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Kerry Press Release: Latest on Efforts to Smear Kerry's Military Service

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Skinner ADMIN Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 11:01 AM
Original message
Kerry Press Release: Latest on Efforts to Smear Kerry's Military Service
For Immediate Release
August 31, 2004

Smear Boat Veterans Newsletter
(i)The Latest on the Failed Efforts to Smear John Kerry’s Military Service

August, 31, 2004 - Volume I, Edition 2

“By refusing to specifically condemn this smear, George W. Bush is insulting the military service not only of John Kerry but all veterans who have served this nation. President Bush could stop this smear right now. Yet he still refuses to heed Senator McCain's call to specifically condemn it,” said Kerry campaign spokesman, Chad Clanton.

$40 Million Memory – Smear Boat Veteran’s Fuzzy Memory Clear Up After Receiving Federal Contract From Bush Administration

Web Of Connections Grows Wider: $40 Million Contract From The Bush Administration And A “Swift Shift In Stories” Four days ago, retired naval Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. seconded accusations made by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth seeking to discredit Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry's record in Vietnam. But since then, Democrats have discovered that Schachte is also a long-standing supporter of President Bush and a lobbyist whose client FastShip Inc. recently won a $40 million grant from the federal government. According to a March 18 legal filing by Schachtes firm, Blank Rome, Schachte was one of the lobbyists working for FastShip on issues such as the effort to win funding for a new marine cargo terminal. On Feb. 2, Philadelphia-based FastShip announced that it would receive $40 million in federal funding for the project. In addition, David Norcross, Schachte’s colleague in the Washington office of Blank Rome, is chairman of this week's Republican convention in New York. Records also show that Schachte gave $1,000 to Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns. (Washington Post, 8/30/04)

RNC Delegates Wear Fake Purple Hearts to Convention in an Effort to Smear John Kerry

Bush Republican Delegates Wear ‘Fake Purple Hearts’ To Smear Kerry. “Convention-goers were handed bandages with purple hearts on them Monday night by a GOP delegate in a swipe at Democratic nominee John Kerry's war record. The bandages were handed out by Morton Blackwell, a longtime GOP activist from Virginia, with the message: ‘It was just a self-inflicted scratch, but you see I got a Purple Heart for it.’ ” (AP, 8/31/04)

WEB OF CONNECTIONS CONTINUES TO GROW: Fake Purple Heart Effort Comes Back to Karl Rove

Fake Purple Heart Organizer Trained Karl Rove. "The Democrats believe that the reason for their late close was an unusually intense and effective get-out-the-vote effort, and there is evidence that Rove agrees. Ten days after the election, Morton Blackwell, a former national executive director of the College Republicans, who had been out of touch with Rove for years, picked up the phone and heard that familiar booming voice on the other end of the line: "Morton, how does it feel to have advocated something for decades and have it come true?" What Blackwell had been advocating for decades, ever since he trained the teen-age Karl Rove to be a field organizer, was that people in politics should pay less attention to consultants, television advertising, polls, and 'message,' and more attention to the old-fashioned side of the business: registering voters, organizing volunteers, making face-to-face contact during the last days of a campaign, and getting people to the polls on Election Day. Soon, Rove had launched a project called the 72-Hour Task Force, which conducted scientific experiments in grassroots political organizing during the three days before Election Day in five geographically scattered races in 2001." (New Yorker, 5/12/03)

Karl Rove Consulted With Blackwell on Political Strategy. “The demise of the effort of small-state Republicans to substitute sanity for insanity in the way their party selects its presidential nominee was a triumph of self-interest by their large-state counterparts with a decisive boost from a similarly self-interested George W. Bush camp. It seemed headed for the convention floor this week - until the word was passed by way of chief Bush strategist Karl Rove to one of the plan's supporters, Morton Blackwell of Virginia, that the Bush forces didn't want the so-called Delaware plan letting small states hold primaries first and having the largest states go last.” (Baltimore Sun, 7/31/00)

McCain Speaks Out Against These “Garbage” Ads -- Says Questioning Kerry’s Medals Questions Everyone’s Medals

McCain Says He'll Talk To The President About The Smear: "Mr. McCain's comments on Sunday night were so much more vehement than any I had heard him make before that I asked him whether he thought the president had acted sufficiently boldly on the issue of the commercials. Not yet, he said. In that case, would he bring the matter up again with Mr. Bush? "Yes, I will," he said. (NY Times, 8/31/04)

McCain Finds Swift Boat Ads “Completely Nauseating” Mr. McCain grew agitated about the television commercials sponsored by a group of Vietnam veterans who question the war record of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee, and specifically his entitlement to the medals that he won. He found the advertisements ‘completely nauseating’ ” (New York Times, 8/31/04)

