Guard front
Democrats believe they can slow down President Bush’s campaign with
the new information provided by the Department of Defense that news
groups are saying proves that Bush shirked his National Guard
responsibilities.
Memos, recently obtained and aired on the CBS program 60 Minutes,
reveal that Bush's commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, was critical of
Bush's performance as a pilot in the latter years of his Vietnam-era
Guard career. Killian cited Bush for "failure to perform" to Air Force
and Air National Guard standards and called for him to be replaced
"with a more seasoned pilot."
"These new documents show the president did not serve honorably, and
they did not have all the documents out," said Democratic National
Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe.
"It's going to be on the table from now until Nov. 2," Mr. McAuliffe
said. "This administration, time and time again, has misled the
American public. And today they have been caught in some lies,"
McAuliffe said.
"If the president had not fulfilled his commitment he would not have
been honorably discharged," White House press secretary Scott
McClellan said. "He was honorably discharged in October of '73. The
president is proud of his service in the National Guard."
The White House was sensitive to charges that President Bush had
withheld information. "The president directed back in February that
the Department of Defense do a comprehensive search and make all the
documents available, and we had assurances that they had done that
and, unfortunately, we have since found out that it was not as
comprehensive as we thought," McClellan said.
Gerald Lechliter, a retired Army colonel and a member of Veterans
against the Iraq War, compared Bush's publicly released records with
military procedures manuals from that era. He concluded that Bush's
superiors failed to follow proper procedures when he missed required
training and when he failed to take his flight physical.
Bush's
officer performance report for 1972 "was a clear and unmistakable
indication that his performance had declined from the annual 1971
report," Lechliter wrote in an analysis of the records. "The report
was the kiss of death before he left for Alabama that year."
Campaign theme battles
The Kerry campaign and the Bush campaign are battling back and forth
to gain control of the themes of the campaign. Kerry can’t seem to
leave Iraq alone despite the fact that former President Clinton said
to talk about the economy. President Bush has laid out an agenda that
is featured in his new TV ad that covers numerous agenda items. The
other key is to reinforce Kerry as a flip-flopper.
The Kerry campaign seems to be on a two-prong attack of trying to
excite the Democrat base that is against the war by saying that the
war in Iraq is costing the domestic economy. The other track is to
take down Bush over his National Guard record.
"I do think it's important that as we're attacked, we make certain
that we continue to lay out an agenda," Karl Rove said. "Like this
Friday, we're going to be talking about energy policy. Monday, we
talked about tax reform. It's important for us to make certain that we
don't fall prey to just sort of the tit-for-tat back and forth, and
instead, we keep trying to drive an agenda," he added. "To the extent
that people are paying attention in the battleground states, they want
to hear that message when we campaign there."
Kerry analysis by WashingtonTimes
The Washington Times Inside Politics has done it again by finding one
of the most provocative looks at the Kerry campaign:
Kerry's woes
"Trying to dissect the many problems with John Kerry's campaign would
take more words than my editors allow," writes Chuck Todd, editor in
chief of the Hotline, National Journal's daily political roundup.
"Here's what we do know:
"Sometime in the last month, President Bush's campaign turned this
election from a referendum on the incumbent into a referendum on the
challenger.
"Kerry is getting clobbered on the Iraq issue. The fact that 42
percent of those surveyed in the most recent Newsweek poll believe
Saddam Hussein had something to do with the September 11, 2001,
attacks explains a lot," Mr. Todd said at
www.NationalJournal.com.
"The number of folks on the Kerry campaign who are more loyal to the
Democratic nominee than to the Democratic Party can be counted on one
hand (or, one could argue, one finger). This lack of loyalty is what
failed Kerry during the Swift Boat fiasco.
"Kerry's only progress in the last few months has occurred when
outside events overwhelm the campaign: the September 11 commission
report and the prison abuse scandal to name a few. Can anyone pinpoint
a single TV ad or Kerry-inspired event that has moved the ball forward
for the senator? Some might argue his selection of John Edwards did
that, but does Kerry now wish he had used his vice presidential pick
to underscore the Iraq issue? Isn't there a certain vice presidential
also-ran with a new book on intelligence that hit bookshelves this
week?
