post even inverts the predicate subject for the story. The Elliot “change his story” ruse didn’t pan out so now discrediting Thurlow on the basis of incomplete records is being given a try. Why didn’t the Post publish the action report that instigated the commendation?
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:07 am 10. penwil:When the mainstream media turned themselves into such a blatant propaganda arm for the Democratic Party, they essentially wrote off half the population and all of the red states. These “flyover states” might be a joke to them, but it’s a big part of the country, of the economy, and of the government itself–if one cares to consider that the legislative branch just happens to be controlled by the very party that the MSM has been working so diligently to belittle and demonize. The media is going to find it harder and harder to influence the course of events in a country where half the population and a big chunk of the government isn’t listening to them anymore. Instead these people and groups will look to other sources, in particular the internet, to both keep themselves informed and to dissemenate information to others.
The fact that Unfit for Command is going to debut at #3 on the NYT best seller’s list–after the MSM has spent the last few weeks trying to impose a virtual blackout on the story–has proven how quickly and pervasively information can flow over the internet. Without the internet that book would have died without a wimper. Because of the internet, the book is selling like hotcakes and the story is being kept alive in spite of the MSM’s best efforts to pretend it doesn’t exist.
In a way their hubris that they could control the story by ignoring it backfired on them big time, Not only because it allowed the swiftboat vets and the internet to drive the narrative in a direction that ended up tarnishing their boy Kerry, but it pointed a big fat finger at their own bias and incompetence, and ultimately their growing powerlessness. (If that’s a word?)
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:09 am 11. PeterArgus:Add laziness to this mix. NYT published a front page, above the fold story on data of charter school performance “unearthed” by the American Federation of Teachers from the National Education Assessment website. As anyone with a brain knows the AFT is rabidly against charter schools. The NYT reporter doesn’t tell us this. In fact what she does is basically spit back the AFT report executive summary – i.e., charter schools suck – and tables with no fact checking . For “balance” the report ambushes Chester Finn and asks for his reaction – ” ‘The scores are low, dismayingly low,’ said Chester E. Finn Jr., a supporter of charters and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation”. I seriously doubt he had even heard of the report much less read it when he was contacted. Next day the editors lambast “Bush’s” charter school program (well actually it was supported by Clinton too) on the opinion page.
If you are interested in a good roundup of the issue check out eduwonk , no Bush supporter, BTW. As eduwonk documents there were serious problems with this study and the NYT coverage is receiving scathing criticism from many other MSM outlets. Bloggers clearly have played a roll in holding the NYTs feet to fire.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:09 am 12. JBR:Guys: The NYT wrote an editorial today about the SBVT, and in fact made reference to web sites like this one. To quote them: “The assault is gaining attention, with Internet and cable television zealots debating combat minutiae and even whether Mr. Kerry enacted wartime events with his political future in mind or held secret meetings with Communists.” Anyone here consider himself or herself a zealot?
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:25 am 13. Katherine:Ben ñ ìThey think they are telling a balanced story because everyone they talk to agrees with them.î
Yes, some years ago it struck me that ìbalanced discussionsî on NPR can be compared to socialist and communist having a debate on virtues of farm collectivization.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:26 am 14. BobT:I think Ben hit on one of the major problems: “Most journalists have little education or experience in the fields they cover”
By virtue of past training and job experience, I have more than a layperson’s knowledge in a couple-three areas that periodically are the targets of reportage. I’ve frequently been shocked at the misinformation that is published and broadcast.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:37 am 15. Fresh Air:Frederick Turner at Tech Central Station nails the problem of press bias.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:49 am 16. RogerA:Ben and BobT are right on target: lack of substantive expertise. In many respects going to J-School is like getting a masters of Ed degree: no content area knowledge is required–perhaps that is the reason why both our schools fail their children and and J-schools fail their readers.
As an aside, Micky Kaus demolishes the AFT screed published as fact in the NYT and picked up as an NPR lead yesterday. Basically, the study was flawed because the AFT folks failed to control for race. To some extent this example highlights several things: (1) lack of substantive expersie because neither J-school or Master of Ed folks get any basic statistics and therefore cannot judge the metholdological worth of analyses; and (2) the NYT still drives other MSM markets in lockstep. Sad.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:52 am 17. Fresh Air:JBR–
NYT: “The assault is gaining attention, with Internet and cable television zealots…
Great quote. Note the sly implication that all of us out here watching cable television or surfing the Internet are rabid philistines, while those high-minded enough to drink “sweet and light” coffee and read the New York Times for breakfast are our fair-minded, intellectual superiors.
What horsesh-t! I’m sure Little Pinch’s shareholders are pleased with what he’s done for them. It could be a long while before they see a return on their investment. I hope I live to see the day Lachlan Murdoch buys the New York Times Co. out of bankruptcy.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:56 am 18. JPLodine:Ben’s comment about journalists living in an echo chamber is right on target. It brings to mind the story of New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael expressing shock and surprise at President Nixon’s re-election in 1972. She is said to have wondered: “How could he possibly have won — I don’t know a single person who voted for him!” And in truth, she probably didn’t. This seems very believable to me; journalists are no better at seeing their blind spots than any of us. There’s no excuse for not trying, though.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:57 am 19. doublecola:interesting article in today’s WP–should initiate some discussion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13267-2004Aug18.html
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:06 am 20. Katherine:DC – “interesting article Ö should initiate Ö. discussion.”
You first.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:14 am 21. ambisinistral:DC, who has spent over a week questioning motives, etc., has just fallen into the same Chinese finger trap that Kerry has is faced with. Once you move beyond either ignoring or smearing your critics to slamming the merits their case, well… then you end up having to defend the merits of your case.
The story now has to increasingly move towards an examination of the claims put forth on both sides.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:16 am 22. Charlie (Colorado):Anyone here consider himself or herself a zealot?
Yes, but I bet the Times would be surprised what I’m zealous about.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:17 am 23. Charlie (Colorado):nteresting article in today’s WP–should initiate some discussion.
And by golly it has.
Now, did you have something to contribute yourself?
As we said the the spanking we administered Hollywood downstream, we’re all interested in hearing what you think — we’re usually already aware of what the Washington Post thinks.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:19 am 24. Charlie (Colorado):“drink ’sweet and light’ coffee” …
you mean “regular coffee”?
Got caught by that a couple of times when I first moved to NYC.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:21 am 25. DennisThePeasant:A True Story From Dennis-
Regular readers at this site might be surprised to find that I can be combative on occasion. No, really, I can! Anyway, I have a client, a nonprofit organization, that receives a substantial portion of it’s funding from a particular County governmental agency. Over the 10 years of my relationship with this client I have chosen to take on, in a very public way, this particular governmental agency because of their overall incompetence. This culminated in articles in several of the local papers, a long Op-Ed piece critical of the agency’s stewardship and public threats of lawsuits over improper conduct, and ended with the Executive Director and Finance Director of the agency being quietly replaced.
In the course of all this, I became know to several reporters covering parts of the Metro beat for the local rag. On day, out of the blue, I get a call from a reporter at the rag asking if I would care to comment on the local County Commissioners race. I asked him why the Hell the anyone would want my opinion on the relative worth of any of the Commissioners. The answer I got was that he had received my name from another reporter as ‘a prominent critic of’ this particular agency, which was part of the County government controlled by the Commissioners (there are three). So I said “Fire away” and the reporter started fishing for a quote that could be used against one particular Commissioner. After spending about 5 minutes answering questions that could not be construed as such criticism, the reporter started to get impatient with me. Finally, I just said “Look, I know your paper doesn’t want [this particular Commissioner] to win re-election. I do read your paper. But that isn’t my problem and there is nothing I can provide you in the way of either legitimate or specific criticism of this guy. If that is all you’re interested in, you’re wasting your time.” His response: “That is what I’m interested in. Thanks anyway.”
And this isn’t the only example I could give you of this kind of nonsense. As someone who is a real professional in a real profession, I tend to get a bit testy about journalists claiming to be ‘professionals’. But that’s only because I’ve had to deal with them on a personal level.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:29 am 26. Fresh Air:Charlie–
I can’t stand what they call “regular” coffee in New York. Give it to me black and strong. And don’t put it in one of those leaky paper sacks, either! (They also don’t know how to make pizza out there, but that’s another story.)
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:36 am 27. Charlie (Colorado):I think Ben hit on one of the major problems: “Most journalists have little education or experience in the fields they cover”.
I wish I could claimthat it’s just the leftish ones, too, but it’s not. Rich Lowry made some atrocious innumerate mistake in the Corner a few weeks ago….
The weird thing is that journalists don’t seem to much care if they have the facts right or not.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:37 am 28. DennisThePeasant:Just for the record, the WaPo and others are casting aspersions on one of the Swift Boat Vets Larry Thurlow. They may be right. But frankly I don’t care. That’s about medals, arguably a pompous and silly side issue. (In warfare, they’re given out by the bucketful anyway). What is not pompous and silly is a Senator lying on the floor of that institution in order to advance his foreign policy position.
Interesting take on the Post article–should initiate some discussion, eh doublecola?
Or were you just trying to prove that, like Hollywood, you know how to link, too.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:38 am 29. Charlie (Colorado):I can’t stand what they call “regular” coffee in New York. Give it to me black and strong.
I’m with you. I grew up on “range coffee”:
Fill pot with water. Add enough coffee. Boil until it looks done.
Throw in horseshoe.
If the horseshoe sinks, it’s not done.
If the horsehoe floats, it’s drinkable.
If the horseshoe dissolves, it’s ready.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:43 am 30. Hepzi:Has anyone seen the “Retro/Metro” black and white newsprint ad campaign over the last week or ten days? Its me been running in the WaPo.
Today, it turns out its another one of these “independent organizations” pumping out Hate Bush books and ads…
But its pretty clear–if you are a red state you are uneducated, backwards, a fundamentalist Christian, live in the South,–in other words a “Retro” rube.
If you are a Metro–you are educated, suave, agnostic and live in the Northeast and the Midwest ( the midwest, go figure! I think its a clue that they are targetting the Midwest swing voters…)–IOW, blue state and generally nice and intelligent.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that good hard-headed Americans everywhere will see through this patronizing baloney…its SO OBVIOUS.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:55 am 31. Katherine:Hehehe!
Obviously, none of you tough-regular-float-a-horseshoe coffee drinkers ever run across anything resembling Katherineís Latte.
Technically is a latte all right, espresso and frothy milk all, but I will bet that the spike of caffeine that it delivers to the bloodstream 10 seconds after the first sip is far greater than any caffeinated beverage known to man, even those dissolving metal devices.
To prolong drinking pleasure it is served in 40 oz mugs.
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:00 am 32. bdog57:I slightly disagree with Ben on the problem with journalists being their lack of expertise on various subjects. I would submit, rather, that it is lack of expertise in their own field (journalism) that is a problem.
What are they teaching at these j-schools? I would really like to know. Considering how much impact these folks can have on our lives, it would be nice to know that they studied at least as much as I did in school (2 hours outside of class for every class hour, 6-8 hours per test…for core courses that I wanted to make an “A” in, anyway). I sincerely doubt that this much work is involved.
In engineering classes, all of this work had a Darwin-like effect: freshman attrition rates were rather high. The running joke among engineers was “hey, if you can’t handle it, the business department is always looking for a few more!” -the implication (and reality) being that B.A. was much easier than aerospace engineering.
In summary, these folks seem to lack the discipline for their chosen fields. Doing a story on a complex or controversial topic should require long hours of research with opposing viewpoints equally considered (i.e., “We report. You decide.”…no wonder I like FNC!). A more rigorous curriculum could fix this stuff.
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:03 am 33. Dean Esmay:I have been simply agog watching this story unfold. I had long believed the mainstream media leans “left” in the sense that they tended to hold to an identifiably Blue State, urban, moderate-Democrat worldview that tended to always self-correct toward itself. I almost never, ever use the phrase “liberal media bias” myself because I think that button gets presssed way, way too often by right-wingers and in any case I’ve got issues with calling that stuffy, highly orthodox and constricted worldview “liberal” anyway.
Call it moderate, mainstream-respectable if dull and predictable left, if you will.
But I never imagined the press was this far in the tank for Kerry. The mainstream press’ virtual lockout and incredible one-sidedness on this story, coupled with the fact that the story’s getting around practically everywhere, tells me things have obviously been weirder than I thought for a long time–or they’re getting extremely weird right now because the mainstream press just doesn’t know what to do with itself on this.
I discovered the Swifties and their band of brothers photo and their allegations a while before their ad came out. Then I noted that they had gathered more people to their side. Reported it all on my blog. Then, WHAMMO, the advertisement came out, and I watched how it was automatically, reflexively treated a certain way by the mainstream press—and how, absent blogs, that would have been the end of them.
And now look where we’re at: one of the biggest political stories of the lst several years, more substantive by far than “Bush AWOL” or “Harken Energy” ever were, and yet here we have nothing but silence and dismissal.
For a story that everybody knows about. Well, everyone who’s interested in politics, anyway.
Simply jaw-dropping.
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:04 am 34. Lapsed Randian:Well said, Roger.
I think the poster child for the MSM is Maureen “Holy Halliburton” Dowd. Her columns and her countenance–witness recent C-Span interviews–are the fusion of the postmodern sneer. The sneer factor cannot be discounted in this context, as these folks really do think they know what is best for the rest of us, the great unwashed.
As a whole, the MSM is like Old Europe, living on borrowed time as the world passes it by. I give them both about 4-5 years more of relevancy.
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:06 am 35. Pat_Henry:Roger,
Please review Slate story on Kerry and Bush (see http://www.slate.com/id/2105353/).
The mainstream says that Kerry is right and needs to be elected.
There is not much you/I can do. Kerry will be the next President.
Yours,
Pat.
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:08 am 36. John Lynch:Found this Judicial Watch calls for Investigation on Kerry over at Beldar’s place.
Is this a Wow! moment? Beldar reports that this is “no amateurish effort.”
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:10 am 37. DennisThePeasant:Back in the old days, my officemates called my coffee “Black Death”.
The first question anyone asked when they walked up to the coffee pot in the morning was “Who made the coffee?” If the answer came back “Drink it fast or it will clot”, they knew it was my brew in their cup.
The upside of my coffee was that one cup insured that nothing worse could happen the rest of the day. That and the fact that it contributed to my mellow disposition.
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:15 am 38. WichitaBoy:Charlie
LOL. So somebody else on here knows how to make coffee the Western way?
Sadly, years of living with my New York wife have worn me down and now I take cream and sugar too.
MSM
I think the problem is worse than just the echo chamber effect. It’s media concentration.
You’ve got to step back and think about what motivates a reporter or an editor. They’re not well-paid people. They are people who like to write, but lots of people can write; they want their lives to have greater meaning. They’re willing to give up money for that purpose. They want to control the thought process of their readers. It’s similar to what Roger wrote about Hollywood (the place) once, something along the lines of “we control your dreams”. Reporters control your reality. They like that. As Dennis’s story illustrates, if they want to get a commissioner they will fish around until they can concoct the right story for that purpose. They’re narrative-constructing left-brain people who aren’t terribly concerned with right-brain facts. Facts are not why they are in it. People concerned with facts go into science and engineering and accounting.
But that’s not necessarily a problem. The problem comes when an ever-smaller set of people controls all of the media. At a certain point the forces of social control take over and it is no longer possible to have an opinion which differs from the dogma of the day, whatever that may be. In a previous thread the danger of supporting Bush publicly were discussed. This illustrates a basic fact of human nature, that people seek to control each other socially and to control each other’s political opinions. Social force fields are applied in various guises. Maybe they key your car. If you’re a reporter or a Hollywood person, maybe they no longer return your calls, maybe you’ll never work in this town again.
In U.S. Grant’s Memoirs, he refers to the way various occurrences were played out in the Democratic newspapers, in the Republican newspapers, and in the Whig newspapers. In those times there were many competing outlets for news, they all had biases, and everybody knew the biases. There were, significantly, several choices. Nowadays, outside of the internet, there is almost only one choice. Thus, for example, I got in my car yesterday and listened to NPCR for the first time in months and got hit over the head with the charter school story. My son is in a charter school which just happens to consistently perform in the top five schools in the state, often number one, beating out the private schools handily. So I’m biased toward charter schools. Did NPCR tell me the background, that this story came from the teachers’ unions? Of course not. Did they inform me that they had hoisted it wholesale from Pravda on the Hudson? Of course not. But I know a Democratic rag when I hear it. I turned the radio off. What choices do I have though? The local fishwrap merely picks up AP stories which have been written by some guy reading Pravda on the Hudson and Pravda on the Potomac. NPCR will pick up same.
Now, the MSM are consistently referred to here and elsewhere as “dinosaurs” and other similar pejoratives. But is that really true? Will something else replace them? Blogs alone cannot be the answer. Blogs can replace the op/ed pages but they cannot replace the news pages. I was speculating yesterday on what could possibly replace the noise papers. Imagine a website where the stories are written by anybody who thinks they have the information, rather than professional reporters. Imagine thousands of people feeding in information, getting paid minimal amounts of money whenever their story is picked up. Imagine that readers of this website can customize the news and that there is a feedback mechanism, so that writers who get picked up more often by readers get more opportunities for their story to move to the front page or even get paid more. Imagine that stories are selected based on their adherence to facts, with opinions discouraged. Sort of a massive CSPAN of newspapers. Imagine that readers can comment on each story, much as we comment here, perhaps even being allowed to change the story somewhat during the course of the day.
Is it feasible? Does anyone have any thoughts?
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:21 am 39. doublecola:Charlie (Colorado),
You know, You’re correct, I should have included my opinion. I was in a bit of a hurry and thought that the posting might initiate some discussion which I would later join. There was no sinister motive behind my action.
I’ve stated in other posts that Cambodia is something Kerry is going to have to deal with. I, frankly, don’t care if he was there Christmas Eve or not. I’ve had things that I thought were seared in my memory that turned out to be not always right. Memory and the mind are not always accurate. I do think it’s very important if he was in Cambodia or not–and what he was doing there. If he was never in Cambodia–or even within a mile or two of the border–but at least bringing a CIA guy VERY near there, then he’s got a big problem–that needs to be pushed.
However, the medal thing as always bothered me. Elliot can’t seem to make up his mind on what happened. Now we see that perhaps Larry Thurlow’s memory is suspect. So maybe Kerry did act bravely.
from mediamatters.org…On Swift Boat Veterans for Truth chairman and co-founder Roy Hoffmann: “Hoffman acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit Kerry’s claims to valor and said that although Kerry was under his command, he really didn’t know Kerry much personally.”
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, O’Neill has contributed $14,650 to federal candidates or national political organizations — all Republicans. Then we have this:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200408180004
and this: http://mediamatters.org/items/200408180004
I’m just trying to point out that some of those attacking Kerry on this issue are either dishonest or have poor memories themselves.
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:32 am 40. Syl:Journalists and knowledge of the fields they cover…is there hope on the horizon? It seems that Columbia is trying to, thinking of, attempting to turn its 10-month grad school journalism program into a two-year program that teaches more than basic skills….
Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University, on the Future of Journalism Education
It’s a start. What I’m wondering is: Why hasn’t this been done before?
