As far as i know the left hasn't possessed any influence within the United States for the last 50 years. Didn't you guys hunt them all down and metaphorically beat them into submission?

I don't know how the cultural elite in America can be called leftist without the whole world lighting up with laughter. Multi-million dollar film and record contracts, fast cars and women, the odd concert here and there to show they "care" and "paying back their dues to society". If this is the "left" you're talking about you obviously missed out on that whole Lenin-Trotsky-Castro thing, you know, the nationalisation of private enterprise, violent upheavals in modes of production, wealth redistribution, the restriction of free speech and uncensored education, enslavement of whole populations to feed the economic needs of the state, etc. Is this the "left" you're speaking of, or are you talking about liberals, because if your talking about liberals you need to clean up your political speech, the two are not synonymous, they're not even remotely similar.

Someone show me the significant difference between the Republicans and the Democrats and i'll show you the mathematical proof for the unified field theory.

Marco

PS: Why did Bush stall for so long after finding out about the World Trade Centre attacks, is that the look you want on your leader's face when your nation is under attack, he looked like a fool because he is a fool or was that just "creative editing"?

There is no such thing as a correct or incorrect political stance, they are all valid in their own way

Not as valid as the one that's enforced at the point of a gun. That simple expedient usually reduces the quantity of hot-air expended in a political campaign by a significant degree, and if the guns are pointed at all participants equally then there's no cause for complaints of unfair treatment. And as we all know, absolute equality in everything is what Americans most want. Right? (or Left?)

From the Editorial desk of the Campaign for the Political Re-education of America.

~~DivasRule~~

Everett Lee's link, which he claims demonstrates the Swiftboat Vets claims are a "sham" leads to a rather interesting page, which does nothing of the sort. No way to tell who/what MMFA is, or who "K.B. & N.C." are. And the "proof" offered amounts to nothing more than splitting hairs by pointing out that the vets, who put their names & mugs in those ads for all to see, didn't serve "on the same boat", leaving you with the implication that they therefore could not possibly be telling the truth, but no factual information contradicting what they've had to say. The doctor "didn't sign the form"? What a crock of whoey. Then, without disclosing their own pedigree & financing, they lambast the group for having NIXON ties? Get real. I'm frankly a bit disappointed in John McCain for so quickly dismissing this, high-minded as his motive may have been, considering the freakin mountains of dung the opposition has been heaping on Bush for months on end. They cry "LIBEL"? How can anything be more libelous than claiming that a sitting President has "betrayed" his country? I frankly admire the way GWB has simply ignored all of it and failed to dignify it with a response, no matter how much my gut wishes he would pull a Cheney & tell 'em where they can stick it. Obviously, my application for a position at the State Department was quietly shelved.

Cheers,
Daiwa

While not serving on the same boat, they served in the same group, which consists of several boats working in formation. To claim that men who spent weeks and months 10 yards from Kerry and shared a base 'may have served at the same time but they did not serve with him' is complete and utter baloney.

Not to mention the fact that Kerry's personal journalist concocted a story in the Boston Globe saying that one of the veterans withdrew his stance on Kerry, when nothing of the sort took place, and the veteran in question signed an affidavit stating so.

Sure it's funded by Republicans. Who the hell else would fund it? Democrats? Green Party members? The fact of the matter is that the funding does not go to the vets, but to purchase airtime. The vets are NOT all Republicans. What they are are dozens of men who say they saw with their own eyes how Kerry lied on several occasions to garner medals, including chalking up a shrapnel wound in the ass from a grenade he threw himself while not engaged in any sort of fighting as a hit from an enemy, getting a Bronze Star. He got another one after he first fled the scene when another swift boat ran a mine, and returned once every other boat in the group was already fishing out survivors. He then picks up a guy (anyone else could have done this, and would have, if Kerry's boat had run away a bit farther), and later writes up a report which includes nonexistent enemy machine gun fire for a stretch of 5 kilometers. Oddly enough, no one else remembers being fired upon for over three miles, nor did any of the boats have bullet holes in them, nor did anyone get hurt or shoot back (except briefly when the mine went off, and they were expecting an ambush). Again, Kerry gets a medal.

