Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

The New York Times has been regaling the world with serial accounts of the smarminess, mendaciousness and downright sleaze of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Beginning over a week ago, each day’s edition has amplified the lies, distortion and general swinyness of the group. Here’s a list starting with the first article I could find (I think one or two may’ve predated the first one listed here):

Kerry Calls Ad Group a ‘Front for the Bush Campaign’
Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry AdKerry Might Pay Price for Failing to Strike Back Quickly
Officer From Another Swift Boat Breaks Silence and Defends Kerry
Kerry TV Ad Pins Veterans’ Attack Firmly on BushPresident Urges Outside Groups to Halt All Ads
Bush Campaign Lawyer Quits Over Ties to Ads Group
Navy Report Backs Kerry Role in Incident

The Times reporters on this story have uncovered an intricate overlapping network connecting the group and the formal Bush campaign–a no-no according to Federal election laws governing 527 committees. The main sources of funding for the scurrilous anti-Kerry ads is two Texas Republicans who’ve been primary funders of Bush’s campaigns both for governor and president. It turns out that almost all the major contentions of the ads (Kerry wrote the after-action reports on which his medal awards were based, etc.) are either outright falsehoods or unproven and unprovable. This type of thorough, bulldog reporting deserves to win journalism prizes and I hope they do.

What is Bush’s response? Instead of responding to the heart of the issue he, on advice of his campaign advisors I’m sure, attempts to turn the discussion from a sleazy Bush campaign group to the nature of the 527 committees themselves. He attempts to say that he’s always been against 527s and wishes they would all go away. Well, you can’t have it both ways, guy. You signed the McCain-Feingold bill into law and it created the 527s. If you didn’t like 527s then, you should’ve vetoed it. You didn’t, so you’ve got to live with it.

Most importantly, the issue here is not the nature of 527s. It is the sleaziness of one particular pro-Bush 527. The Swift Boat campaign must be stopped. If Bush doesn’t do it himself, then I hope that the American people will find themselves so disgusted by its shenanigans that it’ll give Bush a drubbing in the opinion polls by watching his favorables go down, at least in the “trustworthy” category if nowhere else.

How long before Bush throws in the towel and pulls the plug on the ads? I give him a week or less. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he does so just before the Republican convention so that he can show his supposed “compassionate” side. Were he to call off his dogs (at least in this one case—keep in mind he has other dog breeds preparing to unleash other anti-Kerry 527 attacks), he could do so and call upon Kerry to join him. That would look downright Presidential and above the fray, wouldn’t it? But we won’t be fooled again or ever by the depths of smarminess to which this guy will stoop.

tags john-kerry, presidential-campaign, swift-boat-veterans

John Kerry isn’t the first Presidential candidate to think that in order to win he must run a safe, prudent and cautious campaign. I’m no expert in the art of Presidential politics, but I don’t see how it’s going to work in this election. I’m not telling him to let fly like Howard Dean and scream his political heart out. But running by not standing out just won’t work this time around.

So tell me in what substantive ways Kerry’s positions diverge from Bush, regarding Iraq especially? Perhaps Kerry is betting that Iraq will fade from view come November and he doesn’t need to stake out a distinctive position. But I believe he could really make hay by taking it to Bush on his failed Iraq policy. I don’t see how being a gentleman is going to work as a long-term viable campaign strategy.

Apparently, other Democrats agree with me because Adam Nagourney wrote Democrats Wonder if Kerry Should Stay on Careful Path in today’s Times:

President Bush’s political difficulties have prompted a debate among Democrats and aides to Senator John Kerry over how cautious his campaign should be on a variety of issues, from choosing a vice president to differentiating himself from Mr. Bush to responding to the turmoil in Iraq.

Democrats warn that such a strategy [taking few chances] entails risks of its own, banking on the proposition that Americans would be willing to fire an incumbent during war time and replace him with someone they know little about. “I don’t think anybody in their right mind is going to run for president on a strategy of `people hate the other guy and that’s enough for our guy to win,’ ” said Douglas Sosnik, the White House political director for President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Kerry said in an interview that he could not win the presidency by relying on the continuing misfortunes at the White House.

Sure, I agree. But if he doesn’t take it to the President and distinguish himself clearly from him, then why should anyone vote for Kerry?

Much of Mr. Kerry’s recent behavior has been that of a candidate who is inclined, at least for now, to take the easier road. They’ve basically made the strategic decision not to attack,” said one foreign policy expert advising the Kerry campaign. “Their polls have told them that they should let events take their course, let Bush wallow in their own problems, and that Kerry would suffer from going on the attack.”

I think Kerry’s got to remember what Dean did to him in the primaries. Dean stood for something and people responded. Only when Dean pushed Kerry’s back to the wall and threatened his political demise did Kerry get off his duff and start sounding like a man who had the vision and energy necessary to win a general election.

Right now, Kerry sounds like pre-Dean and I don’t like what I’m hearing–or not hearing, as the case may be.

tags john-kerry, presidential-election

John Kerry won a Silver Star, three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star serving in Vietnam. George Bush played at serving his country and can’t even prove that he actually physically served in the National Guard. Who served and who shirked??

Could it possibly be that Bush unconsciously feels so defensive about his “service” that he needed to stage his sham “fly in” to the USS Abraham Lincoln in full pilot’s regalia? I’m starting to believe that once Americans focus on the stark differences in their service records that the Lincoln stunt is going to be the equivalent of the helmeted Michael Dukakis’ ride on a tank.

tags george-bush, john-kerry, vietnam-war