What if Kerry had done what Obama just did

[mindfulNJ]

when he was being swiftboated? If he had come out on denounced the Swiftliars immediately and forcefully? I think we all would now be working to re-elect the president.:)


Go Obama! Full steam ahead!

[Aloha Spirit]

1. right on!

[Bensthename]

2. You are right.. Kerry has said the same thing..

[Coexist]

amen

[barack the house]

3. We know the rules of the game this time, so does wright and so does Obama.

[ProSense]

5. Exactly. n/t

[LakeSamish706]

4. I think you are probably correct. Kerry was not forceful enough in many ways IMO...

He should not have taken the last defeat so easily either IMO... He should have fought it and looked into the known voter fraud, especially in Ohio.

[mindfulNJ]

9. I suppose, to be fair

it was a different world back in '04...everyone was walking on eggshells...by everyone I mean Democrats.;-)

[samsingh]

23. only democrats. repugs were having a disgusting party

causing death, destruction, dismantling the constitution, violating laws, and anything else they wanted. they will remember them as the good old days when repugs could do no wrong and democrats were wimps and afraid to say anyting that mind offend repugs.

[goclark]

50. And there are still Democrats that have to ask"Grappy May I "

Sen. McCain has experience, I have experience etc.

All honor to the Great King McCain at the expense of her Democratic Party candidate.

[politicasista]

41. To also be fair

I too am supporting Obama, but it's time that we need to leave Kerry alone. He isn't running in this primary and has been one of Obama's strongest surrogates. We need to focus on 2008, getting Obama to Denver, and into the WH, not 2004.

[Astrad]

6. He didn't dencounce the swiftliars

To do that he would have had to attack the media and the Clinton campaign and Republicans for focussing on such a trivial issue and for playing McArthyistic politics of guilt by association. I didn't hear him do any of that. He already said the questions being raised by the swiftliars are 'legitimate'.

I thought he did a great job by the way but I didn't hear any denunciation other than of Wright.

[niyad]

7. difference is, the swiftboaters were liars, wright is simply preaching what he has been

preaching for many years. and for obama to claim that he doesn't know wright as well as he thought is disingenuous, to say the least. guess he wasn't paying attention the last 20 years

[Hamlette]

18. really?

Obama knew Wright would say he was just another politician saying whatever he needed to say to get elected?

That was part of some Sunday service?

Obama knew Wright would throw him under the bus for not being mad enough a whitie? That was in a sermon Obama attended? That if Obama got close Wright would threaten him instead of joining him? Obama would have known that?

I don't think so. But I suppose you could be right. Which means one of two things is true: Obama is a cynic manipulating a large church for political gain or Obama has a self destructive streak a mile wide.

Since I personally believe no one could possibly believe in god I tend to think it is the former.

Or, maybe Obama is not lying.

What a concept.

Its a particularily difficult concept for Hillary supporters because as brilliant and talented as she is, she and her husband do not seem to have a conscience which makes lying easy for them. Or so it seems.

[samsingh]

24. hillary now knows mellon scaife

is she denouncing him?

[Carrieyazel]

8. It wouldn't have made any difference for Kerry. He still would have lost narrowly.

The media would have painted him as getting overly defensive about his military record.
He was in a bad position. Trying to take out the thieves is an inherently difficult thing; and only a short time after 9/11.

[karynnj]

27. I think you are right - and had he spent a large

amount of money fighting it - he would have not had the money needed in the fall and would have been criticized as vain in fighting personal attacks.

I've talked to some Bush voters who could have been swing voters. Their answer stunned me - though it was close to what Senator Kerry said that too many had bonded with Bush in the wake of 911 and the war was only a year and a half old - they were still ralling around the President. I was told that in WWII, you did not question the decision to go to war when you were in it - and Kerry did. You also did not second guess how it was fought - which Kerry did. They said they knew the SBVT were liars - adn one loved THK.

The problem is that it is very hard to fight something the "supposedly neutral" media propagates - finding ways to counter it is essential to 2008. I think by November most reasonable people knew that the Navy account was accurate - what the SBVT cost was that Kerry's crews accounts showed him to be an exceptional leader - compassionate, dedicated and committed. The attempt was to destroy Kerry's character witnesses here. Here's a link to what Kerry himself did say in August 2004 in what was billed his response - if you didn't see it, blame the media that gave tons of free time to the SBVT. http://www.kerryvision.net/2007/08/jk_the_fire_fighters.html

There was a second - almost more disgusting swiftboating. Every Clintonista seemed to feel it necessary to give there 2 cents about Kerry "not fighting back" contrasting it with HRC. These accounts ignored that the Kerry team fought back by insuring the media had the truth - which they had before the attack in the form of 100 plus pages of Naval records - with glowing fitness reports that spanned the interval. They had Nixon tapes showing they looked for dirt and found none. They had a book by an academic historian over which Kerry had no editorial control. Brinkley spoke to some future SBVT in the 100 plus people he interviewed. This was about 2 years earlier - and most were very positive about Kerry. Now, remember what Clinton's war room did on the darft story or Gennifer Flowers. Any one of those Kerry items would equal more than the sum that was done on any Clinton story - where the norm was a sequence of stories, scapegoating than a partial admission.

[goclark]

53. Those old voting machines in Ohio and suppressed votes

and Blackwell doing the dirty work.

