Archives for 2004

Count me as one blogger who is not even slightly surprised that the Kerry cabal has decided to lawyer up and issue threatening letters to television stations in order to keep them from broadcasting the Swift Boat commercial. This isn’t the first time they have tried this tactic; it won’t be the last.

While this approach is not surprising in the least, it is instructive, and helps to reinforce much of what I already believed about the Democratic party.

1.) They believe in outright intimidation of the media and of their critics.

The other day, the Instapundit posted this snippet from a John Fund report from the Democratic National Convention:

The Boston Democratic convention featured a rich side menu of interesting seminars. One of the most controversial was a workshop for new Democratic campaign press secretaries that sounded like a call to arms in its advice on how to deal with the new media universe.

Lecturers urged press secretaries to confront what one warned was “media that are no longer tilted in your direction.” Bullying was openly encouraged. “When it comes to the media,” suggested Democratic strategist James Carville, “intimidation works.” “Challenge them,” added David Brock of Media Matters, a new liberal group set up to criticize conservative media outlets.

There is a reason Media Matters includes the names, addresses, email adresses, and phone numbers of those who offend them, and it is not so that individuals such as you and me canhave an easy time asking follow-up questions. And, of course, we all remember the Clinton approach to those who dared cross their path. Ever heard the phrase “nuts and sluts?”

2.) Democrats believe in free speech. For Democrats.

Over the past four years, the Democrats have had a field day criticizing the current President, his administration, and supporters of the administration. Criticizing is not a really appropriate summation of their behavior. What they have actually been doing is lying outright, spreading half-truths, and questioning the motives, intentions, and actions of this administration at every step. No story is too obscene or too out of bounds, whether it be a ‘war for oil’ claim or a ‘Bush knew.’

The apogee of their propaganda parade, of course, was the Michael Moore film Fahrenheit 9/11, which at last count has at least 59 documented and verified lies. For this outrageous venture in outright slander and deceit, Moore has been embraced by the mainstream of the Democratic party, greeted and entertained by the DNC chairman, and provided seating in the luxury boxes during the Democratic National Convention.

In the past few days, Kerry surrogate, DNC headline speaker, and former Presidential contender Howard Dean, aided and abetted by the media establishment, accused the President of issuing terror alerts for partisan political gain. The charges have turned out to be so obscenely false that in a rare act of contrition, the NY Times has been baktracking on the editorial page for the last three days.

In the most recent example of the Democrats and free speech, Kerry himself stuck to his VP’s word to run a positive campaign, and today stated:

Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whisper in my ear that America is under attack, I would have told those kids very nicely and politely that the president of the United States has something that he needs to attend to.

The genesis of the statement is, of course, from Michael Moore’s Triumph of the Will Fahrenheit 9/11, and the intent is to level the slanderous assertion that because Bush did not immediately and frantically run off and do ‘something’ upon being informed of the 9/11 attacks, somehow he is unfit for office. In order for the quip to be effective, one must assume that Bush could have done anything. Neither Kerry nor anyone in the Democratic has enough integrity to admit that not one less person would have been killed, not one less drop of blood spilled, and not one terrorist found a minute sooner had Bush behaved in the manner Kerry and his ilk are now suggesting would have been appropriate.

But, after all, it is free speech, and they should be allowed to say whatever they want, as should the Swift Boat veterans. Let’s not forget that these men also served their country admirably- much more, in fact, than the titular leader of theDemocratic party and former President, Bill Clinton.

It is also interesting to note that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth appears to be one of only a few of the 527 non-profit groups that the Democrats oppose, but first we should remember how 527’s came into prominence:

Democrats are kicking off a backdoor way of financing their 2004 congressional campaigns today with the very type of unlimited donations from corporations, unions, and individuals that many party leaders had vowed to flush from the political system.

The strategy involves setting up two new groups unmistakably aligned with the Democratic Party’s longstanding campaign organizations for the House and Senate. Technically, the two groups are not arms of the Democratic Party, a key distinction, because the nation’s new campaign finance law bars lawmakers from soliciting ”soft money,” the unlimited money that politicians still crave.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and minority whip Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, will headline a fund-raising event tonight at the Hotel George for a new group called the New House PAC.

Tonight, the group will raise ”hard money,” a limited, regulated type of donation that lawmakers can legally solicit. But the group plans to ask donors for soft money later this year and to serve as a sort of shadow campaign committee for the Democratic Party, according to sources familiar with the effort.