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:39 am 41. Bostonian:Dean Esmay: “I have been simply agog watching this story unfold. ”
Me too. That expresses it exactly. I am astonished at the bias, even after witnessing the selective coverage over the last year.
Just how stupid do they think we are?!
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:51 am 42. Bostonian:WichitaBoy: “They’re narrative-constructing left-brain people who aren’t terribly concerned with right-brain facts. Facts are not why they are in it. People concerned with facts go into science and engineering and accounting.”
That’s very insightful. The journalists whom we have been shredding do not seem to understand how to find supporting facts and do not seem to care whether any such facts exist. It is all narrative to them.
***
I sent the following letter to the Boston Globe:
Hi there,
OK, I am no reporter, but your column on Kerry’s Cambodian Adventures is somewhat lacking. You’ve gotten as far as repeating some of the actual claims on both sides, and that’s all very good. But several rather more fruitful lines of inquiry suggest themselves to me:
Is there any evidence of illegal incursions into Cambodia during this period? How were these missions handled? Who was on the teams? What vehicles were used? Did the teams use local people or did they ever work with the Navy? Were records even kept? Who had to sign off on these things? What was the protocol?
What would make these missions risky? How great was the risk of detection? How many boats patrolled the area? What was the weather? How much moonlight was there? How densely or loosely populated are the areas along these rivers?
Were there any physical obstructions near the border, perhaps created by our Navy or perhaps by the Cambodian government? Were there guards or patrols on the border? Has anyone ever interviewed any of them?!
Had there been any events on the Cambodian border recently? Was there any special reason to take care to stay clear of Cambodian territory or was the Cambodian government completely unconcerned?
What is a Swift boat like anyway? Is it suitable for clandestine activity? Is it quiet or noisy? What depth water does it need?
What other boats were we using in that area, who operated them, and were any of them unaccounted for?
What do the records actually say for the boat that Kerry operated? Are there records of all missions? Are there gaps? Would the records for this kind of mission be elsewhere?
What documentation is there to prove whether Kerry was at Sa Dec instead? What parts of his timeline cannot be pinned down definitively?
This is what we pay you for. Gossip I can get anywhere.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:01 pm 43. Rick Ballard:Just how stupid do they think we are?!
More importantly, how stupid are we? Do we watch the major network shows? Do we subscribe to a newspaper? (I don’t.) If so, why? The change that is occuring can only be accelerated by people just saying no. No to network TV and no to subscribing to DNC/MSM rags.
Otherwise the answer to your question is rather simple. If you buy it, they think you’re stupid.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:08 pm 44. Charlie (Colorado):I will bet that the spike of caffeine that it delivers to the bloodstream 10 seconds after the first sip is far greater than any caffeinated beverage known to man, even those dissolving metal devices.
Can you do one to go?
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:13 pm 45. Roberts:The idea that somehow Thurlow has been shown to be dishonest is itself hilariously dishonest. The citation does not refute Thurlow’s statements at all.
The reality that Kerry’s shills do not want to acknowledge is that it is John Kerry who is telling different stories now, as his lies are exposed, not the Swift Boats Vets.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:16 pm 46. Charlie (Colorado):Please review Slate story on Kerry and Bush (see Link…
The mainstream says that Kerry is right and needs to be elected.
Slate?
The mainstream?
William Saletan and Jacob Weisberg?
Pat, I know the mainstream. I’ve got lots of friends in the mainstream.
Slate ain’t it.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:17 pm 47. Catherine:hi all—
Hepzi
Has anyone seen the “Retro/Metro” black and white newsprint ad campaign over the last week or ten days?
Just back from the IL State Fair (incredible!) and yes, we did see the Retro/Metro ad in our hotel’s USA Today.
It had a big B&W photo of George Bush above a big B&W photo of John Kerry, and neither my husband nor I knew, from looking at the photos, that the ad supported Kerry.
To both of us (for any newbies out there, I’m the Bush voter & my husband will vote for Kerry) Bush & Kerry looked equally unappealing.
It’s pretty bad when a pro-Kerry outfit makes him look as bad as Bush to an ABB voter.
Plus, why would you choose to put Bush on top?
If you’re for Kerry?
Strange.
I actually had to look the ad up on the internet to find out who it was against.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:19 pm 48. ter0:John Lynch, the answer is yes, and in particular this allegation, per Beldar:
Stay tuned.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:20 pm 49. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):It is amazing that the first article on the Swifties Ad Campaign WAPO readers encounter is an attack on Larry Thurow. Not a very effective attack, either.
To a WAPO reader, this just popped out of nowhere. Do the customers wonder why they haven’t heard any of this before? The WAPO ran a short story in May on the SBVT press conference, but have been ignoring it otherwise.
I expected the MSM to do this, even as it amazes me when they actually do. No report will come out that isn’t lead by information that impeaches either the veracity or motives of the SBVT.
BTW – An interview with the SBVT web master is on Front Page Magazine online today.
———————–
Medals count. That’s why the military gives them out. Today, the medal disputes count in that falsely achieved medals, or even legitimate medals that are for trivial wounds say something about the character of whoever wrote up the paperwork for the medals and whoever received them.
That Kerry’s first purple heart (in date of injury) was issued last, by someone not even related to the Swift Boats, but rather a bureaucrat in Saigon, is beyond suspicious.
With the bronze star, we have the testimony of three that Kerry left the scene of the mine ambush while the other boats stayed there to help those injured and in the water. Then there’s the question of whether fire was received. Three skippers remember no fire. WAPO finds a medal citation for Thurlow that claims fire, and it is only then that they publish their very first story (note that Thurlow says that if his own bronze star was awarded on the basis of that memo, it was fraudulent).
Meanwhile doublecola tries to smear John O’Neil based on a David Brock site which exists specifically to go after conservatives. The cause of the smear? Was it 7000 or 15000 that O’Neil gave to Republicans. Also, we have Nixon demonstrating miraculous powers, with his hand reaching from the grave to work the puppet strings on O’Neill. The Media Watch site discredits itself by claiming close ties between Nixon and O’Neil, which didn’t exist (there was a loose tie – Nixon via Colson encouraged O’Neill’s anti-Kerry organizatiion).
One of the odder things is that Kerry didn’t need to lie to establish Vietnam combat credentials. He only needed to manipulate the system to get out after a short time, minimizing his risk, and that is why purple hearts, in particular, are critical in this story. It also is not the behavior of a war hero.
If you look at all the purple hearts, there is one where the fraud is extremely clear: the first one. The evidence is clear that there was no enemy action involved. That both the doctor (Letson was the doctor, the other guy who signed the medical paper was a corpsman – essentially a paramedic who worked for the doctor) and Kerry’s CO refused to recommend a purple heart, and then it appear 3 months later signed by an unknown from Saigon (Kerry refuses to release his records) is damning.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:26 pm 50. Fresh Air:Most J-schools are not set up for broad education of future journalists. They are generally two-year programs tailored specifically to working for a newspaper or magazine (they usually offer TV & radio specialties in a separate curriculum).
J-schools do not teach anything outside of writing, p.r., advertising, journalism law and ethics. It is assumed all the basic components on a liberal education will be provided through other classes.
I would certainly agree most journalists would be well-served by courses in economics, statistics, logic, history, etc. But when criticizing the NYT or WaPo, you need to make a distinction. Their reporters are frequently, if not usually, Ivy League graduates. They often have master’s degrees. Many have worked in other fields. They are not stupid or nearly as ignorant as you might think. The problem is they have chosen ideology over evenhandedness and a desire to tell the truth.
Like someone said the other day on another thread, a fish doesn’t feel wet. In their Georgetown and Upper West Side fishbowls, these agenda-driven reporters don’t even perceive themselves as biased. Witness the poll response where over half of journalists said they were going too easy on Bush.
The problem is with the editorial function. Like children who are allowed to act up, reporters who aren’t reprimanded for slanted stories (or indeed, praised) will keep writing them. Editors at the NYT and WaPo are as embittered and partisan as they come.
Until all the sixties greybeards and proto-Marxists in the newsrooms go face down into their oatmeal the problem of extreme liberal bias will still exist. The real question is, by that time, will anyone even care?
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:26 pm 51. DennisThePeasant:Slate ain’t it [mainstream].
Slate’s readership disagrees. All ten of them.
Good for a laugh, though. Mainstream? Anymore, it is kind of like citing The Nation as mainstream.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:28 pm 52. Charlie (Colorado):You know, You’re correct, I should have included my opinion. I was in a bit of a hurry and thought that the posting might initiate some discussion which I would later join. There was no sinister motive behind my action.
Apology accepted. And we didn’t ascribe any sinister motive, so much as another “link, don’t think” appeal to authority.
As far as the whole business with Elliott, O’Neill’s political contributinos etc — there are several things you might want to look into. First of all, you might want to look up the term “ad hominem circumstantial”: that’s been the core of most of the arguments against all of these folks. O’Neill “was closely associated with” Nixon and Colson. O’Neill made campaign contributions to Republicans. Except that he at least says he contributed to Democrats as well, and the link that MediaMatters.org has to back up their assertions 404’s. For that matter, mediaMatters.org is funded and supported primarily by Democrats.
If you can discount one, you must discount the other.
On the other hand, the book is coming out; it’s apparently heavily documented, and you can look at the documents. If you actually read Elliot’s actual affidavits, you’ll find that it’s not Elliot who’s confused, and you’ll also find out why Elliot says the Boston paper misquoted him egregiously.
If you’re really interested in the facts, ask Kerry to file a Form 180.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:30 pm 53. Charlie (Colorado):But its pretty clear–if you are a red state you are uneducated, backwards, a fundamentalist Christian, live in the South,–in other words a “Retro” rube.
Just how stupid do they think we are?!
See? We’ve settled that and it all happened in one thread.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:33 pm 54. Katherine:ìPeople concerned with facts go into science and engineering and accounting.î
I donít know about accountants, but plenty of engineers and scientists, even in so called hard sciences, have the skill of compartmelization developed to a very large degree. For these people facts and rigorous application of scientific method matter only within the narrow confines of their specialty and they fail to apply it to areas that they are not familiar with (witness many specialists making absolute idiots of themselves when they branch into unfamiliar territory).
Also, because scientist and engineers are experts in their area they often convince themselves that they can master any subject/skill just by light reading or just invent it. It goes like this: if I can figure how to this assay, surely I can build a company from scratch without help of any business people (real life example).
Add to it perennial frustrations that they encounter in the business world ñ where business decision are not necessarily based on cleverness of the code, or how fascinating the basic science is behind some research project, and they all grow to despise all those people who constantly thwart their expertise. So, they get convinced that experts are best to run anything, including a country, and so that central control (theirs, of course) is the best.
Anyway, politics for most people have nothing to do with facts; it is a matter of personal beliefs projected on their candidates
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:38 pm 55. Charlie (Colorado):Rick Lowry prints Thurow’s full statement in The Corner today. He doesn’t link it either, dammit.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:39 pm 56. Charlie (Colorado):Katharine, remember what Buddha said when asked what made him different from other men:
“I am awake.”
There’s a lot of somnambulism in the world.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:40 pm 57. Syl:doublecola
What you stated is the MSM’s line and you’re simply echoing it. Eleanor Clift on Foxnews today said that a couple of the swiftvets have been discredited so, therefore….
This simply isn’t true.
You say:
First, it’s not about bravery. Kerry did face fire and that was brave. He just didn’t face it during some of the times he claimed he did.
It’s not a matter of Elliot not making up his mind..that is simply spin and obfuscation by Kranish.
Elliot was not there. True.
Elliot was told by Kerry the circumstances under which he was asking for Elliot to recommend a medal.
Elliot said okay and signed a recommendation.
Kerry goes off to Saigon with Zumwalt who writes up the citation (from Kerry’s words to him, he had no other knowledge).
Zumwalt gives Kerry the Silver Star two days after the incident with no corresponding paperwork such as after action report and eyewitness accounts.
Elliot, in 2003, reads something in the Boston Globe from an interview with Kerry which speaks of that specific incident. It is not the same as Kerry told HIM years ago.
If Kerry had told the truth back then, Elliot would not have recommended the medal.
Elliot did not retract that.
Thurlow’s memory? He says there was no hostile fire. He also says if his medal was given only beccause there was hostile fire he didn’t deserve his either. Hardly a reason for Thurlow to make up a false memory about no hostile fire.
As for Hoffman, here is an interview done by my hometown paper, which didn’t rely on the MSM to go out and interview him. He actually lives only a few miles from me.
Hoffman certainly knew of Kerry. Of course he wasn’t there for the incidents in question. That’s neither here nor there because others were. Not all swiftvets need firsthand knowledge of each specific incident for Kerry’s versions of such to be in question.
And, ahem, none of the swiftvets, not one, has been discredited.
Factcheck.org did a piece on the Silver Star where it relies on wording in the citations to attempt to discredit the swiftees. The problem is, that’s begging the question because the wording is based on Kerry himself.
When Thurlow said, of the Bronze Star incident, that Kerry probably wrote it up himself, that may very well be true. It wasn’t uncommon for that to happen over there.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:41 pm 58. Fresh Air:Catherine–
You went to the Illinois State Fair voluntarily? Not torture was involved? I find that hard to believe. Can we see an affadavit?
I grew up in Springfield and worked as a journalist at two consecutive Illinois State Fairs (during one of them Reagan made an appearance). I think if ever so much as look at another hot-dog-on-stick I’ll puke! Those lemon shake-ups are damn good, though.
John Moore–
The most interesting thing about the WaPo story is that they appear to have accepted the Swiftees claims that Kerry fled the scene. Whether he or Thurlow deserves a Bronze Star is, I suppose, debatable. But this is an example of cowardice (under fire?), is it not? And isn’t that what Thurlow meant when he said in the ad, “When the chips were down you could not count on John Kerry.”
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:44 pm 59. marek:I do not agree that the major problem is the quality of journalist’s education. I think that WichitaBoy (11:21 post) is closer to the heart of the problem. The MSM are totally devoted to support the democrats more leftist agenda and Kerry’s bid for presidency. This is it. Under these circumstances the notion of impartial reporting on anything that might be related to their struggle is laughable. Even if a reporter wrote something truly objective, his editor will add the necessary spin or slant. The stocks are falling – it’s result of Bush’s bad policies. The stocks go up – this is in spite of Bush’s failing policies. Reporting on war, education, international relations are all going thru the “liberal” wringer.
What I do find suspicious is the perfect lockstep that the different newspapers, TV channels, radio, etc. are reporting or suppressing news in a quite selective manner. I would think that there must be colluding. And that’s why I see MSM acting as a cartel.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:46 pm 60. Catherine:Peter Argus & everyone
So glad to see you bring up the charter school article & Eduwonk, which is a terrific site.
The charter school story appeared on Sunday, and my husband, who loathes Bush and is inclined to object to anything associated with the man (in this case school choice), thought the story was bunk by the time he finished.
This is a man who would have liked for the story to be convincing.
So the next day we wake up to a front-page TIMES story attacking NCLB.
This precipitated an argument that, for once, ended well when I produced book chapters & white papers from Brookings supporting NCLB, one of which stated outright that what is important about NCLB “isn’t the money.” (My husband had assumed that the “liberal” poisition on NCLB is that it is an “unfunded mandate,” i.e. yet another Bush scam & broken promise. I was able to demonstrate that that is the partisan- Democrat-campaign position, not the liberal-think-tank position. Liberal think tank types, with rare exceptions–I think I’m right on this–aren’t talking about funding. They’re talking about compliance & results.)
Here’s eduwonk on the charter school story:
More importantly, the effort to hang all this around President Bush’s neck is ridiculous. Let’s not forget that President Clinton was a strong charter school supporter as are many liberals and liberal-leaning organizations.
Eduwonk very much hopes that George Bush loses in November too! But this burn the village to save it mentality is remarkably counterproductive to what should be liberal goals.
Update: CER notes that the race issue notwithstanding, charters did not uniformly under-perform other public schools. Funny, that didn’t make the cut in the Times story either. Dan Okrent, call your office.
And here he is on the NCLB piece:
The New York Times reports that No Child Left Behind is facing obstacles in the states. True enough, put they pale compared to the obstacles it’s facing from The New York Times! Amazingly, no mention in this story of George Miller, The Education Trust, the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights. Probably just an oversight!
I just can’t tell what’s going on with the TIMES, if anything (i.e., I can’t tell whether this is different from their usual coverage).
I love Bill Keller (I really do) . . . and I think Dan Okrent is doing a terrific job.
But I don’t understand how the charter school & the NCLB articles got put together the way they did.
It’s pretty bad when you have a Kerry supporter who blogs for a Clinton think tank (Progressive Policy Institute) invoking the name of Dan Okrent.
I do wonder whether this is the standard only-bad-news-is-news issue, or whether these articles appeared because they are bad for Bush & good for Kerry (or both).
Although I’m tired of blaming the media for Other People’s Wrong Ideas, I have to say that my trip home didn’t exactly prove the FINANCIAL TIMES’ thesis that nobody reads the New York Times.
Nobody does read the New York Times, of course (relatively speaking) but even so both of my parents, separately, brought up the topic of NCLB & what a god-awful law it is.
My dad, who is in his eighties for pete’s sake, starting going on about how NCLB forces schools to “teach to the test,” so there’s “no educational value at all” and my mom goes with the it’s-not-funded meme.
Neither of them has the faintest idea that NCLB is a major piece of education law passed with full bipartisan support that is the only hope inner city children have of receiving an education on par with the education suburban children receive (which has significant problems of its own, may I add).
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:49 pm 61. Katherine:Charlie,
There was a guy few years back who claimed to be able to send a cure for all sorts of illnesses by email; I make a deadly latte, but I still donít know how to send it via Internet.
But should you be in SF you are most welcome to stop by and Iíll be happy to make one (or more) for you.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:54 pm 62. Fresh Air:Thanks for the content-free post, Akefa. Have a nice day.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:55 pm 63. Katherine:Akefa- “Your boy is gonna be crushed in November no matter what you say.”
….or not.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:56 pm 64. Catherine:more on NCLB
Brookings has all kinds of wonderful material on NCLB & on curriculum issues (Tom Loveless is a name we should all remember; he’s fighting the good fight, along with, as always, Diane Ravitch).
This is from a chapter in a new Brookings book on NCLB.
The Politics and Practice of Accountability
Martin R. West & Paul E. Peterson
As a path breaker, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal legislation signed into law in January 2002, stands alongside the pioneering compensatory and special education laws enacted in 1965 and 1974. In the words of political analyst David S. Broder, NCLB ÔøΩmay well be the most important piece of federal education legislation in thirty-five years.ÔøΩ The crucial aspect of all three pieces of legislation is not so much the money authorized as the policy framework imposed. Compensatory education and special education laws have never provided more than a fraction of the real cost of educating those they professed to serve. Similarly, NCLB increased the federal share of the countryÔøΩs total school funding by barely 1 percentage point. The federal governmentÔøΩs fiscal role in education has always been small, in recent years hovering around 7 to 8 percent of all public funding of elementary and secondary education, with the balance being covered by local and, to an increasing extent, state revenues.
