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Geronimo
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st cloud USA
Jan 1970
time: 05:34
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I have to say that when running for the highest office in the land it is in your best interest to dispell the other sides smear tactics every chance you get. If I run for president and the other guy asks me if I've stopped beating my wife, wtf should I ignore that? I'll gain polictal points by getting the signed affidavet from my wife and her doctor that no such beating occured. Kerry and Bush aren't posters in some forum on the internet, they are campaigning. The fact a poster here isn't willing dispell rumors about whether he beats his wife tells us nothing about whether it would be suspicious for someone running for office to likewise refuse to dispell such an accusation. The fact that Kerry refuses to release the evidence that would refute these highly public accusations while he is running for office certainly is evidence that he does in fact feel he has something to hide in that record.
So what? Why are Kerry supporters rushing to defend this crap? It has been something like 15 years since Kerry was bringing this stuff up in congress hasn't it? Certainly it has been 30+ years since the actual events themselves would have transpired. Is it really important enough to bother refuting on Kerry's behalf if he himself won't bother to do so?
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Geronimo
I have to say that when running for the highest office in the land it is in your best interest to dispell the other sides smear tactics every chance you get. If I run for president and the other guy asks me if I've stopped beating my wife, wtf should I ignore that? I'll gain polictal points by getting the signed affidavet from my wife and her doctor that no such beating occured.
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No you won't, and this has been proven since Jefferson's time. If you get the signed affidavit, you either (a) beat it out of her, or (b) paid her off, or (c) forged her signature and had her drugged, or (d) she is traumatized by the beatings to the point where you have effective psychological control over her, and you've convinced the poor thing that she needs to lie to support you or it will be bad for her.
Once you've shown that you'll spend any significant effort to respond to these allegations, they'll get repeated, new allegations will be made, and sharks will circle. The principle behind the whole thing is that when you start denying claims, you're talking about it too, and what sticks with the voters is the claims, because they expect you'd deny them whether guilty or not. It's a tried and true tactic in US election history.
quote:
So what? Why are Kerry supporters rushing to defend this crap? It has been something like 15 years since Kerry was bringing this stuff up in congress hasn't it? Certainly it has been 30+ years since the actual events themselves would have transpired. Is it really important enough to bother refuting on Kerry's behalf if he himself won't bother to do so? |
Counter-trolling is idle entertainment, just like trolling is.
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Geronimo
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st cloud USA
Jan 1970
time: 05:34
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
No you won't, and this has been proven since Jefferson's time. If you get the signed affidavit, you either (a) beat it out of her, or (b) paid her off, or (c) forged her signature and had her drugged, or (d) she is traumatized by the beatings to the point where you have effective psychological control over her, and you've convinced the poor thing that she needs to lie to support you or it will be bad for her.
Once you've shown that you'll spend any significant effort to respond to these allegations, they'll get repeated, new allegations will be made, and sharks will circle. The principle behind the whole thing is that when you start denying claims, you're talking about it too, and what sticks with the voters is the claims, because they expect you'd deny them whether guilty or not. It's a tried and true tactic in US election history.
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So did Bush screw up when he released his confidential national guard payment records to dispell awol accusations? I certainly remember attaching a lot less credibility to the AWOL accusations that were refuted by those payment records than I had before they were refuted. Supposing you're right and Kerry releases the records that exonerate his record certainly the swiftboat accusers will simply claim that Kerry falsified it from the get go, but as with the Bush controversy all available evidence would then be out and there would no longer be any response that a reasonable person would expect from Kerry. What's more, given the heroism that Kerry would have us believe occured in his stay in vietnam and referred to in his nomination acceptance speech, it would clearly be a good thing for Kerry if releasing it simply generatd more discussion of this time because according to Kerry these events were not sordid in any way and were in fact quite laudible. I think the only instance in which your argument works, and a candidate is best served by ignoring the accusation is those situations where exonerating yourself only draws attention to bad press (the accusations) with no newsworthy good press to accompany the disclosure. If someone is releasing their record of their heroic deeds in service to our country there is just no sane reason to keep that confidential. It still seems really fishy to me.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:34
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Don't you think that the office of the President and the Secreatary of the Navy had far more resources available to them on this in the early 70s, when Kerry was initially making his claims. If there was any truth to these rumors, don't you think Nixon would have exposed him? Why did all these guys wait until 2004, to say that Kerry made all this stuff up instead of doing it in 1971, when Nixon was investigating him?