[wisteria]

61. Excellent points. n/t

[MonkeyFunk]

10. Well

maybe after 20 years, he'll do what you want.

[WeDidIt]

11. Yep

They thought they'd let it go, and it killed him.

Obama let Wright go, but the issue continued to fester and fester under the surface.

Wirght did Obama a huge favor. Now, nobody can tie him to anything outrageous he says. In fact, Wright now has a microphone to say whatever he wants, and he can tear into John McCain like there's no tomorrow and it cannot be tied to Obama.

[DefenseLawyer]

12. He should have called George Bush a liar too

Thank god the Bob Shrums of the world don't have Obama's ear.

[fedupinBushcountry]

13. Excuse me

but the Swift boat liers came out first in April '03 and Kerry did denounce them during the PRIMARY, oh and by the way he won. Please, John Kerry is one of Barack's best surrogates and supporters so cut the crap. Also the SBL did not take the win from John Kerry, in fact look at his poll #'s through Aug. '04 he was in the lead all month, the only time he fell behind was after the Repub hatefest convention. I'm sure that Kerry has given Barack a few tips on how to deal with the garbage that is going on now and it looks like so far it is working, but just like Kerry the MSM will play that it is not.

[politicasista]

47. Thank you n/t

[BlueIris]

56. What's this, a post by a sane person?

Thanks for brining the sanity. It's in ultra-short supply around here.

[fedupinBushcountry]

75. Correction

April '04. Also here is a transcript that John Kerry had with Charlie Gibson who was just as raunchy then as he is now.

ABC News Transcript: Interview With John Kerry


ABC NEWS' CHARLES GIBSON: Now joining us from West Virginia is himself Sen. John Kerry. He is in the town of Glen Easton, West Virginia, today. Senator, good to have you with us.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Charlie, I'm glad to be with you. I really am.

GIBSON: 1984, Senator, to the present, you have said a number of times — as recently as Friday with the Los Angeles Times, you've said a number of times that you did not throw away the Vietnam medals themselves. But now this interview from 1971 shows up in which you say that it was the medals themselves that were thrown away.

KERRY: No, I don't. That's wrong, Charlie.

GIBSON: Can you explain the discrepancy?

KERRY: Absolutely. That is absolutely incorrect. Charlie, I stood up in front of the nation. There were dozens of cameras there, television cameras. There were, I don't know, 20, 30 still photographers. Thousands of people. And I stood up in front of the country, reached into my shirt, visibly for the nation to see, and took the ribbons off my chest, said a few words and threw them over the fence. The file footage, the reporter there from The Boston Globe, everybody got it correctly. And I never asserted otherwise. What I said was, and back then, you know, ribbons, medals were absolutely interchangeable. Sen. Symington in asking me questions in the committee hearing, looked at the ribbons and said, "What are those medals?" The U.S. Navy pamphlet calls them medals. We all referred to them as the symbols, they were representing medals, ribbons. Countless veterans threw the ribbons back, Charlie. Everybody did. Veterans threw back dog tags. They threw back photographs. They threw back their DV214s. There are photographs of a pile of all of those things collected on the steps of the Capitol.

GIBSON: But —

KERRY: So the fact is that I have, I have been accurate precisely about what took place. And I am the one who later made clear exactly what happened. I mean, it's just, this is a controversy that the Republicans are pushing, the Republicans have spent $60 million in the last few weeks trying to attack me, and this comes from a president and a Republican Party that can't even answer whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. I'm not going to stand for it.

GIBSON: Well, Senator, I was there 33 years ago. I saw you throw medals over the fence and we didn't find out till later that those were …

KERRY: No, you didn't see me throw. Wrong.

GIBSON: Those were someone's medals.

KERRY: Charlie, Charlie, you're wrong. That is not what happened. I threw my ribbons across. And all you have to do is go back and find the file footage.

GIBSON: And someone else's medals? And someone else's medals, correct?

KERRY: Later, after, excuse me. Excuse me, Charlie. After the ceremony was over, I had a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart given to me, one Purple Heart by a veteran in the VA in New York and the Bronze Star by an older veteran of World War II in Massachusetts.

GIBSON: But, but …

KERRY: And I threw them over 'cause they asked me to. I never, never —

GIBSON: But, Senator, let me, let me come back to this, the thing you just said which is that the military makes no distinction —

KERRY: This is a phony, Charlie, this is a phony controversy.

GIBSON: — that the military makes no distinction, that the military makes no distinction between ribbons and medals, but you're the one who made the distinction. In 1984 —

KERRY: No. We made no distinction back then, Charlie. We made no distinction in 1971.

GIBSON: But, but 1984, Senator, I don't want to argue with you —

KERRY: Correct.

GIBSON: I just want to ask the question. In 1984, when you were running for the Senate, that was the first time that you called someone in from labor because they were upset that you had thrown ribbons away.

KERRY: No, someone from labor —

GIBSON: You called them in and you made the distinction and said, I didn't throw my medals away, I just threw the ribbons away. You made the distinction.

KERRY: I was asked specifically in greater detail about what took place. And I answered the question truthfully. Which was exactly consistent with what happened in 1971. I mean, Charlie, go back and get the file footage. There were millions of people watching on television. I stood up in front of the nation and I took my ribbons off my chest just as other veterans did. This is a phony controversy. This is being pushed yesterday by Karen Hughes of the White House on Fox. It shows up at a several different stations at the same time. The Republicans are running $10 million this week to attack my credentials on defense. This comes from a president who can't even show or prove that he showed up for duty in the National Guard. And I'm not going to stand for it.