"The predictions many Democrats made over a year ago about what kind
of general election candidate Kerry would make are coming true. In
fact, the biggest hurdle Kerry must overcome is that he continues to
come across as out-of-touch with the concerns of voters.
"These facts need to be reversed in the coming weeks, or it's all
over. Some Democrats (and most Republicans) already think the election
is a done deal, but there are just too many unanswered questions about
Iraq to call a winner yet."
Book wars
President Bush's former sister-in-law, Sharon Bush, denied yesterday
that she had given author Kitty Kelley any information about
allegations of past drug use by President Bush.
"Although there have been tensions between me and various members of
the Bush family, I cannot allow this falsehood to go unchallenged,"
Sharon said.
"Doubleday stands fully behind the accuracy of Ms. Kelley's reporting
and believes that everything she attributes to Sharon Bush in her book
is an accurate account of their discussions," said Associate Publisher
Suzanne Herz. "Ms. Kelley met with Sharon Bush over the course of a
four-hour lunch on April 1, 2003, at the Chelsea Bistro in Manhattan."
Book sales
Book sales show that Swift Boat "Unfit for Command” is still at the
top of the sales chart with 88,785 sold for the week. The following
are other political books sales: Frank’s American Soldier, #2 at
28,342; Clinton’s Life, 16,952; and Dowd’s "Bushworld," 15,285.
Kerry Heckler assaulted
Police said 48-year-old Michael Russell of Foster, Kentucky,
complained that his neck was hurt by a man who put him in a headlock
after Russell started to yell about Kerry's allegation of war
atrocities after returning from Navy service in Vietnam.
City police are investigating. No charges had been filed as of today.
International cooperation?
The German Marshal Fund asked whether it was essential to secure the
approval of the United Nations before using military force, 81 percent
of Democrats said yes, and 69 percent of Republicans said no. The gap
between Democrats and Republicans over whether NATO was still
essential to U.S. security had widened dramatically over two years,
stated Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund.
The U.S. portion of the survey showed the growing split between
Democrats and Republicans. Sixty-two percent of Republicans strongly
agreed it was justified to bypass the United Nations when the
country's vital interests were threatened, compared with 18 percent of
Democrats; 33 percent of Democrats strongly disagreed.
Battle states shrinking
There is a question as to whether the Kerry campaign is going to fight
the campaign out along a smaller number of states. Ad buy there show
that they are only seriously interested in ten states.
The Kerry campaign has bought time in Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Michigan and
Oregon. Those are the campaign's 10 most competitive states. Bush's
advertising priorities mirror the Kerry ad buys as well.
The Democrat National Committee is on the air in Maine, Washington
state, Nevada and Minnesota.
The Associated Press reports that Kerry strategist Tad Devine said the
campaign had several million dollars in advertising time reserved for
Missouri, Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina, Louisiana and Arkansas,
which he called a sign of commitment to those battlegrounds. But the
ads aren't scheduled to air until October, if then. No money has been
given to TV stations for the October buys.
Poll watching, 9/9
Bush has significantly moved ahead in Missouri. Bush was tied in a USA
TODAY poll taken just before the Democratic National Convention in
July, which now shows Bush ahead of Kerry by 55%-41% among likely
voters. Bush carried the state in 2000 by 3 percentage points.
Ohio, where Bush lagged by 6 points in mid-July, now favors him by 9
points. Among the larger pool of registered voters, Bush's lead was
just 1 point. He carried the state by 4 points in 2000.
Pennsylvania was ‘even’ two weeks ago and remains essentially tied.
In Washington State, Kerry leads Bush by 8 points.
Bush was seen as the candidate who would better handle the economy by
Missouri voters; Kerry was favored on that issue in Pennsylvania and
Washington. They were tied in Ohio. In all four states, voters said
Bush was better able to handle terrorism.
It’s the curlies, stupid!
