CNN is making a crusade out of Kerry's medals!!!!

[glarius]

It is really pathetic..I've been awake since 5 AM watching TV and every new anchor person that has come on TV this morning has started off their shift with....."Did Kerry tell the truth about throwing away his medals?"....With all the REAL concerns about this election it is mind-blowing that this is what they are concentrating on......Sometimes what is going on down there in the United States seems surreal.....Sorry folks, I love you guys but this is really weird.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

1. agreed. it is crazy

Rush, Hannity, Savage were all spewing about this yesterday. it is really crazy.

[lebkuchen]

2. The media did the same hatchet job on Dean

It doesn't surprise me that they repeat the same smear tactics with Kerry, but my disgust w/the GOP press is boundless. How does one combat it? Lots of letters to local papers with the facts would be one way to counteract the media's lies and distortions.

[Tyler Durden]

3. It seems insanity is now a US Citizenship Requirement.

Feel like sponsoring some wannabe ex-Yanks?

Dumbest thing Dad ever did was immigrate to here.

[glarius]

5. We need you guys to keep fighting!

The rest of us are depending on you....:)

[still_one]

4. Why watch

If this is the most important issue, other than Michael Jackson, that they can bring up, it already tells you where they are coming from.

I just listen to Air America now because the so-called main stream media is not good for my anger management!

[blm]

6. nostamj posted a great clip from Conason's article about Bush's claims

regarding his service in the Guard. It was the reply I was looking for in another thread.


>>>>>>
While including plenty of filler and self-serving rhetoric, Hughes needed only five pages to recount Bush's military career -- from his decision to apply for pilot training to the lessons he learned during his National Guard service. The deceptions begin on Page 51, when Bush claims that during Christmas vacation in Houston, he "heard from contemporaries that there were openings for pilots in the Texas Air National Guard, and I called to ask about them ... I met the qualifications and was accepted into the Texas Air National Guard." It's a nice, simple story, but it omits most of the facts and distorts others, as this investigation by the Los Angeles Times explains.

The gripping but brief account of Bush's training and service ends vaguely, with this sentence: "I continued flying with my unit for the next several years." That's false; he quit flying after less than two years. He and his ghostwriter don't mention that he quit flying no later than August 1972, after he missed a flight physical and was suspended. His disappearance into Alabama to work on a Republican Senate race, when he was supposed to be pulling duty, is also left out.

On that chapter's concluding page, Bush proclaims: "I am proud of my service. Yet I know it was nothing comparable to what our soldiers and pilots were doing in battle in Vietnam." Having written those words, Hughes should remember them whenever she feels the urge to demean Kerry, who still carries a piece of shrapnel in his left buttock. And should she open her mouth about this subject again, someone should ask her what the president did with his medals.
>>>>>>>
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/04/27/hughes/index.html

[glarius]

9. Speaking of Hughes...she's been all over TV saying she is "troubled"

by Kerry's inability to tell the facts....When I look at that smug face of hers I want to :puke:

[BiggJawn]

25. So did she get a divorce?

What about all that "I want to spend more time with my family" bullshit?

Lemme guess, the kid's in Military School, and her and Hubby have an "Open" agreement?

[NeonLX]

7. Why isn't this backfiring?

I mean, even a six year old can see that Kerry had the medals to "throw back" while Bush was an AWOL chump. Kerry has actually walked the walk while the chickenhawks stood around and wet themselves in fear of possibly finding themselves in combat.

[Dogmudgeon]

8. No traction ... Fox, CNN frantic ...

The so-called issue of what Kerry did with his medals is a non-starter. Comparing something like making a protest AFTER having served with distinction -- with the near-desertion of G-AWOL-B -- is absurdity writ large.

The Conservative press is frantic to get some traction from this. They can't. Not even their beloved Heartland rednecks buy into it.

Because the Heartland rednecks ain't so dumb after all.