Then he goes back to the states and throws those medals away, and calls his fellow soldiers war criminals (does that make him a war con artist then, having earned his medals by making shit up?).

They have a right to be pissed off at him. And considering Kerry can't shut up about his service in Vietnam for more than 40 seconds, and claims that his service makes him more suited to be president, then I think they have a right to voice their opinions.

And after Fahrenheit 9/11, it's time to shut up and let other people speak.

I wonder, if this is true, why it wouldn't have come out decades ago. He was a national figure during the Vietnam war, with many political enemies. And he's been in dozens of elections, a few of them very nasty.

Certainly his record isn't everything he wants us to believe it is, but it's hard to believe that it's actually a *bad* record.

Vincible: I think that had he not spent so much time and effort portraying himself as a hero for the four months he spent in Vietnam, and so little time presenting the 20+ years he spent in Congress, that this wouldn't have been an issue at all. People like McCain are right that someone's service shouldn't be an issue 30 years later, but frankly Kerry has made it an issue by making it such a huge "character reference".

I think anyone can see that the 3 quick purple hearts in four months and a ticket home is fishy, though I can' t condemn anyone for getting the heck out of dodge in that war. When you are trying to make it expemplary of you character, though, I just can't see that he has much to point to. He pulled one guy into a boat. Whether he was under fire or not, I find it difficult to believe that everyone that pulled a fellow soldier into a boat under fire got a silver star.

If anything, the swift boat veterans should be spotlighting the fact that even if they are 100% wrong, and everything Kerry says is true, his service in Vietnam has about as much to do with his ability to lead the nation as my performance in 4th grade... As I have said elsewhere, if he were applying for a regular job, the last 20+ years of service would far, far outwiegh his anecdotal, four month service in a war 30+ years ago...

"PS: Why did Bush stall for so long after finding out about the World Trade Centre attacks, is that the look you want on your leader's face when your nation is under attack, he looked like a fool because he is a fool or was that just "creative editing"?"

No, creative editorializing. Here's an excellent example of that, by Bill Whittle:

"Robert Wayne Jernigan is now 28 years old. People who knew him said he was quiet, somewhat stand-offish. He was not widely liked in high school.

Four years ago, a witness reported seeing Jernigan enter a building in a remote suburb of Dallas with an axe. Four people were found dead at the scene, including a nine year old girl. No charges were filed. Less than two days later, Jernigan turned up again, this time at the scene of a suspicious fire in a day care center. Miraculously, no one was injured. But it was just a matter of time.

During the next several weeks, it is possible to place Jernigan at the scene of no less than thirteen suspicious fires. Eleven people died. Eyewitnesses were unshakable in their determination that Jernigan had been on the scene. And yet the police did nothing.

Jernigan had long been fascinated with fire. A search of his apartment revealed fireman-related magazines, posters and memorabilia. Despite the deaths of fifteen people, despite repeated eyewitness accounts and photographic evidence placing Jernigan at these fires, no criminal charges were ever filed against Robert Wayne Jernigan. He remains a free man to this day.

And rightfully so. Because Robert Wayne Jernigan is an ordinary fireman for the Dallas Fire Department.* He is not a serial arsonist at all.

Now re-read the previous paragraphs and tell me where I lied.

Everything I told you was factually true. But the spin, the context, the misdirection… The press always reports serial killers with all three names – Robert Wayne Jernigan sounds a hell of a lot more ominous than Bobby Jernigan. Quiet, stand-offish, not widely liked – instant psychopath, if you read the papers. Entered the building with an axe – oooh! That ought to get the blood boiling. That the people had died from smoke inhalation I decided was irrelevant to the story…"

Bush 'stalled' for seven minutes after the aide whispered the news into his ear. As someone pointed out elsewhere, how do you know what was said? 'The second tower has been hit. The military has been notified. Air Force One will be ready in 10 minutes'.