No, it is not the federal dollar contribution but the direction given to all school spendingÔøΩwhether federal, state, or localÔøΩthat is key. Just as the 1965 compensatory education law sensitized the country to the needs of minority and low-income students, and just as the 1974 special education law guaranteed for the first time free, appropriate, education to disabled students, so the 2002 legislation redirects educational thinking along new channels. Under its terms, every state, to receive federal aid, must put into place a set of standards together with a detailed testing plan designed to make sure the standards are being met. Students at schools that fail to measure up may leave for other schools in the same district, and, if a school persistently fails to make adequate progress toward full proficiency, it becomes subject to corrective action.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:57 pm 65. TmjUtah:The media is solidly left of center, both in personnel and by organization. No surprise there – any number of polls confirm that the journo population is +80% Democrat. What compounds the existing bias is the quest for market share and the resulting rise of the zero-tolerance for failure standard that has been embraced pretty well around the entire table of political debate and media coverage.
Forget casting the first stone. We’ve seen a thirty year – old alleged DUI held up as disqualifying a man for public office. We’ve also seen a thirty year old military experience held up as ALL WE NEED TO KNOW about another candidate’s fitness for office, and you go to hell if you think any examination of the last twenty years of elected office experience should even be mentioned.
There are echo chambers and there are echo chambers. We may get a good reverb going inside here every once in awhile, but the Grand Canyon is found in every news room that gets a whiff of something with which they can sell papers or time on the screen. People tend to work hardest at what they agree with. BAM (with apologies to Emiril) and there you have a bucket of Google hits about Terry Mac calling Bush a deserter compared to a postit note on the back of a jobjohnny in rural New Mexico that reads “Kerry/Magic hat/Cambodia/Gun running? also Troop withdrawls? – yes, two weeks ago, no, now??? WTF??? also Our Boys Home Replaced by french/German/Euro??? Ask editor – IMPORTANT!!!”.
If CNN and the rest of the pack applied remotely the same standard of objectivity or asked the same questions of the Kerry camp that they would Bush in the same situation, this election would already be over. It is only with the unyielding and monolithic support of MSM that this race polls as closely as it does.
Some people are still limited to what they are told, not what they can learn.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:57 pm 66. John Mendenhall:Teachers shouldn’t dine with students.
Officers shouldn’t dine with enlisted persons.
Guards shouldn’t dine with prisoners.
The press shouldn’t dine with politicians.
Any of these corrupts the culture for which these relationships were designed.
Doublecola
If you’ve had things seared in your memory that turn out not to be true, like say you bought your car on Oct 8, not Oct 11, fair enough. If the things seared in your memory are made up out of whole cloth, you’re not qualified to borrow ten bucks, much less for high office.
Would you say that Kerry lied about a private matter, like Clinton? Like being Commander-in-Chief would be a private matter?
I marvel that the liberal mindset can’t absorb basic survival truths: sharks eat people, swimmers swim, liars lie. That’s what they do. That’s who they are.
Aug 19, 2004 - 12:57 pm 67. Katherine:Ah, but the real question is why do sharks eat people, swimmers swim, and liars lie. You obviously do not stop to consider the root causes. You need to work more on this nuance thing, John M.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:05 pm 68. Rick Ballard:FA,
Whether Kerry’s acceleration away from the scene was motivated by a very highly developed sense of self preservation or was an appropriate response to a potential ambush is a matter to be determined by the other skippers in the group he was with. There may have been an SOP in effect that affected his behavior.
There is more than sufficient information available to discredit Kerry without specultating about actual cowardice. What I have been wondering about is when Kerry is going to find a few more Swiftvets to stand beside him. If John O’Neill can round up 250 men to offset the 8-9 that stand beside Kerry, why hasn’t Kerry rounded up at least 5-10 more staunch defenders? His response today was absolutely pathetic. His boat is taking on water and he’s decided to personally drill some holes in the hull to let it out.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:10 pm 69. Catherine:Fresh Air
Illinois State Fair.
Yup.
I took my family to see the butter cow (not nearly as good as when my mom’s college friend, now passed on, made it for all those years) and I attended a Bob Ross studio demonstration on Working in Oils.
AND I drank a Jamaican beer at Ethnic Village (OK, there was NO Ethnic Village when I was a kid—though OTOH given the fact that the French food stand was selling “pork wraps” it’s probably not accurate to say there’s an Ethnic VIllage at the Illinois State Fair today, either) . . . so as I was saying, I drank a Jamaican beer at Ethnic Village and then, as a direct result, entered the Exhibition Hall with my 9-year old where I purchased a game system containing 76,000 games from an Israeli-South African.
Next topic: never purchase a game systems from Israeli-South Africans selling stuff at a State Fair.
I’m thinking we can take a pass on the affidavit, right?
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:11 pm 70. doublecola:No, I have no comment on this–it’s straight from the campaign–but now the MSM, I think, will have to cover the story…
from the Kerry campaign:
Today marks the end of the dishonest and disgusting smear campaign against John Kerry and his crewmates from Vietnam. This morning on the front page of the Washington Post, one of the central figures in the effort to distort John Kerry’s military service was completely discredited.
The group behind this smear campaign calls itself “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.” But the truth is the last thing they are interested in.
President Bush refuses to condemn this group. He wants them to do his dirty work. But this effort to distract attention from the issues that matter most has failed.
This morning, John Kerry said he learned an important lesson in Vietnam: “When you’re under attack, the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attacker.” Today he took these lessons to heart, knocked down these charges, and made a firm commitment to the American people that the lies about his military service will not stop him from fighting for affordable health care, good-paying jobs, and keeping America secure.
This doesn’t mean that these blatantly false attacks won’t continue — the Bush-Cheney campaign is desperate and has no record to run on. But it does mean that we are not going to let them distract us from letting people know about John Kerry’s plan to make America stronger at home and respected in the world.
Read the Washington Post article:
http://www.johnkerry.com/article
Read John Kerry’s statement from his speech at the International Association of Firefighters Convention in Boston this morning:
Over the last week or so, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been attacking me. Of course, this group isn’t interested in the truth — and they’re not telling the truth. They didn’t even exist until I won the nomination for president.
But here’s what you really need to know about them. They’re funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They’re a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the president won’t denounce what they’re up to tells you everything you need to know — he wants them to do his dirty work.
Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam.
As firefighters you risk your lives every day. You know what it’s like to see the truth in the moment. You’re proud of what you’ve done — and so am I.
Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: ‘Bring it on.’
I’m not going to let anyone question my commitment to defending America — then, now, or ever. And I’m not going to let anyone attack the sacrifice and courage of the men who saw battle with me.
And let me make this commitment today: their lies about my record will not stop me from fighting for jobs, health care, and our security — the issues that really matter to the American people.
Thank you,
Mary Beth Cahill
Campaign Manager
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:11 pm 71. Catherine:Rick Ballard
What I have been wondering about is when Kerry is going to find a few more Swiftvets to stand beside him. If John O’Neill can round up 250 men to offset the 8-9 that stand beside Kerry, why hasn’t Kerry rounded up at least 5-10 more staunch defenders?
I have been having that exact thought myself.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:13 pm 72. Syl:Will somebody please tell Glenn Reynolds about the NCLB scam displayed in the NYTimes. He seems to have fallen for it.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:13 pm 73. Catherine:doublecola & everyone?
Hmm.
Doesn’t it seem wrong, tactically speaking, that Kerry himself is talking about these “smears”?
Isn’t that something your surrogates are supposed to handle?
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:16 pm 74. Catherine:Syl
I just checked instapundit—can’t find a reference to NCLB.
Is it on Tech Central?
I’ll check.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:18 pm 75. Rick Ballard:Catherine,
If a candidate can produce proof that a smear is a smear, it is correct for him to take it head on. Kerry though, is saying “Who are you going to believe – me, or these 250 vets who were there and knew me”. There are tree stumps all over America that are smarter than this man. Most rocks have more political sense than he displays. Show us your hat, John.
DC – Thanks for providing the proof.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:25 pm 76. Knucklehead:So, if O’Neill’s donations to Republicans are important wrt the Swiftvets, why aren’t teahcer’s union political donations important wrt the charter schools story?
Some will not be the least surprised to see some details of the political contributions made by the NEA .
The AFT is a bit more difficult to have a quick look at. Here is some info about their political donation record up to the 2002 election cycle. I don’t know when the AFT became a part of the AFL-CIO or how to seperate the AFT portion of the AFL-CIO political donations out from the total.
As you might guess, these are just slightly weighted toward the Democratic Party.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:25 pm 77. RogerA:Akefa writes: Journalists know what they’re doing. And they have alot more clout than echo chanbers like this one. You can’t stop what’s happening and it’s killing you.
Well, I read part of the book everybody’s talking about, and I think it’s probably pretty truthful. But it don’t matter.
This is to me a sad commentary–it tells me that the media is not reporting on the truth; journalists understand that, and because they have clout their boy is going to win and it can’t be stoppped–Akefa: this is a great model for democracy? this is a good thing? You either have a serious means-end problem or no understanding the role of the press in a free society. Sad indeed.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:26 pm 78. Roberts:Hmmm, so John Kerry “won’t let” anyone question his service anymore?
I didn’t think Kerry liked the First Amendment much.
Meanwhile, he claims that the Swift Boats Vets are not telling the truth, this is amusing since he’s already backed away from several of his stories and his campaign has had to delete stories from his website such as where he claimed credit for Peck’s actions on PCF 94.
We know who the liar is, JFK.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:27 pm 79. Syl:Ooops, sorry. That was Kaus not Glenn.
My bad
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:35 pm 80. Occam's Beard:Regarding media political leanings, I periodically remind myself about one of the mainstream, CNN, founded by Ted Turner – former spouse of Jane Fonda.
How many Americans, like me, would be hard-pressed to resist the urge to strangle her within the first hour?
That Turner lived her with her for years speaks volumes to me. Now one need only posit two reasonable assumptions: 1) that since he tolerated her for years, his views probably do not diverge that dramatically from hers, and 2) that the organization he founded and originally staffed still reflects his views to some degree (as lefties would – correctly – assert re Murdoch and Fox, and fair enough).
I’m not making an ad hominem argument here. Turner and CNN are perfectly entitled to promulgate whatever view they like, and more power to him/them. My point is that, based on the reasonable assumptions above, the political views of the relevant CNN employees are likely to be well left of those of most Americans.
Last, is CNN a noticeably left-wing outlier on the spectrum of media? No. It’s right in there with NYT, WaPo, LAT, etc.
So for me, the burden of proof is on lefties to establish the contrary position. An exchange of variables is a useful thought experiment: suppose who played (or had played) a prominent role in establishing one of the mainstream media had a similarly close connection to, say, Ann Coulter. Would anyone hesitate to impute a right-wing leaning to that publication?
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:37 pm 81. ambisinistral:“What I have been wondering about is when Kerry is going to find a few more Swiftvets to stand beside him. If John O’Neill can round up 250 men to offset the 8-9 that stand beside Kerry, why hasn’t Kerry rounded up at least 5-10 more staunch defenders?”
I’ve been kinda wondering how these eight members of his Band of Brothers could take a year off to go campaigning? They paying the air fare, per dium and hotel bills?
Since the integrety of the Swiftboats Vets have been challenged, I think it only fair that any financial arrangements made for the Band of Brothers to be examined.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:40 pm 82. Catherine:everyone
Conservatives & Republicans should insist on spotlighting the Republican Party’s contribution to public education.
Democrats have been allowed to “own” this issue for far too long.
Kaus puts it best: the Democratic Party’s position on education involves measuring “inputs” (usually funding) not “outputs” (educational achievement of students).
Democrats have been able, for years now, to say that they are the education party because they spend more money on education (which may or may not be true; I don’t know).
Meanwhile Republicans have been working on the issue of what children are actually learning & getting no credit for it.
It’s time to change the narrative!
Remember: computation scores for inner city black children rose during Reagan’s administration, fell during Clinton’s administration, and are now rising again. Tom Loveless, at Brookings, interprets this as a result of differing policies on education (though you should check his various essays for exact quotes).
Here is another passage from the chapter I quoted earlier:
As early as the 1950s, a few elitist curmudgeons objected to the quality of instruction in AmericaÔøΩs schools. . . . Hardly anyone had paid attention to these malcontents, however, until SAT scores began their slide. . . .
Many expected that NAEP [National Assessment of Educational Progress] would prove the SAT wrong, that it would show that the country was progressing after all, just as the P in the acronym promised. Unfortunately, NAEP, by revealing more losses than gains in student test performance, only confirmed what the SAT had suggested. . . .
Concern intensified when Americans discovered further that the United States lagged behind many countries it thought it had left behind. . . . The situation deteriorated the longer students remained in school. Among nine-year-olds, U.S. students performed in math and science among the top tier of nations, if not at the very highest levels attained by some Asian nations. . . . by age seventeen, they trailed all the other industrial countries in the world, remaining ahead of only such nations as Lithuania, Cypress, and South Africa.
. . . in 1982, unexpectedly, the Reagan administration made education reform a top political priority. A national commission, appointed by Secretary of Education Terrel H. Bell, issued a report claiming that the quality of AmericaÔøΩs schools was leaving the country endangered by foreign competition.
. . . That all this should happen during the Reagan years ran contrary to any reasonable expectation. After all, as a candidate for the presidency in 1980, Reagan had called for the disestablishment of the Department of Education that the Carter administration had successfully urged upon Congress just two years earlier.
. . . .
Still, the call for reform was not backed up by any clearly defined accountability scheme. It would take nearly two decades before another Republican administration would move beyond rhetoric and prompt a real intervention.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:41 pm 83. Catherine:Syl
Kaus does a take-down of the TIMES on the charter school story—-
(I don’t think he’s mentioned the NCLB story.)
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:43 pm 84. Catherine:everyone
I may have missed a link on this thread, but in case I haven’t, check out the article Kaus links to on Democratics “despairing” over Kerry.
http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/pe_columnists/article/0,2071,NPDN_14960_3117495,00.html
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:46 pm 85. Erik:DC,
“Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam.
“
As someone else asked in a prevous thread:
What leg wound????
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:47 pm 86. BobT:Fresh Air and Katherine:
I won’t claim that all journos are dumb as rocks.
Nor will I claim that scientists & engineers are always the best and brightest. (I’ve seen firsthand examples myself.)
But I’ll maintain that journalists should be required to posess some basic, independently-acquired domain knowledge before they’re permitted to attempt to “inform” others.
(Ignoring the cynical and probably correct arguments the journalists don’t care if they’re accurate…)
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:49 pm 87. bdog57:ALL,
I tracked down the contributions made by John O’Neill from 1990 to present using the opensecrets.org link found on MM.org and by using this website. Hate to say it, but the data matches up with that found here. The only way John O’Neill could have made $25,000 in Federal Dem contributions during these years (without it being tracked by the FEC) would be if they had all been less than $200. Or…
On the video he says that he donated to the Houston mayoral candidacy of Bill White. Is it possible that the Dem contributions he is referring to were for those vying for some kind of state/local office? Absolutely. Given that this is Texas we’re talking about, it should be noted that a Texas Democrat is not a New England Democrat. There is reason you hear more and more about D to R defections in the South and it is because the LLL have taken over the Democratic Party…but that’s another story. That said, if O’Neill is supposed to be neither D nor R, he probably is more conservative.
I think John O’Neill needs to come out and say who he donated what to. However…
DC,
This does not change the fundamental question of Kerry’s various stories which accompany the record he has asked us to review (if only he were referring to his Senate record!). Somebody is lying on one side or the other. A larger number of the people who were there -including one Steve Gardner, who was on the boat with Kerry- disagree rather than agree with Kerry’s various accounts of certain incidents (incl. the Bronze Star, 1st and 3rd Purple Hearts, and Christmas Eve (or any date) adventures in Cambodia.
The tactics that are being employed by the DNC’s propaganda organ (a.k.a. the MSM) in dealing with these “problems” are silence and misdirection. These are old propaganda tactics and will not work in our information age. Of course, Kerry could clear all of this by releasing his records…assuming that he has nothing to hide.
You, and others, would be wise to ask for this as well. Otherwise, you run the risk of being on the wrong side of history (the truth will come out, even if Kerry makes into office). As far as I can see, this approach is the only one that makes sense. If Kerry’s right, he’ll be vindicated. If he’s wrong, then a potential fraud would be exposed and not permitted to occupy the White House. Caveat Emptor.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:53 pm 88. RogerA:Erik asked the question I was going to ask. Of course, if there is shrapnel in the leg, an Xray would verify that–xrays still show mine.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:59 pm 89. ambisinistral:“As someone else asked in a prevous thread:
What leg wound????”
Eric,
Perhaps, much like got got mixed up over the location of Cambodia and the date of Christmas, he is mistaking rice in his butt for metal in his leg.
Aug 19, 2004 - 1:59 pm 90. Catherine:Rick Ballard
If a candidate can produce proof that a smear is a smear, it is correct for him to take it head on.
Do you have some examples of this?
I wish I knew more about “public relations,” in the sense of damage control——
You don’t get into a when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife situation when you refute a genuine smear?
Aug 19, 2004 - 2:00 pm 91. penwil:“from the Kerry campaign:
Today marks the end of the dishonest and disgusting smear campaign against John Kerry and his crewmates from Vietnam.”
And so by royal fiat, his royal Kerryness, had declared the story endeth . . .
Not.
Meanwhile, Akefa, an apparently die hard Kerry supporter writes: “Well, I read part of the book everybody’s talking about, and I think it’s probably pretty truthful.”
Golly, if even he thinks it’s “pretty truthful”, I wonder what all those swing voters in the swing states–who read the book or talk to somebody who has read the book, or who sees the add or talks to somebody who has seen the add–are going to think.
Even without the Cambodia/magic hat embroglio, Kerry seems to be running a bumbling campaign of late: He let Bush snooker him into coming out and saying he would have voted for the Iraq war even without evidence of WMDs. He made that silly remark about waging a more sensitive war on terror, and then whined like a baby when he got mocked for it (oh, the horror! Bad, Cheney, bad dog) Then he comes out against the European and Korean troop withdrawal, not a smart move in any event, but even less of a smart move when he had come out in favor of it just 18 days before.
And now the Bush campaign is running ads that point out how he missed 78% of his senate intelligence committee meetings. This is not likely to endear him to any voter with their head in a post 9-11 world.
Aug 19, 2004 - 2:03 pm 92. Erik:My experience with journalists is that they believe that they are “informing the people”. However, this usually means that they believe they are explaining the truth to the “common man”, in a way so that the common man wont get it wrong. Just reporting the facts could mean that the “common man” dont understand the context, and might draw the wrong conclusions, so naturally, they help out by providing “proper context”.
Or more simply put, most journalist have left leaning sympathies, and regard that perspective as context that should be reported.
I’ve also heard the excuse that a left perspective sells better, you’ll get short simplistic articles, easy to read, simple nice sounding points, that provides a ready truth for the reader to keep, so he dont have to think for himself.
It’s also been my experience that you could probably teach a reasonably clever chimp easier than you could an average journalist. Whenever I’ve been interviewed, I’ve been very careful to state basics facts, down to spelling out fieldspecific words, letter by letter, so they will at least spell it right. Yet almost all articles are full of factual errors, including the spelling of those words.
Aug 19, 2004 - 2:07 pm 93. Syl:Okay, this is not about Kerry, and this is not about the Media, this is about a certain class of Democrats who hate Bush because they’re frightened.
And it’s about their way of thinking that some of us wedded to facts and reality have a hard time countering.