GIBSON: I understand.

KERRY: I'm not going to stand for it.

GIBSON: I understand you're feeling that politics is behind this. But I ask you, is it not fair —

KERRY: I know politics is behind this, because —

GIBSON: Is it not fair to draw the inference that when trying to appeal to the antiwar people in 1971, you said, as in that interview, it was the medals, and then when the people who supported the war were giving you political problems, you then said, no, I didn't throw the medals away 13 years later?

KERRY: Charlie, that's the most, with all due respect, that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Because I stood up in front of the country, in front of cameras, Tom Oliphant of The Boston Globe got it correct. He wrote about the medals, but he knew they were my ribbons. Everybody understood what we were doing. I even said in that interview that we threw away the symbols of what our country gave us for what we had gone through. And if I was, you know, back then, incidentally, trying to appeal to somebody, I stood up against Richard Nixon, stood up against the war, took a position. It wasn't popular, it was polarizing. I didn't have to do it. If I was trying to hide something, I would have never stood there in front of everybody and thrown them over the fence. I threw my ribbons over. I threw the medals of two veterans who asked me to throw them over, after the ceremony, completely separate. And I'm the one, if I have something to hide, I'm the one who made it known exactly what happened. To me, it's one in the same. And I'm proud of it.

GIBSON: Let me ask you, too, about two other things that you have said subsequent to that.

KERRY: Sure.

GIBSON: In 1985, you said to The Washington Post, "It is such a personal thing, I did not want to throw my medals away." Then, in 1996, you said to The Boston Globe, I didn't bring my own medals to throw because I didn't have time to go home and get them. Which one was it? Did you want to throw the medals away or not?

KERRY: That's accurate. I've expressed that there was great, sort of, sense of wrenching about the whole thing. Many of us, we had a long argument the night before, Charlie, it's a matter of record, as to how we were going to do it. And the vote was taken. I was not in favor of throwing them over the fence. I thought we ought to lay them on a table and put them in front of people in a way that, you know, wouldn't be as challenging to many Americans. Other veterans felt otherwise. They took a vote. The vote was made. They voted to throw. I threw my ribbons. I didn't have my medals. It's very simple. And what the Republicans are trying to do is make this into an issue because they have no record to run on. They can't go out and talk about jobs or health care or the environment. So they're going to attack 35 years ago. Last week in an unprecedented attack, they sent congressmen to the floor of the Senate, of the House, to attack me on the anniversary of my speech. George Bush has yet to explain to America whether or not, and tell the truth, about whether he showed up for duty. I'm not going to get attacked on something that I did, that is a matter of record, that the press saw, that I did in front of the entire nation, and everyone then understood. There was no distinction. We threw away the symbols of the war. I'm proud I stood up and fought against it. Proud I took on Richard Nixon. And I think, to this day, there's no distinction between the two.

GIBSON: All right. Senator, I appreciate your being with us this morning. I'm glad to have you here. Thank you.

KERRY: Thank you.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2004/story?id=123457&page=1">link

[blm]

14. Kerry DID do that AND challenged Bush to debate their services instead of hiding behind the swifts.

Corporate media REFUSED to broadcast Kerry's speech to the Firefighters Convention where he made that attack on Aug 19, 2004. Few news casts even gave the speech coverage and let the challenge to Bush go unreported.

Many here at DU aren't even aware of it because corpmedia DID NOT WANT the public to hear that speech and didn't want public to SEE the Firefighters supporting Kerry's candidacy.

Dan Rather has admitted that corp media NEEDED Bush protected for the favorable rulings they expected on media expansion and ownership in a Bush second term.

Why do so many of you promote the corpmedia's lies, anyway?

[mindfulNJ]

19. You are right about the media

and I love Kerry...but even he now doesn't think he was forceful enough about it. Here's a quote from him earlier this month:

Kerry told the crowd he did not think Obama would be victimized by GOP attacks the way he was in 2004 by the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." Kerry took responsibility for not fighting the Swift Boat assaults more effectively, but he said advisors, including Bill Clinton, suggested he not defend himself aggressively.

"We didn't lose to them, I didn't lose to them, because we didn't answer it with the truth," Kerry said. "We did. We just didn't do it enough."

He said his campaign did not put enough money behind a campaign to counter the Swift Boat ads.

"We're not gonna get that close" to repeating the mistake, Kerry said. "We're just gonna come right back so hard and so fast."

[blm]

21. What else is he going to say? What they did WASN'T enough to change the media narrative because

media would NEVER have had enough BY DESIGN.

And swifts DIDN'T short circuit the election, anyway - the RNC stole that election for Bush and the DNC under Terry McAuliffe made sure they could.

Another thing - had Obama's speeches countering the attacks about Wright, race or being 'Muslim' NOT get any broadcast and little reporting by the newsmedia WHILE they played those attacks on Obama over and over again - THEN it would be similar to swifts.

Obama is getting something corpmedia REFUSED Kerry in their efforts to protect Bush's second term and their media empires - COVERAGE and BROADCAST AIRTIME.

[karynnj]

29. Kerry in other interviews - gave exactly this reason

to support Obama if he goes outside federal campaign financing - had Kerry put more money behind it - he would have had less later in the fall.

