Scenes from a Maul
It’s been hard this week to get myself up for blogging. There’s plenty of fodder out there, but it’s becoming depressing to contemplate. Every so often, however, a turd floats to the surface that’s so ripe and vile that it can’t pass without comment. This week, I think we reached a new low with the sad saga of the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.”
At the risk of giving a truly foul story far more attention than it deserves, the group in question is comprised of bitter old partisan vets dragged up (and funded by Texas GOP bagman Bob Perry) to spit bile at John Kerry for his combat service. Recognizing the appeal of Kerry’s background as a decorated veteran, his political opponents have no shame about going on record (and on camera) accusing a man who volunteered for combat duty of lying, cowardice and treason. And why? So that a genuine liar, coward and traitor can remain in the White House to pass more tax cuts and sweetheart legislation for fat-cats like Perry. Kinda makes you proud to be an American, eh?
This isn’t to say that Bush shouldn’t go after Kerry on this if he wants to. Kerry is the one who’s making his war record an issue, saying things like “I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President.” Rather than challenging the man’s personal honor and courage, which is slimy and distasteful, it seems to me that the question to ask is, “Yeah, but so what?” Bush could make a plausible case that combat service is not relevant to being a good commander-in-chief. Look at Reagan, Nixon or Clinton, who never served, or Carter and Bush senior, who did. Salute Kerry for his valor as a young man, but respectfully point out that, in the here and now, there are other issues besides what we did 35 years ago.
But no. As is their habit, Bush and Rove take the low road. First, they use the transparent phoniness of picking people who didn’t actually serve with Kerry disputing claims backed up by the testimony of five living eye-witnesses. They have people motivated by spite, partisanship and envy challenging the word of men whose lives John Kerry personally saved. I wasn’t there – I don’t pretend to know what happened. But I will accept the account given by those who were over the questions raised by those who were not.
Fellow veteran John McCain, who endorsed Bush, said he “couldn’t believe the president would pull such a cheap stunt,” and went on to say “"I deplore this kind of politics. I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is, none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crew have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam.”
Now try to imagine if Bill Clinton had tried something like this on Bob Dole, a decorated war hero, during the 1996 election. He’d have been dragged through the mud by a screaming mob, with the most self-righteous right-wing Clinton haters taking pride of place at the front. But lest you think these people are motivated by principle rather than pure political opportunism, witness the glowing reception with which this pile of shit has been met by our patriotic friends on the right.
In a thematically-related bit, I happened to catch a moment of the Anderson Cooper show on CNN yesterday where Howard Dean, in very calm and measured tones, laid out the reasons why one might, just possibly, imagine that the terrorist alert issued on Saturday could have had some political motivation with respect to the time. Here’s a bit of their exchange:
COOPER: And in fact the information that came out today makes you even more convinced that the timing is suspect. That it is political.
DEAN: It is. If you look at the timelines there was no particular time that these guys could have announced this that they had this information for quite some time. In the last two days since I made this charge, they've been covering their you know whats, and trying to come up with additional information. Two days later they claim they stayed up through the night getting the translation and all this kind of stuff.
July 13, the Pakistanis captured the operative who owned the computer discs which this information was on. And that information was, most of it, was more than three years old. A little of it was eight months old.
COOPER: You don't buy that it might have taken three weeks to interrogate this guy to get information?
DEAN: If it took three weeks for them to get this information, than they're not doing their job protecting the United States of America. There is one of two possibilities here. One, they need -- we need a new president so we can really take care of intelligence needs and the defense of the United States of America against terrorism. Or, two, they're playing politics with their timing of the release of these documents. And the release of this information.
The other question is, okay, this has been going on three years, these buildings were targeted three years ago, now we have high security protections around these buildings, which I agree with, because I think the threat of terrorism is real.
…
COOPER: How do you think this works? What you're accusing them of, this political timing, what you think Karl Rove, George Bush calls Tom Ridge and says, crank out another release?
DEAN: I have absolutely no idea. I do know that Karl Rove wrote a memo in 2002 directing Republican candidates to run on the war and run on terrorism issues. I suppose that's Karl Rove's M.O. still. The president of the United States himself has said that he intends to run as a war time president. If you say those kinds of things than you're going to have to expect your motives to be questioned.
COOPER: But according to your theory, there would have to be some sort of operation going on where they -- I mean, phone calls are made, e-mails sent where they ask Tom Ridge to get on board and come up with a new terror alert.
DEAN: If those things are going on, I can assure you I'm not on the e-mail list.
