Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Falling On His Tiny Little Sword

You’ve got to hand it to the Scumbags for Truth. They smear Kerry’s war record because they don’t like his VVAW activity, then they smear the navy because it’s the only explanation as to how all these glowing fitness reports and commendations could be given to a coward and now they are even smearing themselves. These guys will do anything, even sully their own war records, in their quest to get Kerry.

And, like the good Republicans they are, they then sniffle like little girls about how unfair it is that they are getting the same treatment they so enthusiastically mete out to to others.

Last month, Thurlow swore in an affidavit that Kerry was “not under fire” when he fished Lt. James Rassmann out of the water. He described Kerry’s Bronze Star citation, which says that all units involved came under “small arms and automatic weapons fire,” as “totally fabricated.”

“I never heard a shot,” Thurlow said in his affidavit, which was released by Swift Boats Veterans for Truth. The group claims the backing of more than 250 Vietnam veterans, including a majority of Kerry’s fellow boat commanders.

A document recommending Thurlow for the Bronze Star noted that all his actions “took place under constant enemy small arms fire which LTJG THURLOW completely ignored in providing immediate assistance” to the disabled boat and its crew. The citation states that all other units in the flotilla also came under fire.

“It’s like a Hollywood presentation here, which wasn’t the case,” Thurlow said last night after being read the full text of his Bronze Star citation. “My personal feeling was always that I got the award for coming to the rescue of the boat that was mined. This casts doubt on anybody’s awards. It is sickening and disgusting.”

Thurlow said he would consider his award “fraudulent” if coming under enemy fire was the basis for it. “I am here to state that we weren’t under fire,” he said. He speculated that Kerry could have been the source of at least some of the language used in the citation.

In a telephone interview Tuesday evening after he attended a Swift Boat Veterans strategy session in an Arlington hotel, Thurlow said he lost his Bronze Star citation more than 20 years ago. He said he was unwilling to authorize release of his military records because he feared attempts by the Kerry campaign to discredit him and other anti-Kerry veterans.

The Post filed an independent request for the documents with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which is the central repository for veterans’ records. The documents were faxed to The Post by officials at the records center.

So this idiot is actually saying now that his own bronze star for the same action that Kerry received his, unbeknownst to him, was given to him fraudulently and Kerry is probably the guy who perpetrated the fraud. This guy is one step away from the mentality of a suicide bomber — right down to the whining victimhood.

Let’s add up the discredited Scumbags, shall we?

Nixon hatchetman O’Neill gets caught in serveral lies about his recent Republican ties — makes complete fool of himself trying to claim that half of the money he gave to the GOP was actually given by someone with a similar name.

Jerome Corsi is revealed as an insane Freeper bigot.

George Elliott can’t decide from day to day which affidavit about Kerry’s silver star is correct and makes the strong point that his own documentary evidence of 30 years ago was likely wrong because he can’t think of a reason why these guys would lie 30 years later.

Now we have Thurlow.

These guys are a joke and the mainstream press needs to do its job and hammer on this. The campaigns are caught in a he said/she said that cannot properly put this to bed. Good for the Post for following up this story.

One little note about the Deborah Orin’s New York Post story today about the success of the Scumbags for Truth ad. This “study” she and the mediatools like Scarborough are crowing about was a national on-line poll. It did not survey the voters in the 3 battleground states who saw the ad, but rather asked a group of pre-selected voters to view the ad and register their response. If you go to the web-site it appears to be part of an on-line political survey experiment.

According to Orin:

The Swift Vets study used 1,275 participants, including 371 independents, who watched ads and registered their reaction at every second using technology normally used to rate product ads. Half viewed the Swift Vets ad and the other half saw a pro-Kerry ad based on his convention speech, which was rated less persuasive.

[…]

The ad planted doubts in the minds of 27 percent of independent voters who planned to vote for Kerry or leaned pro-Kerry. After seeing it, they were no longer sure they’d back him, the study found.

It could be significant that the ad has the potential to affect 27% of pro Kerry independents. But,the ad only had a 500K buy in three swing states so it’s unlikely that that many people have actually seen it in its entirety. If people have seen the ad on the news, they have also heard at least something of the other side of the story.

The bottom line is that in the future, it’s possible that if a lot of independent voters who are leaning for Kerry see this ad, and never watch the news, a third of them might develop doubts right after seeing it. That’s assuming that this online survey measures anything valid in the first place.

I think the endless mediawhore flogging is the real threat. But, I doubt there’s much anyone can do about it. It’s now a war of attrition. Kerry’s reputation will always be scarred but the funny thing is that this little campaign is taking down his critics reputations too. John Kerry is not only a Vietnam veteran, he’s a political veteran too. Whoever is left standing on election day will win this last chapter of the Vietnam saga and I’d put money on him. He’s got a lot thicker skin than these guys.