Go walk around the block twice. Time yourself. Then, explain to everyone here what YOU would do in seven minutes that would make a lick of difference? Say, 'hey kids, tough shit, but I gotta go pace back and forth till they prep my plane.'

Do you even understand how the chain of command works? In case of an emergency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff assess the situation, and present the Commander-in-Chief with options (if any) to react. All of this is fed by different branches of the military, and also law-enforcement and intelligence agencies.

This isn't Starcraft where you defeat the Zerg if you start clicking your finger ten seconds after you're attacked. Seven minutes in the chaos that was the morning of 9/11 is a blink.

But of course, this is thinking about something too hard. It was so much easier to just listen to Michael Moore make fun of his 'inaction'. Ha-ha, what an incompetent doofus. 'Seven minutes'... let it sink in... cut to new scene of embellished truth or complete red herrings, like the coast of Washington lacking patrols, as if al Qaida needs to swim over with the world's longest land border just a few hundred miles to the north.

Moore is a demagogue, a propagandist, and a duplicitous scumbag who 'embellishes' just about everything that comes out of his mouth, and shamelessly calls his 'fictition' a documentary.

The "7 minutes" thing is the worst partisan politics I have seen so far in this election, with the possilbe exception of all this blaming the election for terror atlerts. I consider anyone that offers it as some statement on Bush an ignorant asshole, frankly.

It just shows how far Bush's staunchest opponents will fall to get their way. I hope people see them for what they are instead.

BakerStreet, I'm not questioning its importance. But I'm questioning why, if the story is essentially true, someone wouldn't have brought it up in a previous election, or to discredit him during the testimony to the Senate which made him famous in the first place. He certainly has had enough enemies. And it's not like this is the first time his war record has been an issue in an election.

It's the same reason I treat the Bush AWOL claims with suspicion.

vincible: No, you misunderstand. I think if Kerry hadn't banked his election on his 4 months of service, it WOULDN'T be important, frankly. I think it would be recieving the same play as Bush's service.

In essence, he is the one that has made it noteworthy, not the swift boat vets. No one considered his service important until he started using it as the focus of his resume. I think that is why people are only now bothering to say much about it.

I can say without hesitation that his speech at the Democratic convention was a shock to me. I'm really suprised that more people didn't see it for the diversionary drek that it was. Those who did are calling him on it now.

Um... are you answering my post or just making your own point? I mean, there's nothing in your post #62 which addresses what I was wondering about, or that I disagree with (except for the shock part, I don't see why you were surprised). But it's addressed to me.

To repeat, Kerry's war record has been scrutinized in a whole bunch of elections. Even before Kerry was ever elected to be anything, Nixon was trying to destroy his career. Remember Kerry was the face of the anti-war movement. If Kerry's war record was suspect, I think it would have come out then. Nixon was clever and ruthless, perhaps more so than any other modern president, and since Kerry as an antiwar activist was famous and influential because of his service record--if he wasn't a vet, he'd never have been testifying in front of the Senate--Nixon would of course have targeted his service record if there was anything to target. Heck, Nixon even made some *false* charges against him... he'd never have done that if there were true ones ready to hand.

Kerry's also been through a couple decades of elections since then, some of which were quite negative. Vietnam became an issue in some (not all) of them. No one's found any Vietnam dirt that stuck.

No, I have answered your post twice. I would do so again, but I think it is pointless. You either can't or won't understand.

Charming. You are correct: I cannot understand your post's relevance. Good day.

Human activity has been shown to have increased the amount of these gasses by a significant amount.

No, it has been ASSERTED that human activity has increased the amount of these gasses by a significant amount.  Similarly, "scientists" have asserted at various times that Noah's arc has been found.  Assertions are easy to make.

I could probably be convinced that human "activity" has increased CO2 content in the atmsophere but I think there'd be debate as to which kinds of activity.

