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The Mad Monk
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of Ice Cream
Mar 2000
time: 23:35
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Previous thread:
http://www.apolyton.com/forums/show...258#post3249258
quote:
Bob Dole on his recent criticism of John Kerry
The former U.S. senator talks about the Swift Boat ads, being a proud Vietnam veteran, and what it's like to run for president
Former U.S. Senator Bob Dole spoke with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough about John Kerry’s war record and the swift boat veterans ad controversy, in an interview scheduled to air on tonight’s “Scarborough Country” 10-11 p.m. ET.
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Dole tells Scarborough that Senator Kerry called Senator Dole after his statements on Sunday to tell him he was “disappointed.” Dole also says that he thinks Kerry should stop talking about what a “great veteran” he was, that he thinks the American people admire the “quiet heroes” and it pays to “not talk about yourself so much.”
Following is a partial transcript from tonight’s interview, which will telecast in its entirety on tonight on MSNBC.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST: I want to ask, you’ve been through one of these presidential campaigns. You know what it’s like on the campaign trail. Are you surprised, as a guy who is a war hero, that John Kerry’s war record is playing such a central role in this presidential campaign this year?
DOLE: Well, I am a little surprised because I remember in ‘96, of course, Clinton didn’t have a record and the liberal media didn’t want to say much about my record. So it never really became—you know… I guess “The New York Times” may have said I was a veteran, that’s about as far as they went.
So this time you’ve got a candidate named John Kerry who had a good record in Vietnam, came back from the service, denounced the war, in effect, trashed the Americans who were still fighting there. Went before a Senate committee in April of 1971, threw away his ribbons or his medals or whatever and now is standing before the American people and saying you’ve got to elect me because I’m this Vietnam hero.
And it’s kind of hard to reconcile all of these things. So it does sort of bring up focus that I don’t think we’ve had in the past.
SCARBOROUGH: Do you think it’s important for a president to have a war record or to be a veteran?
DOLE: I don’t know. I was asked that in ‘96. You know, I said, “Well, I think I learned a lot obviously being in the service.” I think if I’m John Kerry, I’m proud of my service. Some days he’s proud, other days he’s denouncing his service. But I was proud of my service. I thought people were proud of my service.
But it’s a very fine line you walk when you’re standing before a crowd of 5,000 or 6,000 people to make a speech because out in that audience, there are going to be a lot of men and women and mother, father, whatever, who make not have served or may not know much about service in World War II, Korea, Vietnam.
And so you don’t want to go out there and say, you know: “Vote for me. I did this, this, this, this, this. I got all these medals. I got all these Purple Hearts.”
I think you can do it in a different way, John Kerry’s a friend of mine. I sent a signal about two or three months ago on television, “John, back off. You know, cool it. Don’t make the Vietnam War the centerpiece of your campaign.”
But he’s got a problem, because he spent 20 years in the Senate and doesn’t have much to show for it.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, you sent a signal a few months back, and then, of course, a couple days ago you had this to say about John Kerry. Let me read the quote:
“Three Purple Hearts and never bled, that I know of. They’re such superficial wounds. Three Purple Hearts and you’re out. I think Senator Kerry needs to talk about his Senate record, which is pretty thin. That’s probably why he’s talking bout his war record, which is pretty confused.”
Obviously, that’s a very strong statement. As a respected public figure, as a war hero yourself, that that statement was going to make news. What compelled you to make it?
DOLE: I don’t know. I’m not out trying to stir up a lot of trouble.
Wolf Blitzer is a friend of mine on CNN. He’d asked me three weeks in a row to come on the program. I ducked him. I finally said, “OK, I’ll go.” I knew what he wanted to ask me.
But this is after we’d had somebody called Vice President Cheney a coward. They’ve called Bush “a deserter” that he was AWOL, that he’s condoned torture, that he’s condoned poisoning of pregnant women. I mean, all these nasty, nasty, over-the-top attacks.
And they spent $65 million trying to defame President Bush. I told John Kerry on the telephone the next day. I said, “John, President Bush is my guy. And when I see all the people dumping on him, and all the misstatements and—and untruths, it kind of riles me up a little.” So maybe I expressed that on Sunday.
SCARBOROUGH: So you spoke with John Kerry. Did he call you, or did you call him?
DOLE: He called me the next day and said “I’m very disappointed.”
I said, “Well, John, I’m disappointed, too, in all these undeserved attacks on President Bush. If you want to question Dick Cheney’s deferment, that’s fine. If you want to question the National Guard, that’s fine. But John, these other guys, these swift boat veterans are a lot of them that have a different view of what happened than you have, and they have a right to speak. We live in the United States of America. It’s a free country. You may not like what they say, but they have a right to say it.”
SCARBOROUGH: And what did Senator Kerry say to you in response?
DOLE: He said, “I haven’t spent one dime in my campaign on a negative ad.”
Well, he doesn’t have to. He’s got George Soros, who put in $15 million. He’s got Harold Ickes up there cranking out millions of dollars of ads. He’s got his former campaign manager in Boston in another group called Bringing America Together.