Undercover Operation

All of you convention bloggers may want to program you Palm Pilots to be at Robert F. Wagner Park on September 1st at 6 pm. The Axis of Eve Coalition will be staging a very special protest.

More than 100 women will participate in the mass flash, which will showcase the group’s provocative line of protest panties emblazoned with such sexy admonitions as “give bush the finger,” “expose bush” and “weapon of mass seduction.

That ought to scare Gary Bauer right out of town.

For those who like their politics to be very personal the “panties with a purpose” are available here.

Campaign Finance Epiphany

I love how Bush has suddenly adopted McCain-Feingold as one of his signature issues.He’s just appalled that these “shadowy” groups are undermining his fine achievement.

Q There’s a new ad by MoveOn.org that talks about — that criticizes Bush’s record in the National Guard. What’s your response to that, and what do you say to Harkin, who called Cheney a coward for not serving?

MR. McCLELLAN: We have been on the receiving end of more than $62 million in negative political attacks from these shadowy groups that are funded by unregulated soft money. And the President has condemned all of the ads and activity going on by these shadowy groups. We’ve called on Senator Kerry to join us and call for an end to all of this unregulated soft money activity. And so we continue to call on him to join us in condemning all these ads and calling for an end to all of this activity.

[…]

The President thought he got rid of all of this unregulated soft money activity when he signed the bipartisan campaign finance reforms into law. And so it’s another example of — the senator’s latest comments are another example of him saying one thing and doing another.

It makes you wonder why he signed the bill in private, allowed Mitch McConnell to promptly sue to overturn it and didn’t even ask McCain to attend the ceremony. And his shock at these “shadowy groups” is especially rich considering that one of his primary objections to the bill was the limitation on issue ads and unregulated soft money by individuals.

Without any fanfare, U.S. President George W. Bush signed the campaign finance overhaul bill into law in the Oval Office Wednesday morning before heading off for fund-raising events in South Carolina and Georgia, the White House announced.

[…]

“The president believes the legislation, while far from perfect, will improve our current finance system,” said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

As expected, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the constitutionality of the new law.

McConnell’s legal team, led by former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and First Amendment expert Floyd Abrams, plans to argue that the new law violates the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment because it restricts the political speech of political parties and interest groups, but not the news media.

Bush also has reservations

In his written statement, President Bush praised provisions in the measure that ban unions and corporations from making unregulated contributions to political parties and the provisions raising the decade-old limit on individual giving.

The Bush statement also says that while the bill goes “a long way toward fixing some of the most pressing problems in campaign finance,” the measure also has flaws.

In particular, the president wrote that he continues to object to the ban on unlimited contributions by individuals to political parties in connection with federal elections.

“The president believes the individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished,” Fleischer said.

He said the president also has reservations about the limitations on issue advertising. The bill bans unions and corporations from using “soft money” to broadcast what are known as “issue ads” that mention a federal candidate within 60 days of a general election and 30 days of a primary. Hard-money issue ads may run up to the election.

Fleischer said because of his concerns, Bush chose to sign the bill privately in the Oval Office as opposed to hosting a public signing ceremony at the White House.

Fleischer said it was the president’s view that a South Lawn ceremony “would not have the aura of consistency…befitting with his beliefs in the bill in its totality.”

His newfound concern for unregulated money in politics is quite touching. Who says he hasn’t grown in the job?

Dear Roger Simon,

I wonder if you realize that your words on Meet the Press saying “‘sensitive’ is the kind of word a French candidate for president would use” were played several times by Rush Limbaugh on August 16 as evidence of Kerry’s essential “frenchness.”

While many of you in the press corps obviously find this “french” appellation hilarious, I’m sure you are also aware that this term is being used as a Republican code word in this campaign for cowardly and effeminate. As such, even though I know it is hard to keep from sharing those side-splitting one liners with the public, it might be more ethical to refrain from using these manufactured Republican punchlines. Of course, I’m assuming that you don’t wish to be used by a propagandist like Limbaugh to push GOP talking points. Perhaps I assume too much.

Sincerely,

digby

Journalism

Lou Dobbs just had that con artist scumbag David Bossie on his show taking the Democrats to task for their “unprecedented” negative ad campaign comparing Bush to Hitler for over a year and a half.

And, in a most satisfying fashion, David Axelrod responded that Bossie was the guy who ran the Willie Horton ad, ran the 1992 ad with doctored tapes of Gennifer Flowers and was fired from the House for doctoring the Web Hubbell tapes.

Dobbs was shocked that Axelrod was personally attacking little Davy and interrupted. Bossie then decried negative advertising again.

Paging Doctor Parker

Doctor Nosy Parker

A judge ruled the state can suspend the driver’s license of a man who lost his driving privileges after his doctor reported to police that he drank a six- pack of beer a day. But the judge also said Keith Emerich may obtain restricted driving privileges as long as he uses a device that tests his blood-alcohol content before starting his car. Emerich, 44, a printing company employee, was notified in April he would lose his license, about two months after he disclosed his drinking habit to doctors treating him for an irregular heartbeat.

