Rove's fingerprints

Salon.com News | When Republicans attack

...Wayne Slater isn't surprised at all. Slater, the veteran Dallas Morning News reporter who coauthored 'Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential,' said Tuesday that the Swift Boat Veterans attack was entirely predictable. Slater has watched Karl Rove work for nearly two decades, and he said the 'mark of Rove' in a campaign is always the same: Aim nasty attacks right at your opponent's strength, but keep your own fingerprints off them.

It happened in Texas in 1994, when Karl Rove ran Bush's campaign against Gov. Ann Richards. Richards' strength, Slater said, was her reputation for tolerance and inclusiveness. Then somebody started rumors in conservative East Texas, whispers suggesting that Richards and some of her staff members were gay. Bush didn't make the accusation himself, of course, but one day a state senator serving as Bush's East Texas campaign chairman -- a politician who had worked previously with Rove -- told a newspaper reporter that Richards' appointment of 'avowed homosexuals' might be a liability in her campaign for reelection. The rumors, suddenly on the record -- at least sort of -- become newspaper stories, and Bush won the race.

Six years later, with Bush and Rove facing a must-win Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, somebody started suggesting that Sen. John McCain's experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam had left him mentally unstable. Again, it was an attack on the opponent's strength -- in McCain's case, his role as a war hero -- and again, Bush and Rove disavowed any involvement in the attacks. When McCain challenged Bush in a Republican debate, Bush said: ' John, I believe that you served our country nobly.'

Of course, that's almost exactly what Bush has said about John Kerry, even as a group with close ties to Rove and the Bush-Cheney campaign runs an advertisement making the opposite point. When Larry King asked Bush about the Swift Boat Veterans' ad earlier this month, Bush said that he believes Kerry performed 'honorable service' in Vietnam.

Slater said that Kerry has learned a lesson from the losses suffered by Ann Richards and John McCain. 'You do not ignore the attacks,' Slater said. 'Richards never responded, and with McCain the response was too muted and too late. The lesson here is that you should respond immediately and try to tag the Bush administration or the Bush campaign as the responsible party.'

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > TV Watch: On Cable, a Fog of Words About Kerry's War Record

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > TV Watch: On Cable, a Fog of Words About Kerry's War Record

That kind of air-kiss coverage is typical of cable news, where the premium is on speed and spirited banter rather than painstaking accuracy. But it has grown into a lazy habit: anchors do not referee - they act as if their reportage is fair and accurate as long as they have two opposing spokesmen on any issue.

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Fox is behaving as expected, but CNN is little better.

Rove understands cable TV.

This NYT piece rips cable TV right and left.

Too bad I don't terminate cable service -- never had it. I even got rid of our antennas -- we can't even get broadcast TV. No great loss.

More Bush coordination with SBVT

The Agonist | thoughtful, global, timely: "Benjamin Ginsberg's acknowledgment marks the second time in days that an individual associated with the Bush-Cheney campaign has been connected to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which Kerry accuses of being a front for the Republican incumbent's re-election effort.

The Bush campaign and the veterans' group say there is no coordination."

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Nope, no coordination at all. Merely a great deal of integration.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Abu Ghraib report attacks 'chaos'

BBC NEWS | Americas | Abu Ghraib report attacks 'chaos'

I heard a discussion of this report on NPR. One number stuck in my head: 75:1. That was the ratio of Abu Ghraib prisoners to military police.

At Guantanomo Bay the ratio was 1:1. Without mortars. With an apparently more disciplined set of detainees.

The military police who served at Abu Ghraib under those conditions, and who did not abuse prisoners, deserve medals.

Those who spoke out against the abuse deserve medals and promotions. (Though Bush will give them neither.)

Rumsfeld deserves a rotation at Abu Ghraib.

Back to Iraq 3.0: Inside the Imam Ali Shrine

Back to Iraq 3.0: Inside the Imam Ali Shrine

Inside, we were greeted warmly. The Mahdi know how to work the media, and they know the world press generally likes the scrappy underdog — especially if they don’t actively try to kill you like the Sunni insurgents do. And to give Moqtada credit, he does try to discourage kidnappings and he’s been helpful in getting two of my friends released. There were no weapons in sight, and I don’t think — anymore — that there are any in the Shrine proper. But I did watch mortars being fired from just beneath and outside the eastern wall of the Shrine. The mortar teams were right up against the wall, allowing them quickly leave the mortar outside and dash inside to become unarmed pilgrims again.