President Bush to his credit, and I wish John Kerry would follow suit, said, “Let’s stop all these so-called 527 ads, all these soft money ads that have been so critical. Let’s talk about the issues.”
And the American people, they like to know that you’re a veteran, or not a veteran—you know, they actually don’t like some of the negatives and all this. But they also like to know what’s going to happen next year, not what happened 30 or 35 years ago.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, Senator, we’ve been talking for the past week now about the fact that Harold Ickes was holed up in the Four Seasons in Boston with Democratic fundraisers and John Kerry’s top contributors for an entire week during the Democratic National Convention.
And yet, nobody wrote about his 527 ad and the $20 million that he raised for ACT. Nobody talked about the fact that John Kerry’s former campaign manager is running this Media Fund, which also is spending millions and millions of dollars.
You ran for president. It’s easy for me to talk about media bias, but did you see media bias in 1996? And if so, how widespread is it?
DOLE: It’s widespread. I mean, you look at the number of stories written about or on the three big networks at night and “The New York Times,” “The L.A. Times,” “The Washington Post,” all the big newspapers. How many dozens of stories they’ve reported about George Bush and the National Guard, and now they had to rush to the defense of John Kerry.
“The New York Times” last Friday had a front-page story, trying to discredit all these other Vietnam veterans, some who’ve been wounded seriously, all of whom served honorably. And many were decorated. And they’re cast as a bunch of liars or paid off by the Bush people. And that’s the kind of coverage you would get from the so-called mainstream media.
President Bush is going to go out and rebut this, for the most part, with paid advertising. He doesn’t have “The New York Times” every day. if you added up the value of all “The New York Times” propaganda, it would probably be $3 or $4 million.
Watch the full interview on 'Scarborough Country,' Wednesday, 10 p.m. ET.
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http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5820820/
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Berzerker
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topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:35
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Ogie - quote:
No and I gave you the rationale to describe it as non definitive. That being, that to say you are in Cambodia and then immediately clarifying to say on the border. Thats a statement of proximity. Says volumes to me. What so difficult to understand? |
I don't read it that way, it tells me O'Neill worked on the border and ventured into Cambodia on occasion. As for definitiveness, both men said they were in Cambodia. One now says he was never in Cambodia and accuses the other of lying. That's just bizarre to me...
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OTOH contrast to Kerry who has defintively stated in Cambodia with intent to show illegality of action and then further claims of within Cambodia 5 miles deep. |
What was O'Neill's motive for claiming to have been in Cambodia? We were in Cambodia, so wasn't that illegal?
quote:
You obviously missed the part where I was using this to provoke. Regardless, I believe the ruling would have to come down to establish exactly what is meant by "coordinating". One could easily construe interrogating 527's or a member once identified member as a means to negotiate a peace treaty if you will to call of the dogs as one needs to understand themotivations, hence coordination. |
Kerry called to negotiate a peace treaty with these guys? Is there a transcript of the conversation? I got the impression Kerry asked the guy why he was doing this, that isn't coordinating. Coordinating means substantial assistance, not inquiries into motive.
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Lincoln
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Dole didn't brag about his war service, and a draft dodger won the election. Kerry evidently thinks that he can brag about his record in Vietnam and win this election. Kerry made a big mistake by trashing fellow vets though. I heard today that he pulled the ad with McCain rebuking Bush because he was using McCain without his permission to trash Bush. I guess he forgot that McCain supports Bush and campaigns on his behalf. Kerry is about Kerry.
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spartak
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quote:
Originally posted by notyoueither
3 quatloos on 20. |
Don't you mean qweegles?
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:35
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/p.../27bush.html?hp
quote:
Bush Dismisses Idea That Kerry Lied on Vietnam
By DAVID E. SANGER and ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: August 27, 2004
FARMINGTON, N.M., Aug. 26 - President Bush said on Thursday that he did not believe Senator John Kerry lied about his war record, but he declined to condemn the television commercial paid for by a veterans group alleging that Mr. Kerry came by his war medals dishonestly.
Mr. Bush's comments, in a half-hour interview with The New York Times, undercut a central accusation leveled by the veterans group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose unproven attacks on Mr. Kerry have dominated the political debate for more than two weeks.
In the interview, which included topics like preparations for the Republican National Convention, the reconstruction of Iraq and the twin nuclear threats of North Korea and Iran, Mr. Bush portrayed himself as a victim of the same type of political interest groups - called 527 committees for the section of the tax code that created them - that are attacking Mr. Kerry.
"I understand how Senator Kerry feels - I've been attacked by 527's too,'' he said, adding that he had spoken earlier in the day to Senator John McCain and had agreed to join him in a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission to bar the groups.
Mr. Bush also acknowledged for the first time that he made a "miscalculation of what the conditions would be'' in postwar Iraq. But he insisted that the 17-month-long insurgency that has upended the administration's plans for the country was the unintended by-product of a "swift victory'' against Saddam Hussein's military, which fled and then disappeared into the cities, enabling them to mount a rebellion against the American forces far faster than Mr. Bush and his aides had anticipated.