Be very careful what you tell people, even your doctor. There is no evidence from this story that this guy was ever driving drunk. He might have downed all six of those beers after work and never left his house which, the last I heard, was still legal.

This is where my libertarian leftist tendencies come in to play. Fuck a bunch of moralistic assholes trying to tell people how they should live, in the name of “public safety.” Cops, bureaucrats, do-gooders and religious zealots (and apparently doctors, now) are the very last people on the planet who should have the power to invade your private life because they are the very first in line to do it whenever they get the chance.

This is the preemption doctrine writ small.

What’s Whiz This?

Campaign Desk highlights one of the typically egregious Inside Politics bitch fests about Kerry and Bush’s relative machismo as illustrated by how they eat a Cheese steak.

I have one question for all of you Philly homeboys and girls. Unlike Kerry who ordered the wrong kind of cheese and proved he was a eunuch, Bush apparently showed that he had a giant dick by saying:

“A lot of people are wondering why I’m coming so much,” he said. “It ought to be obvious to you. I like my cheese steak ‘Whiz with.'”

I understand that this means he prefers it with Cheez Whiz. But, do real men have to order it “Whiz with” or are you a french pansy if you say “with Whiz?”

Why’d He Bother?

Be careful of these folks who travel around the country making all these big promises, and say, oh, don’t worry, we’ll pay for it by taxing the rich. You know how that goes. The rich hires accountants and lawyers and you get stuck with the bill. But we’re not going to let him raise your taxes.

I don’t get it. If “the rich” hire accountants and lawyers to avoid paying taxes, why in the hell did Bush bother to lower their tax rates twice in the last three years? He could have saved himself a lot of grief if he’d just let the rich do what they always do instead of changing the tax code in ways that made it appear that he was granting them a favor. (And think of the economic stimulus all those extra billable hours would have created — and from the private sector, too!)

Are people actually buying this nonsense or is it some kind of a focus group glitch?

The Expert

President Bush reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to building an antimissile system, accusing opponents of the program of “living in the past.”

Although Bush did not mention his Democratic rival by name on Tuesday, his speech here at a Boeing Co. plant included a thinly veiled attack on John F. Kerry’s stance on missile defense. “I think those who oppose this ballistic missile system don’t understand the threats of the 21st century,” he told 1,400 cheering Boeing employees and supporters.

The guy who invaded a country on the basis of its huge scary cache of unconventional weapons only to find it didn’t even have one is lecturing people about understanding the threats of the 21st century.

Poison Stinger

Key Evidence Cast in Doubt on a Claim of Terrorism

Federal prosecutors acknowledged possible flaws yesterday in a major piece of evidence used in their case against two leaders of an Albany mosque on charges that they supported terrorism.

[…]

Prosecutors said they were given information from the Defense Department that a notebook with Mr. Aref’s name and address had been found in what they said was a terrorist training camp in the western Iraqi desert near the Syrian border. They also said that a word in the notebook, written in Arabic, had referred to Mr. Aref as “commander.”

As it turns out, the word is Kurdish, albeit written using the Arabic alphabet, and the translation may be incorrect. “Commander” could be translated as “brother,” according to federal prosecutors.

Nijyar Shemdin, the United States representative for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Washington, reviewed a copy of the page at the request of The New York Times and said he did not see how a translation would have come up with the word “commander.”

Mr. Shemdin said that Mr. Aref is referred to with the common honorific, “kak,” which could mean brother or mister, depending on the level of formality.

[…]

In court last week, Mr. Kindlon did not have access to the note, and he expressed frustration at having to rebut the clearly ominous implications of the word “commander.”

[…]

The judge gave the prosecution seven days to give the defense a copy of the note. The prosecutors asked the Defense Department for a copy, which they received and had the F.B.I. translate independently. That brought the discrepancy to light.

Mr. Kindlon said his client would seek a new bail hearing.

He said that Mr. Aref, a Kurd, had three brothers in northern Iraq and that there was no independent verification that the note had been found in a terrorist training camp. According to court documents, United States soldiers found the document on June 12, 2003, near the town of Rawah.

The sting operation being conducted in Albany was already underway then and was not tied to the discovery of the note, according to court documents.

[…]

However, many of the conversations between the informant and the men were in Urdu, as well as in Arabic and English, and Mr. Kindlon said there might be problems with the translations of those meetings, as well.

In court documents, the government provided only snippets of the conversations already translated.

This case is another one of those travesties in the making, you can tell. It’s a bullshit sting that apparently relies on mistranslated notes the DOD conveniently found in a “terrorist training camp” in Iraq after the sting had already been initiated.

Evidently, they’ve caught all the active terrorists so they are now busy entrapping random people as a test of their loyalty. Good to know.