For Kerry, he has to admit that clearly something didn't work. The fact is that he would look awful saying what we can - that the media was complicit. Think of how they treated the purple heart bandaids as if they were 2004s novelty hats - silly but nothing to get upset about. I seriously think that if John McCain comes to my county I would love to go and ask if it occurred to him as a vet, who intimately knew what that medal stood for - not heroism but the fact that a soldier/sailor was wounded in service - why he didn't ask that they be removed while he spoke in deference to him and the men currently being wounded in service. If for a moment you think the media was playing fair - think of the lack of outrage on that. Think of the how GHWB was blasted for his hatefest that looked mild in comparision. The coverage of the hatefest as a great convention and the attacks on the Kerry convention they praised the month before are a good clue that things were not fair. The week of and the week after the convention are when Kerry's numbers went down. Had it not been for his impressive debate performances, it would have been a land slide.

The sad thing is that even now, the media ignores Kerry's quiet achievements. Remember the Bali conference. Remember how the story when Gore spoke was mostly that the US was an outlaw and there would be no treaty. Then a few weeks later, they were able to agree to a treaty - starting the process this time. Well, last week there was some discussion in the Senate on it. Because the Senate opted to schedule votes late the week before and early the week afterwards - there were just 4 days available and only one person in the Congress went - flying 40 hours round trip to spend 36 hours in Bali - that was Kerry. Kerry had also been involved in the lead up to the convention. from an earth day SFRC hearing: Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat (around 4 minutes in) said:

"The fact that we had a treaty was significantly due to the fact that Senator Kerry was there. He was a virtual part of our negotiating team, without his day and night support and lobbying of the EU. we would not have gotten a treaty.

http://www.kerryvision.net/2008/04/in_defense_of_treehuggers.html#comments(I was surprised to see this on Kerryvision because I had heard nothing on this and it was the same day Kerry did an amazing job on the Future of the Internet hearing.

In January, the President’s chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, James Connaughton, spoke before the SFRC hearing chaired by Senator Menendez. Mr. Connaughton was part of the President’s delegation who attended the second week of the Bali Conference. Because of the Senate schedule, Senator Kerry flew 40 hours round trip to spend 36 hours as the sole US Congressional representative to the conference. At a SFRC hearing earlier this year, Mr. Connaughton, who represented President Bush said:
“I would particularly also want to call out thanks to Senator Kerry for coming to Bali. I would note that the remarks he gave in Bali were very constructive in helping to educate the international community on the needs, what it would take for America to move forward together in a bi-partisan way. I thought those remarks were very well received. Senator Kerry, thank you for that.”
Listening to the hearing, the Senator is praised for his leadership on this issue by both Republicans and Democrats. http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/hearings/2008/hrg080124p.html

Did anyone read anything about this in the MSM. The Boston Globe bearly covered that he went to Bali.

[monmouth]

15. He'd be the POTUS that Barack's going to replace...n/t

[karynnj]

30. If he were President, Barach would not be running

[knixphan]

16. true true true

[Tyler Durden]

17. Kerry didn't call the SWIFTBOATERS his "Spiritual Advisors"

Or dedicate books to them.

You're whistling in the dark. Oh and in case you think I'm boosting for Clinton here, for blowing a 13% LEAD over the entire Republican Party...

Here's to BOTH campaigns: SUCKIN' MY DICK!

[Cha]

49. Yeah, you and your thing are

fookin' whiners.

[grannylib]

20. I agree. The proudest moment of Kerry's campaign, in my opinion,

was when he refused to apologize for saying that the Imbecile MisAdministration was the most corrupt, dishonest, etc. etc. etc., Hubby and I were literally CHEERING at the idiot box screen...
I wish he had done that; we might have been spared the REAL idiocy of the last several years...although there's still Diebold and ES&S and other election fraud on the part of the reThuglicans, so we can't write all of it off to poor campaign strategy/execution.

[karynnj]

31. He did - the media hid it

http://www.kerryvision.net/2007/08/jk_the_fire_fighters.html

Kerry billed it as the major response - yet I will be surprised if you saw it - I saw it only on the internet - I think linked from the K/E blog - though I'm not positive.

[politicasista]

63. Exactly

with your post.

I loved that "these guys are the most crooked, lying group" he had ever seen line. That was priceless. :)

[samsingh]

22. did i miss something? what did Obama just do?

[high density]

35. Watch the speech for yourself...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24372040#24372040

Or read the coverage of it: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24371827/

[samsingh]

57. thanks

[karynnj]

25. He did:

He batted them away twice in the primaries - once by putting up over 100 pages of Naval records - all glowing on his website. The second time by announcing a counter press conference with his crew and Cleland - and the SBVT canceled. In the General Election, he spoke before the Firefighters conference and gave a speech - it was in the midst of the SBVT charges when they were given thousands of hours of free media. This was billed by the Kerry team as Kerry's major response - many stations failed to cover it.

Now think of that - the SBVT completely contradicted the official NAVY record which the media had had since APRIL 2004, yet they were asked for no proof and were like cockroaches all over cable TV. The Democratic nominee for President, a decorated war veteran spoke - it was short and strong - and he was NOT given coverage.

Here is a link - go to the little Kerry picture - http://www.kerryvision.net/2007/08/jk_the_fire_fighters.html (The earlier video was something put together by the Worcester, MA firemen for the national convention - that I never saw until it was posted there.

