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Saturday, October 23, 2004
October Surprise... Against Bush?
I've previously mentioned how it has been long believed that Bush's 1973 community service was the result of a cocaine bust or earlier drunken driving arrest, and Daddie Bush made a deal with prosecutors to wipe clean his prodigal son's record in exchange for Bush doing community service. Supposedly, that story was been looked into by a number of reporters this season, and apparently one of them has broken through a little bit.
You'll remember that Bush "wrote" a 1999 autobiography (actually ghostwritten by Nurse Ratchet, Karen Hughes), and that book suffers from some serious accuracy problems. It's been widely reported (although not in the mainstream media) how Bush's statement in that book that, after 1972, he "continued flying with my [National Guard] unit for several years," is untrue, as his records clearly show that he was grounded for failing to take a physical and never flew again.
Bush also apparently discussed his community service in that book as well. Here's what he said:
"I was working full-time for an inner-city poverty program known as Project
PULL," he said in his 1999 autobiography, A Charge to Keep. "My friend John
White... asked me to come help him run the program... . I was intrigued by
John's offer... . Now I had a chance to help people."
Well, it turns out that John White is dead, having passed away in 1988, but other employees who worked in PULL in 1973 are still alive and kickin', and guess what, they dispute Bush's account:
Some former associates of White, who died in 1988, speaking on the record
for the first time, say that Bush wasn't helping to run the program but was
instead a volunteer, and that White hadn't asked Bush to come aboard. Instead,
the associates said, White told them he agreed to take Bush on as a favor to
Bush's father, who was honorary cochairman of the program at the time. They say
White, a tight end for the Houston Oilers in the '60s, told them Bush had gotten
into some kind of trouble, but White never gave them specifics.
While they question how he came to the group, they also praise his work
and agree that he connected well with the youths. "We didn't know what
kind of trouble he'd been in, only that he'd done something that required him to
put in the time," said Althia Turner, White's administrative assistant.
"He didn't help run the program. I was in charge of him and I wouldn't say I
helped run the program, either," said David Anderson, a recreational director at
PULL....
Turner, who said she had avoided reporters for years, agreed to be
interviewed only after phoning her pastor. "George had to sign in and out
- I remember his signature was a hurried cursive - but he wasn't an employee. He
was not a volunteer either," she said. "John said he had to keep track of
George's hours because George had to put in a lot of hours because he was in
trouble."
Four years ago, it was the news of the DWI arrest on the eve of the election that hurt Bush. Could this story be this year's version?
Friday, October 22, 2004
This is All That They've Got
Bush's whole campaign is based on taking statements by Kerry out of context and then shooting down the straw man. E.J. Dionne today writes about the latest example:
Begin with Bush's distortions of Kerry's record on terrorism. Here's Bush
in Mason City, Iowa, on Wednesday: "Senator Kerry was recently asked how
September the 11th had changed him. He replied, 'It didn't change me much at
all.' And this unchanged worldview becomes obvious when he calls the war against
terror primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation, rather than what
I believe: a war which requires the full use of American power to keep us
secure."
By taking seven of Kerry's words out of a much longer statement, Bush
twisted his opponent's position beyond recognition. Here is journalist Matt
Bai's account, in the New York Times Magazine article Bush was citing, of what
Kerry actually said when he was asked how Sept. 11 had changed him:
"I mean, it didn't change me much at all. It just sort of accelerated,
confirmed in me, the urgency of doing the things I thought we needed to be
doing. I mean, to me, it wasn't as transformational as it was a kind of anger, a
frustration and an urgency that we weren't doing the kinds of things necessary
to prevent it and to deal with it." Bai added: "Kerry did allow that he, like
other Americans, felt less safe after 9/11." Not exactly the guy Bush described.
I challenge someone to defend the President here. Go ahead -- click on the comment. Feel free. No takers?
It's just one intellectually dishonest statement after another. And that's all Bush has to run on.
If this is what they'll say to hold on to power, imagine what they'll do if they keep it.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
A Potentially Fatal Flaw?
I've always thought that Karl Rove, though an evil genius, has shown one fatal flaw over and over: hubris. Rove sent Bush into California late in 2000, said that Bush would get over 320 electoral votes, and Bush took a day off during the last week of the campaign. If Rove had concentrated on Florida, rather than making sojourns into a state that was clearly lost, maybe his candidate might actually have won.
I think the same can be said of Bush's trip to New Jersey yesterday. I know, some polls have shown it to be tight. But this Rutgers poll shows Kerry way ahead again, by at least 10 points, making a Bush stop in Wisconsin or Ohio or Florida much more valuable. But I suspect Rove can't resist the opportunity to pull away a big blue state like Jersey. Let's hope he continues to think that way.
