February 13, 2004 PERMALINK
The Smear Test
(posted Feb. 13 12:30 AM ET)
Tomorrow, the expectation is [Wes Clark] will lend his name and support to John Kerry. That's the big political news of the day.
We emphasize "news."
-- CNN's Aaron Brown, 2/12/04
LiberalOasis has expressed this sentiment more than once:
...it's [particularly] important to determine who can best survive and thrive in a hostile campaign environment.
Yesterday, we were reminded how hostile it can, and will, be, as an unproven, vicious smear was leveled at Kerry by smear specialist Matt Drudge
(Ironically, on the same day, GOP party chair Ed Gillespie baselessly charged that Kerry is planning the "dirtiest campaign in modern presidential politics.")
As loathsome as this smear is, better to see if Kerry can deal with such things now, rather than later.
Because this is unlikely to be the end of the nastiness.
So far, Kerry has shown the patience of a pro.
No statements, no panicked reaction. Nothing that would unnecessarily make the story spread farther than it has.
(As Joe Conason noted, the initial spread in the media has been very limited, though Atrios spotted Fox picking it up in the late morning.
But even Fox is not in overdrive. Prime time Fox -- O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes -- stayed away. O'Reilly said, "I'm not going to get into...any rumor or innuendo on the Înet today...Spreading that stuff around is just not right and I'm not going to do it.")
However, the Kerry silence may end today.
At this writing, Drudge is saying that Kerry will be on Imus in the Morning today (on MSNBC and various radio stations.) The MSNBC site says Kerry will be on at 8:29 AM ET.
A "shock jock" radio show would seem to be an odd venue to wipe out a smear, even if Imus is favorite for politicians trying to look cool and edgy.
But Kerry apparently is comfortable on the show.
As Newsweek reported recently, Kerry did so much better on Imus than his rival William Weld, he scored Imus' endorsement in that heated 1996 Senate race.
The other benefit of going on radio is there will be no video for TV stations to play over and over.
That sends a subtle signal -- that it's not serious enough a charge to warrant responding to on TV.
And of course, it's a Friday, the best day to bury news in the less read Saturday papers.
Nevertheless, there are still risks.
Imus is not exactly a controlled environment.
And, assuming Kerry comments on the matter, it will spark mainstream news outlets to report on something that they have yet to report on.
But that's the tough call politicians often have to make:
When is getting ahead of a scandal story better than waiting to see what the media comes up with on their own?
And the answer is not always the same in each case.
Smears are tricky things to handle, but to beat the right-wing machine, you have to be able to handle them.
Over the next several days, we will likely find out if Kerry can pass The Smear Test.
(UPDATE Feb. 13 9 AM ET -- Kerry did not appear live on Imus, but at 8:07 AM ET the show aired "exclusively" obtained "taped comments" of Kerry denying the story, where he said, "Well there's nothing to report. There's nothing to talk about. I'm not worried about it. No. The answer is no.")
(CORRECTION Feb. 13 2:15 PM ET -- Contrary to what the above "Update" says, Kerry did appear live, by phone, earlier in the broadcast. As reported by CNN's Bill Schneider, Imus asked a broad question, if there was anything in Kerry's past that would kill his campaign, to which Kerry gave the above response.)
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February 12, 2004 PERMALINK
Kerry On Marriage For Gays
He Is Consistent
(posted Feb. 12 1:45 AM ET)
John Kerry has had the same position on marriage for gays for his whole career.
It's a maddeningly nuanced position, but it is a consistent one, despite recent attempts to say otherwise.
Kerry has had to explain the seeming paradox between his Î96 vote against the Defense of Marriage Act -- which said states are not required to recognize marriages by gays in other states -- and his position that he's against same-sex marriages and against the recent Mass. court decision.
And yesterday, a Drudge headline blared, "Kerry Signed Letter Backing Gay Marriage," linking to an AP story on Yahoo! with the same headline, and to the letter in question.
So what's the deal?
Although Kerry's gay rights record is quite good, he has always opposed marriage for gays.
