ABC vs Swift Vets
ABC News is calling for the Swift Vets to stop using footage from a Good Morning America show in their latest ad. The footage in question was culled from this April 25, 2004 interview. And, as their ad will, reportedly, focus on the conflicting statements made by John Kerry since he returned from, (did you know he was in?) Vietnam, (sign the SF 180, Senator) denying them the use of his public statements would seem to limit their ability to make their point. Coincidence? Suppression of free speech?
So, anyway, once again the Swiftees are facing legal obstacles to getting their message out.
I found this part of the Charlie Gibson/GMA interview noteworthy:
"KERRY: Charlie, I'm glad to be with you. I really am.
Me thinks he doth protest too much. Anytime someone repeats themselves that way I suspect they don't mean what they say. Just saying.
"GIBSON: Is it not fair to draw the inference that when trying to appeal to the antiwar people in 1971, you said, as in that interview, it was the medals, and then when the people who supported the war were giving you political problems, you then said, no, I didn't throw the medals away 13 years later?"
Kerry never explains the discrepancy, never even denies that he told the two versions of the story, only offers that it is all politics and Bush didn't do his Guard duty. Then. later, this question was also unanswered:
"GIBSON: In 1985, you said to The Washington Post, "It is such a personal thing, I did not want to throw my medals away." Then, in 1996, you said to The Boston Globe, I didn't bring my own medals to throw because I didn't have time to go home and get them. Which one was it? Did you want to throw the medals away or not?""KERRY: That's accurate." (followed by irrelevant subterfuge)
What is accurate? This is a multiple choice question, not a yes or no question. That is like offering him door number one, or door number two, and getting, right as a response.
No, Senator, listen closely, door one, or two?
Okay
No, One, or two?
Yes
Pick a number, one or two?
I agree
What is with this guy? Isn't English his native language? Instead of getting an actual answer to Mr. Gibson's question we get an Abbott and Costello routine, or is that Monty Python; which one, I wonder.
"KERRY: That's accurate."
I am reminded of his interview with Don Imus this week; Imus asks about Kerry's dual postions on spending for the war in Iraq, and after the interview admits that he doesn't know what Kerry said. The show went to commercial after Kerry left, when they came back the "I man" said that he had been in his office beating his head on the juke box because Kerry is "his man", and Imus had no idea where Kerry stands. Imus had asked several times about Kerry having once said that we need to spend whatever it takes to win in Iraq, but has lately changed position, now bemoaning the cost of the war. Imus gave him multiple opportunities to explain, Kerry failed, and then pronounced that he can't be any clearer than that. Clearer than what? A dark pottage? The man is incapable of picking a position and staying there; and can not explain where he is, or was, at any rate. What a sad excuse for a human being. Our country deserves a better exchange of ideas than this, and this clown Kerry is just not capable of holding up his end. To borrow from song titles of the Vietnam era; Kerry is the nowhere man, blowin' in the wind, a fool on the hill.
"KERRY: That's accurate."
This from the Imus interview:
IMUS: Back in May of 2001 on "Meet the Press," you said you yourself have committed the same kinds of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers in violation of the Geneva Conventions. And my question, Senator Kerry, is, is there a difference between what happened in your case in Vietnam and what happened at Abu Ghraib, in that both were acts in violation of the Geneva Conventions?
Imus loves to bait people to say something stupid, but on this occasion let his buddy, the Senator, off the hook when he failed to fall into the trap. It is a question the man should answer.
NOTE: The transcript provided by MSNBC appears to be incomplete, an editorial process must have been done, culling out what they found irrelevant (read: harmful) when they sorted out the Q & A by category. Perhaps they felt they could make the Democratic candidate seem to be clearer than he could be on his own. Interesting deletions, I must say.