I do think that Obama - partly because he has the advantage of Kerry's experience has been working hard to counter the lies. The one caveat before declaring victory is that Kerry with huge ease got rid of the SBVT in spring and he was very classy and professional in squelching the "intern" stories. What is clear is that all the Democrats need to have the nominees back - and many didn't in 2004.

[fedupinBushcountry]

26. The facts:

August 19, 2004

Kerry blasts Bush
over veterans' ad
Says president allows
others to do 'dirty work'



BOSTON - John Kerry fought back Thursday against campaign allegations that he exaggerated his combat record in Vietnam, accusing President Bush of using a Republican front group “to do his dirty work” and challenging Bush to debate their wartime service records.

“Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: Bring it on,” said the Democratic presidential candidate, reviving an old war and campaign slogan amid strong urging from party leaders for him to respond to two-week-old GOP assertions.

As Kerry denounced the criticism as “lies about my record,” aides privately acknowledged that they and their boss had been slow to recognize the damage being done to his political standing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5758982/">more

If you look at that article you see exactly what the media did and how they spun it.

Also watch Kerry's response http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/5758684#5758684">here
and the http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/5758686#5758686">response ad

[politicasista]

33. Thanks n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

28. No, what Obama is doing now is a little "Sister Souljah" number when he could be

Attempting to unify Americans by rejecting these calls to hatred and McCarthyism.

Kerry never REPUDIATED his wife for starting the Tides foundation or
REPUDIATED that guy whose life he saved after the SBVT alleged it was
all a lie.

[karynnj]

32. THK did not start the Tides foundation

The only connection was that THK's foundation did fund some work - absolutely non controversial that was done. (I assume you were not implying that but needing something as an example. )

I do agree with your comment that this is different and it is as you said Obama distancing himself from a controversial person close to him. Kerry of course knew some of the SBVT but in his case he was the victim of a Bush smear attack that used the SBVT.

[NJSecularist]

34. Kerry had a same day press conference to fight off these attacks just like Obama did.

Some of you think it is as easy as calling a press conference to stop these attacks from occuring. It isn't. If it was, Kerry would be president right now.

You can't just call a same-day press conference and expect the issue to go away. That never happens. Kerry was forceful and it still didn't matter.

The reason Kerry lost was not because he didn't have a press conference about the SBVT group... he did. Many times. Kerry lost because he accepted public financing earlier in the campaign. He had a spending limit of $85 million, as did Bush. The difference was that our convention was 13 weeks before the election and Bush's convention was 8 weeks before the election. You get your public financing money after the convention. So we had to use our $85 million over 13 weeks while they could use it over 8 weeks. Thus, we had to go off the air in August so we could save up the money for the final few days of the campaign to spend in Ohio and Florida. The SBVT ads went on air in August. They defined Kerry. He couldn't fight back because he didn't have enough money.

[Exilednight]

36. Kerry never held a press confrence about the swift boaters. The battle he chose to fight was.......

about whether he threw his medals off a bridge, and then he flip flopped on the subject and dug himself a deeper hole.

[fedupinBushcountry]

37. Off a bridge?

Is that you Karl Rove? What garbage, your poor response just proves how little you know about what actually happened. I guess you didn't vote for Kerry since you believed all the lies of scum.

Kerry campaign's quick response to Swift boat vets
By Marie Horrigan
UPI Deputy Americas Editor
Washington, DC, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The campaign for Democratic Party presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts issued an exhaustively researched and extensively sourced 36-page refutation Thursday of allegations Kerry lied about events during his service in Vietnam, including how and why he received medals, and had fled the scene of a battle.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358x2555">link

[Exilednight]

38. I didn't say I believed it, I said that was the battle he chose to fight. I see that ..............

reading comprehension is not your strong suit.

[ray of light]

44. not to be rude, but Kerry actually did fight the swiftboat liars...in papers

and media across this nation, his fellow swift-boaters went before the media and called out those liars. There was a reporter William Rood from Chicago who had such horrible memories of Vietnam that he swore he would NEVER discuss it again. Yet, John Kerry was able to get this man to repudiate the swiftboat liars in the Chicago Tribune. Then as more evidence of their lies piled on, the tv media kept airing the lies. They simply said, "The SBLFT alledge that..." and for 4 months they gave FREE AIR TIME TO THOSE LIARS. They simply prefaced the millions of dollars of free airtime with the 'allege that' and it didn't matter that those LIARS had been repudiated MONTHS before!

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0408/22/sm.02.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/elections/chi-0408220343aug22,1,2916896.story?coll=chi-news-hed


Please stop rewriting history.

[Exilednight]

45. Two months after the first attack. Too little, to late. The GE season is only four months long....

which is a blink of an eye when compared to the primary season. The repugs started with the swift boating before the Democratic primary was officially over, yet Kerry waited until the end of August, a full month after the convention, to speak out against the swift boaters.

Two months of damage with no counter punching can not be fixed with only three months left until the election.

Punch back quickly, not two months later, put it to bed and let it die. On top of that, Kerry doesn't come across as forceful. Kerry is a good guy, but he doesn't come across as the guy in charge. I always said he reminded of Droopy from the Tom & Jerry cartoons. Very intelligent, very witty, yet comes across as slow on the uptake. He's not exactly the guy you want running for first time voters who never before paid attention to politics. My wife was a first time voter and she saw nothing there to get excited about. She voted for him in order to get rid of Bush, but that's not what we should want as a party.

