John Kerry the war criminal: Unfit to command, part 2

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by GePap


WHAT ****ING HOMEWORK!!!

The SBV has made allegations based solely on affidavits signed by its members. They have been able to show nothing else as proof. The papers have checked their allegations vs the OFFICIAL RECORD as it exists. They have found nothing in the official record to verify any of the allegations. They then have found contradictory statements by the people making the allegations. WHY ON EARTH WOULD THE BURDEN OF PROOF LIE WITH KERRY!?

Have you stopped beating your wife?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

As you have more than clearly indicated in the world of politics the burden of proof to arrest a campaign is very small.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
As you have more than clearly indicated in the world of politics the burden of proof to arrest a campaign is very small.

The burden of proof for a fake scandal is basically 0. And the Kerry campaign will do what you always do in this situation- crush the people making the allegations by discrediting them- the SBV's make it easy on Kerry to do that.

[GePap]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Have you stopped beating your wife?

Yes, I beat the nephew now

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by GePap


The burden of proof for a fake scandal is basically 0. And the Kerry campaign will do what you always do in this situation- crush the people making the allegations by discrediting them- the SBV's make it easy on Kerry to do that.

And in so doing continue to expose the fraudulent media tools to do so.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
(b) Kerry is not obligated to run on his Senatorial record, or anything else in particular. He's running on Bush's record and his alternatives, albeit in typical campaign soundbite mode.

What alternatives? The only thing he seems to have a plan on is the pie in the sky notion that he can get more help out of Germany and France wrt Iraq. The rest is vague crap bereft of any real specifics like I heard in the convention speech. And I'm sorry but I'm not as easily led by the stupid platform of Not Bush as you are. It takes more than that to earn a vote or at least it should.

(c) Bite me.

How do you taste?

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
What alternatives? The only thing he seems to have a plan on is the pie in the sky notion that he can get more help out of Germany and France wrt Iraq. The rest is vague crap bereft of any real specifics like I heard in the convention speech.

Well, there is his tax plan alternative- his health care plan alternative, his environmental policy alternative, so forth and so on.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


And in so doing continue to expose the fraudulent media tools to do so.

Which is why I watch Neils Lehrer as the only news I trust on TV.

[DinoDoc]

And if you could find something other that has real specifics on these "plans" (again not the vagarities I'd find on the campaign website), I'd be more than happy to see them.

[Geronimo]

I have to say that when running for the highest office in the land it is in your best interest to dispell the other sides smear tactics every chance you get. If I run for president and the other guy asks me if I've stopped beating my wife, wtf should I ignore that? I'll gain polictal points by getting the signed affidavet from my wife and her doctor that no such beating occured. Kerry and Bush aren't posters in some forum on the internet, they are campaigning. The fact a poster here isn't willing dispell rumors about whether he beats his wife tells us nothing about whether it would be suspicious for someone running for office to likewise refuse to dispell such an accusation. The fact that Kerry refuses to release the evidence that would refute these highly public accusations while he is running for office certainly is evidence that he does in fact feel he has something to hide in that record.

So what? Why are Kerry supporters rushing to defend this crap? It has been something like 15 years since Kerry was bringing this stuff up in congress hasn't it? Certainly it has been 30+ years since the actual events themselves would have transpired. Is it really important enough to bother refuting on Kerry's behalf if he himself won't bother to do so?

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
And if you could find something other that has real specifics on these "plans" (again not the vagarities I'd find on the campaign website), I'd be more than happy to see them.

Well, then read the responsible papers, such as WaPo:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16748-2004Jun4.html

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
What alternatives? The only thing he seems to have a plan on is the pie in the sky notion that he can get more help out of Germany and France wrt Iraq. The rest is vague crap bereft of any real specifics like I heard in the convention speech. And I'm sorry but I'm not as easily led by the stupid platform of Not Bush as you are. It takes more than that to earn a vote or at least it should.

When was the last candidate of any party to campaign on the basis of detailed policy statements? Does Bush? The average voter's attention span isn't that long, and both Rep and Dem handlers and political consultants agree on that. Soundbites is all we got with Bush and Gore, with Clinton and Dole, on and on, back to Bobby Kennedy at least. That's the first campaign I remember following.

And it's not just a platform of "Not Bush." It's Bush failures plus Bush ignoring and flip-flopping on Republican party platform planks (indicating the Republican party platform is just more pandering for votes, and the real agenda isn't for the likes of us to know.) Given the history, and Bush's current round of soundbites, there's a lot more substance to "Not Bush."

How do you taste?

It depends.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Geronimo
I have to say that when running for the highest office in the land it is in your best interest to dispell the other sides smear tactics every chance you get. If I run for president and the other guy asks me if I've stopped beating my wife, wtf should I ignore that? I'll gain polictal points by getting the signed affidavet from my wife and her doctor that no such beating occured.

No you won't, and this has been proven since Jefferson's time. If you get the signed affidavit, you either (a) beat it out of her, or (b) paid her off, or (c) forged her signature and had her drugged, or (d) she is traumatized by the beatings to the point where you have effective psychological control over her, and you've convinced the poor thing that she needs to lie to support you or it will be bad for her.

Once you've shown that you'll spend any significant effort to respond to these allegations, they'll get repeated, new allegations will be made, and sharks will circle. The principle behind the whole thing is that when you start denying claims, you're talking about it too, and what sticks with the voters is the claims, because they expect you'd deny them whether guilty or not. It's a tried and true tactic in US election history.

So what? Why are Kerry supporters rushing to defend this crap? It has been something like 15 years since Kerry was bringing this stuff up in congress hasn't it? Certainly it has been 30+ years since the actual events themselves would have transpired. Is it really important enough to bother refuting on Kerry's behalf if he himself won't bother to do so?

Counter-trolling is idle entertainment, just like trolling is.

[Kuciwalker]

This is still alive? My god, even Profit = unfair tax, part 2 didn't last as long as this

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


No you won't, and this has been proven since Jefferson's time. If you get the signed affidavit, you either (a) beat it out of her, or (b) paid her off, or (c) forged her signature and had her drugged, or (d) she is traumatized by the beatings to the point where you have effective psychological control over her, and you've convinced the poor thing that she needs to lie to support you or it will be bad for her.

Once you've shown that you'll spend any significant effort to respond to these allegations, they'll get repeated, new allegations will be made, and sharks will circle. The principle behind the whole thing is that when you start denying claims, you're talking about it too, and what sticks with the voters is the claims, because they expect you'd deny them whether guilty or not. It's a tried and true tactic in US election history.

So did Bush screw up when he released his confidential national guard payment records to dispell awol accusations? I certainly remember attaching a lot less credibility to the AWOL accusations that were refuted by those payment records than I had before they were refuted. Supposing you're right and Kerry releases the records that exonerate his record certainly the swiftboat accusers will simply claim that Kerry falsified it from the get go, but as with the Bush controversy all available evidence would then be out and there would no longer be any response that a reasonable person would expect from Kerry. What's more, given the heroism that Kerry would have us believe occured in his stay in vietnam and referred to in his nomination acceptance speech, it would clearly be a good thing for Kerry if releasing it simply generatd more discussion of this time because according to Kerry these events were not sordid in any way and were in fact quite laudible. I think the only instance in which your argument works, and a candidate is best served by ignoring the accusation is those situations where exonerating yourself only draws attention to bad press (the accusations) with no newsworthy good press to accompany the disclosure. If someone is releasing their record of their heroic deeds in service to our country there is just no sane reason to keep that confidential. It still seems really fishy to me.