Bush: A Study In Hate-Overdose, Lies, Deceit, Torture & Murder. Bush, He Approves These Things. Do You?
Kerry says Bush Broke the Law in TV Ad Dispute
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Friday 20 August 2004
A simmering feud between the Bush and Kerry campaigns over a TV ad that denigrates Sen. John Kerry’s Vietnam war record moved toward the boiling point Friday as the Democratic nominee filed a complaint with federal officials that accused the president’s re-election campaign of breaking the law.
Kerry’s complaint to the Federal Elections Commission about the ads produced and aired by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth alleges "overwhelming evidence” that the veterans group is “coordinating its expenditures on advertising and other activities designed to influence the presidential election with the Bush-Cheney Campaign,” Kerry spokeswoman Allison Dobson told NBC News.
The complaint comes at the end of a week in which Kerry himself accused Bush of having the Swift Boat veterans do “his dirty work” and media reports have exposed connections between Bush, his family and other high-profile Texas politicians. In a Thursday speech, the Massachusetts senator said: “The fact that the president won’t denounce what they’re up to tells you everything you need to know.”
Steve Schmidt of the Bush campaign said charges that Bush is in league with the veterans’ group are “absolutely and completely false. The Bush campaign has never and will never question John Kerry’s service in Vietnam.” But the Bush campaign has, in fact, refused to specifically disavow the Swift Boat veteran’s ad, in which fellow Vietnam veterans say Kerry acted dishonorably to win the Bronze and Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts that he was awarded for his service in Vietnam.
Formal ties would be illegal Any formal ties between the Bush campaign and the veterans group would be against the law. Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth is organized as a non-party, independent political group under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, and coordination between a 527 group and a presidential campaign is illegal.
The Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney campaign filed a similar complaint last March that accuses the Media Fund, America Coming Together and several other anti-Bush groups of illegal use of so-called soft money (unlimited donations) and of illegal coordination with the Kerry campaign. And three campaign finance watchdog groups also have filed FEC complaints against the Swift Boat veterans group.
Any legal resolution of the matter would likely take months, if not years, campaign law experts told MSNBC.com.
In a campaign shadowed by the war on terrorism and in Iraq, Kerry’s valorous combat experience is a cornerstone of his campaign. After using the Democratic National Convention to improve his poll ratings on national security, Kerry remained silent as the criticism led to growing indications — much of it anecdotal, some in polling, party officials say — that his gains were eroding.
His medals are supported by Navy documents and the memories of all but one of the swift boat crewmates who served beneath Kerry, then a Navy lieutenant. The anti-Kerry group includes several veterans who say they witnessed Kerry’s actions from nearby swift boats.
Although the ad was released early in the month and created a stir then, more contention over it erupted this week when Kerry made his “dirty work” remarks at a Boston campaign stop. Those remarks came the day after the Washington Post published a story that showed official military records countered the statements made by one of Kerry’s most vocal critics, Larry Thurlow. Thurlow has disputed Kerry’s Bronze Star-winning assertion that he came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory. But Thurlow’s own military records contained several references to small arms fire that day, according to The Washington Post.
Thurlow said in a statement Thursday that his records were based on Kerry’s account.
Knowing several news organizations, including the Post, were investigating the claims of anti-Kerry veterans, the Democratic campaign swung into action late Wednesday — rewriting the candidate’s speech to a firefighters’ union overnight, flying two of his swift boat colleagues to Boston and producing a new campaign commercial, despite earlier plans to stay off the air until September.
The 30-second ad features a former Green Beret saying Kerry saved his life under fire. “He risked his life to save mine,” Jim Rassmann says.
On Friday, another newspaper report detailed ties between the veterans' group, Bush and his family, other high-profile Texas politicians and Bush’s chief political aide. The piece, in the New York Times, also listed inconsistencies in some of the veterans' own public statements on their regard for Kerry.
How the group known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "came into existence is a story of how veterans with longstanding anger about Mr. Kerry's antiwar statements in the early 1970s allied themselves with Texas Republicans," The Times said.
"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," the Times reported. "Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry 'unfit' had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.
As Kerry denounced the criticism as “lies about my record,” aides privately acknowledged that they and their boss had been slow to recognize the damage being done to his political standing.
