Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

On September 30, 2003, David Brooks denounced political hatred as a “core threat to democracy.”

Of course, the warriors and “haters” Brooks denounced were all
Democrats speaking out against George Bush.

I wonder what Brooks thinks about the use of hatred, fear, and contempt
as political tools when they’re used by George Bush’s team against John
Kerry. Some examples, leaving aside the Swift Boat Vets:

• The Republican National Committee issued flyers saying Democrats will ban the Bible.
• Dick Cheney said electing Kerry will produce “devastating” terror attacks on the US. (Sept. 7, 2004)
• 
  Dr. Laura claimed that terrorists are killing babies to help Kerry get elected. (September 30, 2004)

David Brooks expressed some regret that he
never spoke out against hatred when the bashers were on his own team.
It wouldn’t be too late for Brooks to speak up right now…

Love this story at Kos, where a political novice (“Kerry’s the tall guy, right?”) gives this review of the debate:

“I can tell if they were both
captured by terrorists Kerry would keep telling them to go f * * *
themselves, and Bush would cry like a baby and tell them anything they
wanted to know.”

Kos points out, however: “Bush, well, he’s big on the tough rhetoric when it’s others taking the bullets.

Bonus link: Fact Check notes debate misstatements by both Bush and Kerry.

Republican activist, claiming to be undecided, gets showcased on CNN pre-debate coverage

Why I will vote for John Kerry for President (by John Eisenhower, son of of former President Dwight Eisenhower, who supported G. W. Bush in 2000 election)

Respected conservatives agree with ‘clueless lefties’

Kerry won the debate! What can we do to defend against GOP spin?

Online polls being freeped on a server near you:

• Who won the debate?
  CBS poll
• NBC poll
• Time magazine
• Your vote for President: (NBC poll

Thanks to the enthusiasts at FreeRepublic.com for posting these poll URLs.

In other Freeper news, expect to hear the entire debate spun down to two words: “global test.”

Robert Novak is promoting a brand-new leak from “well-placed sources within the Administration”:
“Quick Exit from Iraq is likely.”

Well-placed sources indeed–Novak’s informant gave him detailed
post-election plans right down to dumping Colin Powell from State.

I ran across the link via my plugged-in Washingtonian SlashDot pal (CyGuy) who points out

the total hypocrisy.. (after a full
weekend of conservative pundits criticizing Kerry’s SOFT FOUR YEAR GOAL
of getting US forces out — as being a sop to the ‘terrorists’ by giving
them a target to to holdout for).

Josh Marshall’s take
is that Novak’s trial balloon will make Bush attractive to a wide range
of voters.  For old-fashioned fiscal
conservatives, point to Novak’s leak and say Bush has an exit plan but
Kerry wants to keep our troops stuck in the quagmire.

Meanwhile, neo-con hardliners can dismiss this little leak as pure hot
air. Why would we want to pull out of Iraq, where Bush’s game plan has been such a
great success?

My cousin Jeannie and I spent a bunch of time yesterday going through a
big cardboard box of family stuff that once lived in our grandfather’s
basement. Hack, cough, wheeze–talk about dusty! In addition to
Grandpa’s speech on the GI Bill, we found:

• Photos of Grandpa from altar boy to World War I doughboy to family-partying grandfather
• Photos of Jeannie’s dad in old-time football uniform
• Photos of my dad riding a rocking horse
• Letters and cards we all sent Grandpa over the years (“Camp is fun. I sure could use a dollar.”)

Grandpa with “us nine” grandchildren, at my wedding. Jeannie is the youngest girl, far left.

Today, still following up on family tradition, we headed for the John
Kerry for President headquarters. Jeannie knew how to get there from
Haymarket T stop–after three years in Cambridge I still get lost
in Boston.
The office was full of enthusiastic twenty- and thirty-somethings
working away with computers or on the phone. It was more organized than
Dean offices used to be–no empty pizza boxes stacked up by
wastebaskets, just for example.

People seemed happy and psyched, I know
I was. I did some
phone-calling but after an hour or so I decided to write a letter to
the editor about Kerry’s
healthcare plan. We sat around a big table with a bunch of other volunteers,
one of whom Jeannie knew from a choir in Arlington.

Tonight, I’m reminded it’s good to go places as part of a family “we”, good to
share in a community “our”, good to join a campaign where the work
is done by “us”.

Did George W. Bush get preferential treatment in the Texas National Guard? Yes, every step of the way–we didn’t need questionable new memos to prove it.

Dan Rather isn’t running for president, George Bush is.

I’m amazed to see people suggesting that, because these memos could
turn out to be faked, George Bush is magically more worthy of your
vote.

Funny, by the same reasoning, you should be voting for Kerry to
protest the “Swift Boat Vets” fakery. 

Or how about this fake claim? “Kerry voted to kill
every military appropriation for the development and deployment of
every weapons systems since 1988.” That one came straight from
the Republican National Committee, so we don’t have to theorize about
who to blame for it–for the background on why it’s misleading and false, see Snopes.com.)

I’m voting for Kerry because I’m more impressed by his record as a Senator than I am by Bush’s record as President.

I
think Kerry’s team will do a better job on defending the US against
terrorists without getting sidetracked into unnecessary wars and
without using “War on Terror” as an excuse for more government
surveillance. Bush’s team gave huge tax cuts to the rich, claiming this
would create jobs in the US–this policy has been more successful in
creating donations to the Republicans and a huge deficit for the US
itself.

I don’t think Kerry is perfect, but I think he’ll be better than Bush
at remembering he’s working for the US and for the world, not just for the short-term goals of one partisan party.

Jed Babbin of NRO is just one of many who want to remind you of Kerry’s testimony about Viet Nam:

Jed Babbin would do his readers a favor if he linked to the
documents-online archive of the National Review itself, where he could
read Kerry’s actual testimony, and see how it relates to the angry allegations he quotes.

The original document makes it clear that Kerry spoke off the cuff: “I
apologize if my statement is general because I received notification
yesterday you would hear me and I am afraid because of the injunction I
was up most of the night and haven’t had a great deal of chance to
prepare.”

The part of his testimony that gets quoted, again and again, is his
description of an emotional meeting in Detroit where more than 150
veterans talked about their experience. At that meeting, said Kerry:

I’ll stop here because, after checking a Feedster search on “kerry raped ears”, I discover that bloggers at Highway 4 and sadly no
already pointed out the glaring difference between what Kerry said and
his supposed slander-of-all-veterans-everywhere you can read all about
if you follow the right-wing blogs.

Just goes to show I should do a Feedster search before I start typing my post….

Publicists for the Swift Boat Veterans smear join right-wing bloggers
in pushing the claim that new National Guard documents were forgeries,
according to an Eric Boehlert in today’s Salon:

Nice to know that groups that aren’t connected to the Bush campaign are so closely tied together.

Gary Farber has details about IBM typewriters that used proportional fonts as far back as 1951. They also let you create a fancy superscript “th” if you were so inclined.

But check out Gary’s whole argument. And click on his PayPal link, if you’re so inclined. He’s done a real service to the online debate here.