And this is pissing off a lot of the people who live around the Shrine. The Mahdi aren’t particularly accurate in their firings, and they’re dropping live rounds in a densely populated area. Houses and cars are being blown up. People are dying, and the residents of Najaf are blaming Moqtada.

“There is no food, no water,” said Akil Ramahi, 32, in the streets before we entered the old city. “Death is better than this.”

“One man did all this,” he continued. “If Saddam had been here, he would have gotten rid of Moqtada al-Sadr in one day. I accuse Moqtada al-Sadr of destroying the market—” he was referring to a bombed-out market—”Not the Americans.”

To be fair, more common was the “pox on both houses” sentiment, but interestingly, the Mahdis are about as popular as the Americans, which is to say not very popular at all.

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This blog has the most convincing reporting I've read on the shrine battles.

What Bush's donors got in return

John Kerry for President - Rapid Response Center

Bush is a gangster with integrity. If you help him, he helps you. He provides great return on investment, like any good member of "The Family".

Of course most Americans aren't a member of his "Family".

Then and now: changes in the swift boat stories ...

The Washington Monthly -

Roy Hoffman, today: "John Kerry has not been honest."
Roy Hoffman, 2003: "I am not going to say anything negative about him — he's a good man."

Adrian Lonsdale, today: "He lacks the capacity to lead."
Adrian Lonsdale, 1996: "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."

George Elliot, today: "John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam."
George Elliot, 1996: "The fact that he chased an armed enemy down is something not to be looked down upon, but it was an act of courage."

Larry Thurlow, today: "...there was no hostile enemy fire directed at my boat or at any of the five boats operating on the river that day."
Larry Thurlow's Bronze Star citation, 1969: "...all units began receiving enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire from the river banks."

Dr. Louis Letson, today: "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury."
Medical records, 1968: "Dr. Letson's name does not appear on any of the medical records for Mr. Kerry. Under 'person administering treatment' for the injury, the form is signed by a medic, J. C. Carreon, who died several years ago."

Grant Hibbard, today: "He betrayed all his shipmates. He lied before the Senate."
Hibbard's evaluation of Kerry, 1968: "Mr. Hibbard gave Mr. Kerry the highest rating of 'one of the top few' in three categories—initiative, cooperation and personal behavior. He gave Mr. Kerry the second-best rating, 'above the majority,' in military bearing."

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My Kerry Volunteer page ...

:: John Kerry for President - Volunteer Center ::

I'm number 760,000 or so on the volunteer list. One gets points for fundrainsing, recruiting etc. That's a long list.

When you volunteer you get a "web page". To put it mildly, there's not much opportunity for customization. You get to select what political pablum is displayed as one's "personal message". There are few attempts to profile the volunteers, but they're pretty dull. One question asked me to list which of Kerry's policies attracted me. The policy of "I'm not George Bush" was not on the list.

Kerry Attacks: His Internet Ad

Tell George Bush: Stop the Smear - Get Back to the Issues

A great ad -- one that drafts McCain (however unwillingly!) into the middle of this battle. It's taken from the McCain-Bush primary battles, when McCain attacks Bush for an earlier cowardly Bush ploy.

We need a lot more of these.

Click on the link, watch the video.

Ivins on Thucydides

Star-Telegram | 08/22/2004 | Molly Ivins | Thucydides had it right

o think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just another attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand the question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action; fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man. … Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect."

The quote is from Thucydides, an early historian, writing about the day in 415 B.C. when Athens sent its glorious fleet off to destruction in Sicily.

Garrison Keillor: What Democrats Believe

Salon.com Books | Prairie fire

I don't know any common people personally, though I do know people living on a narrow financial ledge who work terrifically hard to keep from falling off. Young writers, artists, musicians, for sure, but also office workers trying to pay off college loans, own a car, lead a decent life with some music and fun in it, and not to drown in credit card debt. For them, the middle-class life -- the house, the kids, the leisure -- is not so attainable as it was for their folks. You can't swing it on $12.50 an hour. This is a great country for people who earn a quarter-million a year or more, and the others are getting gypped. Democrats were put on earth to speak up for them. We believe in the energy and inventiveness and wild ambition of the young, the marginal, the outsider, the dispossessed -- that's where the genius and soul of this country resides, and we should not crush it underfoot.