So much for the McCain-Feingold ruse. As recently as yesterday, Democrats were openly bragging at their ability to skirt the law they endorsed for the rest of us to follow:

In the weeks leading up to the Democratic convention, Senator John Kerry’s campaign aides worried that the senator would have to begin spending his $75 million in public financing a month earlier than President Bush. They even flirted with the idea that he would delay accepting the nomination so he could keep raising and spending millions of dollars on advertising throughout August.

But August has brought a spate of what seemed to be Kerry advertisements every day. To a voter’s eye, the senator’s campaign marches on seamlessly – and usually on message. And the campaign is not a penny poorer for it…

Liberal groups like The Media Fund and Moveon.org, which previously ran the advertisements The Media Fund is using now, ran heavy advertising campaigns after Mr. Kerry effectively clinched the Democratic nomination in March. They spent millions of dollars on spots highly critical of Mr. Bush in key states at a time when Mr. Kerry was too broke to run many of his own advertisements – and facing a barrage of attack advertisements from Mr. Bush.

Now, the Democratic Party, The Media Fund and others are doing the same thing because Mr. Kerry’s campaign decided that it had to stop advertising in August to maintain financial parity with Mr. Bush in the last two months of the campaign.

Now, confronted with a commercial that does not fit their narrow view of the truth, the answer is clear. It must be stopped, with no legal stone unturned.

Again, the Democrats believe in free speech. For Democrats.

3.) Kerry isn’t as stupid as some people think.

While some are questioning Kerry’s intelligence, I do not. I am aware that Kerry is at least smart enough to recognize that his base is going to vote for him no matter what, and that an uncritical media which traditionally and openly beds down with the Democratic candidate every November of an election year poses no obstacle whatsoever. The architects of Kerry’s electoral strategy or Kerry himself realize that bow all they must do is ‘fool some of the people some of the time.’

I say this, because there is no other reason or excuse for the Kerry campaign releasing this breathtakingly vapid excuse/attack on the credibility of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth:

The Kerry campaign has denounced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, saying none of the men in the ad served on the boat that Kerry commanded. The leader of the group, retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, said none of the 13 veterans in the commercial served on Kerry’s boat but rather were in other swiftboats within 50 yards of Kerry’s.

Kerry knows this will not faze his supporters. While Kerry was running around the Mekong Delta torching villages in the latter part of 1968, the core of his supporters were also busy burning things- ROTC buildings, draft cards, and bras. It is not surprising that they should have no understanding of the military, nor is it surprising that the media will make no effort to inform them.

However, for the rest of us on planet earth, the ‘they were not on his boat’ is so overtly stupid that you almost have to respect the brazenness and arrogance of a campaign that would make such a statement. Maybe the Kerry campaign thinks that everyone of voting age has watched Apocalypse Now too often, and thinks that swift boats routinely took month long solo trips deep into Viet Cong territories, but that simply is not the case.

Let’s just get rid of the notion that only the people in his boat ‘served’ with him. Kerry was part of larger units- he was not in isolation- he served with everyone in the unit. Units were typically composed of “twenty-three officers and one hundred and twenty enlisted men divided into boat crews.” While the boats did have solitary missions, all the men in a unit knew everyone else.

When crews were not on missions, they were at their respective bases. For Kerry, he was stationed at Cam Ranh Bay and An Thois. The operative word- bases. There were living quarters, probably a supply depot, perhaps a small PX/BX, and probably meager dining facilities. This was no Holiday Inn by any stretch, but this was not Kerry and five men on a boat in the middle of a jungle for 4 months. He had continuous and repeated contact with the majority of the men, if not all, on both an operational and recreational basis. Here is one account of life on base:

While the crews were working on the boats, some of the officers left the Officer’s Club long enogh to notice that they had been promoted also. The following Officers-in-Charge have recently been promoted to Lieutenant:

Lieutenant Jerry E. MENIKHEIM
Lieutenant O. Keith EVANS

The crews lucky enough not to be on patrol on certain Sunday afternoons enjoyed beach parties. with lots of beer, bar-b-qued steaks and chicken, good times were had by all. The main event of each party was a football game between the officers and enlisted men. Although they played hard, the enlisted men couldn’t quite match the talents of their officers, and went down to defeat on several occasions. However, it always turned out to be an even match in the beer-drinking category. As an item of interest; during the recent basketball game the enlisted men lead the officers 50-48 at half time – it ended that way as the officers were unable to continue in the torrid Vietnam heat.

On other occasions the officers and men joined forces and represented Coastal Division THIRTEEN in the Cat Lo Naval Base football and basketball tournaments. The “Swifts” came out in first in football, and lost a well-played game in basketball to wind up in second place.

