Kerry 1, Limbaugh 0

November 10, 2007

One of the more common criticisms of John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign is that he was too slow to smack down right-wing smears, and when he did, his responses weren’t hard-hitting enough. I think it’s safe to say Kerry can no longer be accused of timidity.

Consider yesterday, for example. Rush Limbaugh defended the Swiftboat liars, insisting that their bogus smear withstood scrutiny.

On the November 7 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Rush Limbaugh claimed that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth “were right on the money, and nobody has disproven anything they claimed in any of their ads, statements, written commentaries, or anything of the sort.” […]

In fact, most of the allegations the Swift Boat Veterans made about Kerry’s Vietnam War service have been thoroughly discredited, often by official military records, but also by the Swift Boat accusers themselves, who struggled to keep their stories straight.

Media Matters does a nice job detailing some of the painfully obvious lies the hatchet men told, and the multiple instances in which their lies were “disproven,” but for real entertainment, consider the official response from John Kerry’s Senate office.

Kerry spokesman David Wade issued the following statement today in response to Rush Limbaugh, who said on his radio show that Kerry’s Swift Boat attackers in 2004, “were right on the money and nobody has disproven anything they claimed in any of their ads, statements, written commentaries, or anything of the sort.”

“At first I thought, that’s not Rush, that’s just the OxyContin talking. Nonetheless, this is a despicable but unsurprising new lie from a man whose closest brush with combat came when customs officials tried to take away his Viagra.”

Damn. Note to Dems: The more you respond to right-wing smear with statements like these, the less you’ll be smeared.

I want to know, which of the claims are true?

Anyway, yes, we need to respond to their smears effectively. While I’m not in the habit of giving compliments to this bunch of clowns, I’d definitely give them props for the way they spread their lies. Instead of having, say, the president himself throw down, it’s someone like Ann Coulter, or perhaps some senator of House member. That way, the nonsense is out there, but their leader remains untainted. We need to learn how to do that.

  • I’m glad we’re beginning to “fight back”. The reason – maybe the only reason – I’m for Hillary is that I think she WILL answer back. She has a good rapid-response group from Bill’s days.

  • Now, see, if Kerry had acted like this during the campaign, I might not have felt like I was holding my nose when I cast my vote.

    Image consultants are all well and good, but when the gasbag right-wing liars are attacking your only choice is to point out that they’re liars. Pointing out that they’re drug-addled, sex-tourist liars is optional, but fun.

    Sadly, the only Dem candidate that even has a chance of understanding this is Clinton. The rest are guaranteed to roll over and do what their image consultants say. And even she has a good chance of caving to her consulting team.

  • I’ve never said this before but:

    Oh. Snap!

    Yes, Ds definitely need more humour in their responses because the Cons can’t stand anyone laughing at them. And even a man with a broken shovel could mine tons of amusing quips from the big heaping mountain of ReThuglican foibles, so there really is no reason not to make fun of them until their heads implode.

    Hell, with the writers’ strike still on they should grab some of those guys.

  • Nice. Kerry must have been watching when Keith Olberman aired that training film on what to do when ambushed by a Bill O’Reiley camera crew.

  • Rush is right on one point – the swiftboaters were right on the money. They lied all the way to the bank.

    And don’t forget that Rush was 4-F during the Viet Nam war. He was deemed too defective a human to serve alongside guys like Kerry.

  • “At first I thought, that’s not Rush, that’s just the OxyContin talking. Nonetheless, this is a despicable but unsurprising new lie from a man whose closest brush with combat came when customs officials tried to take away his Viagra.”

    Right-o, CB.

    The Republicans are always talking about everyone else like this, so at least we shouldn’t be avoiding talking back like this out of modesty or shyness.

    Sometimes a little pepper is the right response.

  • I kept hearing the Mr. Kerry was going to prove all the allegations wrong by
    releasing his military records. That was one of his promises during his pres
    campaign. He has yet to do so. Why is that?

  • Nonetheless, this is a despicable but unsurprising new lie from a man whose closest brush with combat came when customs officials tried to take away his Viagra.

    I guess it’s understandable that Rush wouldn’t want to miss a date with his right hand.

  • If Kerry had responded with this level of combativeness in 2004 he would be President Kerry now. Nice to see that some Dems do learn. Unfortunately not enough of them.

  • The entire comment from the Kerry press release is even better:

    “At first I thought, that’s not Rush, that’s just the OxyContin talking. Nonetheless, this is a despicable but unsurprising new lie from a man whose closest brush with combat came when customs officials tried to take away his Viagra. This portly peddler of hate is once again wrong on the facts. John Kerry served his country with honor in Vietnam, and has fought for his fellow veterans ever since. The lies and smears of the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush were disproved conclusively in 2004 by the men who fought by John Kerry’s side in Vietnam, by the military’s own records, by investigative journalists, and by the incredible contradictions that exposed these right wing smear artists. It is long past time that we end the politics of fear and smear that we have seen used against decorated veterans from John McCain to Max Cleland and John Kerry. Rush Limbaugh’s ignorance and determination to divide Americans is just another reminder that you can’t spell ‘Rush Limbaugh’ without the letters L-I-A-R.”

    Also, (to Ron) Kerry did have all his (non-medical) service records on his web site starting in April 2004. Unlike with Bush’s, they covered the entire interval he was in the service and the fitness reports were uniformly glowing. They also included one form that showed that they got him a higher security clearance needed for the Brooklyn assignment with the Admiral. The campaign let the media see the medical records during one week. In 2005, Kerry signed to let 3 newspapers get all the files directly from the Navy. They reported that there was only one that had not been on the web. That was from his last report in Vietnam and it recommended him for accelerated promotion.

    As to those whistling in the dark that the Clintons fight back better. Consider that Kerry had already provided the media with more on this before the August attack than Clinton proved on anything. (Clinton changed his story 3 times on the draft issues). In addition to the naval records, the media had:
    – the fact that everyone on Kerry’s boat during any medal winning activity backed him 100%
    – Douglas Brinkley’s book. Brinkley, an academic historian had the official records and interviewed over 100 people. Kerry had no editorial control.
    – The Navy confirmed the the medals were correctly awarded.
    – Nixon, as can be heard on his tapes, investigated Kerry and found he was a clean cut war hero.

    The media in their post 2004 accusations that Kerry didn’t fight back is attempting to deny their own complicity in playing with the SBVT long after they had repeatedly been shown to be both liars and linked to Bush. Consider that even though they contradicted the official record, they were never asked for even one piece of proof.

  • Am I the only one who feels that responses like these are merely sinking to the GOP’s level? I want to feel that the party or politician I support has the moral high ground and the maturity to answer attacks without petty name-calling or gradeschool insults. Many people have criticized Kerry (and other democrats alike) for not taking this tone when handling smears, saying that it’s the only way to be effective. Not for me. Whenever my politician acts like the only adult in a classroom of 8th graders, I feel a sense of pride.

  • I hope Kerry’s office supplied more than the ad hominem attack.

    Rush’s drug habit is irrelevant and it makes Kerry sound as though he is trying to distract people from the groundless issue.
    Kerry DID have testimonials from some of the same guys who smeared him. The fact he didn’t present these at the time made me wonder whether the eminently “electable” John Kerry was TRYING to lose for some reason.

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