--bkl

[underpants]

10. Couric to MacAuliffe ~"Isn't there a credibility problem here?"

The Today Show this morning. See it is a problem with Kerry's credibility from 30 years ago not W's credibility over (at least) lying us into war.

[GainesT1958]

11. What's actually wierd...

Is the lemming-like nature of all the media whores and the almost slavish way they recite Repub talking points as true "journalism". When's the last time a Canadian prime minister of EITHER party held a press conference where the reporters just sat there catatonically and never asked a tough question? Or when that P.M. said "...sorry, I've got some 'must-calls' I have to get in"?

I mean, here Dub spends (at least) two years lying to us about Iraq and everything associated with it, and ABC News' website headline was "Did Kerry LIE About His Medals?" :wtf:

I'm glad that, at least, if anything would light a fire under John Kerry to get him to respond to this; well, this GORE-ing, the stupid non-issue flap of the last few days did it. Now he and his staff know the gloves can't be left on until July, and the best was to respond is...to go on the OFFENSIVE!

His clever little "off-mic" remark (he does know how to place those zingers pretty well!:eyes: ) proves to me that he's "getting it" about most of the "mainstream media" being allied with Dub's campaign, and is willing to challenge their parroting of the Repub line head-on. After hearing that, I do feel a little better about John Kerry's desire to fight back.

B-)

[glarius]

12. You've got a point...Our P.M faces questions from the oppostion every day

in Question Period, which is carried live on the Parliamentary channel....We may not always like the answers but he is faced with the questions anyway.....

[SoCalDem]

16. No biggie.. He is just being "Gore-d"..

They all started every "interview" with Gore with.."VP Gore, tell us what your answer to the assertions about your LYING ALL THE TIME ABOUT EVERYTHING" would be"..

So far we ahve heard them all echo EVERY rightwing meme out there..

waffle..flip-flop..the medals..the congressional testimony..

I hope that the Kerry people and ALL the dems who have a chance, start getting on top of this crap..

Kerry just needs to say...

"I have lead a life ON THE RECORD...I voted for things and I voted against things.. I went to war...I protested AFTER I fought, in hopes of saving lives...I have never hidden, or had my records "scrubbed".. I am an honest person who is not secretive.. Take it or leave it...My life is on the record, for all to see...

On the other hand, the man who is leading us all "off the cliff" has lived a LIFETIME of secrecy.. Every mess he has made (and there have been MANY), he has either blamed on someone else, or had his Daddy's comrades clean up for him.. His whole "public life" has been hermetically sealed for his protection.. What the public "needs to know about him" has been manufactured in his spin factory..

The REAL George Bush will not come to light until some crafty scholar...years from now, stumbles on the carefully stashed documentation that has been hidden away from prying eyes..(If it has not already met John Q Shredder"...

[DeepModem Mom]

13. CNN's own on-line poll results were 2 to 1 not "a relevant issue"!!!

These were EARLY results yesterday; the tally went way up, with the margin remaining 2 to 1:

Is Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam War medals controversy a relevant campaign issue?

Yes 33% 19,156 votes
No 67% 38,520 votes
Total: 57,676 votes


I just called CNN's viewer-comment line, 404-827-0234, and asked, given that their viewers, in their own on-line poll, rejected the medals issue as irrelevant, WHY it is still a story today??? While I was on the line, I asked also asked why the unconstitutional "misappropriated" Iraq War planning funds were NOT an issue!

[Mountainman]

32. There is always that 33% who take the repuke view.

Even if 100% of the people were asked that question and 100% felt it was not a relevant issue there will be 33% who are on the side of the repukes. They are not answering the question, they are just taking what ever side is opposite of Kerry's supporters.

[dkf]

14. The problem for Kerry is that Iraq looks a whole lot like

Vietnam to me and I can't get away from the feeling that Kerry is a walking contradiction.

[TNOE]

21. If Iraq looks a whole lot like Vietnam

than who better to understand the situation than Kerry?

