Unbelievable new headline on MSNBC RE: Dole

[featherman]

"Dole calls on Kerry to apologize"
Apparently for claiming there were atrocities in Viet Nam in his Senate testimony.

This is getting nasty, folks, and it is going to get worse. It will continue as a coordinated attack from all sides aimed at defining Kerry as a liar, coward, traitor, and weakling. The media will be played like a fiddle, endlessly repeating the talking points.

These guys are playing real hard ball for all the marbles now and I'm not sure the Kerry campaign is up to the challenge based on the mostly weak, unprepared, and ineffective response team sent out this weekend. I hope I am wrong.

[madmax]

1. Too much Viagra

it's swelling his brain instead of his pecker.

[Born Free]

37. We all must taunt bush, smoke him out

Americans need to taunt bush, to smoke him out, we need to force the man to stand up to all of this and have a long overdue discussion of the candidate military records. The GOP has made thin a character issue, it's time the truth be made known, it's time bush is forced to stand up like a man and quit hiding behind others. There is a pattern here, bush always hides behind others while he gives tough talk. if bush is half the man he wants Americans to think he is , he will come out of hiding and face America with an honest discussion on what he did for America during the Vietnam era.

[enigmatic]

2. I'm willing to bet that you are wrong

ask William Weld.

But yeah, it's going to get nastier as November approches..

[dennis4868]

3. If you watch Kerry's

testimony to congress some 30 years ago he never claimed there were atrocities...he simply stated that many have told him that atrocities were going on and he listed them!

Fuck you One handed Bob Dole!

[featherman]

9. Hey, I know the TRUTH about all this

but that doesn't matter. It certainly didn't with Gore in 2000 re: internet, miner's songs, dog medicine, Love Canal, Love Story, buddhist temple, etc. etc.
Truth and reality are not the issue in a Bush campaign. Whoever comes up with the easiest to remember, easiest to repeat definition of the other guy wins.

[dennis4868]

12. Yep.....

Kerry is getting "Al Gored." We are living ina bizzaro world today...the truth is meaningless and not important....and the lies get all the attention!

[newdealer]

35. Kerry's testimony

"They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

The SBVT nicely edited out the beginning phrase, "They told me stories" to make it look as if Kerry is making the accusations.

[dennis4868]

38. AND THE F*C*KING MEDIA

does not let people know about this!

[Cheswick2.0]

40. What are you going to do about it

you are right about the media, now what are you going to do about it?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

44. Bitch to us about it, and nothing else?

Just a guess.

[dennis4868]

45. i dont know....

I have sent them letters, emails and made phone calls...what else can I do? The mainstreem media is a hell of alot bigger than all of us put together....

[A_Possum]

4. Well, I must say, the answer to that one is...

"Go fuck yourself, Dole."

[DieboldMustDie]

27. He would...

if he could get it up. :evilgrin:

[soothsayer]

5. Just shows how desperate they are. Running scared! Kerry on the other

hand is waging a moral campaign. Goodbye, *.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

6. Well, then Bob can "Fuck Off"! -Dick Cheney

[Guaranteed]

7. Kerry needs to hit back, hard, once again.

Now is not the time to let up.

He's going to have to speak about the atrocities, and he needs to be truthful.

[Gman]

8. Dole is an attack dog from way, way back

Never will forget his nauseatingly obnoxious performance in the VP debate against Fritz Mondale in 1976. Looking back, Dole's way of attacking Carter/Mondale back then was before its time.

[FloridaPat]

10. Gee, we killed 4 million civilians and there were no atrocities.

The biggest problem with Bush being president is I never really noticed what our government did. And thanks to the internet, I know how ugly our government has been almost from its inception. And Vietname was one of those.

Maybe he's trying to get Vietname out of the atrocity column because Iraq is in that same column with the same atrocities.

[LuminousX]

41. Let's ask Colin Powell about Vietnam atrocities

[Feanorcurufinwe]

11. Dole also trashed Kerry's Purple Heart

IMAGINE IF supporters of Bill Clinton had tried in 1996 to besmirch the military record of his opponent, Bob Dole. After all, Dole was given a Purple Heart for a leg scratch probably caused, according to one biographer, when a hand grenade thrown by one of his own men bounced off a tree. And while the serious injuries Dole sustained later surely came from German fire, did the episode demonstrate heroism on Dole's part or a reckless move that ended up killing his radioman and endangering the sergeant who dragged Dole off the field?