He insisted that his strategy had been "flexible enough'' to respond, and said that even now "we're adjusting to our conditions'' in places like Najaf, where American forces have been battling one of the most militant of the Shiite groups opposing the American-installed government.
Mr. Bush deflected efforts to inquire further into what went wrong with the occupation, suggesting that such questions should be left to historians, and insisting, as his father used to, that he would resist going "on the couch'' to rethink decisions.
On environmental issues, Mr. Bush appeared unfamiliar with an administration report delivered to Congress on Wednesday that indicated that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases were the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades. Previously, Mr. Bush and other officials had emphasized uncertainties in understanding the causes and consequences of global warming.
The new report was signed by Mr. Bush's secretaries of energy and commerce and his science adviser. Asked why the administration had changed its position on what causes global warming, Mr. Bush replied, "Ah, we did? I don't think so."
Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's press secretary, said later that the administration was not changing its position on global warming and that Mr. Bush continued to be guided by continuing research at the National Academy of Sciences.
Mr. Bush conducted the interview in an unusual setting: A cinderblock dressing room, outfitted with a conference table and leather reclining chairs, accessible only by walking through a men's room underneath a small stadium here, where he appeared for a campaign rally. The president was joined by one of his closest advisers, Karen P. Hughes, who is now traveling with him; the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice; former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, who was introducing him at rallies across the state; and his press secretary, Scott McClellan.
In the interview and at three rallies across the state, Mr. Bush appeared relaxed in an open-collared shirt with his shirtsleeves rolled up. Aides said he was in a good mood because of recent polls that showed him gaining ground on Mr. Kerry after months of bad news in Iraq.
A poll conducted by The Los Angeles Times found that Mr. Bush was running ahead of Mr. Kerry for the first time this year and suggested that some of the erosion in Mr. Kerry's support could be linked to the attacks on his military service. But the Times poll and several others released on Thursday showed the race to be deadlocked, with neither candidate holding a lead beyond the margin of sampling error.
One senior political adviser to the president said the shift in Mr. Bush's favor was due to Mr. Kerry's statement two weeks ago that he would have voted to give the president the authority to invade Iraq even if he had known that the country currently possessed no weapons of mass destruction.
"It felt like he had finally made his position clear,'' Mr. Bush said in the interview, referring to Mr. Kerry.
Mr. Bush also took issue with Mr. Kerry's argument, in an interview at the end of May with The New York Times, that the Bush administration's focus on Iraq had given North Korea the opportunity to significantly expand its nuclear capability. Showing none of the alarm about the North's growing arsenal that he once voiced regularly about Iraq, he opened his palms and shrugged when an interviewer noted that new intelligence reports indicate that the North may now have the fuel to produce six or eight nuclear weapons.
He said that in North Korea's case, and in Iran's, he would not be rushed to set deadlines for the countries to disarm, despite his past declaration that he would not "tolerate'' nuclear capability in either nation. He declined to define what he meant by "tolerate.''
"I don't think you give timelines to dictators,'' Mr. Bush said, speaking of North Korea's president, Kim Jong Il, and Iran's mullahs. He said he would continue diplomatic pressure - using China to pressure the North and Europe to pressure Iran - and gave no hint that his patience was limited or that at some point he might consider pre-emptive military action.
"I'm confident that over time this will work - I certainly hope it does,'' he said of the diplomatic approach. Mr. Kerry argued in his interview that North Korea "'was a far more compelling threat in many ways, and it belonged at the top of the agenda,'' but Mr. Bush declined to compare it to Iraq, apart from arguing that Iraq had defied the world community for longer than the other members of what he once called "the axis of evil.'' Nor would he assess the risk that Pyongyang might sell nuclear material to terrorists, though his national security aides believe it may have sold raw uranium to Libya in recent years.
Mr. Bush spoke on the first leg of a multistate tour in advance of the convention: He spends late Friday in Florida, Saturday on another bus trip through Ohio, and Sunday in West Virginia. All are considered crucial swing states.
Mr. Bush did not hesitate when asked about the central charge issued by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the veterans' group that has leveled unsubstantiated attacks against Mr. Kerry's record in Vietnam. "I think Senator Kerry should be proud of his record,'' Mr. Bush said. "No, I don't think he lied.''
But when pressed repeatedly if he would specifically denounce the advertisements, which Mr. Kerry has said were being run with the tacit approval of the Bush campaign, the president refused to condemn then. Instead, he said he would talk only of the "broader issue'' of the political committees that take to the airwaves with attack advertisements.
"Five twenty-sevens - I think these ought to be outlawed,'' he said. "I think they should have been outlawed a year ago. We have billionaires writing checks, large checks, to influence the outcome of the election.'' |
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27-08-2004 11:01
That was the excuse he used during the N.H. primary when he refused to acknowledge that he used illegal drugs - he said answering that question would send the wrong message to children. 
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