"To repeat, Kerry's war record has been scrutinized in a whole bunch of elections."

Oh? I think you'll find if you look back at his Senate campaigns that these questions have been around a long time. Forgive me if you follow Massachusetts' politics closely and overlooked it...

Though futile, let me try again... You say, "Why now?", and the obvious answer is what Kerry himself is doing NOW.

This isn't a "call", it is a "response". Do you really expect people not to rebut glorified versions of his service as in: "John Kerry: A Biography "? The backlash has never been so strong because the "lash" has never been so strong.

Never before has Kerry run on a "strong military" ticket (after 20 years of being a staunchly anti-military legislator). Never before has he stood in front of the Democratic Party, saluted and said "Reporting for duty." Never before have his opponents faced him purporting a pro-war stance. Never before have his opponents found him to be banking on a "guts and glory" version of his short time in Vietnam. And..most importantly, never before have pro-Kerry 527s so heinously lauded four months of questionable service. Some people find his stance and claims questionable.

So, never before have these veterans been so motivated to refute his claims.

You have to see this as what it is. It isn't an "attack"; it is a response to claims that Kerry, himself, is making. His own re-invention is what is spurring this rebuttal. Kerry has made his career being *vastly critical* of his OWN ROLE, and that of his "Band of Brothers", in Vietnam, and now for some reason he is touting the same as his calling card.

"Similarly, "scientists" have asserted at various times that Noah's arc has been found."

Has there ever been a major manipulation of human behavior and practice in the last, say, 250 years that wasn't spurred by the assertion of some scientist (social or otherwise)? I'll avoid "Godwin-ing", but frankly scientists have been dead-sure of what they assert ever since they were drilling holes in people's heads and *mathmatically* proving (wit' 'dem thar fancy e-quashuns) that the sound barrier couldn't be surpassed.

that would be a lot more comprehensible or believable if it wasnt for the very similar attack campaign against mccain in 2000.   one needn't look back 30+ years to find the bush campaign has a consistent record of this kind of crap

according to an article in the Dallas Morning News (December 2, 1999), "Rivals again fault Bush over rumors":

"In recent weeks, the Bush campaign has been accused of - and has denied - spreading rumors that Mr. McCain may be unstable as a result of being tortured while a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Several Senate Republicans, among them party leaders who favor Mr. Bush for president, have been identified in published reports as being responsible for privately pushing the allegations. Also, James B. Stockdale, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who ran as Ross Perot's running mate in 1992, said he got a call from a friend close to the Bush campaign soliciting comments on Mr. McCain's 'weakness.'"

kingbee: you are offering unsubstantiated rumor as proof of a conspiracy. Do you believe in UFOs? Ross Perot also stated that black ops agents infiltrated his estate and other fantastic Sir Peter-esqe fantasies. Saturday Night Live even panned Stockdale as a loon...

As a matter of fact, didn't several Democrats question McCain's mental state after he called his captors "Gooks" and refused to withdraw the epithet? Not to sound like vincible, but did you believe Perot's statements against Bush at the time, or are they just good arguments now? I find it hard to believe that you would offer such spurious material.

No, I wouldn't call that a bit "similar".

this is excerpted directly from worldnetdaily.com (which i remember you accepting as a plausible source for one of the initial attacks against kerry's service about 2 weeks ago).  it's basically a cleaned up version of garbage originated by ted sampley working with marge spaeth. 

McCain was awarded a Silver Star, a Legion of Merit for Valor, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Stars, two Commendation medals, two Purple Hearts and a dozen service awards. Unfortunately the narratives for the awards only speak of his having undergone extreme mental and physical cruelties at the hands of his captors, and were described as "boilerplate" and "part of an SOP medal package given to repatriated (Vietnam-era) POWs" by Naval officers Hack interviewed. The medals were basically given out for being there, not for heroism.

