Text 37457, 123 rader
Skriven 2006-08-25 14:08:00 av BOB KLAHN (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av ROY WITT
Ärende: Lieberman and OBL
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 RW>>>>> Which they don't already. Somehow I don't see how a
 RW>>>>> legitimate polictical party can stab a person in the back,

 BK>>>>  You mean like the Republicans stabbed McCain in the back?

 RW>>> They did?

 BK>>  The rumor they got started that he fathered a black child
 BK>>  qualifies.

 RW> That must have been a left wing rumor, it was never
 RW> repeated in anyplace I've frequented.

 You must have been living in a cave. It was in South Carolina.
 Do you frequent South Carolina?

 I went on a google search for mccain "black child" "South
 Carolina". Got a lot of hits. Was going to post a couple,
 decided to post one and the hitlist.

 I'll put the hitlist in a seperate msg.
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  MSNBC.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bushâ€Ös Sleeper Cells
All it takes is a wink and a nod from the White House, and this network
springs into action
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek

Updated: 2:32 p.m. ET Sept 10, 2004

Aug. 27 - Karl Rove makes Chuck Colson look like a girly man. Colson
didnâ€Öt have the audacity to go after John Kerryâ€Ös military record when
President Nixon was looking for dirt on antiwar leaders. After
researching Kerryâ€Ös medals, Colson, who now heads a prison ministry
program, backed off. “Maybe Chuck knew he was going to find Jesus back
then because he had a degree of shame,” says a senior staffer to a
Senate Republican.

The Kerry campaign thinks it has succeeded in discrediting the
scurrilous attack on Kerryâ€Ös military service, but Rove got what he
wanted. Instead of talking about a failed war in Iraq and a new report
that shows 1.3 million more Americans living in poverty, weâ€Öre debating
what happened in the Mekong Delta in 1968. The strategy “came straight
from the West Wing,” says the GOP staffer. “Nobody should be confused.”
Asked to explain, this Republican says Rove is smart enough to keep
technical distance. But all it takes is a well-placed wink to activate a
web of Bush family hit men, confidantes and deep-pocket donors. “They
know what to doâ€öitâ€Ös like sleeper cells that get activated,” he says,
likening the players to “political terrorists.”

They sprang into action in 2000 when Bush was running in the primaries
against John McCain. After getting beat in New Hampshire by McCain,
Bushâ€Ös first event was at Bob Jones University in South Carolina.
Standing next to Bush on the stage was a veteran who went right at
McCain, questioning his Vietnam service while Bush remained silent. A
whisper campaign told voters that McCain had a black child. (The McCains
have an adopted daughter from Bangladesh.) McCain lost the primary; the
veteran became a Bush administration appointee.

The charges advanced by the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
would never hold up in a court of law. These men would have us believe,
contrary to Navy records and countless eye witnesses, that Kerry did not
act heroically and had a grand plan to manipulate medals from the military.

Too bad Bob Dole got hauled into this mess. Once known principally as a
GOP hatchet man, Dole had rehabbed himself over the years to war hero
and sardonic wit. Then over the weekend he said all Swift Boat Veterans
for Truth canâ€Öt be Republican liars. Itâ€Ös the old
where-thereâ€Ös-smoke-thereâ€Ös-fire routine. Why would Dole allow himself
to be used like that? He must have forgotten how Bushâ€Ös father provoked
him during the 1988 GOP primaries with sleazy allegations. When Vice
President Bush approached him on the Senate floor, Dole blurted out,
“Quit lying about my record.” The remark helped sink Doleâ€Ös chance for
the nomination.

My Republican mole on Capitol Hill says the green light has gone out to
Republicans to do whatever it takes to get Bush elected. “This is the
way we hold onto power,” he says with disgust. Pollster John Zogbyâ€Ös
survey of battleground states taken last week as the Swift Boat
controversy raged shows no fundamental change in the race. “Itâ€Ös running
its course, and it may boomerang,” he says of the attack on Kerryâ€Ös
heroism. The fact that the sleeper network has gone nuclear is evidence
of Bushâ€Ös weakness, not his strength, says Zogby. “If [the Bush team]
werenâ€Öt seeing serious damage, they wouldnâ€Öt be hitting so hard so
early. The president is on the ropes; thereâ€Ös no other way of looking at
it.”

A lot of Vietnam vets will never forgive Kerry for accusing them of
committing atrocities. Kerry has conceded some hyperbole in his 1971
Senate testimony, but didnâ€Öt the Toledo Blade win a Pulitzer this year
for uncovering Vietnam-era atrocities? Have we forgotten about the My
Lai massacre and Zippo lighters burning down hooches? Maybe a few
masochists want to debate whether Vietnam was a noble cause, but 58,000
of our soldiers died. The war was a waste whether you were on the right
or the left. Kerry leveled most of his criticism at political leaders
who didnâ€Öt tell the truth, and who sanctioned “search and destroy”
missions that invited war crimes. By the time Kerry testified in 1971,
44,000 American soldiers were already dead. The war had almost no
popular support, yet another 14,000 lives would be lost.

The irony is that Kerry does have courageâ€öthe very quality this smarmy
campaign seeks to denigrate. The rap on him is that he is slow to
battle, that it takes a near-death experience to get him fully engaged.
By assailing his heroism, the GOP may have done Kerry a favor. Maybe
theyâ€Öve awakened a sleeping giant.

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5843033/site/newsweek/



BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... George W. Bush, the most corrupt man to hold the presidency in my lifetime.
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