Bush to Florida; Kerry a no-show
President Bush visited hurricane-ravaged Florida to see first hand the
damage and give support to the hundreds of thousands now without homes
and electricity. Hurricane Charley -- a category 4 hurricane --
slammed into Florida last week.
Noticeably absent from Florida was Democrat presidential candidate
John Kerry.
Brendan Miniter of the Wall Street Journal writes:
Maybe national emergencies shouldn't be political events, but they
are. So after Hurricane Charley ripped through Florida this past
weekend, President Bush understood the political imperative: Get down
there. With thousands left homeless and a million people without
electricity, the president needed to walk amid the wreckage and stand
with the people most affected. For those questioning his political
motives in responding so quickly, Mr. Bush said simply: "If I didn't
come, they would've said we should have been here more rapidly."
If 90%
of success in life is just showing up, in politics often it's the
whole ball of wax. This is a lesson that John Kerry could stand to
learn. It isn't enough to be "right"; you must also be right there.
Mastering and internalizing this lesson would go a lot further in
showing that Mr. Kerry can lead in a crisis than boasting about his
four months in Vietnam ever could. It would also reveal his more
human, compassionate side. This is something Bill Clinton practiced
shamelessly and Al Gore never learned. Mr. Kerry should have gone to
Punta Gorda and felt their pain.
Will Kerry survive?
Political pundit Tony Blankley continues to beat the drum for John
Kerry to answer the growing number of questions concerning his 4
months in Vietnam. [link
to article in TownHall.com]. In his latest column, Blankley
outlines the various errors of the Kerry campaign as they’ve tried to
slip-slide away from the issues raised, and concludes:
It may now be dawning on John Kerry that he is living out Colonel
Kurtz's Cambodian nightmare: "I watched a snail crawl along the edge
of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling,
slithering, along the edge of a straight razor ... and surviving." So
far, John Kerry continues to slither ... and survive.
It does seem that way. And the only reason Kerry continues to
‘slither... and survive’ is because the traditional, mainstream media
has let him ‘slither... and survive.’
But Kerry isn’t slithering alone on that razor’s edge -- the
mainstream media is slithering right along with him.
It’s gotta cut watching the burgeoning pile of evidence grow right
under their noses, spreading at the speed of an Internet hook-up. And
though they bemoan such a tawdry source of information, one thing is
clear: The ‘Imperial’ grip of the mainstream media on what gets
reported and what doesn’t... is loosening. Some would say they have
already lost their grip. And on this point, Blankley warns of a Kerry
fate, yet to come:
But the American political jungle is every bit as disorienting and
suddenly lethal as the one he emerged from 30 years ago. John Kerry's
tangled memory and war braggadocio has been mismanaged by him and his
campaign team. They have given too many inconsistent answers, thus
forcing the hand of major media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times,
U.S. News and World Report, Knight-Ridder and the Boston Globe to
start reporting the story.
Even self-admitted Kerry supporter Joan Vennochi wrote in her Boston
Globe column this week that: "Kerry's statements about Cambodia do
have traction for opponents ... (his spokesmen's) answer aren't good
enough. ... He should answer every question voters have about it --
and he should answer himself."
Swift boat wars
Kerry’s hero status may be sinking because of Swift Boat Veterans for
the Truth seemed to have rammed his credibility. Several mainstream
media sources, after ignoring Kerry’s detractors, are now beginning to
report seriously about the swift boat veterans who challenge Kerry’s
accounts of what happened during the four months he served in Vietnam.
The
Boston Globe reports on the Kerry defense that he went into
Cambodia on Christmas:
"On December 24, 1968, Lieutenant John Kerry and his crew were on
patrol in the watery borders between Vietnam and Cambodia deep in
enemy territory. In the early afternoon, Kerry's boat, PCF-44, was at
Sa Dec and then headed north to the Cambodian border. There, Kerry and
his crew along with two other boats were ambushed, taking fire from
both sides of the river, and after the firefight were fired upon
again. Later that evening during their night patrol they came under
friendly fire."
