Replies to post #60690 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[harrypothead]

Kerry: Slo-Mo on Swifties
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: August 22, 2004
WASHINGTON — It's easy for the Bushes to stay gallant. They delegate the gutter.

There are always third-party political assassins, ostensibly independent, to do the dynasty wet work.

W.'s old pal and running partner, Lee Atwater, set up the Bush modus operandi: Lay in the weeds while craftily planting plausibly deniable surrogates to slice up your rival.

The New Yorker editor David Remnick, writing in Esquire in 1986, limned the 1980 Congressional race in South Carolina's Second District "between Atwater's man, Republican Floyd Spence, and a Faulknerian figure named Tom Turnipseed At one press briefing, Atwater planted a reporter who rose and said, 'We understand Turnipseed has had psychotic treatment.' Atwater played it cool and refused to comment, but later told the reporters off the record, 'In college I understand he got hooked up to jumper cables.' "

Karl Rove is Atwater's protégé on jumper cable politics.

The weird thing is, given how transparently the Bushes play the game of staying above the fray even as their creepy-crawly surrogates do dishonorable and undignified things, their rivals always seem caught off guard when the third parties show up to rip their throats out.

The phlegmatic Michael Dukakis never knew what hit him with Mr. Atwater's Frankenstein monster Willie Horton coming at him in a third party scare ad and G.O.P. smear leaflets and letters.

John McCain should have known what was coming in South Carolina, but he acted stunned and hurt when he was hit with the Atwater/Rove mud treatment by shadowy Bush supporters.

Just as the Bush campaign dragged out fringe veteran surrogates in South Carolina to slime the former P.O.W. for being antiveteran, now the stomach-turning Swift boat attackers are sliming a war hero as a war criminal.

They started their vengeful and brazen campaign in May, after plotting since winter. But John Kerry is only now forcefully responding - though he should have had a response ready, since the Nixon tool John O'Neill has dogged him since '71.

Charging on Thursday that Mr. Bush wants the Swift boat sleazoids "to do his dirty work," Mr. Kerry reached for yet another Vietnam reference and water metaphor: "When you're under attack, the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attack."

The Skipper would do well to get a swifter boat. How pathetic is it that he's playing defense on Vietnam when W. didn't even serve?

Bill Clinton implied two weeks ago that Mr. Kerry was acting sluggish. "Whenever they hit me, I hit 'em back," he told Jon Stewart. "And whenever they came up with a charge I didn't believe was true, I answered back."

Reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post last week made it clear that the vile Swift boaters have told wildly varying accounts, sometimes supportive of Mr. Kerry.

The Times revealed that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - is that like the administration's Clear Skies Act for spewing pollution? - has a trellis of ties to Karl Rove, the Bush family and Bush supporters. "A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice," Kate Zernike and Jim Rutenberg wrote. Indeed, it was the same woman who worked for a third party group that slimed Mr. McCain on the environment in the 2000 primaries.

And the group's ad was produced by the Dukakis tank ad wizards.

The Kerry camp knows the Swift boat snipers are hurting the Democrat and fears the Bush oppo campaign will soon move from tarnishing Mr. Kerry's war record to dwell on his days as a shaggy-haired antiwar spokesman. The White House must tear down his heroism before it can tear down his patriotism.

[bb]Meanwhile, the Bush crew is shamelessly doing to Mr. Kerry what it once did to Mr. McCain: suggesting that the decorated Vietnam vet has snakes in his head and a temperament problem. "Senator Kerry appears to have lost his cool," Scott McClellan told reporters in Crawford on Friday. And the Bush campaign chairman, Marc Racicot, said on CNN that Mr. Kerry looked "wild-eyed" responding to Swift boat muck.

It makes sense for W. to use surrogates to do his fighting, just as he did when he slid out of Vietnam and just as he did when he sent our troops to fight his administration's misbegotten vanity war in Iraq.

[Rick Faurot]

Oil prices look set to dominate
The price of oil is set to dominate the week's headlines, with many analysts warning that its record-breaking surge may push the cost of a barrel over $50.

Governments and companies have already spoken of the damage that spiking fuel and raw material costs are likely to do to global growth and corporate profits.

Estimates vary on what the effect will be, but observers say the high prices will act like interest rate increases.

The fear is that consumers and firms will rein in spending, slowing growth.

Many voices

Global banking and investment group HSBC predicts that as much as 0.9% may be shaved off the world's gross domestic product (GDP) during the next two years.

US growth is likely to be hit hardest, with US consumers and companies having to pay an extra $112bn (£62bn; 91bn euros) this year, according to the bank's figures.


"Rising energy costs will put pressure on profit margins if companies operating in competitive markets are unable to pass the higher costs on in prices," HSBC said.

"This squeeze may discourage investment and employment."

The Sunday Times reported that Wall Street brokerage Lehman Brothers has cut its 2005 growth forecast for the US to 3.3% from 4%.

