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Thursday, September 02, 2004
This Sums Up the Swift Boat Ads For Me
Hendrik Hertzberg in this week's New Yorker on the Swift Boat Veterans for Lies, Lies and Damn Lies:
Suffice it to say that if the provable ties between the Saddam Hussein
regime and Al Qaeda had been a fraction as strong as the provable ties between
the Bush campaign and the veterans group, the “coalition of the willing” would
have been larger than it is.
Putting the Falsehoods in Context
Once again, Fred Kaplan at Slate has written an excellent column, this time on the lies mouthed by Zell and Cheney last night.
Here are some of the better passages, although the full article is well worth a read. First, on Zell:
Before moving on to Cheney's speech, we should pause to note two truly
weird passages in Zell's address. My favorite:
Today, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and
the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker
because of a Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our commander in
chief.
A "manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief"? Most people
call this a "presidential election." Someone should tell Zell they happen every
four years; he can look it up in that same place where he did the research on
Kerry's voting record ("I've got more documents," he said on CNN, waving two
pieces of paper that he'd taken from his coat pocket, "than in the Library of
Congress and the New York Public Library combined.")
Zell kept repeating his Library of Congress and New York Public Library statement on MSNBC as well. I would think that, when you are trying to defend yourself against allegations that your statements are ridiculous hyperbole, you ordinarily wouldn't want to use ridiculous hyperbole as your defense, but what do I know?. And then, after noting that Cheney recommending the cutting of the very same defense programs that Miller claimed Kerry opposed:
I'm not accusing Cheney of being a girly man on defense. As he notes, the
Cold War had just ended; deficits were spiraling; the nation could afford to cut
back. But some pro-Kerry equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Zell Miller
could make that charge with as much validity as they—and Cheney—make it against
Kerry.
In other words, it's not just that Cheney and those around him are
lying; it's not even just that they know they're lying; it's that they know—or
at least Cheney knows—that the same lie could be said about him. That's what
makes it a damned lie.
This one, however, is my favorite and is a great example of what Cheney and the Republicans have been doing this whole election:
"He declared at the Democratic Convention," Cheney said of Kerry, "that he will
forcefully defend America after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans,
we have already been attacked." Where in Kerry's speech did he say this?
Nowhere.
We'll see if John Edwards can take him to task in the debate, as Joe Lieberman so miserably failed to do in 2000.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
It Just Doesn't Seem Right
After watching Cheney's speech, I can say that if what he had said about the Bush Administration's record and John Kerry's record had been contained in a Halliburton SEC filing, Cheney would be liable to the American people for a multi-million dollar securities fraud verdict. Yet, as Vice-President, the American people have no recourse for such utter fraud and misstatements. Except on November 2...
And from what I heard of Zell Miller, he was even worse.
I'm really glad they renominated Cheney though. Time to unleash the dogs.
I Really Thought This Was a Joke
I wasn't watching the convention last night and didn't realize that the Bush daughters had spoken. Then I saw this transcript and I simply did not think this was real -- maybe a Jon Stewart written bit or something. Unbelievable. Why would anyone want to remind the American people how Bush himself must have been like when he was 21. Apparently, I'm not alone -- even the Fox News paid-Republican-consultants feel the same way:
Bill Kristol: "The last half hour did not help, as far as I can tell,
Bush's campaign for reelection."
Mort Kondracke: "Those two girls were ditzes. I'm surprised they were
allowed on the program."
Fred Barnes: "I think she [Laura] had no place up there or the daughters
either....Their mother said they'll be pursuing their own careers. I would
advise them to look in some field other than comedy."
Ryan Lizza also has it right too:
I understand that self-deprecation can be a useful political tactic for
elected officials. Bush's jokes about himself have always been incredibly
disarming, for instance. But I was sort of shocked to see that the conceit of
Jenna and Barbara Bush's speech tonight was that they are, well, dumb...
The reason that self-deprecation works as a rhetorical device is because
the person using it has developed at least some level of credibility that cuts
against his or her caricature. But if the only thing people have heard about you
is that you are a hard-partying, spoiled, not-so-bright, rich kid, well wouldn't
it be more useful to tell them a different story about yourself, instead of
reveling in your immaturity and ditziness?
What was Karl thinking?
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
And This Pig Built His House of Straw
I'm planning to be pretty silent this week, given the multitude of lies that are spewing forth in NYC and it is just too hard to keep up with them all.
One thing that is worth following, though, are the number of straw men that the Republicans will ably knock down this week. I heard one example of this in a recent Bush speech where he said that he didn't believe that you should "negotiate with terrorists" but rather you "should destroy terrorists." Now, Mr. President, tell me again exactly who is proposing that we negotiate with Al Qaeda? The longer this campaign has gone, the more intellectually dishonest the Republicans have become.
Of course, we now know that Bush doesn't think he can win the war on terror. (Josh Marshall is absolutely right -- if Kerry had said that, they would have plopped Cheney in front of a podium in five minutes time to denounce Kerry.) It's been really fun watching Republicans try to explain to the American people what their plain-spoken President REALLY meant, even Laura Bush getting trotted out for that duty. Karl Rove must have spit up when he watched that interview with Bush.
The other interesting thing to watch during this week is the number of statements that will be made without any factual basis whatsoever. Bush is ___. (Insert your favorite Karen Hughes puffery here). They think that if they say it, the American people will believe it is so. Let's see who is smarter.
