The Democrats, unable to to run on their record, are now once again engaging in their old smear tactics, once again accusing President Bush of not fufllling his service requirements in the Texas Air National Guard.
The problem with such arguments being A:) we’ve heard them all in February and B:) they have no basis in truth.
The Democrats trotted out Ben Barnes, a former Texas Lt. Gov. and a Kerry fundraiser who said that he pulled strings to get Bush into the Guard. The problem being that Bush was already in the Texas Air National Guard before Barnes took office. Furthermore, the accusations that Bush did not complete his service don’t match his actual records which show that he did complete satisfactory service during his time in the Guard and indeed got very good marks as a pilot in a dangerous aircraft. Hell, this issue was already investigated by George magazine in 2000 and found to be without merit.
What’s also patently idiotic is that we’re supposed to believe that the Swift Boat vets are a bunch of raving partisans for their connections to the Bush campaign, while Barnes, a major Kerry donor, is perfectly objective. We’re also supposed to believe that the eyewitnesses that said Kerry did not take fire while rescuing Jim Rassman are all liars, yet the “eyewitnesses” who said that they never saw Bush in Alabama are all completely correct – and those who did see Bush in Alabama are all liars. In fact, the only way to reconcile all these positions is that the media assumes that those who say something negative about Bush are all telling the truth and those who say something negative about Kerry are all filthy lying partisans. You’d have to be blind not to see the glaring partisan double standard at work here.
All of this absolutely reeks of utter desperation. Furthermore, it’s politically idiotic. Kerry was trying to gain sympathy for being the victim of “smear attacks” by “proxies” of the Bush campaign. So how does he respond? By smearing Bush with his own proxies – and smearing Bush on an issue that’s already been beaten to death months and even years ago.
President Bush signed a Form 180 authorizing the release of all his military records. John Kerry has not. President Bush isn’t running on what he did nearly four decades ago, John Kerry is.
What the Democrats fail to understand is that swing voters are going to take one look at this crap and instantly reject it. John Kerry stepped into the Swift Boat attacks by making Vietnam his major argument for his election, and while the Swifties did hurt him some, they’re not to blame for his campaign’s downfall. Rather than coming clean on Cambodia, Kerry tried to spin and obfuscate his way through. Kerry has been unable to present any vision for this country other than his hatred of Bush, and that isn’t enough.
I have a feeling that this sort of thing is going to backfire for Kerry in a major way. He’s now squandered any sympathy he may have gotten from the Swift Boat issue, and his allies in the media are now ravaging their own credibility in a manner reminiscent of Genghis Khan…
This is sooooo old news….it’s funny how the Dems keep repeating the same charges over and over again because they don’t have anything else…
It’s like in the Calif recall election with Arnold…they dumped on him in the last week the same dirt we had already heard all along…his past womanizing, his supposed admiration for Hitler, etc…
The Dems and the media think if they shout it loud enough again an old charge becomes a new charge.
The real story here is the conduct of the media…simply shameless. Their double standard regarding their treatment of the Swift Vets and the National Guard story is even more on display now.
Well, the media has a big surprise in store for them…they no longer control the flow of information.
And we as consumers will do what angry consumers always do with companies and products we don’t like: we withdraw our business and spread bad word of mouth. Many a company has been shaken to its knees through bad word of mouth…
Ch3t – Bush was required by the NG to have 50hrs of flight time a year (not a Jan-Dec year, but a May to May year, since he joined in May). Please find me a single year in which Bush did not meet that requirement.
Oh, that’s right. You can’t. Because he had more than his required amount of flight time every year he was in the guard.
Here’s the thing about the Texans for Truth deal. They are representing members of Alabama’s 187th Air National Guard who say they don’t remember seeing George Bush on the base. Based only on that, and I’m sure they would have more than that when they go public, I think it requires a leap of faith to conclude that Bush was AWOL.
I’ve found http://www.awolbush.com. Does anyone have others that concur/dispute the claims? Still Reading….