Rove , Bush and the Swift Boat Veterans. Goering Lives.

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad

Now we begin to understand where the swift boat fraud is coming from. Kerry's biography portrayed some of them to as incompetent leaders and war criminals. They responded with a frantic barrage of accusations, amplified and encouraged by Bush money and right wing adulation. The more the money, the more the power, the more their memories changed.

There are links to the successful attacks on Dukakis, Clinton, McCain and others. This strategy works, and it works well. The masses can be swayed. Goering perfected these techniques 70 years ago, Rove is merely refining the master's work.

Leo Strauss, idol of the neocons, preached the power of stories to guide the masses. I wonder how he'd feel about how his acolytes are applying these techniques.

Kerry and Edwards need to fight hard, very hard. They have to attack Rove and Bush at every turn, and constantly expose their techniques.

At least the media is beginning to awaken.

The New York Times
August 20, 2004
Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad
By KATE ZERNIKE and JIM RUTENBERG

After weeks of taking fire over veterans' accusations that he had lied about his Vietnam service record to win medals and build a political career, Senator John Kerry shot back yesterday, calling those statements categorically false and branding the people behind them tools of the Bush campaign.

His decision to take on the group directly was a measure of how the group that calls itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has catapulted itself to the forefront of the presidential campaign. It has advanced its cause in a book, in a television advertisement and on cable news and talk radio shows, all in an attempt to discredit Mr. Kerry's war record, a pillar of his campaign.

How the group came into existence is a story of how veterans with longstanding anger about Mr. Kerry's antiwar statements in the early 1970's allied themselves with Texas Republicans...

... A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove.

... the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.

The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the "baby killer" and the fabricator of the events that resulted in his war medals. But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements.

Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.

In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."

In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."

George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the "bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats."

"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."

Those comments echoed the official record. In an evaluation of Mr. Kerry in 1969, Mr. Elliott, who was one of his commanders, ranked him as "not exceeded" in 11 categories, including moral courage, judgment and decisiveness, and "one of the top few" - the second-highest distinction - in the remaining five. In written comments, he called Mr. Kerry "unsurpassed," "beyond reproach" and "the acknowledged leader in his peer group."

... 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 - the kind of tactic Mr. Kerry criticized when he was a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971. Shortly after leaving the Navy in 1978, he [Hoffman] was issued a letter of censure for exercising undue influence on cases in the military justice system.

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.

... Mr. Hoffmann's phone calls led them to Texas and to John E. O'Neill, who at one point commanded the same Swift boat in Vietnam, and whose mission against him dated to 1971, when he had been recruited by the Nixon administration to debate Mr. Kerry on "The Dick Cavett Show."

... About 10 veterans met in Ms. Spaeth's office in Dallas in April to share outrage and plot their campaign against Mr. Kerry, she and others said. Mr. Lonsdale, who did not attend, said the meeting had been planned as "an indoctrination session."

What might have been loose impressions about Mr. Kerry began to harden.

"That was an awakening experience," Ms. Spaeth said. "Not just for me, but for many of them who had not heard each other's stories."

The group decided to hire a private investigator to investigate Mr. Brinkley's account of the war - to find "some neutral way of actually questioning people involved in these incidents,'' Mr. O'Neill said.

But the investigator's questions did not seem neutral to some.

Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr. Kerry, said he initially thought the caller was from a pro-Kerry group, and happily gave a statement about the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart. The investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail for his signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version was stripped of all references to enemy combat, making it look like just another night in the Mekong Delta.

"It made it sound like I didn't believe we got any returned fire," he said. "He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my life."

... The book outlining the veterans' charges, "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against Kerry," has also come under fire. It is published by Regnery, a conservative company that has published numerous books critical of Democrats, and written by Mr. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi, who was identified on the book jacket as a Harvard Ph.D. and the author of many books and articles. But Mr. Corsi also acknowledged that he has been a contributor of anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic comments to a right-wing Web site. He said he regretted those comments.

The group also offers the account of William L. Schachte Jr., a retired rear admiral who says in the book that he had been on the small skimmer on which Mr. Kerry was injured that night in December 1968. He contends that Mr. Kerry wounded himself while firing a grenade.