James Wasser, who accompanied Kerry on that mission aboard patrol boat
No. 44 and who supports Kerry's candidacy, said that while he believes
they were "very, very close" to Cambodia, he did not think they
entered Cambodia on that mission. Yet he added: "It is very hard to
tell. There are no signs."
Another crewmate who said he was with Kerry on Christmas Eve, Steven
Gardner -- who is a member of the veterans group opposing Kerry's
candidacy -- said Kerry was 50 miles from Cambodia at the time. He
accused Kerry of lying about being in Cambodia or by the border.
"Never happened," Gardner said.
Separately, according to Meehan's statement, Kerry crossed into
Cambodia on a covert mission to drop off special operations forces. In
an interview, Meehan said there was no paperwork for such missions and
he could not supply a date. That makes it hard to ascertain or confirm
what happened. Kerry served on two swift boats, the No. 44 in December
1968 and January 1969, and the No. 94, from February to March 1969.
Michael Medeiros, who served aboard the No. 94 with Kerry and appeared
with him at the Democratic National Convention, vividly recalled an
occasion on which Kerry and the crew chased an enemy to the Cambodian
border but did not go beyond the border. Yet Medeiros said he could
not recall dropping off special forces in Cambodia or going inside
Cambodia with Kerry.
The Washington Times has extensive coverage of the story today. One of
the key points it covers is Kerry’s allegation that he has released
his records from the Navy covering his service record in Vietnam:
John O'Neill, the man who took over Mr. Kerry's command in Vietnam and
a co-author of the new book "Unfit for Command," said such records as
after-action, hostile fire and casualty reports would show whether Mr.
Kerry deserved one of his Purple Hearts.
Mr. Meehan, acknowledging that Mr. Kerry has not signed Standard Form
180, said the records have all been laid out nonetheless.
"Has he signed the form?" he asked. "No. What he's signed is his
release of privacy to the United States Navy to turn over his entire
military record and he's posted it up on his Web site, so the whole
world can see his entire military record."
Mr. O'Neill, though, said the campaign has acknowledged in the past it
that has withheld some records.
"That's a lie or a carefully calculated set of words," he said
yesterday in a telephone interview. "He continues to conceal, for
example, his medical records. He's provided virtually none of his
medical records, only an interpretation of them by a friendly
physician."
The
Washington Times also covers the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
account of Kerry’s Purple Hearts. The Times offers Kerry’s story, past
coverage by the Boston Globe and the doctor’s account who treated
Kerry:
Q: Can you describe the mission in which Kerry got his first
Purple Heart?
Hibbard: Kerry requested permission to go on a skimmer
operation with Lieutenant Schachte, my most senior and trusted
lieutenant, using a Boston whaler to try to interdict a Viet Cong
movement of arms and munitions.
The next morning at the briefing, I was informed that no enemy fire
had been received on that mission. Our units had fired on some VC
units running on the beach. We were all in my office, some of the crew
members, I remember Schachte being there.
This was 36 years ago; it really didn't seem all that important at the
time. Here was this lieutenant, junior grade, who was saying, "I got
wounded," and everybody else, the crew that were present were saying,
"We didn't get any fire. We don't know how he got the scratch."
Kerry showed me the scratch on his arm. I hadn't been informed that he
had any medical treatment. The scratch didn't look like much to me;
I've seen worse injuries from a rose thorn.
Q: Did Kerry want you to recommend him for a Purple Heart?
Hibbard: Yes, that was his whole point. He had this little piece
of shrapnel in his hand. It was tiny. I was told later that Kerry had
fired an M-79 grenade and that he had misjudged it. He fired it too
close to the shore, and it exploded on a rock or something. He got hit
by a piece of shrapnel from a grenade that he had fired himself.
The injury was self-inflicted, that's what made sense to me. I told
Kerry to "forget it." There was no hostile fire, the injury was
self-inflicted for all I knew. Besides, it was nothing really more
than a scratch. Kerry wasn't getting any Purple Heart recommendation
from me.
Q: How did Kerry get a Purple Heart from the incident, then?