The worst thing that Kerry ever did to his campaign was let Obama speak first at the convention. Obama gave his audacity of hope speech and my wife cryed. Kerry gave his acceptance speech and my wife yawned.

[politicasista]

46. Trashing one of Obama's strongest supporters and surrogates

does not help Barack's cause. It only makes him look bad. And it doesn't help Barack that you are continuing to bash Kerry to promote Obama. I think he would be disappointed.

If he is a good guy, do you and your wife appreciate the support that Kerry is giving Obama? I do as should every Obama supporter. It's too bad that it's not good enough for Obama's supporters here.

[Exilednight]

48. I'm not bashing Kerry, I'm telling the truth. You can't fix what is broken by ignoring it..........

and like I stated before, Kerry is a good guy, but at first blush he's just not very charismatic or the guy you picture running things. He's an acquired taste and takes time to like.

Personally I don't find Kerry all that liberal. He another DLCer, but I think he learned his lesson after his loss in 2004.

[politicasista]

51. The truth was posted above

And you are ignoring it and instead, buying into the GOP media spin.

Have you looked at Kerry's record? It's always funny people complain about Kerry not being liberal enough for them, but yet he is out there throwing more crumbs to the liberal base than most of our elected representatives.

And as to not having charisma, funny he had that in 2000, but he didn't have it in 2004? Interesting how the media works. There have been DUers that have met him or seen him up close that disagree with you. Once they or others have seen or met him, their opinions change once they turn off the corporate media.

To ask the quesion again, do you and your former wife appreciate the support Kerry is giving Obama? I do. And as I said, you're not helping Obama if you continue to put down one of his surrogates and rehash 2004 and the past.




edit for word

[Exilednight]

55. What's above is the partial truth. People, like us, who follow politics closely knew that Kerry....

was perfectly capable to run the country. Here's the other half of the truth, the overwhelming majority of Americans do not follow politics that closely. If my family is any indication, which it probably is, there's three of us, out of 47, that follow politics on the regular or semi-regular basis.

The truth is Kerry let the attack go on for two months before opening his mouth to fight back. How many tuned out what he had to say by the point?

How many people saw Kerry up close and personal versus how many just saw him on TV?

Personally I could care less about the support that Kerry is giving Obama. I rarely see Kerry's and Obama's name mentioned in the same piece of reading. I've never been a huge Kerry fan, but I supported him in 2004 because he was our nominee. I contributed time and money to his campaign, and I'll tell you now, he was a hard sell in PA, and he won PA. Imagine how hard of a sell he was in states he loss.

I can't speak for my wife, for we are now divorced.

[ray of light]

59. Bull shit. The truth was posted more than 2 x in this thread alone.

grow up. You're flaming and you're coming across as a neocon troll.

[NJSecularist]

68. You have no idea what you are talking.

In fact, you have no idea of the timeline of when the events. Your view is factually incorrect and it is extremely simplistic given the situation.

[karynnj]

73. He did not wait 2 months

PS don't flatter yourself that you follow politics unless that means you regularly listened to Rush. You knew absolutely nothing about Kerry's history or positions - and you say you spent time on the campaign. Maybe spending say an hour or maybe two (if you're a slow reader) reading his web site, could have made you useful speaking to people. I assume you know that it is tough to sell something you yourself didn't know or like.

I assume that Obama cares about the support he gets from Kerry - and that means more than what you think.

KERRY DID NOT IGNORE THE ATTACKS FOR TWO MONTHS. In reality the media had everything they needed before the August attacks:
- The SBVT contradicted what the people on Kerry's boat said
- The SBVT contradicted the NAVY's official records
- The SBVT contradicted the academic historian (Brinkley)'s account
- The SBVT contradicted what was on the Nixon tapes - where they spoke of looking for dirt and finding none.

This is FAR more than any response I have ever seen to ANY political attack - but in addition they gave the media 36 pages refuting everything charged - the day after it happened. That was an awesome response and would have been more than enough in a previous year.

(PS Go to the library and read the Newsweek or Time accounts - or better yet a newspaper's - accounts of either Clinton's draft problem or Gennefer Flowers. You will find two things - 1) Where Kerry put out the entire truth immediately, Bill usually when through a few versions. 2) Kerry's service was 100% honorable and in fact he was highly decorated, while Clinton admitted that there was some truth after the stories dragged on awhile.

[karynnj]

72. Your knowledge is extremely limited - and what you are stating is opinion

Kerry is charismatic and was described that way for decades. As to seeing him as the guy running things - perhaps you missed that on both Iraq and global warming he is the leader in the Senate. Also on health care, where do you think Obama got the innovative idea of re-insurance for catastrophic costs - it was a Kerry idea. Kerry was also the one who wrote the precursor bill with Kennedy for S-CHIP. Frankly, though I am for Obama - it is Kerry who I can far more easily see running things.

As to liberal, he has never been a Kennedy liberal, but he has always been to the left of center. Even in the time when he was listed with the DLC, they never considered him one of them because his record was significantly to the left of theirs. In fact, many of your heros - Gore, Edwards and Dean were more typical DLC. Since 2004 - he has not been involved in the DLC.

