REPUBLICANS and CHENEY cut MORE DEFENSE than Kerry

[LynnTheDem]

And unfortunately for the rightwingnuts, THAT is a FACT.

The freeping rightwingnuts can IGNORE the FACTS; they can BURY THEIR HEADS IN THE SAND; but the FACTS are still the FACTS. :)

The bush campaign claims that Kerry opposed a list of mainstream military hardware "vital to winning the war on terror."

LIE.

The Bush campaign bases its claim mainly on Kerry's votes against overall Pentagon money bills in 1990, 1995 and 1996, but these were not votes against specific weapons. And in fact, Kerry voted for Pentagon authorization bills in 16 of the 19 years he's been in the Senate.

So even by the Bush campaign's twisted logic, Kerry should -- on balance -- be called a supporter of the "vital" weapons, more so than an opponent.

CHENEY wanted same AND MORE defense cuts:

Richard Cheney himself, who then was Secretary of Defense, also proposed canceling the Apache helicopter program five years after Kerry did. As Cheney told the House Armed Services Committee on Aug. 13, 1989:

Cheney: The Army, as I indicated in my earlier testimony, recommended to me that we keep a robust Apache helicopter program going forward, AH-64; . . . I forced the Army to make choices. I said, "You can't have all three. We don't have the money for all three." So I recommended that we cancel the AH-64 program two years out. That would save $1.6 billion in procurement and $200 million in spares over the next five years.

-Richard Cheney "Hearings of the House Armed Services Committee, Fiscal 1990 Defense Budget" 13 July 1989

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@docID=177.html

Two years later Cheney's Pentagon budget also proposed elimination of further production of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle as well. It was among 81 Pentagon programs targeted for termination, including the F-14 and F-16 aircraft.

"Cheney decided the military already has enough of these weapons," the Boston Globe reported at the time.

-Fred Kaplan "Bush's 1992 Budget: Plan includes a $ 3.7b military cut" Boston Globe, 5 Feb 1991

Republicans did BIGGER DEFENSE CUT than Kerry proposed:

President George H.W. Bush proposed shutting down production of the B-2 bomber and pledged to cut defense spending by 30 percent in eight years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57627-2004Sep2.html

What Kerry voted for in 1994 was an amendment that he himself had proposed, which included a cut in intelligence funding of $1 billion in 1994, and to cap spending at that level through 1998. That would amount to a $5-billion cut over five years, somewhere between 3% and 4% of estimated US intelligence spending at the time.

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@docID=209.html

bush/cheney; putting ERROR in TERROR since 2001

[ogradda]

1. they are good at twisting things

what amazes me is how people let them get away with it.

[LynnTheDem]

2. So we DON'T let them get away with it.

We SINCLAIR any media who tries. ;)

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. They have been letting them get away with it for 15 years now.

I pointed out to a right-winger that it was a Republican (Armitage?) who was behind the first military closings in the 80s, and he said, "Oh, yeah, well those needed to be closed."

That's how idealogues think. They reached the conclusion first, and then the data gets molded around it.