I’m trying to get inside their heads, and I can because I used to think in a similar manner (yes you can change the way you think, the way you think is just a habit like anything else.)
Yes, a habit. I bet Catherine would have something to say about that. But I digress…from the digression.
Onwards, and I’m thinking out loud here, if you are someone who ‘hates Bush’ so one of the things you hate is the Patriot Act for all the reasons people tell you to hate it…yet you are concerned about terrorists in this country
What do you do?
You secretly vote for Bush.
The reason is that he is keeping us safer with the Patriot Act. And if he wins you can continue to criticize him and be all for ‘your civil rights’ and be against the Patriot Act and be proud of your principles
Yet still be safe.
If Kerry wins there is the danger that the Patriot Act might be gutted.
You won’t be as safe.
and
You can’t protest that
(if you did, it would go against your principles)
Aug 19, 2004 - 2:20 pm 94. Rick Ballard:Erik,
In re shrapnel in leg. He is obviousley referring to the self inflected shrapnel wound to “his ass” as he previously described it. This is dispositive proof that he doesn’t know his leg from his ass and lends great support to the well known contention that he is unable to differentiate his head from his ass.
Catherine,
I’ll search up a “head on” – McCain’s rebuttal in the ‘00 SC primary comes to mind but there are better ones.
Aug 19, 2004 - 2:22 pm 95. Katherine:Occamís Beard,
Not long ago Ted Turner visited Castro and expressed his admiration for the Cuban dictator.
That tells all I need to know about Turner’s values.
BobT ñ ìBut I’ll maintain that journalists should be required to posess some basic, independently-acquired domain knowledge before they’re permitted to attempt to “inform” others.î
Oh, you get no argument from me there. It is something that I have been saying for years myself. In fact, part of contempt that journos have for business in general is that they have absolutely no real life experience in anything other than ìconstructing narrativesî.
I was simply trying to point out that even if you are trained to value and pursue facts in your profession, it is no guarantee that you manage to transfer that skill to any other area of life.
Erik- ìJust reporting the facts could mean that the “common man” dont understand the context, and might draw the wrong conclusions, so naturally, they help out by providing “proper context”.
Just like priests before Reformation who insisted that only Holy Mother Church had a right to interpret Bible and whoever tried to do so on his own was a dangerous heretic best purified by fire.
Today we do not face a stake if we challenge the ìestablished realityî ( i.e. established by MSM) but some do come close to excommunications ñ from families and friends.
Aug 19, 2004 - 2:24 pm 96. doublecola:Rick,
“Who are you going to believe – me, or these 250 vets who were there and knew me”.
I doubt very many of the 250 vets knew John Kerry. As the swiftboat vet site says: “our group includes men who served beside Kerry in combat as well as his commanders.”
Most of those vets, again, are reacting to Kerry’s words once he came back from Viet Nam, which is certainly fair game. But the implication that all or most of these 250 swiftboat vets saw John Kerry in action and personally knew him is misleading.
But, as I said, now that he has responded to the attacks, the media will probably jump in. If Kerry does have something to hide, he should have kept quiet. If not, then he did the right thing today by directly attacking the ad.
We’ll see what happens.
DC
Aug 19, 2004 - 2:40 pm 97. penwil:Instapundit is quoating a very revealing letter on this subject from a journalist, and one who asks, BTW, to remain anonymous if quoted.
An except:
“Glenn- I completely agree with your observations about the threat this election presents to the credibility of the Fourth Estate. Too much of my own energy has been spent trying to convince colleagues of the danger — my point being that if the public loses faith in our capacity for basic objectivity and fairness, the public will find/create other means of collecting information. (My own impression from the inside, by the way, is that the media aren’t “liberal” so much as simply partisan. Think of it like a sporting event where folks desperately want one team to win and the other to lose.)”
What they are failing to grasp is that every time they lose credibility with a reader/listener they have lost that person forever. They aren’t looking past November 2nd. No matter what the outcome of the election is, they’ll have lost credibility with every man and woman who ends up voting for Bush. Even if Bush loses that’s still going to be close to half the electorate.
People make the mistake of believing that established institutions can’t be supplanted by others. I remember a time when people were saying nobody would by clothes and furniture out of mail order catalogues, then they said nobody would buy stuff like that off the internet. Today we have e-Bay.
Aug 19, 2004 - 2:42 pm 98. Erik:penwil,
What amazes me about that story is that he wants his name withheld. If he is a journalist, and a wellknown to from what it seems, he should report the news, and that would be news.
The fact that he wants to be anonymous says a lot about the ethics of journalists, even those that thinks something is wrong, speaks out anonymously. One wonders why this guy dont report any of the stories. He could easily creates his own blog and post the stories he writes there if his editor tries to kill it…
That is, if he is really dedicated to reporting the news…
A report sometime ago (Pew?) had the public trust of newsmedia at around 25%. That means that more people approve of almost any politicain in office more than they trust the MSM…
Aug 19, 2004 - 2:58 pm 99. Rick Ballard:DC,
You’re correct, “served with me” is more accurate than “knew me”.
Now, why do you suppose John hasn’t rounded up more Swifties who “served” with him? Or just Swifties who support him – whether they served with him or not?
Katherine,
Do I recall that you received a copy of the book? If so, are the AAR’s on the actions that resulted in medals reproduced?
Aug 19, 2004 - 2:59 pm 100. Catherine:Rick B
McCain’s rebuttal in the ‘00 SC primary comes to mind but there are better ones
What went on there?
Was that the whispering campaign about his illegitimate black child? (Wasn’t that the story?)
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:01 pm 101. Katherine:Rick, I am still waiting for the book, it was shipped on 17th. Will probably have it this weekend. But I recall somebody here got it already, can’t remeber who, though….
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:04 pm 102. Rick Ballard:Catharine,
I’m not sure – I just remember that he directly answered the smear.
The most famous direct rebuttal may not be too popular here – but it was effective:
“When the liberal New York Post launched a smear to drive Nixon off the Eisenhower ticket — accusing him of having a “secret” slush fund — Nixon’s televised counter-attack, the famous “Checkers speech,” not only solidified his position but made him the first Republican politician in decades with broad appeal across Middle America.”
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:10 pm 103. Erik:How many people actually “served with” John Kerry? Cant be many more than those 5-10 guys that actually was on the boat with him.
So, when Kerry wants us to trust the judgement of his character from men who served with him, he is actually just talking about 5-10 guys?
Less than a dozen guys that spent a few months max under his command over 30years ago are the only ones that really knows his character? He must have lived a really sad and dull life…
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:11 pm 104. doublecola:Rick,
“Now, why do you suppose John hasn’t rounded up more Swifties who “served” with him? Or just Swifties who support him – whether they served with him or not?”
I don’t know. I’m guessing he thought he didn’t need any more. I mean he had most of the guys who served under him on his side, so I guess he thought he was fine. I think he is fine regarding the medals–I don’t think that’s a situation the swiftboat vets can win. Cambodia, however, is a another story.
I hope the Kerry campaign does not bring in more vets. God, it will be some weird parade of pro and anti-Kerry Vets shouting at each other on tv news shows and talk radio–yikes! …
hmmm….you know, putting the pro and anti-kerry vets on an island…that could be the basis of a new reality tv show!
DC
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:15 pm 105. Catherine:everyone
There’s all kinds of interesting data on the beliefs & politics of journalists which, unfortunately, I am too tired to corral at the moment.
Jouranalists aren’t “liberal” in an across-the-board sense.
They’re very liberal on social issues like abortion & gay rights.
They’re libertarian or centrist on things like trade (can’t remember which. As I recall, journalists are all free-traders.)
They’re libertarian on government interference & regulation, which makes sense. Journalists and writers aren’t “organization men,” and they don’t like being hemmed in.
These are people–and I’m one of them–who believe profoundly in a free press, so you have to consider what “free press” means to someone who actually works in the press.
It means you don’t want a lot of folks breathing down your neck telling you what to do. (This is where you get jouranlists being hostile to the Patriot Act. It’s not anti-Americanism; it’s anti-government.)
Another factoid about writers, which I assume, but don’t know, is true of journalists as a class, too: high rates of depression.
Depression means all kinds of things, one of which is a “depressive outlook.”
I keep coming back to the perception that with the press we’re looking at two different sets of “biases.”
We certainly see a liberal bias, but we also see a depressive bias. To a depressive, everything is all f****** up all the time. The government is f****** up, the war is f***** up, the economy is f***** up, the pharmaceutical companies are f****** up—-need I go on?
To a person with a depressive worldview, the statement that “Iraq is a mess” seems simply and unquestionably true, and it would seem simply and unquestionably true if John Kerry were president, not George Bush.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:17 pm 106. Erik:Rick Ballard,
The “Checkers speech” is in one of my favorite books about Practical Rethoric, as a prime example on how to make an effective rebuttal.
That one and Clintons “I did not have sex”-speech. The latter is also shown as a prime example that a good speech only gets you so far, because if you really messed up you’re lost anyway.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:19 pm 107. Catherine:Rick B
Wow, great example.
I do vaguely remember that speech “working,” though my own image of it (I think I saw it as an adult) is that it made him look bad.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:19 pm 108. Rick Ballard:Erik,
“Served with” would include, at minimum, all those who shared the common billeting arrangements shared by those serving in CD-11 and CD-13. The crews did not live on the boats, ther were either on shore billets (barracks) or floating billets. The officers received mission orders as a group and the boats operated in 3-5 boat groups.
Fox is covering the varying language on iterations of Kerry’s Silver Star citation. I really want to know who signed the recommendations for his citation.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:24 pm 109. doublecola:a new link to check out. Kerry is now making the MSM take notice of the SwiftBoat Vet story.
No, Salon.com is not mainstream, but still this is the kind of action that will draw attention from the MSM.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/19/swiftbook/index.html
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:25 pm 110. Samuel:Syl
In response to a question that was asked of me in an e-mail yesterday concerning Bush’s prospects and if I still felt he was going to win, I’ll share it here…
–
I do, and I still stand by my 53-57% of the vote. I do feel however that things are very unstable and could turn against him, but barring unforeseen events, I’d bet money on him.
Don’t ask me to dissect Bush and his ways of achieving this. Bush works very different than I am used to seeing. For instance I would think Bush would want to debate Kerry as often as possible, yet he seems to feel once or twice is adequate. Bush also has proven a tendency to wait until all ammunition has been launched at him before completely responding.
Bottom line is people feel it is Kerry’s race to lose, which is stupid in my opinion. It is still Bush’s to lose as he is the incumbent. If he were going down hard it would be apparent by now. At this point Kerry has convinced about 45% (42-48) of the electorate to give him a shot. That means the rest will be convinced one way or another by Bush himself. In other words only Bush can help or hurt himself, Kerry has little to do with it, in fact the MSM being in the tank is what really is driving Kerry’s support, they can’t cover for him forever…
–
Here is the part that partly addresses what you eluded to Syl…
–
A safe vote is an incumbent vote. A vote for change is a challenger vote. I believe the “Truman” rule is in effect. When they get in the booth safety will trump risk. Has Kerry convinced the voters Bush is the risk? I don’t think so, that my two cents.
Samuel
P.S. Until the Republican Convention and the Debates happen we can predict little.
–
The bottom line is that I had someone tell me the other day that they wouldn’t put on a Bush bumper sticker because it wasn’t worth it, it has become politically incorrect to support Bush openly. That being said when did what is politically correct change the mind of the silent majority? People speak openly about support for Gay Marriages yet put it to a vote and it goes down with 71% opposed in “Bell Whether” Missouri. I heard a pundit say that there is at least 3% “suppression” in Bush’s declared support because of PC conditions, which of course is the other side of the “liberal cocoon” effect. Double Cola, you live in that cocoon by the way.
Catherine
I wasn’t going to comment but continue to “lurk” in silence but I must respond affirmatively to your comment about Republicans and Education. It was one of my main justifiers in switching Parties and actually the biggest schism between my wife and I. I was surprised yet pleased with your recent realization of this. My wife teaches Math and is a big supporter if Public Education. So am I, but I am a big supporter of education period, public or not. I am more for School Choice then Charter Schools yet it is at least a start.
The other day my wife brought up the point about how Charter Schools tested no better then Public Schools, to which I asked “Did they do worse?” She replied emphatically, “Neither worse nor better so why have them!” After digging her about those children that actually had true “School Choice” and not just “Charter Schools” faired even better I added, “What you are telling me is actually amazing! Since Charter schools are overwhelmingly filled by minorities who are historically much inferior academically, what you are in affect saying is these kids are being brought to normal levels of achievement!”
I hardly avoided the couch that night.
Actually since a liberal wants to move forward call me a “Liberal” Republican because that is what I am and damn proud of it. The Democrats want to protect old ways and ill-gotten political achievements. Unfortunately most are not achievements, but worthy of burial. DEMOCRATS AND THE MSM ARE NOT LIBERAL! Call me a Neo-Con call me what you will, I want our society to achieve and looking for “Big Brother” or the MSM being in the tank for Democrats is not the ticket. The MSM is not liberal they are operative to the Democrats, liberal or not. SHAME!
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:25 pm 111. PeterArgus:About the shrapnel in the leg. It is the wound that lead to the 2nd purple heart. Here is the after relevant part of the after action report I downloaded from the web (link):
“While serving as OINC aboard PCF 94 engaged operations in the above river, LTJF Kerry suffered shrapnel wounds in his left thigh, when PCF 94 came under intense hostile A/W and rocket fire.” This for a 20 Feb 69 action.
This particular document covers the 2nd and 3rd (shrapnel in left buttock and contusions on arm) purple hearts. For some reason it does not cover the first one.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:27 pm 112. M. Simon:Peter,
He said today he was still carrying the metal.
How can that be from a wound that required no hospitalization?
======
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:31 pm 113. Knucklehead:I went googling for a vaguely remembered survey of, IIRC, upperclassmen at Columbia School of Journalism which showed that journalism students were appallingly uninformed – couldn’t name VP, SecDef, etc.
I did not find that, but what I did find was State of the Media 2004. I just poked around there for a little while and, found this Overview of Public Attitudes about “the media” in general and this even worse news for the media about newspapers. The public attitude toward newspapers has long been in decline, but this is somewhat startling.
Last, but not least, see this survey of journalists which, after all the bad news delivered regarding their industry and them, and in which they seem to feel their work environment sucks and have little job satisfaction, the conclusion they draw is Press Going Too Easy on Bush. WTF?
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:33 pm 114. PeterArgus:DC:
Thanks for the link. This is simply awful. So the Kerry campaign having unsuccessfully attempted to intimidate radio and tv stations from running the swiftboat ad, are now trying to intimidate book stores? “It’s a hoax” – why??? Where is the data showing its a hoax (one poorly researched article about Thurlow in the Post)? This is an attempt at censorship plain and simple. There was no equivalent demand from the RNC when Fahrenheit 9/11 came out. Has your party no shame, sir?
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:34 pm 115. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):Fresh Air
Acknowledging the departure from the scene is going along with Kerry’s story, I believe. There was something about having to run a gauntlett of 5km of hostile fire to get back to rescue Rasmussen. There is a little problem with that – the river isn’t that long, according to an email I got today from a Swiftee. I think the general rule for Swift Boats was to flee an ambush and then shoot up the source from a safer distance using their heavier weapons. However, they had radios and presumably, in that event, they were in contact, in which case who knows what was going on. I’d guess that Kerry boogied and nobody paid him any attention because they were too focused on PCF-3 and its wounded and overboard crew, and shooting up the shores just in case the ambush included followup fire. I also suspect that fire was what Rassman remembers as hostile incoming fire. The key to this event is the agreement of three of the skippers on the situation. As for fleeing the scene, that could be cowardice or following doctrine or panic. Who knows? I’m not going to call it cowardice.
John Kerry ended up in dangerous combat (not intentionally, by the way). There is no question he fought in one of the most dangerous assignments in the Navy during that war (more dangerous was combat aviation). If he had left it at that, there would be no problem (until phase II – the anti-war stufff that is what I suspect the Swifties are preparing now in their new add – a guess, no inside information). But he had to embellish it with Christmas in Cambodia, that bizarre silver star incident, and taking credit for rescuing Rassman under fire when other witnesses say there was on fire. It was the purple heart nonsense that was really out of hand. He used it to get out after less than 3 months of combat. That is not the act of a war hero – it is the act of someone who did not care for the others in his units. However, he did arrange for the people who had been on his boats (or at least one – not clear) to be transferred to safe billets. They may very well have been the start of their loyalty to them.
Something else that has not come out is that most of the critics are officers, and all of his supporters (except for Rassman, who wasn’t part of his unit) are enlisted men. Speaking as a former navy enlisted man (you know… bell bottom trousers and dixie cup hat – except I normlly wore a flight suit), officers were god-like in their powers. They could make magic happen. They could ruin your life. They were almost as dangerous as Chief Petty Officers, but far more distant. So wealthy, famous, former officer who got a good deal for them Kerry is an easy guy for the former enlisted men to attach themselves too – especially with the right grooming (none of which I am aware of, but if we had an operational MSM we would know). Also, there was a fair amount of turnover. At last one of Kerry’s band of brothers spend less than 2 weeks under him. In answer to another question, I have read articles that expenses are being paid for the BOB.
The officers were in a better position to make over-all judgements. They were his peers and his superiors, and they were with him on the missions also. They were probably better briefed and they were the one keeping track of everything. A gunner focuses on what he might need to shoot at (and keeping his weapon ready). A machinist’s mate focuses on the boat systems. But the captain watches everything, especially the total tactical situation.
Rick and Catherine
Your question about finding more swifties brings up a couple of things. The first is what one would find if the MSM applied its full power to investigating Kerry’s pet Swifties.
The other is that there appears to be huge shift of Vietnam Vets (and maybe other vets) against Kerry. There just don’t seem to be many Vets that have any feeling for Kerry other than pure contempt. Given the state of the MSM, this has to be spreading through the internet – mailing lists, blogs, unit sites, etc. All that I get are uniformly and vicorously anti-Kerry.
Roberts
He had to remove stuff in the past. He had misleading dates of service that had a gap covering his anti-war years. He even got Kranish at the Globe to publish he was honorably discharged in 1970. Since I joined the Navy a couple of days afterr Kerry, and my service ended in 1972. Sure enough, when Kerry published his service record, it turned out he was in the Naval Reserve the whole time (inactive status). Now his website says his service was 1966-1970 when in fact it was 1966-1978.
All
Keep in mind that the veterans vs. Kerry campaign is not just about his actions in Vietnam. There are other organizations (like Vietnam Vets for the Truth), not populated with swifties, which are strongly against Kerry’s anti-war actions (the Swifties are too). We want to hold Kerry to account for the lies he told about us and our nation. There’s more to come, and in many cases there is no dispute on the facts, just the weight of them.
Kerry’s actions during that time were extraordinary. He was not an ordinary protestor, but one who attacked the military in every possible way, and who attacked the character of America itself. Furthermore, he supported a communist victory and in general gave the impression of being on their side. The media will have fun with this (I an imagine what they will do – for example, produce a couple of initances of atrocities to justify Kerry’s assertion of “war crimes on a daily basis with full knowledge of all levels of command.”
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:35 pm 116. doublecola:Peter,
I think this could backfire big-time on Kerry.
