Clift: "a war that’s been over for 30 years takes voters’ minds off Iraq"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Fighting a Phony War: Is the real aim of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to divert attention from Iraq?
By Eleanor Clift, Newsweek

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5772260/site/newsweek/

The Swift Boat veterans have become the Campaign 2004 version of the Scott Peterson trial, trading charges and regularly appearing on the cable-news networks. The book that lays out the charges against Kerry, “Unfit for Command,” has been No. 1 on Amazon.com for over a week. Never mind that almost daily there’s a retraction or a new story to discredit what these veterans are saying. On Thursday, The Washington Post revealed that the military records of Larry Thurlow, who commanded a boat alongside Kerry, contain several references to enemy fire directed at all five boats in the flotilla, sharply contradicting what Thurlow is saying as a leading member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group. The Post got the affidavit through the Freedom of Information Act.

The Kerry campaign was curiously passive as the veterans gathered force in the media—as though responding would dignify the scurrilous charges. Kerry finally broke his silence this week, perhaps mindful that a lie unanswered becomes a lie that is believed. Flanked by firefighters in Boston, Kerry stripped the mask of patriotic valor from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by pointing out the source of their funding: a Texas Republican who wrote two checks for $100,000 to the group. Its sudden emergence is reminiscent of the “Republicans for Clean Air,” which emerged during the 2000 campaign with a television spot attacking John McCain’s environmental record. Long after the ad did its damage to McCain in the New York primary, it was revealed that the Wylie brothers in Texas, who backed Bush, had paid for the advertising. The group itself was a sham, and the Wylie brothers no environmentalists.

If the November election is a plebiscite on who better and more courageously served their country in a time of war, Kerry would win. “Kerry gets a bye on this anyway—he was there and Bush wasn’t,” says John Zogby, an independent pollster who is not aligned with either campaign. He sees the battle over who’s telling whose truth in Vietnam as another symptom of the great divide in the country. “We are two warring nations and neither nation is listening to the other,” he says. “This is essentially a net zero politically. It’s great kindling wood for the Republicans. It’s the kind of stuff they need to hear just as Dems need to hear from Michael Moore.”

Questioning Kerry’s heroism fires up the GOP base, but it leaves “solid undecideds” cold. They’re not paying attention. Zogby says among this very narrow 5 percent of the electorate, 16 percent say Bush deserves to be re-elected; 39 percent say it’s time for somebody new. “You can’t help but look at those numbers and conclude they’ve made up their mind about one side,” says Zogby. But Kerry hasn’t been able to close the deal. Zogby has him stuck at 47 percent, which isn’t good. But Bush is stuck at 43 percent, which is worse. “It’s still the phony war period,” says Zogby. For an incumbent president in as much trouble as Bush, fighting a war that’s been over for nearly 30 years takes voters’ minds off Iraq.

[stellanoir]

1. best one liner regarding this stupid issue yet. . .

"“Kerry gets a bye on this anyway—he was there and Bush wasn’t,” says John Zogby, an independent pollster who is not aligned with either campaign."

[teryang]

2. The senseless slaughter on behalf of colonialism

...goes unnoticed during an absurd public relations campaign on behalf of the AWOL and incompetent executive.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

5. That's exactly the way it was planned

It's Karl Rove's "do whatever you have to do in order to win, create any diversion necessary to draw attention from your candidate's record" strategy.

Bill Clinton's segment on The Daily Show summed it up best: The Bush campaign...specifically (but not exclusively) Rove...is doing what they are doing BECAUSE IT HAS WORKED. When it no longer works, they will move on to another tactic.

[cornermouse]

3. It has done a lot of damage.

Kerry lost 9% of his support among Vietnam veterans since the ads came out. That's why he's going to the FEC.

If Kerry and you people don't wake up, we could lose this election. That means another 4 years for Bush and Company to finish doing what he's been doing to us for the last 4 years. (This is a thought that should give you nightmares)

[JI7]

4. not everyone is a vietnam veteran

and he could gain support among republicans who support stem cell research because they are personally affected with living through certain things like parkinsons , alzeimers etc in their family.

[cornermouse]

6. True, not everyone is a veteran.

But you're mixing up groups in your analysis. Vietnam veterans are a group of people who are bound together by their experiences. When you talk about stem-cell, you're talking about people's core beliefs. I don't think that you're going to see many republicans breaking away over stem-cell because they either have already left the republican party earlier over other issues like I did or possibly, they're older and completely out of politics.

[JI7]

7. Vietnam Veterans are NOT bound together in politics

they are as split and could be as partisan as everyone else. even within republican party some of them sided against mccain and for bush in the primary.

[cornermouse]

8. I still don't think that you should count on finding many

converts on issues like stem cell research. I just don't understand how Kerry's war record can even become a political issue, given the fact that Bush went AWOL and Cheney never served. This may say bad things about our collective IQ.

[iwantmycountryback]

14. LOL@ that poll

That poll was of less than 200 veterans. CNN won't tell you this but that's the truth.

[Cha]

9. For right now, yeah...but I think we'll

get back to Iraq in plenty of time for the election.

[KoKo]

10. Kick....that's the strategy alright! Thanks Eleanor!

:kick:

[Feanorcurufinwe]

11. Except, the Vietnam War more closely resembles the situation today

than any other war in US history. Thinking about Vietnam, and the contrasts between Kerry's service and Bush's, and the lessons they learned, will inevitably lead to the conclusion that Kerry is the better leader for this time.

[The Magistrate]

12. Indeed, Sir

Thinking about Viet Nam reminds people of Iraq, and cements the essential similarity of the two situations....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[KoKo]

15. But, only amongst those of us for whom it WAS and issue back then,

Magistrate. The sad thing is it seems Vietnam has been re-written by the Repugs as a "good war." For as many people to believe this crap about Kerry being non-patriotic for coming back and exposing what was going on there, as do and who are passing around the anti-Kerry stuff in our e-mail boxes, it means that the re-write of history has worked for a significant amount of the population who is under 40.

It's up to those of us who remember that evil war to make the comparisons with Iraq and try to re-educate the populace back to the TRUTH and not the lLYING re-marketing of Vietnam as that "good war" that we lost because of those "commie, hippy, unwashed, non-patriotic, tree-hugging, Bob Dylan suck ups" who caused our proud vets to be abused when they came home. The same way these folks would like to characterize those of us who protested against this latest criminal enterprise...

[quaoar]

13. "So secretive it seemed subversive"

From Clift's column:

A generation of reporters far removed from any war experience listened respectfully to their story. Between the fog of war and the passage of time, telling the truth has more to do with politics than memory. These men fought; they didn’t come home to a hero’s welcome, and they’ll never forgive Kerry for protesting the war and branding them as war criminals.

One member of the group recalled how each of them had been issued a 90-pound sea bag, and Kerry sacrificed 10 pounds of socks and clean underwear to pack a typewriter. At the end of a long day of patrols, Kerry would sit hunched over his typewriter plugging away at who-knows-what, the fellow said, so secretive it seemed subversive. They never understood this aloof figure, and the day that he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—April 22, 1971—is as powerful a date to these veterans as the Kennedy assassination. They can tell you exactly where they were when they heard Kerry say he had witnessed war crimes sanctioned by commanders in Vietnam.

[KoKo]

16. These men have projected their own angst against the war onto Kerry

for questioning it, maybe? :shrug: Or, they've been paid enough that their memory has been "adjusted."