John Kerry questions Sam Fox a $50,000.00 contributor to the swift boat adds.

[sandrakae]

The video is up on crooksandliars.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/14814/1/Kerry-Fox-SBVT.wmv/


Sam Fox is a liar. Who the hell does not know who asked them to contribute 50 Grand. He is not ambassador material.

[JI7]

1. that ugly bitch O'Neill went on Hannity

saying Kerry was threatening him. based on thread in GD.

[iilana X]

2. When did this happen, was it recent?

I'm not here very often but I try to keep up on things.

[JI7]

3. on today's show

i didn't see it for myself. but someone posted about it in one of the forums.

[iilana X]

4. self delete for bad language n/t

[wisteria]

12. O'Neil was on Hannity last night and he was wimpy. n/t

[beachmom]

7. Can you provide a link to that thread? Thanks. nt

[Mass]

8. Here is the newshounds.us post about the Fox show.

http://www.newshounds.us/2007/03/01/on_fox_news_war_on_democrats_more_important_than_war_on_terror.php

[wisteria]

17. Thanks for posting this. n/t

[Mass]

5. The Herald has an editorial this morning that needs answers from those who can.

http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=185690&srvc=home

Title: "Politics turn personal"

[MBS]

6. this is an outrage n/t

[karynnj]

9. I don't see a link to respond -

This editorial will be seen as pretty silly by most readers. Anyone who says the SBVT "needled" Kerry in 2004 has no credibility. Millions of dollars of attack ads spewing proven lies is not needling - something like a man in a chicken suit appearing at the rally of someone unwilling to debate or something is needling. The editorial ignores that Fox said, not just that 527s were ugly, but that the SBVT lied about Senator Kerry.

Also, Kerry's questions were so politely and reasonably framed that try as they do, they don't make the point the editor wants to make. He is essentially saying that Kerry should not brought the issue up, that he should ignore that this guy paid for $50,000 worth of known lying ads at the end of a campaign. The editor should consider that the only reason Kerry's questions caused Fox to squirm was that they acted on Fox's own conscience. In retrospect, Fox likely could have ended the questions at any point had he said that he was sorry he did it or that he shouldn't have done it.

Kerry's only power here was to be able to ask questions. If there was something inherently wrong with Kerry asking "if two wrongs make a right", I seriously need to talk to my parents - my siblings and I heard that enough that some of us even quit using that type of excuse. This hardly makes Kerry a Democratic Jesse Helms. (Does this mean they are implicitly admitting that Helms was pretty nasty.)

They ignored that Kerry didn't even say he would vote against him or make an effort to get others to vote against him. He said he would try to be fair. That's a hell of a lot better than Fox was in October 2004 when he wrote a check to known liars.

[MBS]

10. here's their email address and my LTE

email address: [e-mail]

My submission:

What was shabby about the nomination hearing of Samuel Fox was not Sen. Kerry’s questioning of the nominee, but the Herald’s grotesque misrepresentation of what transpired.

As can easily be seen by viewing the video archive (http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/hearings/2007/hrg070227p.html; Kerry interrogation starts at about 1 hour 33 minutes), Sen. Kerry spent only the last third of his 1/2-hour interview on Swift Boat donations and related truth-distortion issues (as Sen. Obama noted, a discussion that was fully justified). Sen. Kerry spent the first 19 or 20 minutes quietly, calmly, courteously and authoritatively questioning Fox’s knowledge (or, more accurately, lack of knowledge) of Belgium, thoroughly demonstrating Fox’s utter lack of qualification to serve as ambassador of that country. Also, by my count, only 3 of the 21 members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—Sens. Kerry, Coleman, and Obama–were even present at their own hearing, and Sen. Kerry was the only committee member to ask the ambassadorial nominee any truly substantive questions.

All about him? Hardly. Sen. Kerry was one of the few committee members actually doing his job.

[wisteria]

15. Great letter! n/t

[karynnj]

20. Great letter - I hope they print it.

[wisteria]

13. All good thoughts and ovservations, you really should consider doing a letter to the editor.

Many people may unfortunately may have not given this as much thought as you and have as much information to take into consideration.

[karynnj]

21. Thanks to MBS's link, here is what I sent:

Politics did turn personal at the SFRC when Senator Kerry questioned a man, who in late October contributed $50,000 to the SBVT, and it should have. Anyone who says the SBVT "needled" Kerry in 2004 is a master of understatement. Millions of dollars of attack ads spewing proven lies is not needling - it is as Senator Obama said, a "perpetration of fraud". Fox himself said not only that 527s were ugly, but that the SBVT lied about Senator Kerry and that he was a war hero which they could not take away from him.