A walking contridiction???? From 30 years ago??? Better than an incompetent liar and thief (not to speak of murderer) pissing all over our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

[proud patriot]

15. Just turn the T.V. Off

I have made an effort to not Watch anymore .

I turned the T.V. on for Randi Rhodes' homework
last night watching the repeat of MTP interview
with Prince Bandar Bin Sultan (asshole) . It had
been so long since I watched cable news over two
weeks now that I found myself with very little
tolerance for the RW media .

Write them a letter , and let them know that
you are turning off the RW T.V. cable news and
that you are listening to Air America Radio .

[aintitfunny]

17. They need to give the party faithful

reasons to support their continuing support of this pathetic president. Sad that this is all they've got. That the media is hawking the story like so many parrots (sorry for the overdoing the bird thing)is pitiful. This is what happens when all the big Corporations buy all the journalists and the journalists gleefully sell their souls to get and keep their faces on TV.

[TNOE]

18. Time to write and tell them once again

we KNOW they have nothing else to talk about - at least nothing that is favorable to their king - tell them we are not falling for it. At least our guy served.

[hexola]

19. Another DU'er said he SAW the medals at the SMITHSONIAN...

CNN...CNN are you listening?

Do you have -any- reporters?

Or do you perfer to sensationalize and capitalize on confusion?

[hexola]

28. I emailed the Smithsonian tip to CNN...

do the same...

[Norquist Nemesis]

20. The sex scandal didn't work

What else have they got to attack on?

[Sparkly]

22. You're so right - coming back after this break

Daryn Kagan is going to go at it *again* in the "wrap-up."

[glarius]

23. Yup....right on cue .....Kerry's medals....God what a joke these people

are....

[Sparkly]

24. Acckkk!!!!

Candy Crowley's report AGAIN!! Karen Hughes lying her ass off AGAIN!! I sent them the link to Oliphant's column AGAIN!!

CNN is not even a news network anymore!!

[Robbien]

26. DU is making a crusade out of Kerry's medals!!!!!!

So far I have hidden a least a dozen of these threads this morning, but they keep popping up.

One cannot see what is really going on. But I guess that is the point.

[Bozita]

27. Send all talking heads emails of Tom Oliphant's column in today's BG

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/04/27/i_watched_kerry_throw_his_war_decorations/

THOMAS OLIPHANT
I watched Kerry throw his war decorations
By Thomas Oliphant  |  April 27, 2004

WASHINGTON
ON THE WAY to the fence where he threw some of his military decorations 33 years ago, I was 4 or 5 feet behind John Kerry.

As he neared the spot from which members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War were parting with a few of the trappings of their difficult past to help them face their future more squarely, I watched Kerry reach with his right hand into the breast pocket of his fatigue shirt. The hand emerged with several of the ribbons that most of the vets had been wearing that unique week of protest, much as they are worn on a uniform blouse.

There couldn't have been all that many decorations in his hand -- six or seven -- because he made a closed fist around his collection with ease as he waited his turn. I recall him getting stopped by one or two wounded vets in wheelchairs, clearly worried that they wouldn't be able to get their stuff over the looming fence, who gave him a few more decorations. Kerry says he doesn't remember this.

It is true that Kerry was one of the veterans group's "leaders," but in this eclectic, aggressively individualistic collection of people who had been through a pointless war, there were no privileges of rank. Kerry was in the middle of a line of perhaps 1,000 guys -- only a third or even less of the total who had assembled on the Washington Mall that astonishing week.

more...

[jackstraw45]

29. Send this around to ANY Repug you know using this non-story

And enjoy their usual illogical dismissal of it.

:)

[HEyHEY]

30. What are you nuts!?

I haven't seen this kind of pulitzer material since Jason Blair and Joey Buttafuco ;-)

[LeahMira]

31. To some...

... this is akin to burning the flag. That's why all the fuss over it.

[Sparkly]

33. ACCKK!!! Now MSNBC

again.... It's making me nuts.