(COMTEX) B: Analysis: Dem 'liar' claims may be mistake ( United Press International )
WASHINGTON, Sep 10, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe Friday said more than a dozen times that George W. Bush has lied to the American people, even as questions surfaced about the veracity of some of the recent allegations about the president's military record.
"It has become crystal clear that the president has lied to the American public about his military service," McAuliffe said.
"What were they covering up?" he added. "This White House makes the Nixon White House look like it was open, honest and trustworthy."
But even as he launched Democrats' third day of accusations the president was untruthful about whether he fulfilled his duties in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, McAuliffe said the he called the president a liar only reluctantly.
"This is painful for me to have to sit here -- stand here today and to say the president of the United States lied," he said.
"But you know what? I'm not doing this for me. I'm not doing this for the Democratic Party. I'm doing this for every American whose life has been adversely affected" by the Bush administration.
McAuliffe also said the party and the campaign for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., just wanted to get back to the issues.
"Clearly we want this campaign to be fought on the issues of job creation, healthcare, education, a foreign policy based upon nations around the world respecting and working with the United States," he said. "That's what this election needs to be fought on.
"(But) we have found ourselves having to defend John Kerry against scurrilous lies."
McAuliffe used a derivation of the word "lie" nearly 20 times in the third news conference in as many days at DNC headquarters, despite reports questioning the authenticity of one of the sets of documents alleging Bush received special treatment due to his lineage.
In the face of those questions, the Democratic Party Friday released a statement outlining the "irrefutable facts about George Bush's National Guard record."
Included were allegations that Bush received preferential treatment in getting into the Texas Air National Guard, that he was AWOL on two occasions during his term as a fighter jet pilot, and that he was grounded at one point for his failure to take a physical as directly ordered.
Separate documents produced by CBS Wednesday night, allegedly written by one of Bush's superior officers, charged he was under pressure to give the then-congressman's son a positive review despite his performance.
According to the Washington Post, experts said raised script in the text of the letter was unlikely to have been made by the typewriters available in the early 1970s, thereby casting doubt on the document itself.
CBS is standing by the document, and McAuliffe said Friday the Democrats stood by it as well. DNC spokesman Jano Cabrera would not speculate on whether the party would disavow the report if the documents were proven to have been forged, despite Democrats' repeated calls on Bush to disavow attacks on Kerry's military record.
McAuliffe Friday repeated the party's accusation that the charges against Bush have nothing to do with the war in Vietnam, but raises questions about his suitability to serve as the country's president and commander in chief.
"This is not about something that took place in Texas, Alabama, Boston 30 years ago. This is about character. This is about credibility. The character and credibility of the president of the United States today," McAuliffe said.
Despite McAuliffe's call for a return to the issues, the scandal over the president's service -- and the questionable memo -- have taken top billing in the news. The reason for that had nothing to do with the party, Cabrera said, but was due to the media's preference of conflict over policy.
Cabrera also rejected the notion the campaign was particularly negative. "In every campaign you've got to convince people why they've got to vote for one guy and against another," he said. "I mean, these things happen concurrently in every election cycle."
McAuliffe said he would let the Kerry campaign say whether the candidate agrees with his assessment that Bush is a liar. The campaign did not return a call for comment.
However, Bob Muller, who was paralyzed in the Vietnam War and is one of the Kerry's "Band of Brothers," broke in to give an emphatically affirmative response.
"Of course he does, of course he does, of course he does!" he told reporters.
Kerry has not publicly commented on the charges. He continued campaigning across the country, and would do so without break until Nov. 2, McAuliffe said. He added that he was satisfied with the campaign's place in the polls and that Kerry's plans would win over voters.
"He's going to take that message right out to the American people, and the more they hear it the more they're going to like it," McAuliffe said of Kerry's policy plans.
He later added: "Swing voters, they've known George Bush for four years. They don't like what they see right now, and they don't want to vote for George Bush.
"We've got the next 53 days to close the sale on these swing voters, and that's what we're doing here today, and that's the message to our people."
Steve Clemons, executive vice president of the non-partisan New America Foundation, questioned the strategy of attacking the president's record during the Vietnam War.
Democrats "continue to be more about being anti-Bush than being pro-Kerry, and I think that's a huge mistake, especially with the independent voter," he said.
"The Kerry people have, in a way, de facto, defined Kerry's entire agenda around war-service questions."
He added, "I think if Kerry wants to win, they've got to get out of this game."
Norm Ornstein, of the American Enterprise Institute, characterized the attacks as a risky strategy, but said it was necessary after weeks of attacks on Kerry's character and his own military record.
"I don't think Democrats would have been trying this against an incumbent president if they would end up looking as if they're the aggressors," he said.
The Bush re-election campaign did not return a call for comment, but the administration Friday repeated its statement the documents indicated Bush had been honorably discharged from the Air National Guard and that the attacks were a coordinated Democratic plan to sully Bush's reputation.
"There is an orchestrated effort by Democrats and the Kerry campaign to tear down the president because of the direction the polls are moving," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday.
"And it's not surprising that we're seeing the same old recycled attacks. The Democrats are determined to throw the kitchen sink at us, and I suspect this is just the beginning," he said.
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(Please send comments to nationaldesk@upi.com.)
By MARIE HORRIGAN, UPI Deputy Americas Editor
Copyright 2004 by United Press International.
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