Why the Smearvets are SOOOO stupid:

[AP]

I'm sure this sentiment is buried in some of the Smearvets posts, but it just strikes me as so overwhelming a point that I want to foreground it:

These are vets who are saying that what Kerry did in Vietnam is the full measure of him as a person. Now, I believe that their smears are 99.999% bullshit (they come from people who either never crossed paths with Kerry in Vietnam, or they come from people with a deep financial interest in lying, or both). But say they were even half true. How in the world could you say that the quality of one's service in Vietnam is the most important issue when you claim to support Bush. Those assholes should be making even more scathing commercials about what Bush did during Vietnam.

You have to wonder why the Bush campaign is even willing to go down this low road, since the contrast is so obviously incriminating of Bush. However, they must be hoping for the media to help them out like they did in 2000. I saw a CNN reporter actually say that Bush flew fighter jets "IN" Vietnam (you'd probably be narrowly on the side of truth if you just said he flew fighter jets "during" Vietnam, so that's a pretty big lie).

I guess we have to be grateful that Letterman and Stewart keep pointing out that it's not even clear whether Bush showed up for his guard service. If they keep doing this, then I think Dem Strat's point about political judo will be prescient: these Smearvets are just setting up Bush for being seen as a major league asshole. Yes, let's do judge these candidates by what they did in Vietnam. Please.

[Qutzupalotl]

1. Good points, AP.

I hope you caught the name of that CNN reporter. If you did, please fill out the feedback form at the link at the very bottom of http://www.cnn.com. A flat out lie is worth raising hell about.

[KC21304]

2. This whole swiftboat thing has nothing, not one iota to do

with what Kerry did in Vietnam. It has everything to do with what he said after he came home (O'Neill and some of the others who were there when Kerry was there) or what Kerry said to Brinkley for his book. Kerry laid out just what an asshole Hoffman was and gave a few jabs to some of the other commanders. That is why Elliot and some others changed their tune since they defended him in his 96 Senate race.

I'm sure they did not like that Kerry was getting all this glory and they figure they too are heroes and Kerry may have smudged them a little in his book. I think when O'Neill read the book he saw an opportunity to point out every real or imagined slight and saw his chance to get even and get rich.

Besides Roy Hoffman, who he really lets have it, he doesn't really say anything worse then showing a few warts, but I can see where if they are already upset with his afterwar remarks, it might be enough to push them over the edge.

This isn't the case for all because some of them are not mentioned in the Brinkley book.

[rocktivity]

3. Two more reasons why:

1) If there were a grain of truth to any of it, it would have been used against Kerry when he was protesting the war, and certainly while he was running for the Senate.

2) If the smear boaters are truly more concerned with protecting the sanctity of military honor than with political partisanship, they would hate Bush at least ten times more: He ducked both Viet Nam AND the military obligations he'd committed to.

:headbang:
rocknation

[CBHagman]

4. Do you remember the pictures they ran?

One of the major news magazines (I think it was US News & World Report) ran a cover story on the question of military service. They ran photos of both Bush and Kerry in uniform, which I thought in a way obscured the issue, because Bush was in the guard and never saw Vietnam, let alone combat. Putting the picture of him in uniform might mislead people who have no sense of what Bush has or hasn't done.

And Bush more than encourages it, claiming to have "seen" war or "been in" war (I forget how he phrases it). He wouldn't know war if it took a huge chunk out of his backside.

[snippy]

5. I don't think either they or Bush are stupid.

Bush knows that these kind of lies are effective in a campaign and he loves to use this tactic. It is intended to persuade a few people to vote against Kerry and to disillusion Kerry voters to the point that they don't bother to vote at all. It also is intended to put Kerry and his supporters on the defensive so that substantive issues are not debated as much.

The Swiftboat Liars for Bush will not be the last lying smear Bush uses against Kerry in this campaign. There will be more. My guess is that one will involve sex, one will involve corruption, and one will involve supporting communists or terrorists or both.

[PurityOfEssence]

6. If he doesn't repudiate them, he agrees with them

Use simplicity against a simpleton.

If he agrees that war service--or lack thereof--is fair game, then he has no reason to snivel like the infant he is.

Like Carville would say: "are ya fer it or agin it?"

Kerry didn't vote for war, he voted to give the President that threat as leverage for his sincere negotiating. If Bush thinks that was a "vote for war", then he acknowledges he was lying to say he'd sincerely negotiate. It's very simple. He never got a vote for war, and he never asked for one.

But I digress...

As for the swifties, if Junior doesn't repudiate them, he's agreeing with them, and at that point he can't claim that he "doesn't know all the issues" or anything like that. He can't "be above" this one; he has to directly answer this, both for his involvement, blessing of it or agreement with it. It should be turned on him brutally: only thugs distance themselves from this kind of crap, and common people REALLY hate that kind of mealy-mouthedness. It's a no lose situation for us: if he dodges it, he's a lying coward, and if he repudiates them, he's either out of control or defeated in an underhanded move.

Oh, and let's call 'em "Swifties", 'cuz they ain't too swift. They should remember that slur, they're boomers...