In his 1996 floor statement opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, he said:
I will vote against this bill, though I am not for same-sex marriage, because I believe that this debate is fundamentally ugly, and it is fundamentally political, and it is fundamentally flawed.
He argued that with no state actually legalizing marriage for gays, that:
...the results of this bill will not be to preserve anything, but will serve to attack a group of people out of various motives and rationale...and will only serve the purposes of the political season...
...It is hard to believe that this bill is anything other than a thinly veiled attempt to score political debating points by scapegoating gay and lesbian Americans. That is politics at its worst.
And he went at the heart of the bill:
If this were truly a defense of marriage act, it would expand the learning experience for would-be husbands and wives.
It would provide for counseling for all troubled marriages, not just for those who can afford it.
It would provide treatment on demand for those with alcohol and substance abuse...
...It would expand the Violence Against Women Act.
It would guarantee day care for every family that struggles and needs it.
(The laundry list got out of hand after that, but still, it was a smart move.)
After that vote, he has never wavered on his opposition to marriage for gays, while otherwise supporting equal rights via civil unions or domestic partnerships.
On a June 23, 2002 Meet The Press appearance, Kerry said:
I don't support gay marriage. I support partnership rights.
I believe that is important. We've done that in many parts of the country. But I do not support marriage.
The view was also evident in the July 12, 2002 letter referred to, erroneously, in yesterday's Yahoo! and Drudge headlines.
(The text of the AP story was more accurate, though still slanted, via Counterspin Central and Atrios.)
Drudge conveniently linked to the actual letter, which expressed opposition to the 2002 Mass. "Protection of Marriage Amendment" that went farther than just banning marriage by gays.
The letter, signed by Kerry and 11 other politicians, said:
...we believe it would be a terrible mistake to write into our Constitution so sweeping a proposal with the likelihood that it will prevent not only the state government, but also the cities, towns and counties from acting as they might wish to provide some form of recognition for same-sex relationships. [emphasis added]
More recently, in a NPR interview this week (via Daily Kos), Kerry has floated the possibility he would back a Massachusetts amendment banning marriage by gays, so long as it leaves room for civil unions:
It depends entirely on the language of whether it permits civil unions and partnership or not.
I'm for civil union, I'm for partnership rights.
I think what ought to condition this debate is not the term "marriage," as much as the rights that people are afforded.
In answering, Kerry inadvertently left an impression that he was talking about a federal constitutional amendment banning marriage by gays, something which he has consistently opposed.
But the campaign quickly released a clarifying statement, after an inquiry from 365Gay.com, saying:
I remain firmly opposed to any federal amendment on this issue.
So that's the deal.
(For the most detail on his views regarding gay issues, check this Advocate interview.)
Is this an ideal position for Kerry? No.
Not just ideologically, but practically.
Having to explain all these surface contradictions can feed a perception that he would govern by polls and not principle, and/or that he's not being straight with voters about his views.
Howard Dean, who also doesn't fully embrace marriage for gays, threaded this needle in a smarter way.
Instead of having to start the argument in a defensive mode, he laid out a positive principle: all states should do something to provide equal rights for gays.
For example, after the most recent Mass. court ruling, Dean said:
As Governor of Vermont, I was proud to sign the nation's first law establishing civil unions for same-sex couples.
Today's decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court represents a different approach to the same goal.
One way or another, states should afford same-sex couples equal treatment under law in areas such as health insurance, hospital visitation and inheritance rights.
But even if Kerry wanted to upgrade to this more creative approach, he's hamstrung by his long history of opposing marriage for gays.
With his record in mind, here's what he should do.
1. Get off of the defensive treadmill of constantly insisting he opposes marriage for gays.
2. Get back to the 1996 floor statement, and call out right-wingers for scapegoating instead of proposing something that would really help people with their marriages, and lay out a positive agenda.
3. As LiberalOasis has argued before, start telling voters that Bush wants to talk about gay marriage because he has nothing to offer on jobs, health care and education.
And on that last point, just in case you think he should govern by polls, a new Gallup poll has "same-sex marriage" at the bottom of a long list of issues voters think is important.