He’s opening a pandora’s box.
DC
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:36 pm 117. PeterArgus:Glad to hear you say that. This is the problem I see with the Dems. They have no real core beliefs anymore – they are so superficial. And one can’t hlp but think that many of them have the general attitude of academia (of which I am a member) that there really is nothing worth fighting for. I should also confess it is my party too, I am a registered Dem.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:40 pm 118. PeterArgus:DC:
Oops my bad. Last comment was directed to you.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:40 pm 119. Katherine:Catherine,
Judging by the evidence such as articles they write, I find it hard to believe that majority of journalists are pro free trade. Unless they mean something other than this concept of free trade
http://explanation-guide.info/meaning/Free-trade.html:
ìFree trade an economic concept referring to the selling of products between countries without tariff s or other trade barriers. Free trade is the absence of artificial ( government -imposed) barriers to trade among individuals and firm s in different nation s. International trade is often constricted by different national tax es, other fees imposed on exported and imported goods, as well as non-tariff regulations on imported goods; theoretically, free trade is against all these restrictions. In reality, trade agreements that are labelled as “free trade” by their proponents may actually create their own barriers to a free market. Some critics of such trade agreements see them as protecting the interests of corporations.î
Another interesting article about trade can be found here:
http://www.reason.com/0407/fe.bl.truths.shtml
I only wish that journalists were anti-government; it seems to me though that the only area where they are anti-government it is the area of free press. Everywhere else central planning seems to be most desirable outcome.
I am not contradicting the data that I am sure you have; I simply doubt veracity of answers that constituted the poll; also, as we all know, answers depend often on how questions are asked.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:43 pm 120. Erik:Rick B,
I would agree.
Personally, if I was to specify those I “served with”, I would include at least the company, and possibly the whole battalion. We shared the same barracks, and the same training facilities, even if it was probably just the plutoon that really got to know each other.
But the thing with Kerry is that he seems to limit it very narrowly. At first it sounded as he meant all veterans, but now it seems he only means those that were on the same boat.
My point is that Kerry can of course choose to limit the scope as he wishes, but then he’s only talking about a dozen guys max, and that’s not that many character witnesses for a candidate.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:46 pm 121. Catherine:Samuel
no lurking!
we need you!
OK, I have a question:
At this point Kerry has convinced about 45% (42-48) of the electorate to give him a shot. That means the rest will be convinced one way or another by Bush himself.
How do we know this?
I mean, why do we know that if Kerry has not clobbered Bush by now that it is Bush, not Kerry, who will convince everyone else one way or another?
As to NCLB & fuzzy math, I’ve had a kind of revelation, which is not putting it too mildly.
I became a Bush supporter because of the WOT, but I am staying a Bush supporter because of NCLB as well as the WOT.
At this point, even if we won the WOT tomorrow, I’d have to think carefully before voting for a Democratic president again any time soon.
My revelation has been this.
For years I assumed, without thinking about it too much, that the “achievement gap,” (the gap in scores, grades & achievement between black & white children) was an intractable problem.
It just seemed huge.
I thought the gap was related to dysfunctional inner city black culture & broken down family structure, etc., & thus was not solveable by education.
I thought the achievment gap was a social problem, not an education problem.
Suddenly, looking at data on black children’s scores–and on white children’s scores in relation to the rest of the world–I see that the achievment gap is an education problem. You can take a bunch of inner city black children with no money and no fathers and boost their scores up to white levels with nothing more than a good teacher & a good curriculum.
It’s been done.
And you can dump those scores back down in the cellar if you take away the good teacher & the good curriculum.
I think it’s fair to say that Republicans & conservatives have a better track record on education for minorities, and probably for non-minorities as well.
Democrats have tons of smart people in liberal think tanks who know what’s what, but the party itself is beholden to the teachers’ unions. The folks at Brookings aren’t setting Democratic Party policy on education. The unions are (yes? Or am I exaggerating?)
As to charter schools, I’m not a fan, though I support them. We had our two autistic kids in a charter school, and the experience was a nightmare. Charter schools are, by definition, start-ups, and start-ups, almost by definition, suffer from “founder syndrome.” Not a good thing. Plus many or even most new enterprises fail, which means you’re putting kids with huge disadvantages into brand-new schools with no established track record and a reasonably high probability of failing as an organization.
Last but not least, the AFT data showed, yet again, that black inner-city children do best in religious schools.
I learned only recently that we’ve known for years that these kids do best in Catholic schools.
So which party is dedicated to preventing the use of vouchers for religious schools?
Not the Republicans.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:46 pm 122. Rick Ballard:Erik,
I believe that history will show that Kerry’s denial (not actually a rebuttal of anything) will rank with Clinton rather than Nixon. It was simple ad hom without substance. I believe that Kerry is making final decisions and he’s making them very poorly. He also looked to be about 85 years old and in ill health. Finally, he called on Bush to repudiate the ad. Problem is, Bush has already repudiated all 527 ads.
Stooopid.
Old cross foot continues his stumble to oblivion.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:47 pm 123. doublecola:Peter,
When you find the party for which you are registered, can you let me know? I’ve been looking for them for a while now and I don’t know where they’ve gone. I’m serious!
DC
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:48 pm 124. Catherine:Katherine
it seems to me though that the only area where they are anti-government it is the area of free press. Everywhere else central planning seems to be most desirable outcome
That was definitely my reaction when my husband told me about the data, and I’m betting you and I are right on this one.
Still, for journalists to say, in a survey, that they don’t like government power & interference, does mean something I think. (Their views on abortion are probably consistent with not wanting the government overseeing their lives . . . )
My impression on free trade, though, is that journalists are in favor. I can’t give anecdotal evidence, but I never see journalists writing what I consider biased anti-free trade stories.
Political journalists had zero interest in Gephardt, even though they all respect &, I think, like him (and correctly so–apparently he is a good guy in the House). Gephardt is completely different from Kerry; he actually is a leader, and has been successful and respected in Congress. Kerry has never had so much as a vice-chairmanship of a committee, I think.
But even though my sense is that Gephardt is respected by journalists, they weren’t behind him for President, and my impression was that it was his anti-free trade stance they objected to.
Aug 19, 2004 - 3:56 pm 125. ambisinistral:I get the feeling that the “but the Swift Vets weren’t on Kerry’s boat” line of defense is rapidly running out of steam. For example, today’s rhubarb over Thurlow’s medal involves clear descriptions of multiple boats acting in formation. I expect to see the value of the BOB being on his boat decline some, while the implications of so many of his squadron mates coming out against him gains some traction.
I think we also may be on the last legs of the “Swift Vets being a covert part of Bush’s campaign” schtick. It hasn’t seemed to have much impact so far, and now the Swift Vets are pointing to the political diversity of their membership. I just saw John O’Neal (sp?) on Lou Dobbs show state (and I’m quoting from memory), “We won’t stop if asked. We don’t care if this hurts Bush’s campaign, we’re just trying to tell the truth about John Kerry.” BTW, Dobbs gave O’Neal a pretty easy set of questions and gave him plenty of time to answer.
I think Kerry has now embraced the tar baby. Like I’ve said before, there will be no smoking gun, just death by 1,000 cuts.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:04 pm 126. penwil:I read DC’s Salon link and I don’t know whether to believe it or not. It just seems too stupid a move on Kerry’s part to be believed. Somebody needs to let him know that this ain’t Moscow.
I hope the MSM takes the bait and runs with this story, if it’s true, because it makes Kerry look like . . . dare I say it? Hitler! And all it will end up doing is selling even more of the books!
And when even Kerry supporters are acknowledging that the book has credibility . . .
It is frightening, though, to realize the level of censorship we would have to endure in a Kerry administration. The guy is seriously starting to scare me, and I am not joking.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:10 pm 127. Knucklehead:Catherine:
Regarding the “startup” nature of charter schools and the high failure rate of “startups”…
The fact that charter schools are startups and may fail and, if they don’t fail outright may do no better or even worse for their students is a matter of concern. Especially for those directly involved with the charter school as “founders” or students.
Whenever I ponder this sort of problem, however, I always come back to the thought that something must be very wrong with the status quo to provoke people to go to so much trouble, and risk, to escape it.
When my own oldest daughter wanted to go to what, I suppose, is more accurately called a magnet rather than charter school, I was concerned that they were still in a startup phase. They hadn’t graduated a class, the facilities were incomplete, and there were still teachers doing double duty teaching subjects they didn’t ordinarily teach but for which the school hadn’t yet hired anyone or had recently lost someone. I had this discussion with my daughter and pointed out to her that if she did, in fact, want to attend that school rather than the local HS, she needed to understand that she was signing up to be part of an experiment and, therefore, was accepting responsibility to do her part in making the experiment successful. The brat, BTW, did Dear Ol’ proud. She contributed to the success of the experiment. The school is well launched and is rapidly developing a well earned reputation for excellence.
We can’t go on the way we are with our public school system. Things need to be tried and risks taken. Unfortunately that means some failures. It didn’t need to come to this, but it has and the Dems seem to have no interest in trying to help fix the problems. Vote ‘em out! While I cannot claim the “reformed” or “deeply concerned” Democrat title that many here have, I am a de facto Republican because I am strongly anti-Democrat. The situation in our public schools is one of the primary reasons I am so stridently anti-Democrat.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:11 pm 128. Erik:Rick B,
I believe that history will show that Kerry’s denial (not actually a rebuttal of anything) will rank with Clinton rather than Nixon.
Sorry, I have to disagree slightly. I have only read Kerrys speach briefly, but I dont think it’s even close to Clinton. (Nixons was even better)
I agree with my book on this, Clinton was very convincing in that speech. The reason he blew it was that he was lying in it and got caught, but the speach itself was effective, at least for those not allready against him.
Kerry just made a really poor speach. The worst thing you can do is go directly on the attack like that. Especially if you are a presidential candidate and the target is veterans. Makes you look vindictive to most people. (Howard Dean, Wes Clark and Al Gore has allready tried that this year.)
I dont think Kerrys speach convinced a single person that hadn’t allready made up their mind.
I think he would have been much better off trying Hillarys approach, hinting to some faceless VRWC that pulls strings in the background, and not attacking the swiftvets directly.
Would probably have been an easier sell to most people, and kept his options open.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:13 pm 129. Stan:DC and folks…
This whole “served with” / “served under” etc…
I have to ask someone who has read the book to verify but my understanding is that a great many of these men (the 250) were in the Coastal Division with Kerry. There are approx. 6 men to a boat on a mission and anywhere from two to five ships on a mission so up to 30 guys working in a closely coordinated mission. At the end of the mission they all return to the same base and sleep in the same barracks and probably talk about the mission and how everything was handled. I think these men have a pretty good understanding of who John Kerry is and how he acquitted himself. To say they don’t know Kerry and have no basis to comment is false and obvious wishful thinking.
The Rassman story has holes too. Kerry relies on him – but he was with Kerry only a couple of days. During the big mission he admits to staying under water as much as possible while still asserting he knew the air was filled with enemy fire. Yet, no one disputes that the four surviving boats received not a single bullet hole, and none of the other 20 some guys in the action confirm there was enemy fire and in fact assert there was no enemy fire.
And Kerry’s version of everything is tainted by the admittedly bogus Christmas Eve Cambodia story that Kerry has already, reluctantly climbed down from his previously “seared” assurance of its validity.
This seems so clear and yet Kerry and friends continue to trot out new and different versions to cobble together some scrap of credibility but its not working.
Stan
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:14 pm 130. doublecola:“We won’t stop if asked. We don’t care if this hurts Bush’s campaign, we’re just trying to tell the truth about John Kerry.”
I think it’s obvious the Bush Campaign won’t ask them to stop.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:21 pm 131. ambisinistral:Stan,
Whenever I run across somebody confused by the “served with/served under” issue I point out the dynamics of anybody who has worked in a company. Sure, you know the people in your little department best, but you also have a real good read on people in other departments you work with frequently and with the people in your management chain. In fact, through casual association you probably even know the reputation of people beyond your immediate sphere.
And, unless you’re kanoodling somebody in an office romance, you don’t even have to sleep with these folks or hang around with them on off hours.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:24 pm 132. ambisinistral:DC,
Of course the Bush campaign won’t ask them to stop. After all, if cease and desist letter full of threatened lawsuits didn’t work, it is unlikely a “pretty please” from any direction would deter them.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:26 pm 133. Fresh Air:Rick–
Still, under the most liberal definition, I don’t think a grain of rice qualifies as shrapnel, even if it was absorbed into the piriformis instead of the gluteus maximus.
If it did they’d have to pass out Purple Hearts after each military wedding.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:27 pm 134. Catherine:school choice (again)
I just noticed that NRO has an article on school choice. It mentions the work of Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby showing that public schools will gain from school choice.
She’s a “major person” in the field, I believe.
As I recall she has a book out on the subject, and here’s a link to her article in EDUCATION NEXT:
http://www.educationnext.org/20014/68.html
pull-quote:
If every school in the nation were to face a high level of competition both from other districts and from private schools, the productivity of AmericaÔøΩs schools, in terms of studentsÔøΩ level of learning at a given level of spending, would be 28 percent higher than it is now.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:34 pm 135. Erik:Stan,
I’d agree with you, if you’re looking for “people that knew him”, it’s fair to include those that patrolled with him, even on other boats, and saw him on a regular basis.
I think Kerrys problem here is that most people simply will see it that way. If Kerry says “served with”, most people will define that as “being in the same place at the same time”, and that would more or less include everyone in CD11.
I certainly see it as that simple, and I dont have much military experience. Most people dont.
Ambisinistrals comparison with a company is a very good example, and I think most people spontaneously see it like that.
When Kerry tries to limit it down to the same boat, I think most people will interpret that as spin, and wonder why the other swiftvets opinions aren’t supposed to be trusted.
Kind of like: If Kerry was such a great guy, why aren’t the other guys sticking up for him, even *if* VRWC is trying to bribe them? Aren’t they BOBs, and loyal friends forever?
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:39 pm 136. DennisThePeasant:A couple of things…
I had my doubts initially, but it now appears that the Swift Boater Controversy has taken on a life of its own. This can be nothing but bad for Kerry, irrespective of the ‘truth’ of this matter. I believe I said at this site about a week ago that Kerry had a window of less than a week to kill this story, and the way to kill it was to come out and address the Swift Boater claims in detail. Somehow, I have the feeling that he could have managed to get a sympathetic venue for such a discussion from Katie Couric, 60 Minutes or Larry King.
For whatever reason, Kerry and his Cadre seem intent on playing this up to a major campaign issue via an astute combination of Nixonian intimidation and Clintonian evasion. I find the Kerry Camp’s response to this absolutely amazing. As I said last week, didn’t anyone with Kerry watch the intial Swift Boat press conference and come to the realization that these guys were out for balls and blood? I watched it on CSPAN and O’Neill and the rest were not nuanced about what they were going for.
It doesn’t matter that the MSM is ignoring this story. Over the past week alone, Limbaugh (20+ million listeners per day) and Imus (10+ million per day) have been all over this, as has regional stars such as Hugh Hewitt. Then there are the bloggers…The MSM underestimates the impact of both because they look down on both. Kerry does the same, primarily because the MSM is such a comfortable place for him to be.
The real issue was that Kerry had to get this behind him as quickly as possible. This he has failed to do. And after the reception he got from the Vets yesterday, the months and the millions he has spent trying to convince the American people he is Commander-In-Chief (as opposed to Presidential) material seems to have come to nothing. Even a paper as half-assed in-the-bag-for-Kerry as The Columbus Dispatch ran a front page story that highlighted just how badly Kerry did with the Vets audience.
This week alone has set him back to close to square one in trying to convince the undecided/non-partisan vote that he can successfully manage a global war on terror. And that has been the centerpiece of his effort from the convention to this very day. Whether this dooms Kerry remains to be seen, but by just about any standard it is very clear that he has handled this matter as badly as could be. If this issue is as hot (or hotter) on Sept. 15 as it is now, Kerry is going to be McGovern Redux.
There are a lot of people out there looking to be convinced that life can be easier and/or better under someone other than George W. Bush. All I can say is I see nothing in Kerry or his campaign that will convince those people he is the man to lead them out of the wilderness towards paradise.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:41 pm 137. Stan:ambisinistral,
That is a great analogy to explore: Imagine a company with a division of 3-400 employees and a typical organizational structure. Then what would you think of a guy that was there for four and half months and touted his performance with the endorsement of 9 guys, all subordinate to him in his separate small dept. and all of whom got transferred out of the Division when he left and yet arrayed against that there are 250 guys from the company including every supervisor he had who all give the guy the down?
Pretty damning indictment. If I were Kerry I would try to make this go away before the swing voters got this mental picture.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:42 pm 138. Fresh Air:Ambi–
It’s also flat out illegal for Bush to ask them to stop. They are a 527, by definition an independent political entity. Bush is not allowed to influence them in any way.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:51 pm 139. Samuel:Catherine
Concerning the following…
–
OK, I have a question:
At this point Kerry has convinced about 45% (42-48) of the electorate to give him a shot. That means the rest will be convinced one way or another by Bush himself.
How do we know this?
I mean, why do we know that if Kerry has not clobbered Bush by now that it is Bush, not Kerry, who will convince everyone else one way or another?
–
Because that is how it always is! When has it not been this way? If Kerry was going to make a big dent then he would have done it by now, he has done the damage on Bush he can and the rest of the damage he (Kerry) will do will either:
A) solidify and marginally increase such support or…
B) cause such support to marginally decrease or weaken.
The rest of the electorate is waiting to see if it is worth risking the change. If change was number one, or so important to these people, they would already be convinced. This tells me people are waiting for more info to complete their decision. These are what I categorize as “default” voters, in other words change is a fall back scenario. I know Dick Morris and the MSM say the undecided go to the challenger, but that is only when the incumbent obliges and never closes the deal. That is why I say it is Bush’s to lose. He is within the margin of error and has a Convention and a couple of debates. I will assume the Republican Convention will at least erase Kerry’s 3 point bounce, so picture this as 1980. The polls that year were very similar and did not break until one week out! What caused this? If Carter would have not looked stupid in the debates and seemed so utterly unprepared to carry on then HE WOULD HAVE WON! Reagan made Carter look stupid but that was Carter and not Reagan’s doing. In other words Jimmy obliged Reagan and the people were convinced of Carters ineptness and that Reagan was “worth the risk” the MSM painted him to be. In other words they said “I am out of here!” based on Carters poor performance more than Reagan’s.
Now the real question, does Bush = Carter and Kerry = Reagan? Kerry will have to win the debates to win the Presidency and decisively. Had Gore won the debates Bush never would have come close, but Bush won the debates. In summation it was more Gores failure than Bush’s success that determined this. If both Bush and Kerry campaign well then Bush wins, if Bush does poorly then Kerry wins, but only Bush doing poorly will open that door and I do not see that happening.