Questioning Kerry’s Medals Means Questioning Everybody’s Medals. "If they question Kerry's medals," he said, "they question everybody's medals. All those men who found it so hard to come home, who found so little gratitude for their sacrifices when they got here, are going to feel mistreated again. The families of the people whose names are on the monument in Washington will feel wronged, too. The painful wounds we all worked so hard to close will all be reopened. (New York Times, 8/31/04)

“We've Got To Get That Garbage Off the Air As Soon As We Can.” – John McCain (New York Times, 8/31/04)

-30-

www.johnkerry.com
Paid for by Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc.
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G_j Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 11:13 AM
Response to Original message
1. kick!
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Jacobin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 11:19 AM
Response to Original message
2. I can't help thinking
that the Kerry campaign would do better by going on the offensive on the mounds of idiotic things Smirk has done and said over the last 3 years, rather than continuing to wipe off the slime that Rove threw.

By continuing to defend his service, he is merely keeping this false controversy on the air and re-playing the sliming.

I don't think this is working very well. This is not a matter of "loyalty" to the Kerry campaign. This is an earnest concern of mine
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rocktivity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 11:21 AM
Response to Original message
3. This is ridiculous--who side is McCain ON?
Edited on Tue Aug-31-04 11:25 AM by rocknation
If McCain finds the ads nauseating, but he can't convince Bush to condemn them, and he now knows that the smear-boaters have direct and ILLEGAL ties to the Bush campaign, WHY DOESN'T HE QUIT???? Kerry really needs to start re-running that "Old Tricks" ad--it couldn't possibly make McCain sound any LESS lucid!

:headbang:
rocknation
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leftchick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 11:26 AM
Response to Original message
4. isn't there a Democratic "war room" in NYC?
I think they should run with the band aid thing. Get some faces on TV for cripes sakes! I can tell if this is handled correctly and quickly it will make the repukes look like the heartless creeps that they are.
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goodhue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 11:27 AM
Response to Original message
5. bigtree beat you to it
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bigtree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 11:37 AM
Response to Reply #5
6. Hey, I can go sit on my ass now that Skinner has the helm.
:smoke:
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rocktivity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 12:14 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. Not so fast, Bigtree
As the Bush campaign commands an exquisitely directed convention, the faltering Kerry campaign might be on the verge of a major shake-up," the Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt reports. Aides says Kerry is "bouncing off the walls" in frustration.
More

The "faltering" part is a crock, of course--all in all, Kerry's done an admirable job of holding his head above water. All he has to do now is start using some common sense (and getting more national media face time). There is nothing that Bush can beat him on, especially now that he's been caught in the lie about the Smear-Boaters and has flipped-flopped on winning the war terror. All has to do is calmly and methodically point that out!

:headbang:
rocknation
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The Spirit of JFK Donating Member (528 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 11:59 AM
Response to Original message
7. "I'll show you my war records...you show me yours" debate should be next
I agree...by constantly going on the defensive it keeps the doubt ligerering.

There should be 3 paragraphs...the first two detailing the Bush/Cheney/Rove-SwitBoatLiars connections....the McCain statements....and how the purple heart bandaids is an insult to everyone who has served.

The last paragraph shoulsd simply say..."If the Republicans wish to make personal war records an issue of character and leadership, then I invite THEIR leader, President Bush, whose wealthy family snuck him into the National Guard where he not only failed his pilots test but also went AWOL, to meet me at X place and time for a live roundtable discussion regarding our records as well as miltary affairs. And don't forget to bring your military records."

I think he should schedule the roundtable even before he does this...
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bigtree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 12:08 PM
Response to Original message
8. Fuzzy Wuzzy
’E ’as n’t got no papers of ’is own,
’E ’as n’t got no medals nor rewards,
So we must certify the skill ’e ’s shown
In usin’ of ’is long two-’anded swords:
When ’e ’s ’oppin’ in an’ out among the bush
With ’is coffin-’eaded shield an’ shovel-spear,

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
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bigtree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 10:25 PM
Response to Original message
10. kick
:kick:
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ItsMyParty Donating Member (835 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 10:30 PM
Response to Original message
11. okay---that's like the 10,000th press release by the Kerry campaign
Nice. But except us, who is reading this?? Why can't the words be spoken in public by either Kerry or Edwards? I feel like I'm reading legal briefs. They have to find a way to get these various 'messages' on many fronts actually into the news.
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NightOwwl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-31-04 10:58 PM
Response to Original message
12. Gee whiz willickers. Another press release.
It's been weeks and still defending the Smears. Hello Kerry campaign? Anyone home?

I really hate this phrase, but I think it's appropriate right now:
Kerry needs to shit or get off the pot.







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