Firms in the UK, meanwhile, are facing a jump of as much as 50% in their utility bills, the newspaper said.

Oil prices are "the big downside risk", it quoted Mike Dicks, a Lehman economist, as saying. "And it is happening when business confidence is already low."

Build up

What has made markets especially jumpy is that a number of negative factors have all come together just as the US, and many of Europe's main economies, start to emerge from a slowdown.

The recovery is being seen as increasingly fragile, with some analysts pointing to disappointing labour figures in the US and concerns that corporate earnings may have peaked.

On top of that oil producers are pumping flat out, while the threat of disruption to production in Iraq, Russia and Venezuela has been fanning fears that demand may eventually outstrip supply.

"Global growth will hit increasing headwinds as oil prices act as a drag," the Sunday Times quoted Peter Luxton of Informa Global Markets as saying.

"The recovery could be aborted and the "soft patch" could turn soggy for a more prolonged period. The growth bulls face castration."

Helping hand

Oil production group Opec last week tried to play down the threat, adding it had boosted production in July.

However, even it had to admit that the longer prices stay high, the more damage they will do.

"Going forward much will depend on how long the price of the Opec reference basket remains above $35," Opec said in a statement. "The effect would be greater in 2005."

Oil slipped back from record levels on Friday, narrowly avoiding busting through the $50 a barrel mark.

New York light crude rose as high as $49.40 after reports of a new attack on an Iraqi oil pipeline, but then slipped back to close at $47.86.

Some analysts said that, while there may be short-term dips in the cost of crude, there was a real danger of prices surging even higher.

"Oil at $70 is entirely conceivable," said Bruce Evers, an oil expert with Investec. He said that all it would take to push prices to those levels "is a big supply problem" and if "Iraq and Venezuelan oil came off the market".
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/3588314.stm

[Rick Faurot]

Big lies for Bush
August 22, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorial...
IMAGINE IF supporters of Bill Clinton had tried in 1996 to besmirch the military record of his opponent, Bob Dole. After all, Dole was given a Purple Heart for a leg scratch probably caused, according to one biographer, when a hand grenade thrown by one of his own men bounced off a tree. And while the serious injuries Dole sustained later surely came from German fire, did the episode demonstrate heroism on Dole's part or a reckless move that ended up killing his radioman and endangering the sergeant who dragged Dole off the field?

The truth, according to many accounts, is that Dole fought with exceptional bravery and deserves the nation's gratitude. No one in 1996 questioned that record. Any such attack on behalf of Clinton, an admitted Vietnam draft dodger, would have been preposterous.

Yet amazingly, something quite similar is happening today as supporters of President Bush attack the Vietnam record of Senator John Kerry.

The situations are not completely parallel. Bush was not a draft dodger, but he certainly was a Vietnam avoider, having joined the Texas Air National Guard rather than serving in the regular military.

Kerry, on the other hand, may have done more than Dole to qualify as a genuine war hero. Although his tour in Vietnam was short, on at least two occasions he acted decisively and with great daring in combat, saving at least one man's life and earning both a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. That's not our account or Kerry's; it is drawn from eyewitnesses and the military citations themselves.

Yet a group of Vietnam veterans is questioning Kerry's record, operating cynically and ignoring the evidence. Many in this group felt betrayed by Kerry's opposition to the Vietnam War after he returned home. A renewed debate on that war might be useful, though we believe most Americans now agree with Kerry's famous statement to Congress at the time that it was a mistake.

Rather than seeking debate, however, this group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, is attempting political assassination, claiming in ads and a best-selling book that Kerry is "Unfit for Command." In many cases the charges conflict with statements the same men made in the past. Sometimes the allegations contradict documentary evidence. Last week a former swift boat commander, Larry Thurlow, said Kerry didn't deserve his Bronze Star because there was no enemy fire at the time, but this is contradicted by five separate accounts -- including the Bronze Star citation Thurlow himself was awarded in the same incident, as reported by The Washington Post.

While a few details and dates of Kerry's Vietnam record are open to question, most of the accusations are laughable. Kerry's record of service in Vietnam is clear and, one would think, unassailable. Given the contrast in their Vietnam-era records -- Bush even let his pilot's license lapse while still in the Guard -- Bush might be expected to change the subject.

Yet the Kerry opponents, working with funders and political operatives closely linked to Bush personally, are attempting what is known in politics as the big lie -- an effort simply to contradict the truth repeatedly.

Both parties do it, but Republicans are developing a shocking expertise. The smearing of John McCain in South Carolina in 2000, the reprehensible attack to oust Senator Max Cleland of Georgia in 2002, and this utterly cynical campaign against Kerry by Bush's False Squad deserve only condemnation.

Kerry has faulted a few of his own supporters who lampooned Bush's National Guard record. Now Bush should call off his dogs.