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February 11, 2004 PERMALINK
The AWOL Charge
Why Does The Media Care Now?
(posted Feb. 11 12:30 AM ET)
You may be wondering, why is the Bush-AWOL charge getting tougher press treatment now than four years ago when it first caught national attention?
In the answer is an important lesson for the Dems.
As you may recall, it all started with Michael Moore on Jan. 17, calling Dubya a "deserter" at an event where he endorsed Wesley Clark.
The story was initially a negative one -- for Clark.
It was about how he was associating with a controversial figure using extremist rhetoric. Bush was not under fire.
On Jan. 22, in the key New Hampshire debate, ABC's Peter Jennings pressured Clark to distance himself from Moore and the statement, saying it was "a reckless charge not supported by the facts."
It's true Bush was not a "deserter."
But Jennings didn't even acknowledge the story behind the charge, giving the impression that it was a total fabrication.
Clark didn't help matters, refusing to address the substance of the charge:
I don't know whether this is supported by the facts or not. I've never looked at it. I've seen this charge bandied about a lot.
But to me it wasn't material. This election is going to be about the future.
(LiberalOasis would argue this was one of Clark's biggest missed opportunities in the campaign.
The whole point of nominating a general would be so he could smack Bush on these kinds of issues. Given the chance to show what he could do, he passed.)
John Kerry didn't want to wade in either.
On the Jan. 23 edition of CNN's Crossfire, Kerry was asked about Moore's comment by Bob Novak:
NOVAK: What do you think of calling the president of the United States a deserter?
Or do you have some information that...is accurate?
KERRY: No, obviously, I don't. I think it's over-the-top language, Bob.
And I think that's not what my campaign is about. My campaign is about the American people.
Kerry, focused on NH, was more interested in throwing a small jab at Clark then taking on Bush over the matter.
And Clark couldn't shake the issue, contributing to his weak finish in NH on Jan. 27.
Meanwhile, the pressure stayed off of Bush.
Then, on Feb. 1, DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe changed that.
Unprompted on ABC's This Week, he lit into Bush for being "AWOL", comparing him to the "chest full of medals" on John Kerry.
Only then did the pressure shift to Bush. Only then did the media take the charge seriously.
Kerry's rise certainly helped whet the media's appetite, since his war record could make Bush's service a long-term campaign issue.
And Kerry helped move the story, dropping sly quotes that didn't attack Dubya directly but hinted that he could raise the issue down the line.
But without McAuliffe boldly going on the attack, the story would have remained dormant.
The lesson? Scandal stories don't happen by themselves.
The media, as a whole, rarely takes the initiative to dig up stories on its own.
It takes party leaders to push stories.
This also explains why the story didn't spark much coverage in 2000.
The Gore campaign didn't push the story. As the Boston Globe reported on Nov. 1, 2000:
Neither Gore nor officials in his campaign would comment publicly on the issue, because, [Sen. Bob] Kerrey said, they are fearful that the Bush campaign will respond by pointing to President Clinton's active avoidance of the draft - as a Bush spokesman did last week when the Globe asked questions about Bush's service.
More recently, the Dems didn't push hard with PlameGate.
That's why even now, with grand jury proceedings underway, the story is getting comparatively restrained coverage.
While the Plame investigation appears to be clicking along, the relative lack of public awareness and pressure will make it easier for Bush (and Cheney) to wriggle out unscathed, even if a second-tier official is indicted.
Whereas today, thanks to McAuliffe and, to a lesser extent, Kerry, the spotlight is hot enough, that not only is the press pushing the issue, they aren't blindly swallowing yesterday's Bush pushback.
For example, yesterday, both NBC Nightly News and ABC World News Tonight took time to point out where the holes in the story remain.
This story could still peter out. A lack of new revelations and continued Dem pressure and the media will move on.
(In fact, yesterday Kerry pulled back, refusing to comment on the latest document drop by the Bushies. If no leading Dem opts to turn up the heat, the media attention could wane.)
But some damage to Bush is already done.
Another week off-message. Another ding to his honest and trustworthy rep. Another contribution to the credibility gap.