[wisteria]

62. Senator Kerry wasted no time in fighting back. He had surrogates out denoucing these liars

and even with limited resourse, they Kerry camp was quick to defend him right away. No way it took two months for him to respond. Now, if you told me the media took two months to get to the truth that I would believe.

[NJSecularist]

67. It's been 4 years and the media still doesn't know the truth.

Senator Kerry fought back quickly. The same day the ads came on, he had a press conference denouncing the accusations. His surrogates were out defending him. As I said in a previous post, the media did not care. They ran with a blatantly false story.

[NJSecularist]

66. Wrong. The first major Swift Boat ad came on the air in August.

The first time that the media covered this extensively was in August. The first day this ad was on the air, the Kerry campaign responded IMMEDIATELLY! They had a same day press conference. They fought off the attacks by releasing papers and the truth. Didn't matter. The media ran with the Swift boat liars story and there was nothing Kerry could do about it unless he was willing to spend ads to fight them off, which he couldn't because he committed to public financing.

[Exilednight]

76. The first swift boat ad came in June. I remember this because I moved into my new house in PA......

on the 4th of July and the ads were in full swing while I still living in NJ.

[ProSense]

77. Wrong, the Swift Liars went public on May 4, 2004

May 4, 2004 - The Swift Liars, beginning their lies by calling themselves "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", went public at a news conference organized by Merrie Spaeth at the National Press Club. (1)

DU Research Forum

Kerry's campaign responded the same day:

May 4, 2004. The Kerry campaign held a press conference directly after the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" event. (Above are, r-l, Wade Sanders, Del Sandusky and Drew Whitlow). Senior Advisor Michael Meehan said, "The Nixon White House attempted to do this to Kerry, and the Bush folks are following the same plan." "We're not going to let them make false claims about Kerry and go unanswered," Meehan said. He said his first instinct was to hold a press conference with an empty room where veterans could testify to their time spent in the military with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

The campaign provided an information package which raised significant questions about "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." Spaeth Communications, which hosted the event, "is a Republican headed firm from Texas which has contributed to Bush's campaign and has very close ties to the Bush Administration." Lead organizer John O'Neill, a Republican from Texas, "was a pawn of the Nixon White House in 1971." Further some of the people now speaking against Kerry had praised him in their evaluation reports in Vietnam.

John Dibble, who served on a swift boat in 1970, after Kerry had left, was one of the veterans at the Kerry event. He said of Kerry's anti-war activities that at the time, "I didn't like what he was doing." In retrospect, however, Dibble said, "I probably should have been doing the same thing...probably more of us should have been doing that." He said that might have meant fewer names on the Vietnam Memorial and that Kerry's anti-war activities were "a very gutsy thing to do."

There was no activity again until August 5, about a week after the Democratic Convention.

[Exilednight]

78. Well they never aired in NJ/PA border until June. That's the first time we saw them. n/t

[ProSense]

82. It must have been something else:

Aug. 5, 2004 - The Swift Liars' first television ad began airing a one-minute television spot in three states. (7)

[karynnj]

69. Two months - what the HELL are you talking about

The SBVT came out in April the first time and were batted away by 100 plus pages of praise also called NAVY records. They came back in August and as fedup posted, Kerry put out an exhasutive 36 page refutation of the charges.

THE MEDIA WAS COMPLICIT!!!!! They had more information than they needed to disprove the charges. They incidentally did NOT EVEN ASK the SBVT for proof. "Slow on the uptake" ??? Did you see the debates - If Obama can handle the questions half as well, he will be very good.

Have you watched a convention before? The nominee always speaks the last night. Kerry incidentally got a far larger proportion of the youth vote. I thought his acceptance speech was excellent. It's purpose was different than the keynotes speech.

[blm]

70. You're full of it. The 1st attack was early May, they were beaten down IMMEDIATELY by Kerry camp and

swifts DIDN'T RETURN UNTIL August.

Kerry's speech to the Firefighters Convention where he attacked swifts and Bush for hiding behind them was August 19 - between the swifts' attack in early August and Kerry's speech on the 19th to Firefighters was the McGreevey scandal that took up all the news focus.

I wouldn't bet my house on your memory skills.

[fedupinBushcountry]

58. Listen

as you state in a post further down that it took him 2 months, show me the proof? I followed John Kerry very closely in fact he is why I am still involved. Fuck you and your reading comprehension what I pointed out was your BS, period.

[karynnj]

65. Actually you are the one who can't read

She posted a response to the allegations of his service that is dated August 5 - the day after the first charge - and that day was that they put the story out the next day - note they call it quick. She also posted a link to a speech in an earlier post.

You are the one that is speaking of an absolutely different and asinine charge. Answer this how would the RW in the 1970s or now have responded if Kerry had INSISTED that he didn't throw his medals - just his ribbons. I think they would have pointed out they are both symbols of the same honor mean the same thing and that he was playing with words.

Next point - it was no a crime, immoral or indicative of a character flaw to:
- Throw his medals only
- To throw ribbons only
- To throw both

it also would have been ok had he decided to throw neither - and explained that he preferred not to.

[politicasista]

40. Thanks again for that

Kind of sad to see fellow Obama supporters dump on a hardworking surrogate on Obama's behalf.

[Exilednight]

42. Again I will say, nowhere in my above post did I say I bought into it......................

I said that was the charge he chose to defend and his answers were very contradicting which dug him a deeper hole.