Three Purple Hearts, Bronze and Silver Stars Kerry won three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and Silver Star for Vietnam War combat. Bush served stateside in the Texas Air National Guard. Both men say the other served honorably, but their supporters are pouring tens of thousands of dollars into television ads and other tactics to insist otherwise.
MoveOn.org, a liberal group funded by Kerry supporters, is airing an ad accusing Bush of using family connections to avoid the Vietnam War.
Kerry advisers said they had heard from several Democratic politicians that voters were starting to ask questions about the candidate’s war record. The politicians urged him to fight back. Internally, there was an initial reluctance from senior advisers for Kerry to respond — because they believed that Bush would condemn the critical ad, or that the allegations would blow over.
As for the candidate himself, this was personal, aides said. He had heard the group was raising money for more ads, and was tired of his integrity being assaulted.
“Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts,” Kerry said. “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.”
Kerry aides said they will maintain the offensive through surrogates, if not Kerry himself. Democrats welcomed the response.
“Out of desperation, the Bush campaign has picked the wrong fight with the wrong veteran,” said Jim Jordan, former Kerry campaign manager who now runs an outside group airing ads against Bush. “Today’s the start of the mother of all backlashes.”
Kerry surrounded himself with friendly veterans and union workers to criticize the group airing the ad against him.
Bush and the White House refused to condemn the anti-Kerry ad, which stopped airing this week. When Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked Kerry to condemn the MoveOn.org ad, Kerry quickly did so — though he has personally raised questions about Bush’s Vietnam-era service.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is funded in large part by Bob Perry, a Texas Republican, has knocked the Democratic nominee's campaign off stride with a small but effective advertising buy in the battleground states of Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The group spent about $500,000 on the ad, but its allegations that Kerry exaggerated his combat record to win medals have been on the Internet, the 24-hour cable channels and, most recently, the nation's major television networks and newspapers.
Bush leads in veterans' votes During the week ending Aug. 8, 966,000 people visited the anti-Kerry group's Web site, 34,000 fewer than those who visited Kerry's official site, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings. The new CBS poll found Kerry winning 37 percent of veterans' votes to Bush's 55 percent. (The two were tied at 46 percent after last month's Democratic National Convention, where Kerry highlighted his service.)
"They have been very effective at using the August lull to drive a story" in news outlets, said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). Kerry, who planned to conserve resources by not buying television ads this month, will spend at least $180,000 to respond, his aides said.
Emanuel said Kerry has an opportunity to "turn this and backfire it on the White House," which is what the Democratic nominee began trying with his remarks Thursday. The campaign wants to convince voters that Bush and Rove are behind the effort, at least in spirit.
Perry, a Houston home builder, initially contributed $100,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and recently gave another $100,000. Perry has given millions of dollars to GOP efforts over the years, including $46,000 to Bush's gubernatorial campaigns in 1994 and 1998. He gave $2,000 to Bush's re-election campaign this year, records show. Seven of the 10 initial financial contributors to the veterans group have given to Bush's campaign this year, according to PoliticalMoneyLine.
Yet many of the veterans affiliated with the anti-Kerry effort do not have obvious relationships with the Bush campaign, nor do some of its donors.
Tad Devine, a top Kerry strategist, said Bush's refusal to condemn the content of the ad suggests an alliance. If Bush had, "that would have changed the whole chemistry of this debate," he said.
The dispute is unlikely to end soon. John O'Neill, a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and author of the anti-Kerry book "Unfit for Command," said the group raised nearly $500,000 from 10,000 donors in recent days.
The group released a new ad Friday, which hammers the Democrat for his war claims and his war protests after he left Vietnam, especially his claim that U.S. soldiers committed war crimes.
Kerry’s campaign was quick to release this response: "This is another ad from a front group funded by Bush allies that is trying to smear John Kerry. The newest ad takes Kerry's testimony out of context, editing what he said to distort the facts. He testified as a 27 year-old Vietnam veteran. He opposed a war that, at that point, cost over 44,000 lives of the 58,245 names that are on the Vietnam Memorial wall. It says a lot that the president refuses to condemn this smear. The American people want to hear how we're going to cut health care costs and strengthen the economy, not smears."