Hopefully, seeing how well this has worked, the Dems will continue to be more aggressive from this point forward.
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February 10, 2004 PERMALINK
Is The Size of Government "Exploding"?
(posted Feb. 10 2:15 AM ET)
(minor edits Feb. 10 10:30 AM ET)
Dubya is in full-blown campaign mode, dragging out the same old GOP attack lines they use every year.
But this one from yesterday was particularly brazen:
They're going to say, "Oh, we got to raise it so we can pay down the deficit."
Uh-uh. They're going to raise the taxes and increase the size of the federal government.
Considering that Bush is not only knocked around for his half-trillion deficits, but also by conservatives for not reducing the size of the government, that's a pretty risky/stupid move.
Dems should take the opening, and smack Bush for hypocrisy.
But they should be careful how they do it.
Why? Because the stats and spin conservatives are successfully disseminating, in order to pressure Bush, are highly suspect.
And accepting them as fact will end up pressuring a Dem Administration to make unnecessary, cruel budget cuts.
What conservatives want to whack is non-defense, non-homeland security discretionary spending -- which includes things like vet benefits, child care, low-income housing, job training, and (Bush's favorite) marriage promotion.
(The other kind of spending is mandatory spending, which includes entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, things conservatives have their eyes on too, but can't be cut as simply).
And conservatives, like Andrew Sullivan, were quick to criticize Bush's claim in the Meet The Press interview that discretionary spending was dramatically up on Clinton's watch, and down on his.
That Bush claim was a lie, as Spinsanity shows (via Angry Bear).
But Sullivan's claim that discretionary spending "has exploded" under Bush is false too.
Sullivan is parroting what the right-wing think tanks have put out, most notably the Heritage Foundation.
Heritage seeks to cut off the argument that government grew mainly as a response to 9/11 and Iraq, by saying that 55% of new discretionary spending is in non-defense, non-homeland security areas.
Furthermore, Heritage says that non-defense, non-homeland security spending rose 11% in the last two years, "the largest two-year increase in a decade."
But the more reputable Center for Budget and Policy Priorities shreds the Heritage analysis.
CBPP notes that Heritage's 55% stat comes from a flimsy method of number crunching, and the more accurate stat is much lower, 35%.
And while the 11% stat is accurate, the spin is misleading.
The jump in such spending is temporary, mainly coming from the recession, which triggered spending on unemployment insurance and other such benefits.
So when Heritage says it's the largest two-year increase in a decade, it conveniently ignores the last recession.
In sum, the notion that the size of the government is "exploding" is ridiculous.
But the Right wants you to think that to build support for drastic cuts, so even if we win the battle in November, we lose the war.
However, CBPP's numbers still show that the size of government has grown under Bush, measured by government spending relative to the size of the economy.
So Bush shouldn't get away with trying to pretend Dems want to grow government and he doesn't.
But when Dems hit him on that point, they need to do it by hitting him on hypocrisy, and on fiscal responsibility.
What they should resist is the temptation to move to Bush's Right, bash "big government" and promise to drastically reduce it.
Instead, there's an opportunity here to reconnect Americans with their government, and win the overarching argument about the role of government.
For example, a response to Bush's charge could be:
"It's not about whether government grows or shrinks, it's about whether our government is serving our needs and spending our money wisely.
"The government had to grow to respond to our homeland security needs. And so it grew under George Bush.
"Yet, it's still not serving our needs, because he's not properly funding first responders, he's not funding thorough cargo inspections, and he's leaving a massive debt for our grandchildren to pay off."
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February 9, 2004 PERMALINK
The Sunday Talkshow Breakdown
A weekly feature of LiberalOasis
(posted Feb. 9 1:30 AM ET)
The big event was Dubya facing Tim Russert on NBC's Meet The Press.
Truth squads were admirably out in force, and in speedy fashion yesterday.
The DNC and Center for American Progress produced the most thorough work.
And both Counterspin Central and Talking Points Memo stressed that Bush's claim that he already released his full National Guard service records in 2000 is nothing but a lie.
With the fact checking well handled by others, let's focus on what his performance means politically.