Well, as it turns out, the Bush National Guard smoking gun memos find
is a hoax – and a big one at that. Dan Rather and CBS apparently
didn’t do much ‘authenticating’ before rushing to report the memos as
factual. The
NationalReviewOnline column “Kerry Spot” has some Rather [pun
intended] damning observations by computer document forensics expert
Bruce Webster:
Kerry Spot reader Bruce Webster who has as served as
an expert witness in U.S. District Court cases regarding
computer document forensics, writes in that the CBS News document "has
all sorts of problems... The typefaces weren't available on
typewriters in 1973."
The typefaces listed and linked below, by the way, do not have “curly”
quotes, only "straight" ones. Oddly, you'll notice the CBS documents,
like the Kerry Spot, have both, sometimes in the same document. (On
the Kerry Spot, this is a result of transferring text from a word
processing program into web-publishing program Moveable Type. (A link
using curly quotes won't link correctly, which means every link has to
be checked to make sure it has the right kind of quotes.)
CBS had better have one heck of a defense for this.
ABC News is running this story on the memos authenticity: "Son of
Late Officer Questions Bush Memos"
And this report, filed for The Weekly Standard by staff writer
Stephen F. Hayes :
There are several reasons these experts are skeptical of the
authenticity of the Killian memos. First the typographic spacing is
proportional, as is routine with professional typesetting and computer
typography, not monospace, as was common in typewriters in the 1970s.
(In proportional type, thin letters like "i" and "l" are spaced closer
together than thick letters like "W" and "M". In monospace, all the
letter widths are the same.)
Second, the font appears to be identical to the Times New Roman font
that is the default typeface in Microsoft Word and other modern word
processing programs. According to Flynn, the font is not listed in the
Haas Atlas--the definitive encyclopedia of typewriter type fonts.
Third, the apostrophes are curlicues of the sort produced by word
processors on personal computers, not the straight vertical hashmarks
typical of typewriters. Finally, in some references to Bush's
unit--the 111thFighter Interceptor Squadron--the "th" is a
superscript in a smaller size than the other type. Again, this is
typical (and often done automatically) in modern word processing
programs. Although several experts allow that such a rendering might
have been theoretically possible in the early 1970s, it would have
been highly unlikely. Superscripts produced on typewriters--the
numbers preceding footnotes in term papers, for example--were almost
always in the same size as the regular type.
So can we say with absolute certainty that the documents were forged?
Not yet. Xavier University's Polt, in an email, offers two possible
scenarios. "Either these are later transcriptions of earlier documents
(which may have been handwritten or typed on a typewriter), or they
are crude and amazingly foolish forgeries. I'm a Kerry supporter
myself, but I won't let that cloud my objective judgment: I'm 99% sure
that these documents were not produced in the early 1970s."
Says Flynn: "This looks pretty much like a hoax at this point in
time."
CBS, in a statement Thursday afternoon, said it stands by the story.
The network claims that its own document expert concluded the memos
were authentic. There are several things CBS could do to clear up any
confusion:
(1) Provide the name of the expert who authenticated the documents for
Sixty Minutes.
(2) Provide the original documents to outside experts--William Flynn,
Gerald Reynolds, and Peter Tytell seem to be the consensus top three
in the United States--for further analysis.
(3) Provide more information on the source of the documents.
(A spokeswoman for CBS, Kelly Edwards, said she was overwhelmed with
phone calls and did not respond to specific requests for comment.)
[NOTE: You can see the memos for yourself on the CBS website:
here,
here,
here, and
here.]
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
NationalReviewOnline "The Kerry Spot" writer Jim Geraghty has
just revealed the nail in CBS's coffin -- and gives credit to
PowerLineBlog.com for it's origination:
As much as the Kerry Spot has tried to keep up with this,
PowerLine has been on top of this story all day long. That site
just presented what ought to be the straw that breaks the camel's
back:
In the August 18, 1973 memo "discovered" by 60 Minutes, Jerry
Killian purportedly writes:
Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I'm
having trouble running interference and doing my job.
But wait! Reader Amar Sarwal points out that General Staudt, who
thought very highly of Lt. Bush,
retired in 1972.
Okay, CBS. The ball's in your court. Explain all this. Make all of
this make sense. Don't completely ignore all of this, like you
just did on the CBS Evening News.
If CBS ignores this, and gives no counterargument, no defense, then
the general public will have no choice but to conclude that the
network ran with a hoax - and now refuses to retract a lie.