The truth, according to many accounts, is that Dole fought with exceptional bravery and deserves the nation's gratitude. No one in 1996 questioned that record. Any such attack on behalf of Clinton, an admitted Vietnam draft dodger, would have been preposterous.

Yet amazingly, something quite similar is happening today as supporters of President Bush attack the Vietnam record of Senator John Kerry.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/08/22/big_lies_for_bush?mode=PF

And by the way Bob Dole, atrocities really did happen in Vietnam.

[merh]

31. I believe Bob Dole admitted in his book that he was the one

who threw the hand grenade that caused him the injury that entitled him to his purple heart. There was a link to a quote from his book on a thread earlier in the week. If I find it, I will post a link.

On edit:

Here is the post and link

-------------

trumad (1000+ posts) Sun Aug-22-04 06:42 PM

HA! Josh Marshall totally busted Bob Dole for dissing JK's Purple Heart!
Today Bob Dole suggested that one or more of John Kerry's Purple Hearts may have been fraudulent in some way because they were for "superficial wounds."

Dole knows better.

In a 1988 campaign-trail autobiography, here's how Dole described the incident that earned him his first Purple Heart: "As we approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the direction of the farmhouse. It wasn't a very good pitch (remember, I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg--the sort of injury the Army patched up with Mercurochrome and a Purple Heart."
-- Josh Marshall
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_...
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040822/D84KGLT00.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=652812&mesg_id=652812

[TheFarseer]

13. I respect the hell out of Bob Dole but

That's just stupid to call on him to apologize for saying something 30+ years ago. He knows very well he can't do that and doesn't need to do that. I'm sure alot of things happened in Vietnam that we're not proud of.

[buycitgo]

28. you're not alone, cause the media refuses to report stuff like this:

http://www.realchange.org/bdole.htm


Special Foundations Set Up To Evade Contribution Limits
Bob Dole is a major innovator, at least in finding ways to legally amass millions in donations from corporations and special interests. He has developed a network of foundations and other non-traditional organizations legally allowed to receive much larger sums of cash from people with laws pending before Dole. This also hides the contributions from voters, since reporters usually only talk about direct campaign contributions.

These include the Better America Foundation, the Campaign America PAC, the Dole Foundation, and others. The first two have blatantly served Dole's political interests, to the point where one was convicted and fined for helping Dole's 1988 presidential campaign. The Dole Foundation and the Red Cross are legitimate charities that in fact do good work. But they are also places where people who want to influence Dole know they can make him happy by spending money -- as much as a million dollars in a single donation, as Dwayne Andreas did.

The key to the whole network is Jo-Anne Coe, his campaign's National Finance Director, who has worked for Dole since 1967. Coe personally calls all of Dole's largest contributors. Not by coincidence, she was the founding president of the Better America Foundation, and executive director of Campaign America from 1988 to 1995 (until Coe switched her focus to Dole's campaign, which has raised $37 million now.)

For example, the Gallo family gave a hefty $381,000 in direct contributions, then added $790,000 for the Foundation and another $100,000 for Dole's Better America PAC. The Koch family has given only $27,000 in direct contributions, while adding another $225,000 for Better America and $25,000 for the Republican Party. They also hosted a fund-raiser for Dole that brought in $150,000 -- yet to most newspaper readers they've given "only" $27,000 to Dole.

The Campaign America PAC is a theoretically independent group Dole formed to raise his national profile and get other Republicans indebted to him. PACs are allowed to receive much larger donations than campaign committees, and Bob has doled this money out to everyone from Alfonse D'Amato to state legislators in New Hampshire, site of the critical first primary. Dole has also used these funds to fund his travels around the country, and to pay a large group of consultants, pollsters and political staff, whose work benefits him directly or indirectly.

In fact, Bob has been so aggressive in using Campaign America that the FEC hit the Dole campaign with the largest fine in FEC history (as of 1994 -- $100,000) for using it to help his 1988 presidential campaign. Campaign America was required to pay $12,000 itself. Both groups admitted guilt. The PAC had sponsored 23 campaign events in Iowa, paid for voter lists and telemarketing, obtained the phone line for Dole's New Hampshire campaign office, and printed flyers that read "Offer Iowans a friend in the White House."