There's a lot of smoke, but only cuz someone threw a stink bomb. |
According to the NYTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/p...0swift.html?th, the reason for the sudden resurgence is Rear Adm. Guy Hoffmann:
"It all began last winter, as Mr. Kerry was wrapping up the Democratic nomination. Mr. Lonsdale received a call at his Massachusetts home from his old commander in Vietnam, Mr. Hoffmann, asking if he had seen the new biography of the man who would be president.
Mr. Hoffmann had commanded the Swift boats during the war from a base in Cam Ranh Bay and advocated a search-and-destroy campaign against the Vietcong..."
...
"Both Mr. Hoffmann and Mr. Lonsdale had publicly lauded Mr. Kerry in the past. But the book, Mr. Brinkley's "Tour of Duty," while it burnished Mr. Kerry's reputation, portrayed the two men as reckless leaders whose military approach had led to the deaths of countless sailors and innocent civilians. Several Swift boat veterans compared Mr. Hoffmann to the bloodthirsty colonel in the film "Apocalypse Now" - the one who loves the smell of Napalm in the morning.
The two men were determined to set the record, as they saw it, straight.
"It was the admiral who started it and got the rest of us into it," Mr. Lonsdale said."
The balance of the article details how the Vets go together and began to compare notes of their recollection of events against Kerry's biography. They found that their recollection varied from Kerry's and they set about to set the record straight.
So it appears that Kerry brought this on himself by attacking Admiral Hoffmann.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Tingkai
The more I read this thread, the more I realise just how brave Kerry is, not because of what he did in Vietnam, but because of what he did when he came home.
He had the courage to stand and say the war is wrong, the war is pointless, Americans are dying for nothing and more Americans will die for no reason.
To do that, he stood up against a system that he was a part of and many of his "comrades in arms" turned on him. He admitted that he was an active part of the machine that was killing people for no reason. It takes guts to say that I was an ordinary sailor, I did what everyone else did and what I did was wrong.
Look at the hate spewed by some people here 35 years later and imagine how much hate he faced back then.
It takes incredible inner strength to stand up and say "what I did and what we are doing is wrong", especially when you know that so many people will turn against you.
How many of us would have that courage? |
That's not exactly what he said, now was it.
Here is a link to the new ad that shows Kerry testifying:
http://humaneventsonline.com.edgesu...fit_video2.html
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:34
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quote:
Originally posted by SpencerH
Proxies 
If twenty eye witnesses had turned up at OJ's trial, I think the verdict would have been different. Thats what we have here.
There are 20 eyewitnesses of Kerrys actions, some of whom lived with him daily for 3 months in a war zone. They dont all say the same thing about details, but as a group they disagree with what kerry says happened. Add that to the known facts i.e. that two of the purple hearts were scratches and that kerry (a volunteer for that hazardous duty) took a runner out of country (based on those 'injuries' and a technicality) and you've got a story of kerrys time in country that vets (at least) recognize as false. Some vets may vote for kerry cos they still dislike Bush more, but on CNN they were just discussing a large polling shift by veterans from Kerry to Bush in light of the inconsistencies of Kerrys vietnam record. Its gonna hurt him. |
And the funny thing is, if you read the NYTimes piece:
1. Many of those gentlemen have made totally contradictory statements in the last few years about Kerry's record
2. All official statements on record about the actions back Kerry's assertions.
So the simple issue is that these men, 35 years after the fact, can't show ANY CONTEMPORARY documentation of their claims. This means their credibility is, well, at BEST very low.
Now, is it going to hurt him? For now, yes, but come the debates it will be forgotten. And Kerry can always use it against Bush (as he started doing) by linkking Bsuh to a bunch of allegations lacking in any proof being made, allegations Bush himself does not repeat in any way.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:34
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quote:
Originally posted by GePap
NO
If you read the words of the article without putting them through the "Nedaverse filter", Admiral Hoffman was angered by the way HE was portrayed in the book, which was in a very negative light.
As MtG said, official documents basically conform completely with Kerry's accounts, not those of these individuals. |
I am sorry, GePap, but the article actually quotes supportive comments by Hoffmann and others who later turned against Kerry. As I said, Hoffmann, who once supported Kerry, turned against him because Kerry smeared him. On this we agree.
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20-08-2004 22:22
Way to ignore the rest of the article
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