The problem here is not that McCain didn't have terrible things done to him for a long time -- he did. The problem is that neither he -- nor anybody else who was in prison camp -- had a choice about whether they were endangered. But medals for heroism are supposed to be given out for actual heroic action, taken willfully and at great personal risk. They shouldn't be awarded simply because someone survived an involuntary ordeal. And didn't survive it as well as many others. McCain was quoted as saying "O.K, I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital" four days after his capture and later signed a confession declaring himself a war criminal. And although McCain refused an early release, the word is that he was ordered to do so by his U.S. POW commander.

It was unquestionably a long, painful nightmare for McCain to log all that time in a North Vietnamese prison and, for that, he deserves genuine sympathy -- the kind of sympathy you reserve for someone who survived a five year battle with cancer. And the experience may (or may not) have made him a better person. But based on the facts, he's not a war hero. And it speaks poorly of him to let his handlers promote him to the public in that way."

and here's a memoir from richard h davis...mccain's former campaign manager published in the boston globe.

Having run Senator John McCain's campaign for president, I can recount a textbook example of a smear made against McCain in South Carolina during the 2000 presidential primary. We had just swept into the state from New Hampshire, where we had racked up a shocking, 19-point win over the heavily favored George W. Bush. What followed was a primary campaign that would make history for its negativity.

In South Carolina, Bush Republicans were facing an opponent who was popular for his straight talk and Vietnam war record. They knew that if McCain won in South Carolina, he would likely win the nomination. With few substantive differences between Bush and McCain, the campaign was bound to turn personal. The situation was ripe for a smear.

It didn't take much research to turn up a seemingly innocuous fact about the McCains: John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, brought her to the United States for medical treatment, and the family ultimately adopted her. Bridget has dark skin.

Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.

Thus, the "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that's not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign.

Some aspects of this smear were hardly so subtle. Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand sent an e-mail to "fellow South Carolinians" stating that McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage." It didn't take long for mainstream media to carry the charge. CNN interviewed Hand and put him on the spot: "Professor, you say that this man had children out of wedlock. He did not have children out of wedlock." Hand replied, "Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?"

you may not call this similar either.   in a way it's not.  mccain is a credentialed conservative republican who should never have had this inflicted on him. "

Okey, there is so much right-wing crap in this thread it would take me years to address all of it, so I will just start here.

Funny, all the right wingers post the political stuff on ether video game sites, or conservative sites, nowhere where their opinions could face serious opposition.

kingbee: I dunno who the first writer is, but I disagree with him. I'm sure you could easily find asinine op-ed quotes from almost any publication, and that one seems particularly "Op". What was the date on that one, btw? Wa it when McCain was running? Honestly I don't blanket-approve of any particular publication. If it appears they've done their job and there is substance there, I'll quote them. I know better than to dump just anything that agrees with me, I've been hoisted on my own pitard far too often. That one I disagree with.

REGARDLESS, I don't see how it would effect his electability, since being a war hero means *dick* as far as I am concerned, unless he, himself calls upon it as demonstrative of his ability to lead. That was my point above. Kerry is stating that his behavior in Vietnam is reason to trust him as President. If McCain stepped up and said "I'll be a great President because I spent years as a POW", then, frankly, he should expect it, too, whether he deserves it or not.

The second quoted article is, again, all about dark, anonymous dirty tricks. I don't doubt there are people that stoop to this kind of thing, but I can't equate them because the swift boat vets are out in the open, telling what they consider to be the truth. I think the difference is that you assume that this is a black-and-white, lie-or-truth- situation. I don't think it is. I think those who were in and around Kerry interpereted Kerry's behavior in different ways, with the majority now apparantly expressing their doubts abou this performance.