By 1994, Campaign America was the second richest PAC in America, and it played a major role in financing the Republican Revolution of that year. In January 1995, it gave donations to 17 state legislators in New Hampshire, where Dole was already campaigning for the presidency. Later that year, Dole's focus turned to his campaign fundraising, so he brought Jo-Ann Coe back as his National Finance Director and turned over Campaign America to Dan Quayle. Bob said "I can think of no American who is better qualified to lead the battle for Republican victories in the vital elections that lie ahead." (Maybe that's why Republicans are doing so badly right now.)

Nonetheless, Campaign America is still a big part of Campaign Dole. When Jo-Ann Coe jumped to the official Dole campaign committee, she brought with her Campaign America's mailing list of 500,000 Dole-oriented Republican donors, an invaluable asset that has helped them raise $37 million for the campaign.

just the tip of the iceberg, btw

[oasis]

34. Bob Dole is just another crooked GOP fat cat protecting his tax break.

[sandnsea]

33. Fuck Bob Dole, fuck 'em all

I try and try to have respect for Republicans, I try to point to McCain or Dole or Hagel as examples of good Republicans. But when it comes down to it, they're all lying sacks who put their party ahead of their country. There isn't a shred of decency or real patriotism in one of them. Fuck 'em all, I'm sick of trying to be reasonable with them.

[tridim]

14. Haven't these idiots seen a Vietnam movie?

Or read a book about it? There WERE atrocities in Nam, everyone knows it, there is no question. Dole and others are trying to rewrite history.

Kerry's testimony saved lives, and he is a hero for doing so.

[liberalmuse]

15. This is going to backfire, BIGTIME.

Any vet who's served in Viet Nam knows there were atrocities committed. Hell, there were atrocities in Dole's war. War is an atrocity. I think the average American knows that Kerry earned his medals and served well. Only the insane are playing this nasty game and they are going to be exposed for the slimebags they are.

[demwing]

18. Its the big lie effect

We know its a BIG lie, a HUGE lie, but others will believe, just because the lie is so huge that the average joe will be unable to accept that it is a lie, and will eventually accept it as truth.

[demwing]

16. I got into with a freeper on this same issue last night

Her take on it was that Kerry quoted those words in his testimony, therefore he gave tacit approval to what was said, and is thusly responsible for what was said.

God help us. We can no longer quote another person without owning the quote. As much as I would like to believe that the smearbot is backfiring, I have to concede that there are those out there who will grab ahold of anything to continue justifying their support of Bush, and will never listen to ANY reasonable challenge. Thank God they are the minority.

They will not shut up easily, if at all. They must be ridiculed. The only way to defeat this nonsense is to reveal it as nonsense and to take away any scent of respectability that these liars might wear.

[chelaque liberal]

17. I read the transcript of the Senate testimony and was moved beyond words.

John Kerry displayed so much integrity and intelligence in that testimony, I have more respect for him now than before. I understood so much more about Viet Nam, the effect it had on this country, and what Kerry was trying to do.

I challenge Dole, or any other critic to read it and then try to spread this BS. I recommend that every DUer read it and be inspired as well as prepared to answer those critics.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/082204F.shtml

[girl gone mad]

19. Even McNamara..

has admitted the war was a mistake.

I hope this debate comes out in the open. History has only proven that Kerry was on the right side of this battle. Republicans can't hope to win any independents with this line of attack, and they risk losing many moderate Republicans who are well aware of what a clusterfuck Vietnam was.

[jimshoes]

20. The BFEE is calling in all their markers

everyone that the BFEE has enriched over the years is now being tapped to help smear Kerry. Can't wait to see who they dredge up next.

[Kimber Scott]

21. There WERE attrocities committed in Vietnam. It's a known fact.

What the heck is going on here? I don't get it. In 30 years, if anyone discusses the Abu Ghraib incidents are people going to start screaming about the discussers being upatriotic liars? The shit happened in Abu Ghraib, in Afghanistan, in Vietnam and anyplace there has been a war! It doesn't mean EVERYBODY did it. It means it happened. God, what is happening now?

[featherman]

24. My point exactly

Good grief, there were atrocities commited by US troops in the "Good War" (WWII). I grew up in a military family and heard the stories first hand from those that had been there. It was war and it was brutal.
I can only think this is some massive and calculated roll of the dice on the part of the GOP to rewrite and "cleanse" history in the Stalinist style. My concern is that the public might be willing to buy in in a time of terror alerts, patriotism, and "we're the good guys bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq".