But the two other men who acknowledged that they had been with Mr. Kerry, Bill Zaladonis and Mr. Runyon, say they cannot recall a third crew member. "Me and Bill aren't the smartest, but we can count to three," Mr. Runyon said in an interview. And even Dr. Letson said he had not recalled Mr. Schachte until he had a conversation with another veteran earlier this year and received a subsequent phone call from Mr. Schachte himself.

... Several veterans insist that Mr. Kerry wrote his own reports, pointing to the initials K. J. W. on one of the reports and saying they are Mr. Kerry's. "What's the W for, I cannot answer," said Larry Thurlow, who said his boat was 50 to 60 yards from Mr. Kerry's. Mr. Kerry's middle initial is F, and a Navy official said the initials refer to the person who had received the report at headquarters, not the author.

A damage report to Mr. Thurlow's boat shows that it received three bullet holes, suggesting enemy fire, and later intelligence reports indicate that one Vietcong was killed in action and five others wounded, reaffirming the presence of an enemy. Mr. Thurlow said the boat was hit the day before. He also received a Bronze Star for the day, a fact left out of "Unfit for Command."

Asked about the award, Mr. Thurlow said that he did not recall what the citation said but that he believed it had commended him for saving the lives of sailors on a boat hit by a mine. If it did mention enemy fire, he said, that was based on Mr. Kerry's false reports. The actual citation, Mr. Thurlow said, was with an ex-wife with whom he no longer has contact, and he declined to authorize the Navy to release a copy. But a copy obtained by The New York Times indicates "enemy small arms," "automatic weapons fire" and "enemy bullets flying about him." The citation was first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday.

... As Mr. Lonsdale explained it: "We won the battle. Kerry went home and lost the war for us.

"He called us rapers and killers and that's not true," he continued. "If he expects our loyalty, we should expect loyalty from him."

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These men have bloody consciences, victims of a terrible war. It is their own demons that have driven them to madness.

Bush has no such demons, and no excuses. He is using these men and using them well.

The staggering incompetence of Homeland Security

The New York Times > National > Senator? Terrorist? A Watch List Stops Kennedy at Airport

Between March 1 and April 6, airline agents tried to block Mr. Kennedy from boarding airplanes on five occasions because his name resembled an alias used by a suspected terrorist who had been barred from flying on airlines in the United States, his aides and government officials said...

... Mr. Kennedy said his situation highlighted the odyssey encountered by people whose names had mistakenly appeared on terrorist watch lists or resembled the names of suspected terrorists on such lists. In April, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the government on behalf of seven airline passengers who said they had wrongly been placed on no-fly lists or associated with names on the lists and could not find a way to clarify their identities.

In Mr. Kennedy's case, airline supervisors ultimately overruled the ticket agents in each instance and allowed him to board the plane. But it took several weeks for the Department of Homeland Security to clear the matter up altogether, the senator's aides said.

Just days after Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge called Mr. Kennedy in early April to apologize and to promise that the problems would be resolved, another airline agent tried to stop Mr. Kennedy from boarding a plane yet again. The alias used by the suspected terrorist on the watch list was Edward Kennedy, said David Smith, a spokesman for the senator...

Asa Hutchinson of the Department of Homeland Security, who was testifying at the Senate hearing, said his department was working to address the situation. He said travelers with such problems should contact the ombudsman at the Transportation Security Administration, a division of Homeland Security, who would help them take steps to clarify their identities.

"There is a process to clear names," said Mr. Hutchinson, the department's under secretary for border security. "But it does illustrate the importance of improving the whole system, which we are very aggressively working to do."

On Monday, Mr. Hutchinson told Congress that Homeland Security officials planned to take over the checking of names of passengers against the no-fly lists. The responsibility is now carried out by the airlines, to ensure that terror suspects do not board airplanes and that law enforcement officials are promptly notified of potential security risks...

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Reading this, I was transiently speechless. I even exclaimed out loud.

What staggering incompetence.

Not incompetence of the airline agents -- they were obeying orders.

Not even the remarkable incompetence of the airlines. That's only "remarkable", not "staggering".