I would further add that if Bush beats Kerry in the Debates to the same degree that he beat Gore then Bush will win with at least 55% of the vote. If Kerry does as well as Bush did against Gore then it will be closer but a win for Kerry (maybe barely at 50% like 50-47). Face it Gore lost more than Bush won. I do not see Bush pulling a Carter, and I certainly don’t see Kerry pulling a Reagan. There is also the “Beer factor”. Who would a guy rather have a drink with? It may sound stupid but it does matter especially to men. Again had Gore had this quality then he would have demolished Bush. So in summary, why change? That is the question and Kerry has made all the vague arguments he can, now Bush either demolishes those reasons or let’s them stick, it is up to him.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:52 pm 140. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):I think the Kerry strategy is to throw FUD at the Swiftees, by finding little inconsistencies (like the citation for Thurlow’s bronze star) and blowing them up using the MSM to make the most of it.
Eventually, the SBVT may start looking like fishy – this little thing, that little thing.
I hope not.
Then there’s the next ad coming out. Keep Kerry off balance? Switch the fight to post-war?
It’s interesting to watch.
BTW… the bandwidth used to download the ad from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth site was unbelievable. I share the same service provider (a big one) and didn’t know they could move that many bytes in one day.
So the message is getting out.
I suspect this year the normal ratios in active military and veteran votes will have a substantial shift away from Kerry. I have encountered a “hate Kerry” feeling out that that is almost universal.
Aug 19, 2004 - 4:57 pm 141. M. Simon:Peter,
http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Spot_Kerry.pdf
It covers two different actions.
20 Feb and 13 March.
This is confusing. 1 “wound” 20 Feb. Two “wounds” 13 March.
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:06 pm 142. Syl:doublecola
“I don’t know. I’m guessing he thought he didn’t need any more. I mean he had most of the guys who served under him on his side, so I guess he thought he was fine. ”
Actually, as I understand it, he was actively recruiting anybody he could get which didn’t turn out to be too many. I posted a link to an article from my local rag (above? or another thread). Hoffman was called, out of the blue. He thought it was for Bob Kerrey, but when he realized it was John Kerry’s campaign he was no longer interested.
Rick Ballard
“It was simple ad hom without substance.”
For sure. But what ticked me off the most was that Kerry is basically calling these veterans Bush puppets. It’s another smear on Vietnam Vets. Only Kerry’s little band are worth hearing. Shut everyone else up.
Kerry’s in deep doo-doo and sounds desparate. Fingers in ears, yelling “Make them shut up!”
On Brit Hume’s panel tonite, the ’splainer man from the Post (forgot his name, damn) said by election day this will be forgotten.
I doubt it. Maybe there won’t be any surface buzz but this is something people don’t forget..the ones it matters to anyway.
If the Swifties have done nothing else, they’ve made even the mention of ‘Vietnam’ a negative for Kerry. I don’t even think the papers are saying ‘John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, says…..’ anymore.
Samuel
Thanks for the optimism, it is, I think, well-founded.
Catherine
I’m with you 100% on Republicans and education!
(You may not be interested but look into some environmental things too. They may surprise you there too. I know they did me.)
And thanks for the Hoxby link. Her conclusions ring so true and, may I dare say it, obvious. But I get the feeling that the Democrats are not looking for actual learning from the students. And I don’t think it’s just being in bed with the teacher’s union. They have a role, but are more scapegoats than anything.
It has more to do with power (keeping blacks in their place as victims, keeping demands for special programs that sound good and therefor get votes) and with the ‘progressive’ changes the’ve been pushing the last couple of decades. Political correctness, how girls and boys are taught AS girls and boys, teaching children to be passive, their emphasis on sex education (I don’t mind sex education but theirs has an agenda behind it), changing history through control of textbooks, eliminating words from the language, attempts at bi-lingual education. It’s societal engineering through our children.
All the above they would lose if there were real reforms put in place. All of it. I really believe there’s a lot more to it than firing teachers and hating religious schools…those are just smokescreens to hide many other reasons left unspoken.
Of course this does not evidence itself in each Democrat since the party isn’t a monolith. But put all the factors together and you have agreement across the party that doing anything other than what is being done now is heresy.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:06 pm 143. Rick Ballard:Erik,
Sorry for lack of clarity in my comment comparing Kerry’s response to Clinton’s rather than Nixon’s. I was referring to outcome. Nixon stayed on as Ike’s running mate. Bubba was impeached. Kerry will nerver, ever have to worry about being impeached.
FA,
Yeah, I screwed up. I forgot the second heart.
Samuel,
W will have to be verging on unconsciousness to lose a debate to Kerry. “Mental agility” will never be found next to Kerry’s picture in a dictionary. Besides, he’ll never get through his “on the one hand” spiel in the alloted time.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:11 pm 144. Samuel:DennisThePeasant
There are a lot of people out there looking to be convinced that life can be easier and/or better under someone other than George W. Bush. All I can say is I see nothing in Kerry or his campaign that will convince those people he is the man to lead them out of the wilderness towards paradise.
This supports my last post to Catherine. Bottom line it is now Bush’s to lose.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:11 pm 145. doublecola:Again, from the swifty website:
“our group INCLUDES men who served beside Kerry in combat as well as his commanders.”
http://swift1.he.net/~swiftvet/index.php
So, it’s not 250 people who knew or even knew of Kerry. I’m not nitpicking. But to imply there are 250 swiftboat vets who knew Kerry or even served with him(under/with–I don’t care) is wrong.
And again, most–by far–of the reaction to Kerry is regarding his words once he returned from Viet Nam, not actual first hand experience.
http://swift1.he.net/~swiftvet/index.php?topic=SwiftVetQuotes
and, regarding Hoffman’s quote from the above link:
“Hoffman acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit Kerry’s claims to valor and said that although Kerry was under his command, he really didn’t know Kerry much personally.”
http://mediamatters.org/items/200406020006
and, too, Swifty spokesperson John O’Neill didn’t even serve at the same time as Kerry.
The ad is so misleading, it drives me crazy.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:15 pm 146. M. Simon:Peter,
Also note first wound prognosis good. Second set of wounds prognosis excellent. i.e. why are you wasting my time? Same medical treatment facility.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Spot_Kerry.pdf
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:15 pm 147. M. Simon:Doublecola,
Thurlow didn’t serve on the same boat as Kerry. How could anything he says pro or con be relevant?
=============
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:19 pm 148. doublecola:M. Simon,
When I say “served with/under” I don’t mean to imply they had to serve on the same boat.
DC
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:24 pm 149. M. Simon:Of the 250 swifties how many are frosted by Kerry’s lies to Congress?
=================
I don’t believe a man with a character like John Kerry’s could be a war criminal. I believe he lied to the Senate in 1971.
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
=================
John Kerry is no liar. I believe his 1971 Senate testimony when he said he committed war crimes.
There is no statute of limitations on war crimes.
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:26 pm 150. M. Simon:I’m with you doublecola,
Some 100+ Navy men who served with John Kerry say he is unfit for command. Only 12 or fewer say he is a good commander. That is 80 to 90% against.
Not a good recommendation.
=================
I don’t believe a man with a character like John Kerry’s could be a war criminal. I believe he lied to the Senate in 1971.
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
=================
John Kerry is no liar. I believe his 1971 Senate testimony when he said he committed war crimes.
There is no statute of limitations on war crimes.
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:32 pm 151. Fresh Air:Rick–
The experts generally agree that debates aren’t won on points, but on style. If you watch Kerry’s debate with O’Neill on the CSPAN website, you can see him cutting O’Neill off in mid-sentence and generally acting obnoxious. If he does these things against Bush (which I think he will), it won’t matter whether he’s quick- or slow-witted. He’ll still be just as much of a loser.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:34 pm 152. richard mcenroe:DoubleCola ó Using your example, why aren’t all those men from the unit who must think Kerry’s great coming forward on their own? Where are the letters and editorials across this nation from men saying of their own initiative, “I served with John Kerry in Cambodia, er, Nam, and let me tell you, if I was a millionairess I’d marry him in a hot flash!” Instead, he’s got his tatty little “band of brothers,” two of whom were paid Democratic organizers in their home states, one of whom wasn’t even there for the events he claims to have witnessed…
Instead, people who DIDN’T serve with Kerry (or didn’t serve at all) defend the lout, and the people who DID serve with him despise him. How do you spin that?
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:37 pm 153. Stan:DC,
OK, not all 250, but what is the threshold? It’s probably 50 or 60 compared to 9 subordinates that he got shipped out of the boat when he left.
How about the 20 or so in the Rassman life saving incident – none of whom agree with Kerry’s notion and THERE WERE NO BULLET HOLES! You’ve got 4 50-foot boats hanging around for 20-30 minutes supposedly taking fire from all over and NO HOLES, not a single round hits and that is after the suppressing fire was stopped. That’s believable but 20 folks from the other boats won’t confirm?
We already know Kerry made-up the Christmas Eve in Cambodia bit and in multiple, detailed versions at that – and you still trust his construction?
At a minimum this is a huge toss-up, not a Kerry slam-dunk. The CIA insertions seem bogus – Kerry has no documentation just his word. Brinkley, the biographer, has his scholarship in serious jeopardy – Nixon as PRes. in ‘68, gun running to anti-communists in Cambodia when Sinahouk (sp?) was still in power? Alston’s story is only a sliver of what he said it was to begin with…this is getting away from Kerry.
And we haven’t even got to Winter Soldier! The Kerry service record dancing around his Naval Reserve status when he was meeting with North Vietnamese Negotiators in France!
“Oh the horror, the horror…”
Stan
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:37 pm 154. Catherine:DennisthePeasant
It doesn’t matter that the MSM is ignoring this story. Over the past week alone, Limbaugh (20+ million listeners per day) and Imus (10+ million per day) have been all over this, as has regional stars such as Hugh Hewitt.
Thank you!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I Keep On Saying the MSM Do Not Control the Collective Mind of America (although it is possible that the MSM do control the collective mind of my husband, my mother, my father, and my in-laws) and I Keep On Being Not Believed!
That’s just wrong.
I’ve forgotten the circulation figures, but I believe the WSJ has a significantly higher circulation than the NYTIMES, right?
They gave space to Rassmann (sp?) but they’re also giving space to the swifties (and they ran an op-ed by John O’Neil way back when).
And don’t forget Fox.
And the New York Post.
The real issue was that Kerry had to get this behind him as quickly as possible. This he has failed to do.
Absolutely.
I hadn’t thought this story would be easy to shake, but I hadn’t anticipated Judicial Watch jumping in.
That’s perfect; legal processes keep a story moving. Judicial Watch will keep throwing out new material that the bloggers & the talk radio will pick up.
One thing to remember: writers & reporters (and bloggers!) need material—and they need reasonably new material; they can’t just keep going over the same old material.
An outfit like Judicial Watch will be able to generate new twists & turns.
There are a lot of people out there looking to be convinced that life can be easier and/or better under someone other than George W. Bush.
Ditto, ditto, ditto.
My sense is that huge, vast swatches of the public are desperate for a change, and would LEAP at the opportunity to vote for a reasonable human being.
That human being is not John Kerry.
Samuel
Thank you!
I think I am still confused about timing—-is there a particular time period during which Kerry should have knocked Bush down, OR does this never occur?
In other words, since elections are a referendum on the incumbent, even when you see the challenger far ahead (as Dukakis was for awhile, right?) is it still the incumbent’s to lose?
The rest of the electorate is waiting to see if it is worth risking the change. If change was number one, or so important to these people, they would already be convinced. This tells me people are waiting for more info to complete their decision. These are what I categorize as “default” voters, in other words change is a fall back scenario. I know Dick Morris and the MSM say the undecided go to the challenger, but that is only when the incumbent obliges and never closes the deal.
OK, that is extremely helpful.
I’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong with the “undecideds belong to challenger” idea.
I could see that as a general principle it made sense, but I knew there was an element of logic missing.
You’re making a “Who Moved My Cheese” argument, right?
Change is the scary (or scarier) proposition, and lacking a major reason to move, people will stick with the devil they know.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:37 pm 155. Catherine:M. Simon
You just reminded me.
Release the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:39 pm 156. Syl:Roger
In your ‘more’:
“But frankly I don’t care. That’s about medals, arguably a pompous and silly side issue. (In warfare, they’re given out by the bucketful anyway).”
Yes, the Christmas in Cambodia on the Senate Floor is a large, large issue, but, damn, the medals are important too! I’m not sure I understand your toss of the hand dismissal.
Yes, medals were handed out by the bucketfull, but I bet you can’t find many vets who managed to get THEIR bucketfull in 4 weeks. And with nothing more than a piece of rice in their butt to show for it!
Kerry gamed the system to get himself out of there with enough shiny stuff to run for President. He shot everything in sight instead of using judgement, and used his own flaws as an angle to impugn all vets. Thus he catapulted himself into a political career.
Lies, irresponsible actions, manipulating his crew and his superiors, then manipulating Americans into hating Vietnam vets.
The war was dying down but that wasn’t enough for Kerry. No he had to have an impact by forcing our government to pull out ‘now!’ consequences be damned.
It’s almost as though he thought he was already President.
No, those medals are extremely important to the who, what, and why of John Kerry.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:39 pm 157. doublecola:M. Simon,
“Some 100+ Navy men who served with John Kerry say he is unfit for command.”
Okay, I don’t know where you got the 100+, but let’s go with that. Why do they think he is unfit to command?
I don’t want a summary, I want a consensus opinion. I’m betting the consensus would state that it’s because of his 1971 comments, which I would understand–but the public knows about that–even I saw his statements multiple times in the MSM.
But the SwiftBoatVet ad implies much different. That’s my point.
I’m done beating people over the head with this–I know, I can hear the collective sigh of sadness coming from all of you!
Good night!
DC
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:40 pm 158. richard mcenroe:Ensign Kerry, USS Gridley ó Why Limit the Lies? Thanks to Instapundit.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:45 pm 159. Catherine:OK, everyone has to go over to the TIMES web site right this minute & read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/magazine/15QUESTIONS.html?pagewanted=print&position=
You’ve probably all run into Ray Fair, the Yale econometrician whose model has successfully predicted numerous presidential elections.
This year his model predicts Bush with 57.5 percent of the vote, and here’s how the interviewer reacts:
Q It saddens me that you teach this to students at Yale, who could be thinking about society in complex and meaningful ways.
A I will be teaching econometrics next year to undergraduates. Econometrics is a huge deal, because it is applied to all kinds of things.
…
Q Are you a Republican?
A I can’t credibly answer that question. Using game theory in economics, you are not going to believe me when I tell you my political affiliation because I know that you know that I could be behaving strategically. If I tell you I am a Kerry supporter, how do you know that I am not lying or behaving strategically to try to put more weight on the predictions and help the Republicans?
Q I don’t want to do game theory. I just want to know if you are a Kerry supporter.
A Backing away from game theory, which is kind of cute, I am a Kerry supporter.
Q I believe you entirely, although I’m a little surprised, because your predictions implicitly lend support to Bush.
A I am not attempting to be an advocate for one party or another. I am attempting to be a social scientist trying to explain voting behavior.
Q But in the process you are shaping opinion. Predictions can be self-confirming, because wishy-washy voters might go with the candidate who is perceived to be more successful.
OK, if we needed further evidence of Liberal Bias In The Media, this would be it.
Here we have a NEW YORK TIMES writer assuming that a liberal researcher will naturally come up with findings that support liberal candidates.
Wonder where she got that idea?
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:47 pm 160. penwil:Apparently, even some reporters on the campaign trail are acknowledging that Bush has found his voice with his stump speech, and that if he can carry that over to the convention he might surprise a lot of people. And after listening to the interview he did with Larry King, I think he’ll do well in the debates, too. For one thing, he knows full well what the questions are going to be, and he is already well-prepared with his answers. And he delivers these answers with simple, declarative sentences that are to the point, and in some cases even stunningly honest. In a way it really was like sitting down and having a beer with the guy. Voters instinctively like that. Conversely, every time Kerry opens his mouth, his handlers seem to have to come out the next day and explain the nuances. Or whine about him being mocked or attacked or in some cases simply reported on. Nuances and whining make voters nervous.
Bush is being severely handicapped by the MSM there is no doubt about it. Fortunately for him, and for the country, the media, while still powerful, doesn’t have the juice it had even back in 2002. Otherwise the swiftboat story would have been dead in the proverbial water. Instead, O’Neil was on the air today, telling his side of the story to Lou Dobbs and Jim Lehrer.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:52 pm 161. Charlie (Colorado):DC — I agree with you completely; after today’s response from Kerry, the MSM will be forced to cover the story.
Poor thing.
Aug 19, 2004 - 5:59 pm 162. ambisinistral:DTP,
True, he should have spiked the story as soon as he could, but how? And to further illustrate how inept his campaign is, in his speech today he is just repeating the same strategems — didn’t serve on my boat, republican mudslinging, blah, blah — that his stooges already tried with no success. Hey, maybe if he talks slower and louder us dimwits will finally understand him.
As it is, what was the message he gave in today’s speech? Did he talk about health care? Was he for or against redeployment today? Did he pander to the French? Who knows, all the coverage today was just an amplification of the Swift Boat controversy. In the middle of August his campaign has gone completely off message and off the rails.
His real mistake was in his acceptance speech emphasising his Swift Boat tour to the exclusion of the rest of his public life. It is kind of ironic — he did much to create the image of the Vietnam Vet as a loon who couldn’t leave his tour of duty behind him. Now he is being painted by that same brush. Proof again that God has a sly sense of humor.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:01 pm 163. Rick Ballard:FA,
I agree that style and charisma are determinative but there has to be at least minimal content. I keep thinking of that Monday night first ball. He came way off the mound, wound up like he’d never thrown the ball with any zip and put it in the dirt. He then blamed the catcher. I’ve said before that I think he’s brittle. That’s why W is calling for 2 debates instead of 4 or 6. He’s putting a ton of performance pressure on Kerry because he knows he’ll crack.
All
Please read this Pew research report if you wish to gain an understanding of why Kerry focused on the “Commander in Chief” aspect of the Presidency. Note that in Part I people are weighing the WoT 50% heavier than the economy or other domestic issues. Then open Part V and note that Bush has a 58% approval rating in handling the terrorist threat. As usual, Pew buries the lede and does a little flim-flam with presentation but at least Kerry’s rationale for “reporting for duty” becomes more clear.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:05 pm 164. Bostonian:RogerA: “Erik asked the question I was going to ask. Of course, if there is shrapnel in the leg, an Xray would verify that–xrays still show mine.”
I had the same thought, but then remembered this: Don’t ask a question whose answer you don’t know.
Can we be certain this nincompoop hasn’t injured his leg at some point in the last 30-odd years? Who knows what an Xray would show?
That is not the thing to focus on, IMO.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:07 pm 165. Charlie (Colorado):M Simon: How can that be from a wound that required no hospitalization?
That’s not hard to believe. I’m still carrying a piece of pencil lead in my palm from an unfortunately incident in eighth grade. You can see it through the skin.
Of course, I didn’t get a purple heart, either.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:10 pm 166. Terrye:I am more disgusted with Kerry’s reaction than I am with the charges. I can accept the fact that Viet Nam was chaotic and there will be differing views of things that happened. I could even excuse some of the medal hunting. I might even think that some of his anti war activities were a result of disilusionment but…
His campaign and the Dems in general have reacted to this by lying, bullying, whining and carrying on like spoiled children outraged they are not getting their way.