COOPER: Tom Ridge has said, we don't do politics. Do you believe him?
DEAN: No. I think it's very clear these series of warnings, warnings at particular junctions -- this warning is different than the other ones. I think the administration has done something right here. I think this is -- the specifics are important. I was very much an opponent of these warnings that we had for a long time saying there is a general state of we're going to be attacked somewhere in America. I found that as incredibly unhelpful.
I do not -- let me underline, I do not believe that terrorism is an empty threat. I think terrorism is a very serious problem. I think it is wrong for the president of the United States to play politics with terrorism. And I think there is ample evidence for the fact he's doing that.
Now not everyone agrees with Dean. Certainly John Kerry has said he doesn’t. But he’s making a fact-based case, referring to the amount of time between the interrogation and the release of the alert, to suggest that the timing is suspect. Plus, it is well established that there is little that Bush and his crew won’t play politics with in order to win this election. As much as we’d like to believe the whole idea of politicizing the war is preposterous (“monstrous and unthinkable” were the words CNN’s Bill Schneider used, if I recall correctly), it is precisely not unthinkable with the folks we’ve got running the country at the moment, and that’s really a problem.
Now note the response to Dean from Bush/Cheney shill Terry Holt. This immediately follows Cooper’s introduction:
TERRY HOLT, NATIONAL SPOKESMAN BUSH/CHENEY CAMPAIGN: Anderson, I was sitting here trying to figure out why you put this guy on the air. What he's saying is shameful and irresponsible.
COOPER: A lot of people believe it, I got to tell you, Terry.
HOLT: Let me finish. You let this guy go on and on, this bizarre conspiracy theorist that also a senior adviser to the Kerry campaign. That's why you have him on here. Because he is a leader in the Kerry campaign, a senior adviser and he is saying things that are irresponsible that are shameful.
He is obviously part of this grand group of people in the Democratic party that won't let anything be above politics. The war on terror, people's lives on the line are what is at stake in this. The president's solemn promise to this country and his job is to protect this country first and let politics go by the way side.
We're warning people and adding security measures, because we know that the terrorist threat is real. Remember, John Kerry himself said that we had exaggerated the terror threat on the same day that Osama bin Laden issued another threat. These people fundamentally don't understand the threat we face and Howard Dean by his own words he's making things up. He doesn't understand how these people work.
COOPER: Well, Terry, do you understand why -- there are many people who believe what he's saying and cite basically -- don't feel that President Bush has much credibility given misinformation that he has received in the past and has put forward regarding WMD in Iraq and regarding other things? What you to say to those people?
HOLT: But empty conspiracy theories do not help us solve the problem, do not help us win the war on terror. It is the first responders, people that are guarding these buildings tonight. It is the people that are staying up overnight to analyze intelligence data as it comes. It's the people that are on the front lines, the CIA people, the friends and allies we have around the world, that are collecting this information and bringing it to our attention, to allow us to know about these threats.
Note the tactic here. Cooper is barely through with his introduction before Holt launches into a complete ad hominem attack, insulting Dean and calling him names without coming close to addressing the basic substance of Dean’s charge about the timing and the three-week gap. He calls Dean’s position an “empty conspiracy theory,” but it’s precisely not empty: Dean has presented genuine questions. But instead of answering the substance of the charge, Holt acts offended, as if it is somehow inconsistent that an Administration that systematically misstated and misled us into a foreign war is suddenly incapable of using terror threats for political advantage. Bluster and phony outrage substitute for argument as this hack mouthpiece spins wildly to distract the rubes with noise and dirt-clots.
Both Holt’s tactics and those of the “Swift Boat” goon squad betray not just a desperate desire to win at all costs, but a real contempt for the American public. Bush has been sitting in the White House for three and a half years, making decisions and supporting policies that have real impact on people’s lives. Soldiers are dead because of Bush. A few people are wealthier and a lot have much less because of Bush. Fear runs rampant, corporate criminals run free, and the federal budget deficit runs out of control because of actions deliberately taken by the Administration. But rather than talk about that, they slander and smear, using schoolyard name-calling and transparent lies repeated endlessly at high volume. They hope it will distract just enough simple-minded people and grab just enough of their thuggish “base” by the balls to squeak through another election.
That’s fine, some will say. It’s all about winning, and that’s what they’re trying to do. But it’s really becoming destructive of our entire political system. Our democracy is something we should be proud of, like our natural environment. At some point, it becomes everyone’s responsibility to make sure we keep it at least a little bit clean.
10:31:49 AM 
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