Scarborough says media ‘Not so
Swift’
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough had this to say about the Swiftees v
Kerry controversy:
The Times' aggressive expose on the 260 decorated Vietnam veterans who
make up "Swift Boat Captains for Truth" came complete with a
do-it-yourself Vast Right Wing Conspiracy chart...
Funny how attack ads by left-wing groups likemoveon.org didn't provoke
the same moral outrage as this vet ad.
I wonder why these high minded media types never drew charts
connecting anti-Bush 527 groups to John Kerry. Oh wait. I know the
answer. It's because 90 percent of the reporters and talking heads who
work for national news outlets will be voting for John Kerry this
fall. If you don't believe me then ask Newsweek's top political gun
Evan Thomas, who admitted last month that the majority of reporters in
America wanted Kerry elected president...
And why don't you check the transcripts of your favorite left-leaning
talk show and see if these noble warriors of truth raised the
slightest concern when a liberal ad ran in 2000 suggesting that George
W. Bush committed an act as heinous as dragging an old black man to
his death...
And why are they so offended by John O'Neill's book-- the contents of
which may be true-- when they French-kissed Joe Wilson for writing a
book that we now know is filled with lies?
Gillesipe on message
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillispie knows how to stay
on point, even if Sen. John Kerry doesn’t. Kerry recently turned his
guns on fellow swift boat veterans instead of staying on point with
his economic message.
Gillespie sent out his weekly e-mail covering Kerry’s poor attendance
on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Gillespie message coincides with
the Bush TV ad of the same subject.
He previously sent to Republican leaders a memo that shows that
Senator Kerry missed 76% of the of the Senate Intelligence Committee's
public hearings, but his campaign's senior adviser called the
statistic "misleading" because it represents only public hearings and
not the numerous non-public hearings the committee holds.
Gillespie writes, "So surely Senator Kerry will authorize the Senate
Intelligence Committee to make public his and his running mate's
record of attendance at non-public hearings, right? Don't bet on it.
Their campaign thinks they can cite non-public hearings as discounting
a dismal public attendance record with a wink, then refuse to
authorize their public release with a nod.
Such contempt for the electorate and the media rarely, if ever,
succeeds. As a great Republican President once said, "You can fool all
the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but
you can't fool all the people all the time." Senator Kerry's blatant
hypocrisy will not be able to fool the voters in November, nor will he
be able to count on reporters to stand inside his campaign looking
disdainfully out at the public and laughing at the inside joke instead
of outside his campaign looking skeptically in at his promises and
asking the tough questions."
NY Times campaign
After the
NY Times did every thing they could to discredit the Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth, the Times now say that it is Kerry’s fault
the Swiftees have been so successful. The Times also points out that
the issue of Kerry’s 4 months in Vietnam is the core of Kerry’s
campaign:
If there is one thing that Republicans and Democrats agree on, it is
that Mr. Kerry's record as a decorated Vietnam veteran makes him a
powerful opponent to Mr. Bush in a presidential campaign being
conducted against a backdrop of terrorism and international turmoil.
The television advertisements and a book challenging Mr. Kerry's
account of his injuries and war medals this month seek to destroy what
has been the central argument for his candidacy since he entered the
race nearly two years ago
Experts they interviewed back up the Times:
"They made a strategic mistake," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director
of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of
Pennsylvania, said of Mr. Kerry's campaign. "The ad has been largely
effective because it wasn't rebutted."
When asked about their failure, the Kerry campaign responded:
Mr. Kerry's communications director, Stephanie Cutter, did not dispute
that the attacks had taken a toll. But, Ms. Cutter said she thought
Mr. Kerry's campaign would now be able to turn it around on Mr. Bush.
"When somebody launches a series of lies, it has an impact," she said.
"But getting the truth out has a bigger impact. Bush stepped too far
into this. In the end it's going to do more harm to him than to John
Kerry.''
Once again the Times has offered a one-sided view that the Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth are lying and Bush is the originator of the lies.
What is unclear is why more weight and investigation has not been
given to the Swiftees’ accusations concerning Kerry. Also missing from
the Times analysis is why the country was letting Kerry run on a
biography that only included four and half months of his life in
Vietnam 35 years ago. Where are the decades in the U.S. Senate where
he consistently voted to weaken America’s military and intelligence
strength? Where is the Kerry the Communist sympathizer and co-founder
of Vietnam Veterans Against the War - an organization that plotted to
assassinate U.S. Senators at a meeting in Kansas City that Kerry staff
now admits he attended?
Where is the "Old Gray Lady’s" journalistic integrity?
Mainstream media ignored ad
A poll shows that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth television ad was
ignored by the mainstream media until the Kerry campaign decided to
attack it. Cable News and conservative talk radio are responsible for
the ad’s break-out and success, according to the poll.
A National Annenberg Election Survey discovered a remarkable ripple
effect for what survey director Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson
characterized as "an ad that barely aired."
The ad was a modest buy of approximately $300,000 and was run in West
Virginia, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
The poll of 2,209 respondents found that more than half of them had
seen or heard about the ad that accused Kerry of lying about his
Vietnam record. Thirty-three percent reported viewing the spot, and
another 24 percent said they heard about it, a phenomenon attributed
largely to its widespread play on the cable news channels and
conservative-dominated talk radio. Heavy consumers of cable news, for
example, were more than twice as likely to have seen the ad as people
who did not watch. Frequent talk radio listeners were more likely to
have heard about the spot than less regular listeners.
Sticks and stones
The White House and Kerry campaign spokespersons exchange the
following words back and forth. The issue sparking the exchange
involved Sen. John Kerry accusing President Bush of coordinating the
efforts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth with his campaign. Kerry has
filed papers with the Federal Election Commission claiming that the
two campaigns are coordinating their efforts and that the swift boat
group is operating illegally.
First the White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Mr. Kerry's
charges are off base:
"Senator Kerry losing his cool should not be an excuse for him to lash
out at the president with false and baseless attacks," McClellan said.
Then Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter offered:
"Mr. McClellan needs to understand that John Kerry is not the type of
leader who will sit and read 'My Pet Goat' to a group of
second-graders while America is under attack," Cutter said.
Teachers’ union liars
Secretary of Education Secretary Rod Paige took on a much-touted
report by the American Federation of Teachers that said Charter
Schools are bad.
"Differences between charter and regular public schools in achievement
test scores vanish when examined by race or ethnicity," Paige said.
The AFT report acknowledged in an executive summary: "The achievement
gaps between white and black students and between white and Hispanic
students were about the same in charter schools as in regular public
schools."
Money, money, money
The Bush campaign reports raising $240 million and spending $46
million last month. Meanwhile, the Kerry campaign has raised $233.5
million and spent $38 million in July.
Kerry raised almost $44 million in July, as against some $14 million
by the Bush campaign. Bush started August with about $32.5 million
cash on hand and the Kerry campaign has $47 million to transfer to the
Democrat committees to spend on his behalf in an uncoordinated effort.
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