One of the goal of a Sunday talkshow appearance is elite opinion management, which can indirectly affect broader public opinion.
And it looks like the instant reaction of elite conservatives was: Uh-oh.
Calpundit spotted the right-wingers at The National Review dumping all over Bush's performance, with words like "stammering", "unsteady" and "dismal".
And Peggy Noonan wrote on the Wall Street Journal website that Bush was "not impressive", "tired, unsure and often bumbling", and that he likely "failed to inspire his base".
LiberalOasis wouldn't argue with any of that.
Though, to be charitable, "stammering" was better than the irritable "So what's the difference?" performance he gave to Diane Sawyer two months ago.
(And you better believe his advisers played him that Sawyer clip and told him to keep the arrogance in check for Russert.)
But the theatrics of the interview will fade in people's memory.
More important to analyze are the words, because they will likely be a fundamental component of the '04 campaign.
His economic spiel was rehash, so let's just focus on Iraq.
It's notable that Bush spent about 16 total minutes with Russert trying to explain the war's rationale sans WMD.
It speaks to his difficulty distilling his explanation into a simple sentence or two, and how it is easily vulnerable to questioning.
It's also about the same time John Kerry had to use to explain the rationale for his war vote to Russert last year.
Despite both of their difficulties, their positions, and their thresholds for the use of force, can be boiled down.
For Bush: Seeing a threat, I won't sit by and trust a madman.
For Kerry: Saddam was a threat, but without any WMD, not an imminent one. We definitely rushed to war.
Which argument wins?
It most likely depends on the situation in Iraq at the time of the election.
If the transfer of power goes smoothly, and casualties dwindle, Bush can better argue that his instincts were right.
And the flimsiness of the initial rationale will be forgotten by many.
Furthermore, it would be hard to say a "rush to war" was reckless if things appear to have worked out in the end.
Conversely, if the transfer of power is rocky, or is aborted, and casualties pick up, then it's easier to argue that the "rush to war" had dire consequences.
And in turn, that Bush's stance bodes poorly for our national security and global stability.
There's also a third scenario.
If Iraq is like it is today: a muddled picture, with steady but arguably not dramatic levels of casualties, and an unclear political outcome.
In that case, the two arguments probably constitute a stalemate.
Shifting gears, a final observation on the AWOL issue.
Here's the key parts of the exchange on the matter:
RUSSERT: When allegations were made about John McCain or Wesley Clark on their military records, they opened up their entire files. Would you agree to do that?
BUSH: Yeah. Listen...people have been looking for these files for a long period of time, trust me, and starting in the 1994 campaign for governor.
And I can assure you in the year 2000 people were looking for those files as well. Probably you were...
RUSSERT: But would you allow pay stubs, tax records, anything to show that you were serving during that period?
BUSH: Yeah. If we still have them, but...you know, the records are kept in Colorado, as I understand, and they scoured the records...
RUSSERT: Would you authorize the release of everything to settle this?
BUSH: Yes, absolutely. We did so in 2000, by the way.
Bush was able to dispatch this subject quicker than the Phantom WMD, though as noted above, he did so by blatantly lying about releasing records in 2000.
Yet Russert did little to punch holes in Bush's statements.
But does that mean Bush successfully put the issue to bed? Not at all.
Russert made up for his weak follow-through by upping the ante on Bush on Dateline NBC (where interview excerpts were aired), in an exchange with Stone Phillips:
PHILLIPS: [He] said he reported for duty. Is that the end of it?
RUSSERT: It's not Stone. The President said he would release his pay stubs, his tax records, everything to do with those particular years of his life.
The Democrats will pounce on that...I think this issue still has some moments to play.
Bush wasn't trying to make a headline by saying he would release anything new. He was trying to say there's nothing new to look at.
But the inartful use of the words "yeah" and "yes" allowed Russert to say Bush "would release...everything".
Additionally, the W. Post was able to write, "Bush's promise to release all of his military files... has the potential to resolve the long debate."
Since Bush has no plans to release any new material, he's going to have a tricky time putting this statement back in the toothpaste tube.
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