[DieboldMustDie]

29. The guy who blew the whistle re. Abu Ghraib has been vilified by many...

and has received death threats. Some people just can't handle the truth.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5738880/

[havocmom]

22. They can't have Kerry talking real issues that impact America

so they have to divert attention and try to get him to get angry. If he doesn't get mad they will imply he is weak. If he does get mad, they brand him a hothead.

Best bet is for us to stop letting them set the agenda, stop grumbling for hours/days about the swift boat liars and start talking issues.

Let the clean up crew (lawyers and researchers) take out the rabble who slander our team. Let Kerry talk about what can be done to solve problems America faces. We need to talk up the issues and stop giving air time to the attacks on what happened decades ago. It is another Rove tactic to get his boy king's bad policy off page one.

But bushco back under the bright lights. Take the fight to the vermin eating away at the foundation of the nation.

What is the price of oil?
How many US personnel dead?
How many injured?
How many new terrorists recruited because we attacked an innocent people? How many have we killed? Injured? Taught to hate us?
How much $$ to Cheney's cronies?
How much profit has Big Pharm squeezed out of the people?
How much did Grandma Millie lose to ENRON?
Who was in the secret energy meetings deciding policy and why the hell is it a secret?
How is your local school district doing?
Are property taxes going up in your county? How come?
Are there enough police and fire personnel in your area or are the departments short of manpower and equipment? Are you safer?
Why are 50-60 year old men being called to active duty?
Why are military personnel who fulfilled their commitment with honor being held in the armed forces against their will?
Why are standards for safe water and air being relaxed? Why are polluters the ones now writing the laws about pollution?
How many generations will be left holding the soaring national debt?
Just how is outsourcing of jobs helping working Americans?
Why are CEOs making 500 + % more than the average workers?
Why are the rich getting tax breaks?
Why is there talk of a national sales tax and the elimination of income tax? The poor and middle class will be burdened more while the wealthy will keep more $$.
Why does the malAdministration not talk of the payroll taxes working people pay when they complain at the rates for the wealthy?
Where are all the jobs that were gonna be created from corporate tax breaks?

People, I am pissed as hell about attacks on Kerry's service in Nam and the greater service he did when he came home and fought for peace, but we have gotta stop obsessing on it. We have got to get aggressive with the real issues of American life and our future.

Take the fight to those bastards. They cannot stand on their record because they have betrayed the American people and dragged our military's honor through the dirt. Make them face their record and the issues before the people.

[The empressof all]

23. Too Bad......

Stem Cell Research may help this guy....but with his buddy in the White House he'll just die a sad, pitiful, slow death.

[WI_DEM]

25. he is not called a "hatchet man" for nothing.

[spanone]

26. I didn't think they were mostly weak, unprepared or ineffective.

I think the democrats underestimate how corrupt these bastards are. Unfortunately, I think it's only just begun.

[Nordic]

30. this whole election is about re-living the 60's and 70's

The same fights, the same people.

Remember, Cheney and Rumsfeld worked for Nixon.

All these guys in the Bush camp are old Nixon guys.

Kerry's a guy who was leading the anti-war movement and was especially irksome back then, and he's irksome to them now.

It's like some weird drama, where the old guys re-enact the same battle they had when they were young.

Only now they're playing for all the marbles.

[WindRavenX]

32. how damn low are the Republicans going to sink...?

It's getting worse and worse...it's so depressing :cry:

[radfringe]

36. to quote bush*

"they are getting desperate..."

internal polls must be showing that bush* is in deeper doo-doo than the polls that are being reported to the public

[spanone]

39. I bet they go lower than anyone can imagine.

This is about BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

[annabanana]

42. sigh... do we have to re-release pictures of Mai Lai?

Or pictures of US Soldiers holding up decapitated heads" These things happened and they were horrible. They were horrible for the victims, they were horrible for the terrified and confused young men that committed them (and have to live with the memory). They were horrible for those of us at home fighting to end the war. I can't stand this.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

43. Pic here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai

[hiphopnation]

46. I love how this gets front page press

at CNN but the Doug Bereuter story was pushed to the back page as quickly as possible. CNN...figures. :thumbsdown: