FAIR Debunks $87 Billion Claims; Slams Media For Scratching Their Heads

[DrFunkenstein]

Professional politicians and political correspondents alike know that legislators frequently vote against appropriations for a variety of reasons, even though they do not seek to eliminate the programs being voted on.

They know that different versions of the same appropriation are often offered, and that lawmakers will sometimes vote for one version and against another-- not because they suffer from multiple personality disorder, but because that's how they express disagreements about how government programs should be funded.

No one who has spent any amount of time in or around government would find this the least bit confusing. Yet news analysts generally allowed Republican Party leaders to pretend shock that Sen. John Kerry would vote against an $87 billion appropriation for the Iraq War-- as if this meant that Kerry opposed giving troops "money for bullets, and fuel, and vehicles, and body armor," as George W. Bush declared ( 9/2/04).

(The references to Kerry voting against body armor were particularly disingenuous, given that the $87 billion only included money for body armor at the insistence of congressional Democrats-- Army Times, 10/20/03.)

And journalists were complacent as Republicans expressed mock bafflement over why Kerry would vote against this bill when he had voted for another version of the bill (or "exactly the same thing," in former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's words-- 8/30/04). The reason that Kerry introduced an alternative bill-- because he wanted to pay for the appropriation by raising taxes on the wealthy rather than through deficit spending-- was well-publicized at the time (Washington Post, 9/18/03).

Yet rather than challenging the dishonesty of this centerpiece of the Republican attack on Kerry, CNN's Jeff Greenfield after Bush's speech (9/2/04) called it "one of the most familiar and effective lines of his stump speech."

Bush himself threatened to veto the Iraq spending bill if the reconstruction aid for Iraq it included was in the form of loans rather than grants; by the logic of the Republican convention, Bush "flip-flopped" exactly the same way that Kerry did on the $87 billion by supporting one version of the bill and opposing another.

Yet a Nexis search of television coverage of the convention turns up only one reference to Bush's veto of the bill, by Paul Begala on CNN ( 9/1/04). Overwhelmingly, TV pundits covering the convention allowed the charade surrounding the $87 billion to pass without critical comment.

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/rnc-fact-checking.html



He opposes babies, too.

[BootinUp]

1. shocking I tell you

You mean they didn't question the RW talking point????

[Cocoa]

2. they say it's Kerry's fault

and if Kerry had voted for that same bill, the Republicans would have found out a way to use it against him, and the media would have played along.

Same with Kerry using Vietnam. Now, they're saying that's the reason it's ok for Bush to smear him. But if Kerry had NOT used Vietnam, Bush would have said "what's he hiding" and again, the media would have played along.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Another example of the smokescreen tonight on Lehrer....

Brooks loved to use the flip flop phrase - said that Kerry is in trouble because if he now comes out strong about the facts around the 87M, he will just reinforce the flip flop thing....

AND MARK SHIELDS PLAYS RIGHT INTO HIS HAND....No one in the media is playing Kerry fair - and everyone is giving * all benefits of all doubts. Sickening.

[DrFunkenstein]

4. Dems Got Body Armor, Bush Treatened To Veto - Flip Flops?

These are rock solid talking points based on FACT, not spin.

[LSK]

5. i used a similar story to argue against a freeper

His only response was that he was "sick of the picking on halliburtan" and that Clinton used Halliburtan in Kosovo.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. kick

[spooky3]

7. Thank goodness for F.A.I.R.