Category Archives: Politics: US: 2004 Election

According to the UK's Daily Telegraph — not the world's most reliable news source for US news, and a good place for right-wing planted stories — the Bush Pentagon has ordered an official investigation into the awards of the Democratic senator's five Vietnam War decorations. This despite the total implosion of the credibility of his accusers.

The request for an investigation originates from Judicial Watch. Their website does not confirm the story, saying only that the “Inspector General (“IG”) of the Department of Defense has informed the Secretary of the Navy” of his receipt of their complaint. And indeed the letter reproduced on Judicial Watch's site is nothing more than a receipt (.pdf).

A quick look at the complaint suggests it's pretty silly, and based largely on the Swift Boat Vets testimony that is now thoroughly discredited. The two main charges are (1) O'Neill's book says Kerry's medals are frauds and the various discredited swift boat vets (e.g. the doctor who didn't actually treat him) agree; and (2) [brace yourself:]

Dishonorable and possibly unlawful actions by Senator Kerry during the early 1970s – actions that manifestly benefited a foreign power with which the U.S. was at war – are so grievously damaging to the dignity, honor and traditions of the U.S. Navy and the American republic that the Secretary of the Navy may be compelled to revoke Senator Kerry’s awards.

And did I mention (3), (4) and (5): “dereliction of duty; misuse and abuse of U.S. government equipment and property; war crimes”?

In other words, Judicial Watch thinks stay-at-home Bush's Navy should revoke Kerry's award in the middle of a Presidential campaign — for opposing the Vietnam war and testifying to Congress! You can't make this stuff up.

While the Judicial Watch complaint and the Navy's receipt of it are verified, there is at this moment no confirmation of the Telegraph's account of the opening an actual investigation either on CNN, the NYT or Washington Post web sites, so I have some doubts the Telegraph report is true. The version running in the Chicago-Sun Times is much less detailed and also more credible and consistent with Judicial Watch's website—but might also have been filed earlier than the Telegraph's report.

But, no, I can't believe it — the statute of limitations must have passed for any offense imaginable, and hence the Navy would have no grounds for an investigation even if it thought Kerry was on LSD the whole time. I just won't believe this until it's confirmed elsewhere.

Meanwhile, to coin a phrase, I report, you decide. Below, excerpts from the Telegraph's report and then the Sun-Times's, and a little more about Judicial Watch's latest odd allegations:

Continue reading →

AP, which runs everywhere, did a little fact-checking of Bush's acceptance speech:

Bush Leaves Out Complex Facts in Speech: President Bush's boast of a 30-member-strong coalition in Iraq masked the reality that the United States is bearing the overwhelming share of costs, in lives and troop commitments. And in claiming to have routed most al-Qaida leaders, he did not mention that the big one got away.

Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night brought the nation a collection of facts that told only part of the story, hardly unusual for this most political of occasions.

He took some license in telling Americans that Democratic opponent John Kerry “is running on a platform of increasing taxes.”

Kerry would, in fact, raise taxes on the richest 2 percent of Americans as part of a plan to keep the Bush tax cuts for everyone else and even cut some of them more. That's not exactly a tax-increase platform.

And on education, Bush voiced an inherent contradiction, dating back to his 2000 campaign, in stating his stout support for local control of education, yet promising to toughen federal standards that override local decision-making.

“We are insisting on accountability, empowering parents and teachers, and making sure that local people are in charge of their schools,” he said, on one hand. Yet, “we will require a rigorous exam before graduation.”

…

Bush aggressively defended progress in Afghanistan, too. “Today, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror, Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders … and more than three-quarters of al-Qaida's key members and associates have been detained or killed. We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer.”

Nowhere did Bush mention Osama bin Laden, nor did he account for the replacement of killed and captured al al-Qaida leaders by others.

Bush's address wasn't the only one this week that glossed over some realities.

Vice President Dick Cheney, trying to make Kerry look wobbly on defense, implied in his speech that Kerry would wait until the United States is hit by a foe before hitting back. “He declared at the Democratic convention that he will forcefully defend America after we have been attacked,” Cheney said.

