John Kerry's campaign must be getting desperate; that's the only reason I can think of for why they'd perform a publicity stunt like this built around exploiting the grievous wounds of a real war hero.
The furor over John Kerry's Vietnam war record isn't going away. Press reports say former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) will try to hand-deliver a message to President Bush in Crawford, Tex., on Wednesday -- asking Bush to specifically denounce TV ads run by anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans.Next up, Senator Kerry challenges President Bush to a spider-eating contest -- perhaps a more comfortable endeavor than answering a direct question about Cambodia. Nevertheless, we won't know for certain that the Kerry campaign is doomed until they introduce a cute, tow-haired little boy in a futile attempt to boost ratings.Cleland, a political ally of Sen. John F. Kerry, reportedly is going to Bush's ranch with former Army Green Beret Jim Rassmann, who credits Kerry with saving his life.
Cleland lost both legs and his right arm in the Vietnam War, and it wouldn't look very good to leave him waiting outside the ranch gate -- in full view of the TV cameras.
Desperate times? No.
Yeah, you never saw Bush sending a Holocaust survivor to Kerry asking him to denounce all the political hate ads from Move.on
In fact, Kerry has been absolutely silent about them and all the political hit ads against his opponent. He can dish it, but he can't take it.
Yeah, I would call that desperate.
To assert that camp Kerry is not desperate would be foolish.
There are plenty of accounts of Kerry's staffers, and even Kerry himself, infering lies about camp Bush, not to mention the 527 groups that have compared Bush to Hitler, and inferred a number of other dirty claims. Camp Kerry had no problem with those adds.
The reason they have a problem with Swiftboats is because they are noticeably hurting Kerry's campaign. If Americans were not buying the vet's TV adds, Kerry would have just shrugged it off. He has a real problem here. This could absolutely finish him off before November.
He invited criticism of his "candidicy platform" (which is fair game) by basing it on his Vietnam record. Investigating the merits of a campaign platform is absolutely par for the course.
Bush didn't run on his National Guard service. He ran on more relevant issues.
Kerry ran on Vietnam because his Senate record is horrid. Look it up.
The bottom line is, Kerry offended a HUGE number of vets after he returned from Vietnam. The vets claim he was untruthful, misleading, and even caused serious loss of morale to those of POW status.
Now you and I (average Joe Schmoes) may not ever know the truth about all that; that's why these Swiftboat vets have the right to speak their piece! And so does Kerry. But who is trying to silence whom? That answer is very telling! The Swiftboat vets aren't trying to silence Kerry. They have respond in a timely fashion to every Kerry camp counter-move. They welcome the open debate!
It's Kerry who's trying to silence them. First by sending a "bluff of legal force" letter to TV stations who were airing the add, continuing by claiming that ALL of these vets were lying and he was the only truth-teller (sound familiar?), and finally now by trying to publicly humiliate the White House by attempting to tie Bush to it, and pulling that stupid stunt with former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland.
Kerry has done everything EXCEPT address the vet's concerns.
He's desperate all right, and there is a growing majority who are seeing right through him. He knows it, and I guarantee you he's absolutely petrified of losing his bid for 1600.
The only assertion I find wrong here is that Kerry's campaign is in desperate shape.
I don't think how Kerry has handled this is the best way to have gone about it, but that doesn't mean the end is near for his Presidential campaign... or that what he is doing is out of desperation.
While SwiftGate is having an affect on the Kerry campaign, it's still not making this any less of a close contest.. at least at this stage of the game anyway.
"SwiftGate" ??? What's that all about?
"SwiftGate" is the name I picked for the whole Swift Boat controversy. It may not be the best fit as a metaphor for the situation, but whatever.
Gotta love Democrat logic. One of our fake war heroes is in trouble, so let's send another fake war hero to defend his non-honor. Then again, Cleland's self-inflicted wounds were much more impressive than Kerry's, and to his semi-credit, Cleland has never personally portrayed himself as a war hero who "left his limbs on the battlefield." That's where his fellow 'Rats come in.
Hey Mark, how about a name that fits? The Swiftvets only drew attention to the controversy.
How about Liargate, or Kerrygate?
I think the whole matter will end up a political wash. Thirty five years is a long time to reconstruct for both Kerry with respect to Nam and Bush with respect to the Guard.
Bush supporters will insist all questions have been answered about guard service and Kerry supporters will claim the same for Nam.
Political ideology pre-disposes one to believe the worst about one's opponents. Unfortunately, there are almost no neutral poltical observers.
You just have to love the chicken-hawk war wimps advancing this story, whose only combat wounds are some feather scratch from "rough" love-making.
Bush shouldn't be called Hitler, but it is no worse than Kerry being called traitor.
Twenty years ago, my left foot was horribly broken and mangled in training accident. For the life of me I couldn't tell you exactly how it happened.
Also, I didn't deserve to be acadmeic leader of my ground surveillance class. I was actually second. But #1 got a little mouthy and he got dumped for me. I was "#1", but I was second best.
Except for Jim Price, I bet a bunch of you would shit your shorts if you saw more than an ounce of blood at one time.
JT: Was that a compliment? Or a dig I didn't get? I mean, you're right on...blood doesn't bother me. 4 years in the corps pretty much deadened me to that.
JP: "Hey Mark, how about a name that fits? The Swiftvets only drew attention to the controversy.
How about Liargate, or Kerrygate?"
The problem with those names is that they're not specific and they're biased. "Liargate" is incredibly biased and doesn't really apply to Kerry or the Swift Boat thing... and "Kerrygate" doesn't refer specifically to the Swift Boat thing.
"Swiftgate" works because "swift" immediately identifies it as referring to the Swift Boat thing and immediately identifies it as referring to Kerry.
Mark: I know, man. I was really just yankin' your chain on that one. Swiftgate works for me, as well.
Totally off track...does anybody know how we got the "gate" tagged on to every scandal type thingy?
I'm sure it goes back to Watergate, but where did the "gate" thing come from?
Watergate was the name of the hotel in Washington that was broken into that started the whole Watergate scandal. Why they decided to tack the gate on after that, I don't know. Some play on words I guess
Thanks, Raina. But look...now we've got Luthergate!