(Kerry seems to be waking up! Waking to the fact that these dirty bastards will stop at NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING. Chimp_junta, after all, has the BLOOD of some 30,000 Iraqi innocents, dead.
The BLOOD of over a thousand of our best young soldiers, DEAD. The BLOOD of nearly 25, 000 of our best young soldiers, MAIMED, DISABLED. Lives forever ruined. Hundreds of thousands more aliens seeking the United States for escape from Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and the middle east.
Who can forget the Vietnamese influx in '69, 70, 71, 72 and more? After Nixon?
Soon we will have a new 'Balkinization' in our communities: Displaced Iraqi nationals.
Where is the $22,000,000,000.00 BILLION DOLLARS that BUSH gave to CHALABI and his nephew, CURVE-BALL-CHALABI?
You, dear friend paid for that. You paid for the brand new fire stations in Baghdad, while our schools crumble. Don't let Bush and his Chimp_junta fool you: He is not hated and despised because he is the saviour of democracy.
Quite the opposite: He is hated and despised because he has returned the WORLD TO WAR, PESTILANCE, FAMINE, AND DEATH.
Bush deserves, along with his entire Hitlerian cabal, to be tried for his war crimes. My personal opinion is that he would be found GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY.
He Would Hang. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Powell, Rice, Franks, Kimmit, Sanchez--the Butchers of Iraq--would HANG BY THEIR NECKS UNTIL DEAD. We pray they will. In a perfect world, there could be no doubt they would hang or be shot at dawn by firing squad. That would never be perfect justice for what they have done, but it would go a long way in restoring the world's view of you and me. And America, as the Beacon of Hope...the American Dream?
Crazed terrorists did not take any of this from us. Chimp_junta, Bush, has taken this from us. Kerry ain't perfect, but he is a lot more of everything we need right now, than Bush, isn't he. Bush has NOTHING to present to you. He has accomplished the demolition of America and Iraq and Afghanastan, with out the capture of the people who actually hurt us.
Don't forget to vote in '76 days. If you forget, forget about America. It will be gone. *aj*)
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Friday 20 August 2004
A simmering feud between the Bush and Kerry campaigns over a TV ad that denigrates Sen. John Kerry’s Vietnam war record moved toward the boiling point Friday as the Democratic nominee filed a complaint with federal officials that accused the president’s re-election campaign of breaking the law.
Kerry’s complaint to the Federal Elections Commission about the ads produced and aired by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth alleges "overwhelming evidence” that the veterans group is “coordinating its expenditures on advertising and other activities designed to influence the presidential election with the Bush-Cheney Campaign,” Kerry spokeswoman Allison Dobson told NBC News.
The complaint comes at the end of a week in which Kerry himself accused Bush of having the Swift Boat veterans do “his dirty work” and media reports have exposed connections between Bush, his family and other high-profile Texas politicians. In a Thursday speech, the Massachusetts senator said: “The fact that the president won’t denounce what they’re up to tells you everything you need to know.”
Steve Schmidt of the Bush campaign said charges that Bush is in league with the veterans’ group are “absolutely and completely false. The Bush campaign has never and will never question John Kerry’s service in Vietnam.” But the Bush campaign has, in fact, refused to specifically disavow the Swift Boat veteran’s ad, in which fellow Vietnam veterans say Kerry acted dishonorably to win the Bronze and Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts that he was awarded for his service in Vietnam.
Formal ties would be illegal Any formal ties between the Bush campaign and the veterans group would be against the law. Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth is organized as a non-party, independent political group under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, and coordination between a 527 group and a presidential campaign is illegal.
The Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney campaign filed a similar complaint last March that accuses the Media Fund, America Coming Together and several other anti-Bush groups of illegal use of so-called soft money (unlimited donations) and of illegal coordination with the Kerry campaign. And three campaign finance watchdog groups also have filed FEC complaints against the Swift Boat veterans group.
Any legal resolution of the matter would likely take months, if not years, campaign law experts told MSNBC.com.
In a campaign shadowed by the war on terrorism and in Iraq, Kerry’s valorous combat experience is a cornerstone of his campaign. After using the Democratic National Convention to improve his poll ratings on national security, Kerry remained silent as the criticism led to growing indications — much of it anecdotal, some in polling, party officials say — that his gains were eroding.
His medals are supported by Navy documents and the memories of all but one of the swift boat crewmates who served beneath Kerry, then a Navy lieutenant. The anti-Kerry group includes several veterans who say they witnessed Kerry’s actions from nearby swift boats.
Although the ad was released early in the month and created a stir then, more contention over it erupted this week when Kerry made his “dirty work” remarks at a Boston campaign stop. Those remarks came the day after the Washington Post published a story that showed official military records countered the statements made by one of Kerry’s most vocal critics, Larry Thurlow. Thurlow has disputed Kerry’s Bronze Star-winning assertion that he came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory. But Thurlow’s own military records contained several references to small arms fire that day, according to The Washington Post.
Thurlow said in a statement Thursday that his records were based on Kerry’s account.
Knowing several news organizations, including the Post, were investigating the claims of anti-Kerry veterans, the Democratic campaign swung into action late Wednesday — rewriting the candidate’s speech to a firefighters’ union overnight, flying two of his swift boat colleagues to Boston and producing a new campaign commercial, despite earlier plans to stay off the air until September.
The 30-second ad features a former Green Beret saying Kerry saved his life under fire. “He risked his life to save mine,” Jim Rassmann says.
On Friday, another newspaper report detailed ties between the veterans' group, Bush and his family, other high-profile Texas politicians and Bush’s chief political aide. The piece, in the New York Times, also listed inconsistencies in some of the veterans' own public statements on their regard for Kerry.
How the group known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "came into existence is a story of how veterans with longstanding anger about Mr. Kerry's antiwar statements in the early 1970s allied themselves with Texas Republicans," The Times said.
"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," the Times reported. "Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry 'unfit' had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.
As Kerry denounced the criticism as “lies about my record,” aides privately acknowledged that they and their boss had been slow to recognize the damage being done to his political standing.
Three Purple Hearts, Bronze and Silver Stars Kerry won three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and Silver Star for Vietnam War combat. Bush served stateside in the Texas Air National Guard. Both men say the other served honorably, but their supporters are pouring tens of thousands of dollars into television ads and other tactics to insist otherwise.
MoveOn.org, a liberal group funded by Kerry supporters, is airing an ad accusing Bush of using family connections to avoid the Vietnam War.
Kerry advisers said they had heard from several Democratic politicians that voters were starting to ask questions about the candidate’s war record. The politicians urged him to fight back. Internally, there was an initial reluctance from senior advisers for Kerry to respond — because they believed that Bush would condemn the critical ad, or that the allegations would blow over.
As for the candidate himself, this was personal, aides said. He had heard the group was raising money for more ads, and was tired of his integrity being assaulted.
“Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts,” Kerry said. “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.”
Kerry aides said they will maintain the offensive through surrogates, if not Kerry himself. Democrats welcomed the response.
“Out of desperation, the Bush campaign has picked the wrong fight with the wrong veteran,” said Jim Jordan, former Kerry campaign manager who now runs an outside group airing ads against Bush. “Today’s the start of the mother of all backlashes.”
Kerry surrounded himself with friendly veterans and union workers to criticize the group airing the ad against him.
Bush and the White House refused to condemn the anti-Kerry ad, which stopped airing this week. When Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked Kerry to condemn the MoveOn.org ad, Kerry quickly did so — though he has personally raised questions about Bush’s Vietnam-era service.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is funded in large part by Bob Perry, a Texas Republican, has knocked the Democratic nominee's campaign off stride with a small but effective advertising buy in the battleground states of Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The group spent about $500,000 on the ad, but its allegations that Kerry exaggerated his combat record to win medals have been on the Internet, the 24-hour cable channels and, most recently, the nation's major television networks and newspapers.
Bush leads in veterans' votes During the week ending Aug. 8, 966,000 people visited the anti-Kerry group's Web site, 34,000 fewer than those who visited Kerry's official site, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings. The new CBS poll found Kerry winning 37 percent of veterans' votes to Bush's 55 percent. (The two were tied at 46 percent after last month's Democratic National Convention, where Kerry highlighted his service.)