Kerry questioned why he wrote a check in October 2004, when he knew that the ads were untrue if he felt that way. Senator Kerry was soft spoken and reasonable throughout the questioning. The only reason Kerry's questions caused Fox to squirm was that they acted on Fox's own conscience. In retrospect, Fox likely could have ended that line of questioning by saying that he was sorry he did it or that he was wrong to have done so.

Kerry's only power here was to be able to ask questions. There was nothing inherently wrong with Kerry asking "if two wrongs make a right". Near the end of questioning, Kerry didn't even say he would vote against him. He said he would try to be fair. That's a lot nicer than Fox was in October 2004 when he wrote a check to known liars in the hopes of costing Kerry the Presidency.

[wisteria]

14. Sen. Kerry was performing his duty as a senator and a member of the SFRC.

Just about everyone else (excluding Obama) were giving Fox a free pass to Belgium. I remember Sen. Kerry's comments about receiving many calls asking for his support of Fox.
To damn bad the right wing was taken by surprise by someone doing there job- a enjoying it I might add. If it got personal, well I ask how could it not of with the obvious being known by all- Fox had given enough contributions to Repub causes to buy himself this position.

[_dynamicdems]

16. The Herald: Bathroom Reading.

I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

[wisteria]

18. LOL. The kind of paper placed on the floor when training a puppy. n/t

[whometense]

19. They were giving them away for free

yesterday at the Haymarket T stop.

Most people wouldn't take them.

'nuff said.

[_dynamicdems]

25. LOL! Sure does! n/t

[ProSense]

22. What's the difference between that and

what the Swift liars wrote?

[karynnj]

23. The Boston Herald didn't object to the characterizations of the SBVT

They simply are saying that Kerry was mean to this guy and wouldn't nicely compliment him or not come to the hearing. (It is interesting that they ignore that there were only 3 SFRC members there.

It's sad that those guys don't get that they are discredited - in fact the rollercoaster I felt - was that at the hearing, one nice thing was that neither Fox or Coleman attempted to defend the SBVT. Then I was blown away with the AP using "unsubstantiated, so it is interesting that the SBVT have a problem with the word too - and I did see it as better than the words used in 2004 - but we need them to go to debunked or some synonym.

[whometense]

11. Salon War Room: Kerry gets a turn

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/02/28/kerry/index.html

Kerry gets a turn

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Bush-Cheney "Ranger" Sam Fox contributed $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Now that Fox is the president's nominee to become the U.S. ambassador to Belgium -- a nomination that requires confirmation from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which John Kerry sits -- he seems to have had a change of heart about how his money was spent. If only he could remember.

As the Washington Post's Mary Ann Akers reports, Kerry grilled Fox about his Swift Boat contribution during his confirmation hearing Tuesday. In response, Fox told Kerry that he considers him "a hero" and that no 527 group could ever "take that away from him."

OK, then, Kerry asked, so why did you give money to a group that tried to do just that? "When we're asked, we give," Fox replied. He said later that he couldn't remember who had asked him for the contribution. And while he said that he thinks 527s should be outlawed and that he'd never give money to any group "if I thought what they were printing was not true," he also said that he "personally" would have "no way of knowing" whether a group's representations will turn out to be true at the time he's giving it cash.

-- Tim Grieve

<12:00 EST, Feb. 28, 2007>

Edited to add: :wtf:

[mloutre]

24. Update: Fox's other pet 527 group fined $750K for violating campaign finance laws in 2004

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x318655

[beachmom]

26. Found this good blog post:

http://plaidder.livejournal.com/242730.html

You have to see this. Instead of the self-indulgent grandstanding it might have been, what you've got in this confrontation is a guy who understands the concept of personal responsibility patiently and conclusively proving that the guy he's interrogating doesn't. While it is all very civilized and low-volume, the exchange is pretty intense. Fox is desperately uncomfortable at having to speak to the man he spent $50,000 to slander, and Kerry is very methodical and very measured, but also under that shell he's clearly very, very angry. Also interesting is the long list of quotations Kerry brings in of Republican political figures denouncing the SBVT ads in the months before Fox made his donation. It reminds you of how bad things got, and how obvious the lies were, and what a horrible thing it is that they nevertheless had a material impact on what has turned out to be a very important presidential election.

What was most interesting to me is the way Fox continues to insist that he bears absolutely no responsibility for what SBVT might have done with the money he gave them. Perhaps my favorite moment is when Kerry asks him whether he thought at all about whether or not to write that check--since he claims that he doesn't remember who asked for the money or how. And it is a little surreal to have a Republican making the argument that well, he's just an individual, what can he do about this evil thing? It's the government's responsibility to ban evil things like this so that people aren't forced to participate in them! It's like you listen to that and all over the country you can hear libertarians screaming at the screen in fury. (You know what the definition of "libertarian" is in American politics, right? A libertarian is an embarrassed Republican.)

[rox63]

27. That blog is by DU's own Plaid Adder - Cool! n/t