After months and months of Moore and Whoopi and the Boss and the Dixie Chicks and AWOL and DUI and Soros and Moveon.org here we are with Kerry, the man who would be the most powerful man on the planet getting all pissy and demanding those mean Republicans stop picking on him. Or what? Is he going to hold his breath til his face turns blue. Boy I bet the likes of AlQaida are scared to death of this guy.
double cola my advice is that the democrats need a party motto that goes something like this:
The Democratic Party. We can dish it out, but we don’t have the balls to take it.
Now the press will try to ruin these men. But people are not that stupid. Not always.
Years ago I read an article by the ombudsman of the Washington Post and he said that reporters missed the civil rights movement until it was right in front of them. Why? Because those were not the sort of people they hung out with. I think the truth is the press is still isolated and it does not know what most people think. Most people do not think that Bush is unPC, most people don’t even really give a damn about PC.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:17 pm 167. Samuel:DoubleCola
I have never, I repeat never voted Republican before. If you believe your arguments will reach beyond the most rank partisan you are delusional…
and, too, Swifty spokesperson John O’Neill didn’t even serve at the same time as Kerry. The ad is so misleading, it drives me crazy.
You mean the Gore voting and heretofore John Edwards backing Democrat John O’Neill? Oh, that’s right, he did vote for Perot twice. I guess blatant self-aggrandizing liars just don’t seem to fit his passions.
Since you are so attune to misrepresentation I must ask which is more correct. . .
A) Bush really is a liar and knew there weren’t WMD’s all along or. . .
B) The media and Dems hyped this up for selfish Political gain because truth is a small sacrifice for the better good of our nation or. . .
C) A blend of both.
If you answer is A). . .
Then don’t preach to me about right or wrong, because you can’t discern such things and have know business trying.
If the answer is B). . .
Then this previous Clinton supporting Democrat (me) has had it to my fill with people that live the one way street of hypocrisy and double-standards. To such lying is only justified to support good causes, I’ll call that the Krugman/Moore rule. Of course Republican causes are never good so they distort with the “Devil” while Dems cavort with “Angels” when they do it.
If the answer is C). . .
Congratulations, you have just passed the John F. Kerry School of Political Self Interested Nuance!
–
THE TRUTH?
I’ll tell you the truth. Kerry is merely going through a late “vetting process” due to over-protection by a press supported “liberal cocoon”. You have confirmed my suspicions that you do live in that very cocoon. In truth that is exactly what is happening. A late vetting process is the Democrats and the MSM’s fault. I warned of Kerry month’s ago, in fact before he was nominated.
Also if you really feel that Democrats are treated equal or worse by the press then you will be driven even more nuts. The truth is the “objective press” is in the tank for the Dems and it took me to cease being a Yellow Dog Democrat to realize it.
They say the truth will set you free, unfortunately the “Liberal Matrix” is not where you will find it. I suggest you get out of spin zone of the “Liberal Coccon” while you can. It can make things seem warm but it is an illusion, because to the left that is what truth is, an illusion. My advice? Get out of the “Liberal Matrix” while you can. It is hard to resist, but please do try. Good luck. -JSF
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:28 pm 168. Doug:I am just going to say this: I have seen and heard numerous interviews with John O’Neill. The man is either a Clintonian liar or completely believable because he is firm and sure of everything. I believe him. I think any neutral jury would as well. Nothing he has said or written has been refuted in ANY capacity. I don’t give a damm who is funding this group. I care about the truth. How long will the Democrats be allowed to get away with word parsing manipulation. This is the legacy of Clinton. This smells to holy high heaven. Everything I have learned about Kerry tells me that he was and is a calculating politico who will say and do anything. 3 purple hearts in 3 months? WHat is the purple heart record of his fellows? Because I doubt he was MORE valient than they. I know what heroism in combat is. It is rushing a machine gun or putting one’s life at grave risk to carry out a machine or save fellow soldiers. John Kerry may have served reasonably and even honorably. He did nothing I probably would not have done (other than lie) but I do not believe he deserved that Bronze star and I think it likely he manipulated his injuries to get out early. No problem but don’t blow your own horn blowhard. I pity this country if this empty suited grandstander is somehow elected. Every day that continues my prayers for Bush are less about him deserving re-election and more about my desparate desire to see the blowhard defeated and more importantly, to see his lying allies and sycophants humiliated.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:38 pm 169. richard mcenroe:Fresh Air, Rick Ballard ó On the other hand, what are the odds Kerry would actually say the same thing twice in four or six meetings?
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:39 pm 170. Knucklehead:Today’s big news from the Kerry camp was that Thurlow’s Bronze Medal citation contradicts his statement that there was no incoming fire. I don’t know where Rich Lowry got this and he doesn’t say, nor can I quite tell where Thurlow’s statement ends and Lowry’s comments (if any) begin, but here is Thurlow’s statement apparently in response to the one Kerry made today.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:42 pm 171. Fresh Air:Charlie–
You were a pencil-twiddler too? I got my piece of lead in my palm in the 10th grade. I guess I was a late bloomer, pencil-lead wise.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:43 pm 172. Charlie (Colorado):M Simon — I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, and this is way off topic … but you’ve taken to ending every post, of even a couple of lines, with two or three hideous Kerry knock-knock jokes and the business about form 180. Effectively, you’re throwing on about a twelve line signature on each post.
I might be more tolerant if the knock-knock jokes were even slightly funny, but they generally end up dead as a lox.
I could even kind of get into the “Carthago delenda est” thing with a one-line form 180 tag.
But, taken together, this is beginning to just bug the bejeezus out of me.
Ease off a bit, would’ja?
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:45 pm 173. Mike:Thurlow was interviewed by telephone this afternoon on CNN, and was confronted with the supposed “gotcha” Bronze Star citation. He was forthright and confident in answering everything thrown his way. Thurlow doesn’t just have the “ring of truth” when he speaks about this, he reeks of the truth!
Thurlow explained that his citation was written up by his commander 10 days after the action itself. His citation was based on, and used language from, THE AFTER ACTION REPORT WRITTEN BY KERRY. Thurlow added that he was certain Kerry wrote the report the citation is based on, and to bolster his point noted that the after- action report narrative mentions Kerry’s boat as the focus of the event.
Thurlow emphatically reiterates that no enemy fire was encountered. John O’Neil was interviewed at length about this engagement on Hannity tonight. Regardess of whether the SBVT campaign has much of an impact on the election, after hearing O’Neil’s account tonight, even rabidly partisan Kerry supporters will have their doubts (kept private in all cases of course) about Kerry’s truthfulness concerning the Bronze Star engagement.
O’Neil points out that the #3 boat, after hitting the mine, was dead in the water, filled with casualties, in a canal 75 yards across. Once the other boats, through their immediate suppressing fire of less than a minute, realized there was no enemy in an ambush scenario, commenced a rescue operation that lasted more than an hour. O’Neil stated further that had there been the intense fire Kerry and Rassman claim, ALL THE BOATS WOULD HAVE BEEN RIDDLED AND CASUALTIES WOULD HAVE BEEN SEVERE. This did not occur, and Kerry and Rassman need to be pressed as to how the VC could possibly fail to inflict horrendous damage on the boats and crew in such a confined area! The narrowness of the canal really struck me as something that has been overlooked here, in raising serious doubts on the accounts of Rassman and Kerry.
The Bronze Star controversy appears to have been less than adequately investigated by Kerry’s critics (although the book may address more than I know). In my mind, there must be many avenues of investigation available here:
- Are there after action documents listing how much ammo was expended during this event?
- Is there similar documentation concerning damage to other boats (bullet holes)?
- Was gunship support called in to provide cover, given the length of time the boats were engaged in rescuing the crew of 3 boat? If no air cover was called in, would this not corroborate the fact that no fire was being received? If fire was being taken, the skippers of the undamaged boats would surely realize how desperate a rescue operation would be even with gunship support.
- Wasn’t it fairly standard to check the area at the time the encounter concluded, for enemy KIA, evidence of blood trails, etc? If this wasn’t done, then why? Could it be that everyone realized there were no VC to be hit by the suppressing fire?
I’m sure there are many other angles I’ve missed, but the documentation may well be out there, in the form of journals and reports. Perhaps the material is beyond Kerry’s reach to suppress, as is the case with his service record secrecy. In any event, Thurlow’s account seems so much more likely to be the truthful version, I can’t help have a gut feeling there’s a knockout blow for Kerry lurking in some long forgotten notebook or archive.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:46 pm 174. holdfast:I think that the Dems/MSM really do believe that the Swift Vets are a Republican hit squad. After all, they know that MoveOne, ACT, etc are Dem hit squads, total Kerry surrogates really (though they may long for Dean). What they don’t get is that these guys just REALLY HATE JOHN KERRY. I mean, look at that Hoffman thing:
“Hoffman was called, out of the blue. He thought it was for Bob Kerrey, but when he realized it was John Kerry’s campaign he was no longer interested.”
Hoffman was all ready to endorse KerrEy. Hoffman might be a Rebub, but was ready to help a Dem he admired (especially one who had been knifed in the back by members of his own party trying to use his Vietnam service to paint him as the kind of kill-krazed psycho that John Kerry claimed all vets to be. Of course, Kerry also defended Clinton when KerrEy tried to use his own medals in contrast to Slick’s draft-dodging – wheels within wheels).
Anyway, my point, if I had one, its not making the political (like the Dems love to do), its making the personal political. They really hate this guy – the individual human being. Most “Bush-Haters” really just deeply disagree with President Bush, but these guys really hate the man. Which is fine – I personally think that there’s a lot there for a fellow vet to hate. For the rest of us, there’s just a lot to pity andbe nervous about.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:47 pm 175. Samuel:Catherine
I think the liberal reporter you referred answered B) to the question in my previous post.
–
Now 57.5% seems even high to me (53-57% was what I have said). Reagan recieved over 59% and Nixon 61%. If Bush exceeds 57% then the Democrats may just spontaneously combust in a fit. I doubt they will view this the mandate they should, bitter fools that they are. They may further dig themselves in a hole that will take ten years and a Reagan type figure to work out of.
History does repeat itself (Democrats could win the Presidency, but I am talking as a majority in State Houses etc.) I remind you Democrats in 2002 the Republicans achieved majority status at the State Legislative level for the first time since before WWII.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:49 pm 176. Charlie (Colorado):Uh, Knuck? You might want to look up around 12:39PM….
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:51 pm 177. Knucklehead:Ummm, Charlie, I could pass along some of the Jersey Jokes the McGreevey thing is generating, but they are a little, well, off-color. I bet you’d laugh though.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:56 pm 178. Knucklehead:Oops, sorry, Charlie.
Aug 19, 2004 - 6:58 pm 179. richard mcenroe:Knucklehead ó Bronze Star, not Bronze medal. Tho I would happily vote Kerry a Bronze medal if he manages to finish third in this election…
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:00 pm 180. penwil:Does anyone know if the new swiftboat vet ad is going to be about Kerry’s Jane Fonda-like behavior after he came home from Vietnam? Because I think this actually has the potential to be much more damaging to his campaign than the Cambodia/magic hat lie and the controversy over the medals. For one thing it is irrefutable. He can’t deny it, and I doubt he can even spin it into something palatable–especially on the heels of his “reporting for duty” convention. There are photographs and congressional testimony, for all we know even archival film footage. And for another it’s going to be hard for any voter concerned about terrorism to reconcile that concern with the image of a Kerry who accused himself and his fellow soldiers of war crimes before congress, and went around urging the US to cut and run, while men were still dying over there and others, like McCain, were languishing in prison camps.
Kerry might be able to wriggle out of what’s gone down so far. A self-declared “hero” who’s been doing a bit too much bragging and exaggerating about his four months in ‘Nam, might not be a sticking point for enough voters to make a difference. But one who turned on his fellow servicemen and country during a time of war–that, I think, is not going to go down so well.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:03 pm 181. Goof®:Been reading you and having fun.
75 days to go.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:05 pm 182. M. Simon:Charlie,
Like any good advertising the people most exposed to it will become sick of it long before it reaches its peak effectiveness.
You know what it is going to look like – meat if any at the top. Advertising at the bottom. I promised our kind host that this was going to be attended to in every post I made until Kerry quits or 3 Nov. Our host thought that such a campaign might be worth the effort. By now almost all the most interested have heard of Form 180. I consider that a positive effect.
BTW the “jokes” are not meant to be funny ha ha. They are funny as in WTF?
My apologies in advance.
===
I don’t believe a man with a character like John Kerry’s could be a war criminal. I believe he lied to the Senate in 1971.
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:05 pm 183. Fresh Air:Mike–
The bullet-hole bit is the most damning. Swift Boats were made of aluminum and had no armoring whatsoever. They had kits of tapered wooden plugs and mallets on board to plug the holes. After the Operation Silver Mace fiasco, they counted 155 bullet holes in one of the boats.
Wonder if the WaPo will see fit to publish Thurlow’s letter? Thought not.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:06 pm 184. Charlie (Colorado):Remember I said to expect the MSM to get more derisive?
Here’s an interesting story from Drudge. The gist is that the Times is advising people to be ready for a front-page above the fold:
“TIMES editor Bill Keller has reserved the lead of Page One for “the story of how swift boat veterans with a grievance were found by Republicans looking to tarnish Kerry’s image,” newsroom sources tell DRUDGE.”
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:10 pm 185. Knucklehead:Richard,
I knew that – I was just testing to see if you were still awake
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:12 pm 186. penwil:And just to add a bit to what I said earlier . . .
I wonder how much of the public at large really knows at this time about Kerry’s anti-Vietnam war behavior? I didn’t know about it until I started to read the blogs about six months ago.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:13 pm 187. holdfast:Random, on topic, thoughts:
“Hey, maybe if he talks slower and louder us dimwits will finally understand him. ”
It would take literally superhuman powers to talk any louder and/or any slower than he already does. Both PETA and Amnesty International would have to get involved.
Maybe the vets are trying to goad Kerry into suing – it would be almost worth making some really slanderous statements (they haven’t so far) just so that they could get Kerry under cross-examination. Imagine – leading questions – no room for equivocation – no nuance allowed. (drools on keyboard)
The Rassman incident. OK, the No 3 boat hit a mine – it’s sinking, guys injured, guys in the water. Taking hostile fire – WHAT DO YOU DO, MAGGOT?
Shoot the sh*t out of the shoreline (check – they were doing that, and I beleive that’s what Rassman saw/heard, and mistook for incoming).
Rescue the guys in the water (check – they did that)
Pump the water out of the damaged boat (ch – HEY wait a minute. No way I’m pumping out a boat under “heavy fire”). Time to grab your buddies and di di out of there. Throw a satchel charge into the ammo locker and boogie for home. That too cowardly for you? OK, then charge the ambush – after all, that’s how Kerry got the Silver Star – but it really doesn’t seem worth it in this case. OK, at least let’s call it some air and/or arty support to keep the bad guys’ heads down. Nope – ok, let me get this straight. We’re just going to be sitting duck, taking “heavy enemy fire” while we pump out a frickin’ boat. Kerry might be that stupid, but I can’t beleive that all the Skippers were that dumb.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:14 pm 188. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):I don’t know what’s gonna be in the new ads. The Kerry/Fonda stuff is powerful, although there is a little bit of wiggle room in some places. Kerry, when spreading his hateful lies about Vietnam Vets, claimed to be describing what the Winter Solder “investigation” revealed. He can claim to have been misled. The MSM will dig up a few atrocities (I’m sure the communist government of Vietnam will be glad to provide some – true or otherwise).
But ultimately, it’s hard to hold in your head the idea of Kerry the war hero and Kerry the enemy collaborator. It’s a Benedict Arnold sort of thing.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:14 pm 189. Knucklehead:Charlie,
So the EvilGeniusMoron Republicans found these vets to tarnish Kerry’s image and then Kerry just merrily walked into their trap? Oh, sorry, I forgot about the Karl Rove Mind Kontrol beams.
Why won’t the idiots just report the story? Sigh… the MSM really is freakin’ tedious.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:17 pm 190. Terrye:I heard today that the Dems in NJ are saying that instead of concentrating on something as unimportant as the Governor’s sex life they should be going after Bush.
That hole just gets deeper and deeper..
But they did not learn with Clinton so why start now?
Btw double cola I am also a life long Democrat that will be voting for Bush.. it is a trend.
We talk about how the situation in Iraq is effecting the campagin here, I wonder how the campaign is effecting the situation in Iraq? All the terrorists have to do is hang in there a few more months then it is party time… or so they think.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:19 pm 191. kellymo:Here’s the NYT link – up on the home page now:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/politics/campaign/20swift.html?hp
Found the following op-ed in my local paper re: Kerry’s VFW speech yesterday.
The writer, Peter Bronson, was at the speech. Yes – he’s definitely conservative, but… I’ve been reading his stuff for a few years now. The guy doesn’t come across as a BS’er.
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/08/19/loc_bronson19.html
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:19 pm 192. kellymo:Just did a quick scan of the NYT article. The Cambodia story is buried in the 5th to last paragraph out of a 5 page (online) story.
The article beats on the vets pretty hard, and they’re trying like hell to tie Rove to this group.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:29 pm 193. Terrye:As for the NYT front page story, who reads them anymore? I mean really.
Was there a NYT front page headline “Fat goon millionaire gets standing ovation after propaganda film a big hit with the Euro trash”?
Goof it is good to know we are good for something even if it is jsut comic relief. I bet you thought that silly crap they were throwing out about Clinton in the oval office with his pants around his ankles was just a part of the laugh a minute vast right wing conspiracy, didn’t you?
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:33 pm 194. Charlie (Colorado):Re the NYT story –
I’m being naive, I know, but won’t it strike anyone odd that this is the first time the Times has touched the story?
Yeah, I know.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:36 pm 195. penwil:A Survey/USA poll has Kerry leading Bush in California (!) by only 3 percentage points. Apparently this poll is weighted slightly toward Republican voters, but even so this is astonishing. So astonishing that I’m not quite ready to believe it yet.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:37 pm 196. Terrye:My understanding is that it is illegal for the campaigns to do these ads. So if the Kerry people or anyone can tie this to Rove then they either need to do it or shut up about it. I know they think the laws are made for all the rest of us and don’t apply to them but that is the way it works.
And what difference does it make if a Republican donated some money? The Dems can give money to all kinds of people, what is the difference?
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:39 pm 197. holdfast:Just skimmed the NYT article. Some points are definitely against the Swift Vets. Other parts are so blatantly skewed I almost fell out of my chair. There is definitely a severe lack of Cambodian content. No rice in the ass, no bandaids. Basically a compilation of the tidbits most favorable to Kerry. The only real “gotcha” was the three bullet holes in Thurlow’s boat – I’d like to know more about the sourcing on that.
I hate to say this, but it is possible that a couple of the Vets may have gotten a little too enthusiastic, and that will hurt some.
All the Texas-Republican-Trilateral Commission-Oil-Masons “connections” will matter to those who think that Haliburton sits on the Devil’s right hand, but really don’t amount to much – so prominent people from the same state who are in business know each other. Where’s the piece on Ickes and the other Dem operatives at Moveon.org? So were the Swifties supposed to hire a Dem PR firm?
I guess we now know that the NYT hasn’t been idle these last two weeks – they’ve been busy writing a rebuttal.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:41 pm 198. Rick Ballard:Wow Terrye, don’t you remember the Times running a huge expose on Soros and Bing as being the shady and shadowy finaciers of moveon and ACT?
