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August 31, 2004

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Apocalypse Now starring von as Willard: Watch as von is forced to report on the horror the horror he sees as he travels into the Heart of Darkness.

"Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission and for my sins they gave me one."


(I hate these little semicolon/colon doohickeys but :-) or is it ;) I'm just havin' fun)

Not sure I'm following exaclty, von, do you think folks will take shots at the President's courage?

If so, is that wise? He is one of the few people in world who can convincingly answer the question: "You and what army?"

(forget where I heard that line...loved it though)

Not sure I'm following exaclty, von, do you think folks will take shots at the President's courage?

I don't think folks will take a shot at the President's courage per se. (Saleten did, but I figure it's an outlier.) But, if your opponent's courage is questioned, your courage is put on the line as well -- even if you're not the one doing the questioning, but merely benefiting from it.

I'll update the post to clarify.

the swift boat attack has done its damage and bush got his 5 points. it would be politically wise for bush to significantly distance himself from their campaign. 527's in support of kerry have yet to counter attack bush on his service record. The more distance bush bush can put between himself and the angry swift boat vets the worse it would look for kerry if his supporters bring up something along the same lines.

The title of this post should be changed to “More Advice To Bush From A Guy Who Already Said He Wasn’t Voting For Him Anyway.”

Oh please, Bush doesn’t need to do a thing about the Swift Vets but to (a) state (truthfully) that he has always honored John Kerry’s service in Vietnam and (b) (wrongly*) go after all the 527’s negative attack ads which have overwhelmingly been anti-Bush/pro-Kerry.

As far as Von’s contrived concern over the effects of “spitting” on someone’s “military service,” I’m sorry but I missed the post where Von condemned Kerry’s false accusations of his fellow Veterans of coming war crimes on a daily basis. This really isn’t about Bush so much as it is a lot of pissed off veterans paying back Kerry for what they see as his besmirching their service and a lot of people realize that which is why it hasn’t and probably won't hurt Bush no matter who funds the ads.

* I didn’t agree with Mc-Cain Feingold and I support the right of private individuals to spend as much of their own money on political speech as they wish. However, politically it’s an astute move and reframes the issue to Bush’s advantage by reinforcing the image of Kerry as being duplicitous and thin-skinned.

As far as Von’s contrived concern over the effects of “spitting” on someone’s “military service,”

Unless you can back up the "contrived" bit, Thorley, you need to retract that.

Thorley: If you can tell me where Kerry said that everyone who served in Vietnam committed atrocities, I'd be grateful. Alternately, if you'd care to argue that no atrocities were committed there, OK. But if you're objecting to Kerry saying that atrocities were committed there even though he was telling the truth, please explain why exactly you think this is objectionable.

Also, if memory serves, the objection to the SwiftVets wasn't that they criticized Kerry, but that they said things about him that were flatly false. Unless you can show some evidence of ads about Bush that contained false statements about matters of fact, and were not specifically disavowed by Kerry, there's no double standard.

Thorley:

Oh please, Bush doesn’t need to do a thing about the Swift Vets but to (a) state (truthfully) that he has always honored John Kerry’s service in Vietnam and (b) (wrongly*) go after all the 527’s negative attack ads which have overwhelmingly been anti-Bush/pro-Kerry.

No. (a) Bush has always (and repeatedly) stated that Kerry's service in Vietnam is honorable. There's no need for him to recite that liturgy again; what's needed is a direct answer to thsi specific issue. (b) On the 527 law: Bush needs to disown it, 'cause it's crap (Mitch McConnel was right) -- oh, wait, Bush was the guy who signed it into law! Silly me for forgetting. (c) He needs to quit the lawyerly locutions about condemning all 527s -- the time for him to do something about 527s was prior to his decision to spin crap into law. He needs make the Swifties go away.

Suggestion regarding your proposed title change is noted; however, given my Hamlet-like wailing on the issue, I think most readers know my biases. Perhaps too well: If I can put myself in the exalted company of Sully and Drezner: We're talking the Axis of Whine, baby. Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.

As far as Von’s contrived concern over the effects of “spitting” on someone’s “military service,” I’m sorry but I missed the post where Von condemned Kerry’s false accusations of his fellow Veterans of coming war crimes on a daily basis.

You must have posted before the update, where I specifically noted that I agreed with Pejman that the '71 testimony is far more damning; rightfully so.

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