Hibbard: I don't know. It beats me. I know I didn't recommend him
for a Purple Heart. Kerry probably wrote up the paperwork and
recommended himself, that's all I can figure out. If it ever came
across my desk, I don't have any recollection of it. Kerry didn't get
my signature. I said "no way" and told him to get out of my office.
The LA Times covered the story yesterday.
Veterans remember
Kerry may be a veteran and he may be speaking to the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, but not everyone is pleased with Kerry in the hall in
Ohio, according to the
Washington Times:
But in 1971, Mr. Kerry's anti-war group denounced the VFW as a
war-mongering lobby responsible for getting the United States into the
Vietnam War and harbored hopes of perhaps replacing the VFW as a
veterans' group.
"All our national officers are Vietnam veterans. I am too, and where
... is the Vietnam Veterans Against the War now?" said VFW spokesman
Jerry Newberry.
Noting that VFW members filled the 6,000-seat convention hall in
Cincinnati to capacity, Mr. Newberry said, "When I asked all those who
had served in Vietnam to stand up, almost all of them did. That speaks
for itself."
Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton said yesterday that his boss "has always
stood up for what he believes. He has a record of fighting for
veterans benefits, finding out the truth about POWs and MIAs in
Vietnam and getting funding for victims of Agent Orange. He'll stand
up for veterans in the White House just like he has in the U.S.
Senate."
Rich are paying taxes
Rep. H. James Saxton, New Jersey Republican and vice chairman of the
Joint Economic Committee countered the Democrat spin that Bush’s tax
cuts have shifted the tax burden to the middle class.
"The CBO study on effective tax rates shows the benefit of tax relief
for all taxpayers," Saxton said. Among key findings:
·
The Bush tax cuts reduced middle income taxes this year
"as a share of income from 5.2 percent to 3.5 percent, a decline of
1.7 percentage points relative to the share that would be paid under
2000 tax law," Saxton said.
·
"The data in the report indicate that the tax savings
for a middle-income household amount to nearly 2 percent of income, or
about $1,000 for a household with $53,000 of income, under 2004 tax
law instead of 2000 tax law," he said.
·
Other congressional analysts and outside taxpayer groups
argued yesterday that CBO's analysis of which income groups pay the
largest share of all taxes paid was to some extent distorted by the
Democrats' guidelines for the study. "They lumped all of the taxes
into the study, including Social Security and other non-income taxes,
that distorted its findings," said Bill Ahern, spokesman for the
bipartisan Tax Foundation.
Nevertheless, these analysts said the Bush tax cuts have done nothing
to change the fact that those in the higher tax brackets pay most of
the federal income taxes.
"With the bottom 40 percent paying no income tax, that leaves the top
60 percent to pay it all, and CBO data shows that the lion's share is
being paid" by taxpayers in the top 20 percent, said Scott Hodge, who
runs the Tax Foundation.
Missile
defense
Sen. John Kerry announced that he would substantially cut America’s
missile defense program. Bush countered that was not his position and
Kerry was wrong:
"You fire, we're going to shoot them down," Bush said, standing
outside the plant in front of two Army helicopters. "Those who oppose
the ballistic missile system don't understand the threats of the 21st
century."
Kerry’s spin-doctors replied:
"The greatest threat facing our homeland comes from terrorists who
would do us harm," Kerry's national security adviser, Rand Beers, said
in a statement. "In the months preceding 9/11 George W. Bush and his
closest advisers were preoccupied with missile defense, and their
misunderstanding about the threats we face continues to this day."
Kerry’s ad hypocrisy
Sen. John Kerry’s campaign sent mixed signals regarding a new
MoveOn.org TV ad designed to take on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
ad. The MoveOn ad criticizes Bush for using his father to get into the
National Guard and avoid service in Vietnam.
Kerry offered criticism of the ad after his campaign supported the ad:
"John Kerry condemns the ad on one hand and then his campaign's
surrogates go out and echo the baseless charges that appear in the
ad," said Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt. "It's typical John
Kerry: Say one thing, do another."
Retired Navy Adm. Stansfield Turner, a former CIA director who
attended the Kerry campaign news conference, said of Kerry and Bush:
"One of them saw combat…. One of them used his father's influence to
get into the Air National Guard to avoid going to war."
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