'Fear and Smear'

Kerry Blasts GOP 'Fear and Smear'
Tuesday, August 24, 2004

NEW YORK — Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry accused the Republicans of "fear and smear" negative tactics Monday and said they would offer only empty slogans rather than real plans to help most Americans in their national convention here next week.

"They have obviously decided that some people will believe anything, no matter how fictional or how far-fetched, if they just repeat it often enough. That's how they have run their administration, that's how they're running their campaign, and that's how they will run their convention," Kerry said.

"You can't cover up reality with a few empty slogans."

Kerry delivered his speech at New York's Cooper Union, the site of President Lincoln's 1860 speech against slavery that historians say thrust Lincoln into national prominence. Kerry's speech contrasted his plans for raising middle-class living standards with the past four years, just days before Bush heads to the city to lay out his agenda for the next four years.

"On almost every issue before us, we face the same fundamental choice — between the narrow interest of the few and the future of the vast majority of Americans," Kerry said.

"The Bush campaign and its allies have turned to the tactics of fear and smear because they can't talk about jobs, health care, energy independence and rebuilding our alliances — the real issues that matter to the American people."

The Democratic ticket's plan for making middle-income voters more prosperous would preserve middle-class tax cuts, reduce the cost of health care, education and energy, and increase the federal minimum wage.

The Democrats also promise to close the pay gap between men and women and help families balance competing demands at home and at work.

Kerry said Republicans have not delivered on promises to bolster average families.

"Next week at Madison Square Garden, the Republican convention will focus on slogans, excuses and attack politics," Kerry said. "And mark my words, they'll bend over backward with last minute proposals and last minute promises to make up for all they haven't done and to pretend they're not who they are."

Steve Schmidt, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said the Kerry record displays support for tax hikes, not tax cuts.

"John Kerry says the blueprint for his economic agenda was his vote for the biggest tax increase in American history he supported in 1993," Schmidt said.

The 1993 vote was in favor of President Clinton's plan to cut the deficit by $469 billion over five years, including some tax increases. It passed by one vote without any GOP support.

The call for a renewed focus on voters comes after days of exchanges between Republicans and Democrats over five medals awarded Kerry during the Vietnam War.

The Kerry campaign says Bush used a newly formed veterans' group not subject to campaign spending limits to attack his character. Those veterans say Kerry distorted his war experiences to win the medals, but their accounts in a television ad have been disputed by Navy records and veterans who served on Kerry's boat.

Bush on Monday criticized television spots run by all independent political groups as "bad for the system." Asked specifically about the anti-Kerry ad aired by the veterans' group, the president said, "That means that ad, every other ad."

Schmidt said Kerry has stood by while similar independent groups aligned with Democrats spend millions on ads against the president.

"John Kerry has been relentlessly negative," he said. "John Kerry has refused to condemn those ads."

The charge and countercharge saw both sides produce veterans whose accounts of the incidents that led to Kerry's war commendations.

Officials with the Kerry campaign, who count his war service as one of his biggest assets, say they have posted everything in Kerry's Navy file on his campaign Web site. The campaign said when the Navy sent Kerry his military file, it did not include his medical records, but Kerry had copies in his personal files.

On April 23, the Kerry campaign allowed 19 reporters who were traveling with him, including one from The Associated Press, to view the 36-page medical file for about 30 minutes while simultaneously interviewing his personal physician on a conference call. The physician wrote a three-page summary of the file that was posted on the Web site.

The Kerry campaign would not allow the AP to have a medical reporter present during that review and denied a request this week for a more substantial review. Kerry also has refused to release a journal he kept during his time in Vietnam, although parts were excerpted in Douglas Brinkley's book "Tour of Duty."

Bush released hundreds of pages of military documents but did not post them on a Web site. Bush also gave reporters limited access to his wartime medical records.

In Oregon, several pro-Kerry veterans called on a Clackamas County district attorney's office employee to resign after he appeared in an ad sponsored by an anti-Kerry group. Alfred French said in the ad and swore in an affidavit, "I served with John Kerry ... He is lying about his record." French subsequently acknowledged he relied on the accounts of other veterans and did not witness Kerry in combat.

"They have obviously decided that some people will believe anything, no matter how fictional or how far-fetched, if they just repeat it often enough. That's how they have run their administration, that's how they're running their campaign, and that's how they will run their convention," Kerry said.

Kerry has obviously decided that some people will believe anything, no matter how fictional or how far-fetched, if they just repeat it often enough. That's how Kerry has run his campaign, and that's how Kerry ran his convention.

Having the well-known propagandist, Michael Moore, whose film 9/11 was filled with lies and half-truths speak at the DNC proves that.

What's the difference between The Swiftboat Vets ad and Michael Moore's movie? Nothing.

Except that Michael Moore's lies, lauded by John Kerry as "truth", has worldwide distribution. We all know the ramifications and results of that distribution.

Why hasn't Kerry called for the removal of the movie 9/11 from theaters and DVD release? Why isn't he stopping those lies?

It won't go away. Kerry supports propagandists and liars. Believes in them enough to have one speak on his behalf at the DNC.

Pot calling the kettle black. Kerry is content to have the lies of the movie F9/11 aid and comfort his campaign. Not man enough to answer the people that have questioned and have called for answers regarding his "version of the truth".

There is no "version of truth". There is only the truth.

All of Kerry's lies will come back to bite him in the ass.

Kerry wants to "get away" with his nod to Michael Moore. Kerry is in league with him and is reveling in the proliferation of the lies his propaganda perpetuates.