[Posted 09/09 07:11 PM]
click &
get this bumper sticker & more
The Bible is Kerry’s friend
Sen. John Kerry is trying to make himself out to be a God fearing man,
using numerous quotes from the bible to ‘smite’ his enemy President
Bush down:
"They felt compassion but there were no deeds," Kerry said in remarks
prepared for delivery to the National Baptist Convention . "It is
clear: for four years George W. Bush may have talked about compassion
but he's walked right by. He's seen people in need but he's crossed
over to the other side of the street."
Kerry also tried to compare Bush to Southern racists of the past:
"In the hardest passages of the long march ... amid lynchings and
unyielding discrimination, the stalwart foot soldiers of justice did
not look around and say, as we have heard so often from Washington
these days, that we've 'turned the corner' or the job was 'getting
done' or that this was the best we could do."
Kerry’s attacks are just one more example of how divided this nation
is between Red and Blue states. Kerry called Bush a ‘sheep in wolves’
clothing, as well:
"The president who scorns economic justice and affirmative action, who
traffics in the politics of division and then claims he is a friend of
black America cannot conceal his identity no matter what clothes he
wears," Kerry said.
More hatred
The Democrat Farm Labor Party of Minnesota has disavowed a Bush/Hitler
bumper sticker offered at a local party headquarters. The bumper
sticker reads, "Bush/Cheney -- Most Hated World Leaders Since Hitler."
The bumper stickers were not placed into circulation but one campaign
worker "unwittingly" left a stack of them on an office counter for two
hours before they were removed, said Democratic Party spokeswoman
Tonya Tennessen on Thursday.
MoveOn.org also had an ad that was submitted by one of their members
on their website for a period of time that morphed Bush into Hitler.
The Democrats’ hatred for Bush is almost unfathomable to the rest of
America.
V.P. wars
Sen. John Edwards attacked Dick Cheney today.
"Dick Cheney said at the Republican convention with a straight face
that they've made health care more affordable and more accessible for
the American people," Edwards said. "I don't know what America or
American people he's talking about, but it hasn't happened in New
Hampshire where health insurance premiums are up more than $4,000."
President Bush was the first president since Lyndon Johnson to expand
health care coverage of America’s seniors.
Edwards also failed to offer proof that Vietnam anti-war activist
Kerry could defend America. However, Edwards charged that Cheney was
wrong in stating that Kerry-Edwards would be bad for our national
defense. American polls show Kerry way behind in approval ratings for
being capable of waging the war on terrorism.
"He said if you don't vote for him and George Bush in November, when
and if another terrorist attack occurs, it's the fault of you, the
American people. This statement by Dick Cheney is dishonorable and
undignified. ... It's wrong and the president of the United States
should say it's wrong."
Heinz-Kerry: "American idiots"
Teresa Heinz Kerry stated, "only an idiot" would fail to support her
husband's health care plan.
If Kerry is elected, Heinz Kerry predicts that opponents of his health
care plan will be voted out of office. She says, "Only an idiot
wouldn't like this."
The nationalization of health care proposed by Hillary Clinton failed,
but now Kerry believes that he can make it a centerpiece of his
winning campaign.
The Kerry website offers the following statements concerning their
health care plan:
Cover All Americans With Quality Care
The Kerry-Edwards plan will give every American access to the range of
high-quality, affordable plans available to members of Congress and
extend coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every American
child. Their plan will also fight to erase the health disparities that
persist along racial and economic lines, ensure that people with HIV
and AIDS have the care they need, end discrimination against Americans
with disabilities and mental illnesses, and ensure equal treatment for
mental illness in our health system.
Cut the Cost of Prescription Drugs
The Kerry-Edwards plan will reduce prescription drug prices by
allowing the re-importation of safe prescription drugs from Canada,
overhauling the Medicare drug plan, ensuring low-cost drugs, and
ending artificial barriers to generic drug competition.
Cut Waste And Inefficiency
Today, approximately 25 percent of health care costs are wasted on
paperwork and administrative processing. The Kerry-Edwards plan
harnesses American ingenuity to cut waste, save billions, and take new
steps to ensure patient privacy.
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