New York Gov. George Pataki echoed Cheney's line of criticism Thursday night.

Kerry said in his convention speech, “Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response.” But he also spoke of pre-emptive action in that address, saying a threat that is “real and imminent” is also a justification for war.

In his keynote address, Sen. Zell Miller attacked Kerry for Senate votes against the Navy F-14D Tomcat fighter and the B-2 bomber the heart of his case that the Democrat has stood against essential weapons systems.

He ignored the fact that Cheney, as defense secretary, canceled the F-14 and submitted a budget scaling back production of the B-2.

Miller also said Kerry has made it clear he “would use military force only if approved by the U.N.,” a stretch of Kerry's position. Kerry told his convention “I will never hesitate to use force when it is required” and “I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security.”

It's fun to see, no doubt for the first time ever, the words “Bush” and “complex facts” in the same headline…

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, perhaps because print ads don't appear in the online edition, so at the risk of chewing through a lot of bandwidth here is the quarter-page ad that Comedy Central's Daily Show (the faux news show which does a better job of the news than most serious media) took out in yesterday's New York Times—on the op-ed page.

It's pretty funny.

Update: While you are at it, have a look at this Daily Show 'preview' of the GW Bush convention promotional video. It would be funny if it were not so accurate. If comedy is not yet the only way to speak truth to power, it must surely be the most effective means.

Update2: The New York Post, of all places, reports that:

THE mischievous magnets produced by Comedy Central's “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” have created a sticky situation for the RNC. The “Make Your Own Headlines With the Daily Show Newsmaker” kits were banned from RNC gift bags because they included words like “tranvestite,” “goat,” “dances” and “dumb” as well as “Dubya,” “Rumsfeld” and “Cheney.” The RNC apparently feared the magnets could be used to poke fun at GOP leaders. Comedy Central produced more than 13,000 kits, which they still want to distribute this week. “We were surprised with the RNC's lack of humor,” said a Comedy Central spokeswoman.

'course that was before Zell Miller spoke…

William Saletan in Slate:

But the important thing isn't the falsity of the charges, which Republicans continue to repeat despite press reports debunking them. The important thing is that the GOP is trying to quash criticism of the president simply because it's criticism of the president. The election is becoming a referendum on democracy.

In a democracy, the commander in chief works for you. You hire him when you elect him. You watch him do the job. If he makes good decisions and serves your interests, you rehire him. If he doesn't, you fire him by voting for his opponent in the next election.

Not every country works this way. In some countries, the commander in chief builds a propaganda apparatus that equates him with the military and the nation. If you object that he's making bad decisions and disserving the national interest, you're accused of weakening the nation, undermining its security, sabotaging the commander in chief, and serving a foreign power—the very charges Miller leveled tonight against Bush's critics.

Are you prepared to become one of those countries?

Personally, I'm waiting for the Democrats to start calling the Republican convention a “hate fest”.[¹] But I also don't think the uncharacteristically venomous reactions of usually sober bloggers like Kevin Drum, Matthew Yglasias are all that helpful. I prefer the more nuanced approach of Michael Bérubé.

Update: Yglesias replies (generically):

So a few of the posts I've written lately have been criticized from one quarter or another as “unhelpful.” Either they're too shrill, too elitist, or too whatever. That's all probably true, but to raise a point I've made before, even though I would like to see John Kerry win the election, I'm not employed by the Kerry campaign, nor is the purpose of this site to help Kerry win the election. The purpose of this site is to say what I honestly think about stuff. I'm not going to go all Kausy and become obsessed with random piddling critique's of Johnny K., but if my work sounds elitist that's because I'm an elitist, and that's just the way it goes.

Hmm. The post I picked on said, in full, “Could Liddy Dole have written a speech more calculated to make me despise her? No, she couldn't.” I guess that is elitist in one sense of that word, but not in any sense I would brag about myself.

Note that my original point was that usually Ygelesias is a good read. But he kind of lost it, amidst writing about chasing women in NY. Get him a girlfriend, he'll be fine again.

¹ [Update2: Well, that didn't take very long, did it?]

Geekiest protest sign (via the great BoingBoing)