The staggering incompetence of the Department of Homeland Security. Even if terrorists agreed to only use unusual names (Edward Kennedy is not an unusual name), and even if they agreed to not change them, still this wouldn't work. John Faughnan is an unusual name, last time I looked (before this type of search was no longer free), there were thousands of us.

What thundering idiots. The body governmental is decaying from the top.

IHT: The long reach of Leo Strauss (Pfaff 2003)

IHT: The long reach of Leo Strauss

.. Something of a cult developed around Strauss during his later years at Chicago, and he and some admirers figure in the Saul Bellow novel, "Ravelstein." The cult is appropriate because Strauss believed that the essential truths about human society and history should be held by an elite, and withheld from others who lack the fortitude to deal with truth. Society, Strauss thought, needs consoling lies.

He held that philosophy is dangerous because it brings into question the conventions on which civil order and the morality of society depend. This risks promoting a destructive nihilism.

According to Strauss, the relativism of modern American society is a moral disorder that could block it from identifying its real enemies. "Moral clarity" is essential. The Weimar Republic's toleration of extremism allowed the rise of the Nazi party.

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Bush and Rove live the Straussian story. The key element is that "stories" are what the masses need. It's why Bush has absolutely no credibility among anyone who thinks. It's not that Bush is stupid, it's that we know everything he says is a "story" for the "masses".

Washington Post exposes the true face of Bush ally

Records Counter a Critic of Kerry (washingtonpost.com)

... Last month, Thurlow swore in an affidavit that Kerry was "not under fire" when he fished Lt. James Rassmann out of the water. He described Kerry's Bronze Star citation, which says that all units involved came under "small arms and automatic weapons fire," as "totally fabricated."

"I never heard a shot," Thurlow said in his affidavit, which was released by Swift Boats Veterans for Truth. The group claims the backing of more than 250 Vietnam veterans, including a majority of Kerry's fellow boat commanders.

A document recommending Thurlow for the Bronze Star noted that all his actions "took place under constant enemy small arms fire which LTJG THURLOW completely ignored in providing immediate assistance" to the disabled boat and its crew. The citation states that all other units in the flotilla also came under fire.

"It's like a Hollywood presentation here, which wasn't the case," Thurlow said last night after being read the full text of his Bronze Star citation. "My personal feeling was always that I got the award for coming to the rescue of the boat that was mined. This casts doubt on anybody's awards. It is sickening and disgusting."

Thurlow said he would consider his award "fraudulent" if coming under enemy fire was the basis for it. "I am here to state that we weren't under fire," he said. He speculated that Kerry could have been the source of at least some of the language used in the citation.

In a telephone interview Tuesday evening after he attended a Swift Boat Veterans strategy session in an Arlington hotel, Thurlow said he lost his Bronze Star citation more than 20 years ago. He said he was unwilling to authorize release of his military records because he feared attempts by the Kerry campaign to discredit him and other anti-Kerry veterans.

The Post filed an independent request for the documents with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which is the central repository for veterans' records. The documents were faxed to The Post by officials at the records center yesterday.

Thurlow and other anti-Kerry veterans have repeatedly alleged that Kerry was the author of an after-action report that described how his boat came under enemy fire. Kerry campaign researchers dispute that assertion, and there is no convincing documentary evidence to settle the argument. As the senior skipper in the flotilla, Thurlow might have been expected to write the after-action report for March 13, but he said that Kerry routinely "duked the system" to present his version of events....

... The Bronze Star recommendations for both Kerry and Thurlow were signed by Lt. Cmdr. George M. Elliott, who received reports on the incident from his base in the Gulf of Thailand. Elliott is a supporter of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and has questioned Kerry's actions in Vietnam. But he has refused repeated requests for an interview after issuing conflicting statements to the Boston Globe about whether Kerry deserved a Silver Star. He was unreachable last night.

Money has poured into Swift Boat Veterans for Truth since the group launched its television advertisement attacking Kerry earlier this month. According to O'Neill, the group has received more than $450,000 over the past two weeks, mainly in small contributions. The Dallas Morning News reported yesterday that the organization has also received two $100,000 checks from Houston home builder Bob Perry, who backed George W. Bush's campaigns for Texas governor and for president.

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So now Thurlow is saying that Kerry doctored Thurlow's military records? Or that Kerry conspired to get Thurlow a medal? This guy is falling apart at the seams. I wonder what things haunt his conscience.