One more time- these men served with Kerry. They may not have been on his boat, but they worked with him, slept with him, ate with him, fought with him, and bled with him. Any notion that because they were not on the same boat with him they do not know him is absurd to the extreme. The notion that because the boats were 50 yards away when operating in a combat environment somehow disqualifies men from seving with each other is nothing more sheer idiocy. Boats probably routinely stayed that far away from each other, because boats close together are an easy target. Likewise, as with all moving vehicles in a tense combat situation, you want some space, because under gunfire and darkness, vehicles have a tendency of running into each other.

I was in an armor unit (a Cav Troop, really), on a tank with three other people. I was part of a platoon of 4 tanks, and a cav troop made up of nine tanks and 12 Bradley vehicles as well as a number of mortar, maintenance, and other support vehicles. Other than briefs refuels at LOGPAC in Assembly Areas, I spent my entire military career in the field more than 50 yards away from another tank. According to the criteria put forth by the Kerry campaign in this absurd press release, I only served with three people. Except I knew the majority of the guys like I know my brother.

I could go on and on about this- hell, even Kerry’s re-enacted home videos show his damned boat ten feet from three other boats. His Silver Star write-up details a mission involving 5 Sift boats. How the hell did they get there, when Kerry only ‘served’ with the men on his boat?

Keep your eye out- every Democratic talking head will be spewing this nonsense- watch for it and laugh.

4.) This is really what this campaign is all about to the Democrats- Power at any cost.

Kerry won’t release his plans for foreign and domestic policy. Thesum total of the campaign he is running on is the bifurcated platform that he is ‘not Bush’ and a ‘war hero,’ and now, we are not even allowed to question the latter of the two.

I am not going to tell you thatthe Swift BOat commercial is 100% accurate, and I am not going to tell you whether to believe the claims against Kerry. I trust that you are adults and will look into the issue for yourself.

I am going to tell you, however, that regardless of any of Kerry’s numerous shortcomings, a vote for Kerry/Edwards is a vote to put this un-serious, dishonest, scheming party back in power. That knowledge by itself should be enough for you to vote for Bush/Cheney in 2004.

Cease and DesistPost + Comments (18)

After spending over a year annointing a candidate with the bifurcated platform that Kerry is a war hero and not Bush, interviews like this have the Democrats shaking in their boots Birkenstocks:

WOODRUFF: Disingenuous. He says you are being disingenuous in not recalling what happened.

THURLOW: Let me ask Mr. Rassmann this question: I also ended up in the water that day during the rescue efforts on the 3-boat (ph). And my boat, the 51-boat (ph), came up, picked me up, business as usual. I got back on board, went about the business at hand.

I received no fire. But the thing I would like to ask is, we have five boats now, John’s returning, and four boats basically dead in the water, working on the 3-boat (ph). If we were receiving fire off the bank, how come not one single boat received one bullet hole, nobody was hit, no sign of any rounds hitting the water while I was in it?

Good question, actually.

What Has Them ReelingPost + Comments (12)

Kos provides the answers we have all wanted to know for ages:

I decided to start up my own election-themed site, Daily Kos. The site actually lived on fishyshark.com for a month as I tried to come up with a “serious” name for my new endeavour. Even though I eventually settled on “Daily Kos”, I considered it a failure at the time — I thought I should’ve come up with a more creative name. I selected orange as the site color so that it would stand out from the bloggy masses (branding 101).

In short time I caught Jerome’s attention, and we made a habit of linking back to each other on a constant basis. A few months later, Jerome (who invented the “open thread”) got sick of the flame wars on his message boards and followed Taegan’s lead by shutting his comments down. So everyone headed on over to Daily Kos.

And I was ready. I had learned my lessons from Political Wire and MyDD’s community failures, and immediately shut the door on the Republican commentors who had destroyed the previous sites’ communities. I zealously worked to create a “safe zone” for liberal political junkies, despite howls of “censorship” from both liberals and conservataives, and the community grew. October 2002, MyDD was the highest-trafficked liberal blog, but Jerome shut down soon thereafter as he focused his attentions on Howard Dean. So Daily Kos became the only liberal election analysis game in town.

That is the answer, if, of course, the question is “How do you shamelessly self-promote while creating a tin-foil hat groupthink cesspool for bitter and deluded fringe lefties?”

I shouldn’t be mocking them- I am perfectly content to let the Daily Kos serve as the standard bearer and public face for modern liberalism.

A Safe Place for LiberalsPost + Comments (4)