[politicasista]

43. As I posted above

We need to leave Kerry alone. He isn't running in this primary. He has been one of Obama's strongest surrogates and it would be nice if Obama's supporters appreciated that. Did you ever stop and think that Kerry could be (or is) helping Obama learn the lessons from 2004?

Our focus needs to be on getting Obama to Denver and in the WH. Not rehashing the past and 2004.

JMHO.


It looks like you ignored the fact-based link posted above. If you are repeating false truths, then you are buying into them.

[karynnj]

74. and you are completely wrong about ...everything

[karynnj]

64. Then why have several of us posted links to the same

press conference.

Your post is full of errors - no on threw medals off a bridge. Kerry was asked on one talk show what he threw - he said that he threw the ribbons that represent the medals that he had worn when he testified. That was what he ALWAYS said. The fake controversy is that when he was attacked in the past for throwing the medals - he never corrected the person saying he threw his ribbons. The two signified the same thing - different people threw different things. In his case, his medals were home in Boston. He did throw some medals given to him by others unable to throw them. All of this was in the article written in the original article by Oliphant who spent the entire day with Kerry.

There was no hole other than in the heads of certain RW talk show hosts - and Kerry was not to blame for that. There was also no flip flop - he threw his ribbons - it was an act of dissent and from the photo afterwards the entire event was extremely emotional to him.

As you have likely never led an action like that entire Dewey Canyon III - speaking out in front of the Senate and the entire country. He got 5 minutes covering that speech on each of the 3 networks. That was not the age of 24 hour news. I can't think of anyone other than a Pope or President that got that much coverage. He was 27 years old. Yet you turn those incredible actions that impacted what people thought of the Vietnam war into RW smears implying both that he lied and that he "flip flopped". Have you done anything a fraction as meaningful?

[SKKY]

39. You can thank Mary Beth Cahill for that...

...she's the one who said he shouldn't respond to the Swift Boat adds- didn't want to justify them with a response.

[rug]

52. "I prayed with him before I tossed him."

He just outKerryed Kerry.

[knixphan]

54. K&R

[wisteria]

60. Unfair comparison. 2004 is not like 2008 and the media slams are different.

What exactly would Senator Kerry have distanced himself from? He already had fought back, but in Kerry's case the media was behind Bush. This time many in the media want to see Obama pull this off.
Senator Obama should be grateful for Kerry who went before him and the lessons learned from the 2004 campaign.

[uponit7771]

71. Swift boats made little difference in 04, 15 different 1 million to 1 voter anomalies and 911 made

...a greater impact.

I would rather Kerry fight the voter anomalies than the swift boaters

[newspeak]

79. it all comes down to mainstream media

especially the telly talking heads. They are the ones who decide to make an issue count or make it go away. When questions came up about *'s possible insider trading (much worse than Martha's), they allowed * to make a statement that mommy-in-law lost money, so see it wasn't that bad; his military service record and DL record getting scrubbed, under the rug; his alcohol and drug use, "won't answer cause I don't want to influence the kiddies." Gushing over him--see, everyone wants to have a beer with him--just one of the good ol' boys. What's amazing is that none of the other Bushs have the down home Texas twang, just *. He is a creation formed by a well paid PR group and pushed by the media.

Now the talking heads gladly went on about Edward's expensive haircut; Kuccinich's ties with Shirley Maclaine, plus his weird belief in UFOs. Now they're throwing Obama under the bus. The swiftboat liars were given telly access over and over again. Were they allowed access more than Kerry? That's the question. Now Wright is getting access, and instead, of dealing with real issues that pertain to us, we're getting the same old BS. Do you think the talking heads will ask Hillary her relationship with David Coe and the Family's affiliations and world agenda? She has been in their prayer group since 1993--I think some of us would be quite concerned and afraid if we knew their philosophies. The mainstream media won't be touching that, because the airwaves no longer belong to the people but to the war mongering corporations who make many of us believe that we still have a choice during an election. But, some of us know that they are calling the shots, influencing the outcome. Without a free press, there is no democracy.

Oh yeah, just wanted to add, saw a newsletter I believe from Corsin, head of the swiftboat liars--that stated that the left must be destroyed!!! He's still spewing his venom and filth--One must wonder what he means about the left being "destroyed."

[YvonneCa]

81. Agreed. n/t

[YvonneCa]

80. Simple...

...if Kerry had done what Obama just did (and HE DID). And if Kerry had had the media coverage that Obama has enjoyed, thanks to the lessons learned in 2004, (and HE DIDN'T). Then, I agree with you, President Kerry would be finishing his first term in office.

Instead, the media sold the American public a caricature of Bush and Kerry. BOTH caricatures were wrong...as is now clear. They did the same thing in 2000 with Gore. The media coverage in 2000 and 2004 was shameful. They didn't even really cover the conventions well. They just broadcast from the scene, and picked things like purple band-aids to share with the public, who had a duty to be informed and then vote for a qualified president.

Obama benefits from a somewhat better media situation...but I wouldn't be too complacent, if I were you. The attempt to caricature is still happening. And it's not about whether Obama counters it 'correctly' or not. It wasn't about whether Kerry countered 'correctly' or 'strongly enough'...it's about what the MEDIA does.

Obama is doing a GREAT job...but this election isn't close to being over yet.

:patriot:

[shayes51]

83. I had not thought of that until you mentioned it.

Obama was for Wright before he was against him! He is like Kerry.