Sure, there may be lies floating around, and if there are, on either side, I'm sure they'll be ferrited out. Some will of course say that we shouldn't be delving into it at all, and I tend to agree. You have to expect Kerry's opposition to focus on his military service if he, himself makes it his calling card.

not 10 minutes ago, the new abc news cable channel replayed monday's nightline showing adrian lonsdale (who appears in the swiftboatvets ad) appearing at a kerry rally in the 90s praising kerry's peformance in action.  unfortunately neither the transcript or the video is available at abc.com. 

in an online article by joe conason at salon.com,  marge spaeth is identified as one of a group three who are driving swift boat veterans for truth (the other 2 being john o'neill and roy hoffman, rear adm, ret-us navy).  conason reports:

In 2000, Spaeth participated in the most subterranean episode of the Republican primary contest when a shadowy group billed as "Republicans for Clean Air" produced television ads falsely attacking the environmental record of Sen. John McCain in California, New York and Ohio. While the identity of those funding the supposedly "independent" ads was carefully hidden, reporters soon learned that Republicans for Clean Air was simply Sam Wyly -- a big Bush contributor and beneficiary of Bush administration decisions in Texas -- and his brother, Charles, another Bush "Pioneer" contributor. (One of the Wyly family's private capital funds, Maverick Capital of Dallas, had been awarded a state contract to invest $90 million for the University of Texas endowment.)

When the secret emerged, spokeswoman Spaeth caught the flak for the Wylys, an experience she recalled to me as "horrible" and "awful." Her job was to assure reporters that there had been no illegal coordination between the Bush campaign and the Wyly brothers in arranging the McCain-trashing message. Not everyone believed her explanation, including the Arizona senator.

according to conason, o'neill approached spaeth last winter to discuss his "concerns about Sen. Kerry."

 "Spaeth heard O'Neill out, but told him, she says, that he "sounded like a crazed extremist" and should "button his lip" and avoid speaking with the press. But since Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination, Spaeth has changed her mind and decided to donate her public relations services on a "pro bono" basis to O'Neill's latest anti-Kerry effort. "About three weeks ago, four weeks ago," she said, the group's leaders "met in my office for about 12 hours" to prepare for their Washington debut. "

the reason this is germane is that it demonstrates the savage excesses to which the architects of previous bush campaigns have gone and links one directly to the swift boat vet nonsense.    while the service records of kerry and mccain are certainly open to interpretation, it's shameful for an administration prosecuting a war in which hundreds of thousands of service people are putting themselves in jeopardy to trash two men who are decorated combat heroes.  

much more important than what is being said about kerry is what it says about the ethics and character of a candidate who allows this type of shit to be done on his behalf.  

"it's shameful for an administration prosecuting a war in which hundreds of thousands of service people are putting themselves in jeopardy to trash two men who are decorated combat heroes. "

Seriously, you are just proving Brad's point. You see this as a wrong now, but you tolerated it when third parties do such to Bush. It suits your purposes to call everyone that challenges Kerry "the administration", but when the same happens on the other side, it is "free speech".

Again, you can't seem to tell the difference between private individuals, 527s, and "administration". I hate to break it to ya, but Kerry is the soft money hog in this election, and has enjoyed the ability to run a "clean campaign" because of it.

So, where you have been all along when the same sort of people were trashing Bush's military service and comparing him to Hitler on moveon.org and elsewhere. George Soros has invested millions of dollars in Kerry's campaign, and has engineered a huge smear campaign online and off. Not the same thing? If it is the same thing, why choose now to start throwing fits about 527s? Why aren't you over there talking about "low blows"?

P.S. I think Brad has a 'swift boats' blog that this might be more in line with. Granted, the double-standard is right in line with the topic...

Funny, all the right wingers post the political stuff on ether video game sites, or conservative sites, nowhere where their opinions could face serious opposition.

Yes, JoeUser is just such a "conservative" site. 

never before have these veterans been so motivated to refute his claims.

Nixon was plenty motivated and powerful. And a senator is arguably the second-highest office in the land--there's lots of motivation there too. Senatorial campaigns are big enough to get some national coverage, and big enough that you have thorough oppostion research. Of course there's *more* now but I think there would have been sufficient motivation before. You obviously do not. Perhaps we should leave it at that.