"They have been very effective at using the August lull to drive a story" in news outlets, said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). Kerry, who planned to conserve resources by not buying television ads this month, will spend at least $180,000 to respond, his aides said.
Emanuel said Kerry has an opportunity to "turn this and backfire it on the White House," which is what the Democratic nominee began trying with his remarks Thursday. The campaign wants to convince voters that Bush and Rove are behind the effort, at least in spirit.
Perry, a Houston home builder, initially contributed $100,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and recently gave another $100,000. Perry has given millions of dollars to GOP efforts over the years, including $46,000 to Bush's gubernatorial campaigns in 1994 and 1998. He gave $2,000 to Bush's re-election campaign this year, records show. Seven of the 10 initial financial contributors to the veterans group have given to Bush's campaign this year, according to PoliticalMoneyLine.
Yet many of the veterans affiliated with the anti-Kerry effort do not have obvious relationships with the Bush campaign, nor do some of its donors.
Tad Devine, a top Kerry strategist, said Bush's refusal to condemn the content of the ad suggests an alliance. If Bush had, "that would have changed the whole chemistry of this debate," he said.
The dispute is unlikely to end soon. John O'Neill, a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and author of the anti-Kerry book "Unfit for Command," said the group raised nearly $500,000 from 10,000 donors in recent days.
The group released a new ad Friday, which hammers the Democrat for his war claims and his war protests after he left Vietnam, especially his claim that U.S. soldiers committed war crimes.
Kerry’s campaign was quick to release this response: "This is another ad from a front group funded by Bush allies that is trying to smear John Kerry. The newest ad takes Kerry's testimony out of context, editing what he said to distort the facts. He testified as a 27 year-old Vietnam veteran. He opposed a war that, at that point, cost over 44,000 lives of the 58,245 names that are on the Vietnam Memorial wall. It says a lot that the president refuses to condemn this smear. The American people want to hear how we're going to cut health care costs and strengthen the economy, not smears."
(Kerry seems to be waking up! Waking to the fact that these dirty bastards will stop at NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING. Chimp_junta, after all, has the BLOOD of some 30,000 Iraqi innocents, dead.
The BLOOD of over a thousand of our best young soldiers, DEAD. The BLOOD of nearly 25, 000 of our best young soldiers, MAIMED, DISABLED. Lives forever ruined. Hundreds of thousands more aliens seeking the United States for escape from Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and the middle east.
Who can forget the Vietnamese influx in '69, 70, 71, 72 and more? After Nixon?
Soon we will have a new 'Balkinization' in our communities: Displaced Iraqi nationals.
Where is the $22,000,000,000.00 BILLION DOLLARS that BUSH gave to CHALABI and his nephew, CURVE-BALL-CHALABI?
You, dear friend paid for that. You paid for the brand new fire stations in Baghdad, while our schools crumble. Don't let Bush and his Chimp_junta fool you: He is not hated and despised because he is the saviour of democracy.
Quite the opposite: He is hated and despised because he has returned the WORLD TO WAR, PESTILANCE, FAMINE, AND DEATH.
Bush deserves, along with his entire Hitlerian cabal, to be tried for his war crimes. My personal opinion is that he would be found GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY.
He Would Hang. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Powell, Rice, Franks, Kimmit, Sanchez--the Butchers of Iraq--would HANG BY THEIR NECKS UNTIL DEAD. We pray they will. In a perfect world, there could be no doubt they would hang or be shot at dawn by firing squad. That would never be perfect justice for what they have done, but it would go a long way in restoring the world's view of you and me. And America, as the Beacon of Hope...the American Dream?
Crazed terrorists did not take any of this from us. Chimp_junta, Bush, has taken this from us. Kerry ain't perfect, but he is a lot more of everything we need right now, than Bush, isn't he. Bush has NOTHING to present to you. He has accomplished the demolition of America and Iraq and Afghanastan, with out the capture of the people who actually hurt us.
Don't forget to vote in '76 days. If you forget, forget about America. It will be gone. *aj*)
posted by A. J. Franklin @ 23:20
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