Me neither.
I am just so terribly shocked and saddened that Republicans actually put money into defeating Kerry. What is this world coming to? I’m retiring to my fainting couch for a few minutes.
I wonder if the NYT gets a special cookie from the DNC for this one. They sure are maintaining their reputation.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:48 pm 199. Goof®:Terrye
You’re so easy.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:50 pm 200. Terrye:Goof:
That is what my exhusband said.
He also said I would never leave him.
You can’t always be right now can you?
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:56 pm 201. kellymo:Terrye – you’re my hero. Best comeback line I’ve heard in months.
Aug 19, 2004 - 7:59 pm 202. TmjUtah:Catherine -
Way back up the thread you wrote:
“We certainly see a liberal bias, but we also see a depressive bias.”
and I agree one hundred percent. I’d like to tie your statement to a causal factor, one that has been touched on in quite a few other posts.
Journalists know how to write stories for deadline but they don’t know much about much else beyond their world, right? But allllllll the best journalists know the important stuff: politics. How the game is played, what the players always do, who the good sources are, who can be rolled, and who will try to use them…
Can you imagine how easy it was to cover the Clinton administration if you were on the fax list? A scandal a minute, but it was all about sex, those bad republicans were going to look foolish, and spurs were to be won on any given day. For the journos, the home team was in town, and buying champagne for the house.
Then Bush got elected. Not with a Manhattan White Pages worth of “Crap That Would Be Really Cool To Do, Man” tucked under one arm but an agenda and the cabinet/administrators to make it stick. Those borrrriiiiingggg guys – a little scary, too – who thought that their time was better spent actually working on problems than being pivot men in a drum circle talking about it.
(Aside – I said the press would have trouble adjusting. I thought it might take a year. Call me an optomist.)
What has evolved today is a press establishment that could in all honesty bill the Kerry campaign for a lot of their expenses. The last four years the Bush administration hasn’t played by any of their rules. Their efforts to carry the DNC have cost them readership measured in millions, and there is flat no way for them to disengage without validating every charge of bias made just on this blog alone.
I’d be depressed, too.
Caught a few minutes of Kerry’s statement calling for Bush to muzzle the Swifties. Where does Kerry get the rep for being a tough campaigner? He was bloviating. And insulting the intelligence of anyone who knows what he owes to 527’s himself. Wheels coming off.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:02 pm 203. Terrye:holdfast:
I bet the vets respond to the article and I imagine they anticipated a lot of it. I forgot my damn password and refuse to register again. To hell with it.
I would be surprised if they are not some honest mistakes. War is chaos, but I think that there will be doubt there and if the NYT had done its job months ago all this would be over with by now.
Samuel was right. Sometimes helping does not help. I was very young then but I remember the things Kerry said because I was interested in the anti war movement. And through the years there have been plenty of indications there could be problems with his scenario. I think the fact that the Kerry people walked into this is the most troubling part of it.
After all if a couple of bullet holes negates everything those men say then what about Kerry’s Cambodia story? I think it will breed doubt and that can hurt Kerry.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:05 pm 204. Terrye:holdfast:
It just dawned on me, they were in a war..why would the bullet holes be so important? I am sure there were a lot of them to go around. You could kill each other just laying ground fire.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:13 pm 205. ambisinistral:Interesting that they led off with a couple of pages of Republicans in Texas know each other and funded the Swift Vet ad.
I’ll be curious to see how the Swifties handle the discrepencies pointed out in the article, but I suspect even the NYT doesn’t think they’re a slam dunk since they didn’t lead the article with them.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:13 pm 206. Terrye:kellymo:
Thanks but Goof is a smart person from California and I am jsut a rube from Indiana…
Good night all.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:16 pm 207. Samuel:Catherine
I think I am still confused about timing—-is there a particular time period during which Kerry should have knocked Bush down, OR does this never occur?
–
There are 3 elements in Kerry’s control, two are past, and the rest Kerry is at Bush’s mercy or incompetence. They are…
1) The campaign trail. In reality this is not passed, but I say it is. Does Kerry have a hidden strategy more effective then he already has used? If he does then he will shock the hell out of me. We have seen his best and unlike Bush there is no “personable guy” hanging back waiting for a moment to charm his way through. (Only the rankest Bush haters would be too blind to recognize the fact that Bush is charming and extremely likeable). In business (if against my interest) I avoid these people like the plague because they will “charm you” make you forget how much you dislike or don’t trust them.
2) The Convention. It is now past and Kerry got a measly 3 point bounce. Interestingly the Democrats usually are the ones that get the bigger bounce. While this year may be different in truth this bounce is not really even a bounce, it is just more Democrats paying attention to politics and hardening behind Kerry. Very scary to me if I still were a Democrat.
3) The Debates. This is probably why Bush wants one or two maximum. This is Kerry’s chance to do what Reagan did to Carter… “Blow Bush out of the water” as they say. The problem here is Kerry going to be able to say “There you go again Jimmy!” With the style and ability to come off well like Reagan did? Or will he come off like the pompous ass I know him to be? Even if Kerry wins like Nixon in 1960 on the argument level, Bush will just come off better period. He is so much more prepared then for years ago. This is Kerry’s last chance he is in control of. I wish Bush would debate him more, he is probably smart not to.
–
Now as far as what Kerry is not in control…
1) The Republican Convention. In 1992 Pat Buchanan and the Republican Convention did them in, it hurt the Republicans. Is there a chance that will happen? Let’s see, Rudy Giuliani, Arnold Swartzenegger, Laura Bush, with Zell Miller as the Key Note speaker! (I can’t wait, a sitting Democratic Senator). The Right Wing will be fine with this because socially BUSH IS THEIR MAN. Unlike his father Dubya has no need for a Pat Buchanan to prove he isn’t a Rockefeller Republican. Judges, opposition to Gay Marriage and Partial Birth Abortion are all he needs to Garner their support. As we speak Christian Conservatives are being mobilized and he is trying get those four million that didn?t vote to go to the polls this time. For a guy that lost by 500,000 in the Popular Vote, that is key.
2) The Media. The media has been in the tank for Dems and against this President well beyond justification. Can the media do more to hurt Bush? I doubt it. But one thing is for sure, Kerry can ill-afford the MSM sensing blood and turning on him.
I know you don’t agree with what I am about to say, but I do believe the media has the effect of giving Kerry great advantage and spotting him many percentage points. It may not be the 15% liberal Evan Thomas has suggested but it might be, but it is akin to a Referee in a contest calling a one-sided game. This means the team on the short end of such calls must win decisively to win at all. I remember reading a statistic about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. A reporter (I forget who) ran the numbers of how games were refereed and how fouls and other violations called. He statistically showed in very convincing ways that a team would need to play “15 points better” then the Bulls to merely win! He rightfully predicted the Utah Jazz or no team was 15 points better so they never would beat them… he was right. I do believe Bush can overcome this “15 point” spot as Evan Thomas has called it.
Dubyas’s mother, Barbara Bush said in 2000, “My son is going to lose, the media so hates him he doesn’t have a chance.” Does anyone doubt the “Drunk Driving” story hurt him? You bet it did, I was involved with tracking numbers and it cost him 3-5 points. I had Gore winning 52% of the vote. All this was contrived with typical timing between the MSM and Chris Lehane Democrats. Bush was dyslexic, a former Cocaine Dealer with an IQ under 100 all with no supporting evidence! SHAMEFUL! He has been fully vetted plus! If they did it now it would backfire. These are unique burdens Republicans bear that most Democrats do not. It does cause the Democrats to become spoiled and less sharp the long term effect is devastating… to the Democrats. The media has done all they can to hurt Bush. They are in defensive mode for Kerry, will it hold up? I seriously doubt it. They have only him to turn on now.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:16 pm 208. kellymo:Terrye -
Oh, that explains it. I’m a lifelong Ohioan. I don’t speak Californian.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:19 pm 209. Rick Ballard:ambisinistral,
I consider this a “talking points” piece. It’s main function appears to be to buck up the Dems. If the Swifties don’t rebutt in less than 24 hours I’ll be amazed – very little substance concerning discrepancies. The source for the “three bullet holes” is not identified – was it an after action report or a maintenance report?
Aside from the “evil Republican mastermind” elements there is just not much there.
Am I missing something?
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:26 pm 210. M. Simon:Samuel said:
They are in defensive mode for Kerry, will it hold up? I seriously doubt it. They have only him to turn on now.
Most insightful.
My prediction for the turning point? 3-4 Sept.
–==–
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 8:39 pm 211. ambisinistral:Rick,
Yea. Plus, it sure is miraculous timing that it came out the same day Kerry decided to turn his boat around and charge the beaches.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:03 pm 212. Katherine:Samuel -ìIn 1992 Pat Buchanan and the Republican Convention did them inî
Yes, I confess it was who Pat freaked me out in 1992. And Clinton did sound reasonable (sigh). I did not know enough about him ñ entirely my fault. But we did not have blogs then, did we?
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:17 pm 213. Sandy P:Samuel–
– Does anyone doubt the “Drunk Driving” story hurt him? You bet it did, I was involved with tracking numbers and it cost him 3-5 points. –
W also took off that last weekend thinking he had it in the bag.
Gore, to his credit, did not.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:24 pm 214. Terrye:kelly:
Hi buckeye.
Long live flyover country.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:27 pm 215. Sandy P:The real question is why didn’t Keller’s people find them???
OR
Why didn’t they pay attention to them during the primaries?
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:34 pm 216. WichitaBoy:Terrye
His campaign and the Dems in general have reacted to this by lying, bullying, whining and carrying on like spoiled children outraged they are not getting their way.
I don’t know why this is so shocking. Clinton got away with lying, bullying, and whining (and probably much worse) for eight years and now people are lining up all over the country to buy his book. The Democrats watching Clinton learned a clear lesson: just lie, lie, and lie some more and eventually those dummies in fly-over country will end up lining up to buy your book. And maybe your carpet-bagging wife can be senator from one of the important states too!
But it worked for Clinton because he has charisma, a quality which Kerry demonstrably lacks. Clinton seemed to be one of the people; Kerry seems to be a pompous gold-digging snob.
Concerning that latest character assassination in Pravda on the Hudson tonight–
I must say, there was a time, less than a year ago it was, when I still took that rag seriously and really believed it was a force for good in the world. I was angry, really angry at the Jason Blair affair, for it besmirched the purity of something I believed to be nearly a sacred institution.
This latest article has sunk to the level of Michael Moore. Nothing but character assassination by association, nothing but attacking the messenger. No serious discussion given to the facts. “A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush’s chief political aide, Karl Rove.” That’s their best shot? Some of the guys who gave money to the Swifties know somebody who has a cousin who works with somebody who knows Karl Rove!?! (Karl Rove, the Devil Incarnate&trade) This is their best shot? This is their best shot after weeks of silence? Please. Is this the National Enquirer? It’s sad, it really is.
They seem to have given up the pretense of trying to speak to Republicans or Independents, given up the pretense of trying to be unbiased, given up the pretense of arguing rationally, given up, verily, the pretense of having once had college educations.
If I worked for that rag, I would be hanging my head in shame tonight. How can anyone except a True Believer continue to take them at all seriously?
Whatever the effect of the Swifties on the Independents, I would point out that the Swifties have already had a major effect on the election, and this despite the best efforts of the leading propaganda organs of the Democrat party. Notice that the debate has completely shifted away from Bush, from Iraq, from Iran, and onto Kerry and his lack of character. Roger posts on Iran and we barely respond. Did anyone notice the al Sadr deal came through? No. Suddenly nobody cares. Even the East Coast has lost the urge to cut and run because they aren’t paying attention anymore. This is no way for Kerry to win. I think Dennis has this one entirely right. At this rate, given time, even ABBs are going to start forgetting why they hate Bush so much.
Aug 19, 2004 - 9:40 pm 217. Sandy P:Guys, I just looked at that survey from CA, look how close the Boxer race is:
http://www.surveyusa.com/currentelectionpolls.html
That shouldn’t be even w/a high margin of error.
And the dems in NJ want to focus on defeating W, because their scandal is all about sex.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:14 pm 218. M. Simon:WichitaBoy,
I predicted about a week ago that Kerry would wind up in the low to mid thirties because even a lot of his base would be ashamed to be associated with him.
Every new set of talking points contradicts the last. Introducing Thurlow means off the boat is now valid evidence. And they will not gain the point because Thurlow cares more about the truth than a medal.
To gain one small point they gave way on a whole front.
Sure sign of collapse.
Watch for: Sauve qui peut. Coming soon to a Frenchman far from you. Tahreeeeeeeezzzzaaaaaaaaa.
–==–
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 10:17 pm 219. M. Simon:DC,
Winter Soldier, Dewey Canyon. Senate testimony.
That would be not just the 50 or 100 who served with him but all 250.
I have been warning youKerry supporters to get ready for this one but you guys have been so busy with medals and Cambodia that you have not prepared.
Medals/service is just a probing attack. Now that strong and weak points have been identified, the weak points will be attacked from a different direction. We have tarnished the witness in some places. Cut him down to size in others.
I have the Doors on, I’burning incense, I got a Heinekins in my hand, my Navy coffee cup is full of hot steaming Naval Strength coffe. It takes me back to the thrilling days of yester year.
It is the Senate testimony more than the medal hunting that unites the 250. And the 2.4 million. And every one they can talk to.
Suppose that 2.4 million breaks 250/300 for Bush. That is a 1.6 million net gain for Bush assuming they split around 50/50 last time. This does not even count friends and neighbors.
Did I mention that I’m a vet and bought Kerry’s ‘71 line. And that lying fookin no good son of a bitch made me complict in the communist murders that followed our withdrawal. And the fookin mofo has never god dmd apoligized. Son O a dog. Well I want to say that I’m sorry and I’ll see him rot in Hell before he gets the vote of any one I know or can influence. Capiche?
This is a grudge match. And your general is a poseur. As is well evidenced to the discering eye now. Soon even to the blind.
I’ll leave a little taste of Kerry in the Senate ‘71.
INCOMING
–==–
I don’t believe a man with a character like John Kerry’s could be a war criminal. I believe he lied to the Senate in 1971.
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:19 pm 220. RayC:Roger:
You are the detective story writer but it seems to me everyone has missed this story.
On Dec 2, 1968, Kerry, the new boy out on an indoctrination mission on a Whaler gets nicked by his own carelessness. He makes a run for a Purple Heart and is laughed off by his doctor, his crewmen, and his CO. He thinks, nice try and forgets the whole deal for the time being.
On about December 13, 1968, after getting his own Swift Boat, he and his jolly crew set out up the river in a cocky mood–”Cocky!” he says in his journal because they are like anyone new to combat, they have never been under fire.
Kerry wasn’t even thinking of the baseless attempt at a Purple Heart for the training mission of Dec 2, 1968, and he probably had not really yet realized that he could game the system and get not one, but three Purple Hearts.
Only as he learned the ropes and figured out how easy it could be to count decorations did the quick way home seem within reach. That is when he found an angel in HQ,, pulled the old December 2, 1968, “combat experience” and “combat wound” out of the file and turned it into the ticket home.
Has anyone looked at the timing this way. It fully explains his describing himself and his crew on December 13, 1968 as never having been shot at., an assertion that is fatal to the December 2 Purple Heart grant.
I finally got “Directors Cut” from Amazon at the time I ordered my “Unnfit For Command.” I am looking forward to reading both.
RayC
Aug 19, 2004 - 11:29 pm 221. blogaddict:RayC, I’m with you all the way. I thought the same thing the other day–although nowhere near as elegantly as you–and wrote a note on some blog or other. It’s clear that when Kerry wrote the journal entry he had given up on the Dec. 2 purple heart, so he had no need to cover his tracks and wrote that they’d not yet seen enemy fire. And months later, when he figured out a way to game the system and finally get the purple heart for Dec. 2, he’d forgotten all about the prior journal entry.
And no one put 2 and 2 together till now. It reminds me of the old saying, “The wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine.” And in this case I hope they grind before Nov.2 .
Aug 20, 2004 - 12:07 am 222. M. Simon:First comes John Kerry, war hero, defending his band O brothers for two weeks. He is their brother.
You can see what is coming next.
John Kerry, war hero, denouncing his band O brothers. The stab in the back.
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 20, 2004 - 12:43 am 223. M. Simon:The body is the best evidence. If he still carries a piece of shrapnel let us see a recent x-ray.
What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.
Aug 20, 2004 - 1:01 am 224. Charlie (Colorado):You’re so easy.
I like that in a woman.
Aug 20, 2004 - 4:58 am 225. DennisThePeasant:Ambi-
True, he should have spiked the story as soon as he could, but how?
Go on Katie Couric with glistening eyes and in soft, humble tones explain his service record in some detail. Then, in the same soft, humble tones and with the same glistening eyes, express his deep regret that there are some veterans who simply cannot accept the idea that I war hero could also be a war critic.
And yeah, I know it would be 78% bullshit, but this is politics, after all. The point is that amongst the undecided/non-partisans, the initial attitude towards the Kerry vs. SBers would be one of leaning towards believing Kerry…for a lot of different reasons (including that this is all washing out 3 decades after the fact and during a political campaign).
So what Kerry should have done was go on TV and play ‘Thoughtful Leader’, admitting he could have used better judgement at times, chaulking errors up to youthful idealism, denying to core of the SBer attack very quietly (and with pain rather than anger) and stressing how Viet Nam lead to his maturing as a leader.
If he had done that 10 days ago he would be on the offensive, the SBers on the defensive, the issue would be dying with everyone but the partisans and Kerry would have picked up points for ‘being Presidential’.
You know, all my life I wanted to really be the Bruno character played by Ron Silver in The West Wing. Can you tell? At this point I’d settle for just having Ron Silver’s looks.
Aug 20, 2004 - 7:37 am 226. michaelduff:Hi Roger, I’m just responding to the comment you left in my blog.
First of all, please don’t take this one item of disagreement as an indictment of you or your whole blog. I agree with most of what you say, precisely because you lean libertarian.
I consider myself a right-wing blogger, and I believe the same things you do.
Second, I’ve been on the web since ‘96, so go easy on the “fledgling blogger” stuff. I just moved from Livejournal, but I’ve been around for a long time.
Third, we simply disagree on what will matter most to the voters (and the media). I think the Kerry in Cambodia story is much easier for them to spin. I think they can claim “bad memory” on Kerry’s part and get away with it. I think the media, and the voters, will be much more willing to forgive him for that, than they would for chicanery with the medals.
And while you might not think much of the medals, I think they mean a lot to the American public. I don’t think John Q. Voter is going to care about what he said to the Senate. I think they care about those medals, and the things he did to get those medals.
That’s why I said you’ve got it backwards. Are you focusing on the Cambodia thing because it bothers you more, or do you disagree with my assessment of the public?
Aug 20, 2004 - 9:05 am 227. Erik:DtP,
exactly what I think would have worked.
That would have been an effective rebuttal. After that he could answer any new question saying he allready adressed that, he doesn’t want to argue with fellow veterans, and that they are entitled of a different opinion, that’s what they fought for.
Way more effective than going ballistic like he did.
Personally I always wanted to be Toby Ziegler. Knowing everything on the top of my head, and always have a snappy comeback.
Aug 20, 2004 - 9:29 am