As it should be clear to anyone with an IQ, there really is nothing to the Bush AWOL story. Even the Kerry camp is aware of that, which is why they are tapering off their language and running from the issue.
You heard it hear first: Kerry knows there is nothing to the charge, he was only using the issue and the press to demonstrate his bona fides to the angry left in order to steal them away from Dean and the others. Now, he has sealed the nomination, and he didn’t have to make any ugly lurches to the left policy wise. Only the kool-aid drinkers like Atrios and Kevin Drum think there is anything to the charges, and those guys have been pining breathlessly for a scandal, any scandal, for thrree years now.
This was pretty smart, except for the fact that Kerry is now winning the nomination without having been battle-tested. Already his past positions are starting to surface, and Rove and Co. have not even started to think about him.
mark
I find that this AWOL story is having a chilling effect for the democrats – it is firing up Bush’s base. It reminds me of the GOP continuously going after Clinton for silly stuff, and that fired up democrats.
Team Kerry may be realizing this.
CadillaqJaq
Allow me to adopt a “Wesley Clark-like” scenario: this is all the brain-child of Karl Rove. A dastardly albeit well conceived WH plot devised to arouse the conservative Republican base and to take the media’s attention away from the “real” issues.
It certainly “took” with NBC’s David Gregory. I hope they give him a well deserved furlough after yesterday’s sterling performance.
CadillaqJaq
Speaking of “Team kerry:” this can of worms about GWB’s National Guard sservice, fueled for the most part by Michael Moore’s utterings, should have the Kerry camp on red alert. It certainly opened the door to exploit the post-war-hero personality that Jane Kerry, (ooops…) exhibited as an anti-war protester while supporting “Hanoi” Jane and her ilk.
Having a Jane Fonda-like albatross hanging around his neck until next November is not something I’d presume Senator Kerry would appreciate
Andrew Lazarus
I don’t really CARE if Bush went AWOL for months. I might have too.
But let me tell you, his current behavior is suspicious. There seem to be various records he has (or can waive access to), and he simply won’t, while he releases records that sort-of buttress his position. I say sort-of, because the fact he got paid doesn’t really prove he showed up, not in a big bureaucracy. Right now, he looks like Bill Clinton offering every dress of Monica’s to the reporters, except one blue one.
I can’t imagine whatever is in those records is worse than the mendacity his spokesmen are forced into. I guess it’s just that Our Leader is pretty thin-skinned, and can’t abide any criticism.
PS: I think Team Kerry is simply taking the high road leaving others to dig up the dirt. I dare say the Republicans have done this from time to time, too.
Grant R
It seems to me that Kerry is not mentioning it because he knows others will, and why dirty his hands with it?
He’ll just let the likes of Michael Moore and Terry McAuliffe do the job for him.
Also, a NY Times editorial today (nytimes.com/2004/02/11/opinion/11WED1.html) makes it clear that the press smells fear and is going for the kill.
Now that the president has actually responded to the accusations by releasing some records (something he shouldn’t have done), he has acknowledged that he realizes it is a legitimate concern for his campaign and fuel has been added to the fire.
Mike
Well, hell, if George W Bush wasn’t so anxious to bury his disciplinary records, he might have effectively avoided the AWOL label all this time — ain’t no one’s fault but his own.
andrew
How do you plan on defending Bush when members of his administration are indicted for compromising our intelligence agency? I know you said if the Plame story is true heads should roll, but those indictments will not be a manufactured scandel.
Would you consider this a manufactured scandal?
Kerry sat two rows behind Hanoi Jane!!! OMG, this proves Kerry hates america. Give me a fricken break.
Would you conider this a manufactured scandal?
Kerry sent a standard press release to an Iranian news organization. He must support the Mullahs!
Brian
George W. Bush could present old home video of himself at the place and times in question and I am sure someone will say its doctored, it was a double, doesn’t prove a thing, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. This is stupidity taken to the next level.
capt joe
he hates america (your words) because he brought a bunch of ringers posing as vets in front of a congressional committee. These phonies proceeded to chant a litany of “crimes against humanity” committed by themselves as examples of what the average serviceman in Vietnam was committing.
He was a hero in Vietnam and became the worst sort of bastard when he returned ALL for political gain. He is a bastard. If he get elected then people deserve what come with him.
capt joe
there was an extensive letter today from a fellow squadron member of Bush refuting everything.
Bet that either they say FAKE FAKE or the goalposts move again.
andrew
“he hates america (your words)”
It’s called sarcasm, fuckwit.
If soliders in Vietnam did, in fact, intentionally kill innocent civilians should they not be punished? Read Kerry’s entire congressional testimony and get the entire context.
Jon H
capt. joe writes: ” If he get elected then people deserve what come with him.”
How’s that going to be worse than what Bush gave us? Deficits out the wazoo, cuts to security where it counts (machines to sniff mail for toxins – snip!), and a war against a nation that wasn’t a threat.
And then there’s Bush smiling as Pakistan’s Khan gets millions of dollars and a pardon for selling nuclear weapons technology to everyone and their mother.
I’m not exactly sure how Kerry is supposed to be worse than the asshat who’s in office now.
Mike
On further review McClellan is full of crap. The documents and pay statements are from Texas Guard sources.
But up until now Bush has been claiming he fulfilled his missed drills in Alabama: washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A59151-2000Jun25¬Fo…
So, no, it isn’t “clear to anyone with an IQ” Bush didn’t simply desert. What is clear to anyone with an IQ is that a person can’t be at 2 places at once.
HH
“I don’t really CARE if Bush went AWOL for months.”
So why did you post any more on it past that?
Andrew J. Lazarus
HH, neither did I care if Bill Clinton had intimate relations with Monica Lewinsky, but I cared a lot about the bizarre proceedings that ensued after he did.
Bush is stonewalling.
Rick
“As it should be clear to anyone with an IQ, there really is nothing to the Bush AWOL story.”
It is. Some of the comments above are from the–oh, how to put this gracefully, delicately and Albertly?–extra-chromosome Left.
Cordially…
Charlie (Colorado)
Mike, Bush was in the Texas ANG. Thus his pay records came from the Texas ANG.
I worked in Canada for six months, on an assignment from my job in Boulder. I still got paid in Boulder. That doesn’t prove I never went to Canada.
(Hell, I can’t remember my address in London Ontario, either, and that was only five years ago.)