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| DNC rips Cheney’s record, tie wife’s pregnancy to VN | ||
| 2004-04-27 | ||
| EFL - hattip to WSJ Best of Web Democrats began a weeklong attack on Vice President Dick Cheney’s record yesterday, with party chief Terry McAuliffe calling him "the last guy who should be lecturing John Kerry" and a Democrat-leaning group suggesting that Mr. Cheney’s wife became pregnant to help her husband avoid serving in Vietnam. Mr. McAuliffe, speaking at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, called Mr. Cheney "the Bush campaign’s attack dog in chief," and questioned whether he had the credentials to make his speech yesterday criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry’s voting record on defense — policywise as well as personally. "When he was secretary of defense, Dick Cheney consistently proposed massive cuts to weapons programs that our troops are using right now in Iraq," Mr. McAuliffe said, pointing to Mr. Cheney’s support while defense secretary in the previous Bush administration for cutting the M-1 tank, the B-2 bomber, AH-64 Apache helicopters and the F-16 fighter. Mr. McAuliffe then questioned Mr. Cheney’s personal qualifications. "You remember Dick Cheney," he said. "When John Kerry was risking his life for his country in Vietnam, Dick Cheney was getting deferments because, in his words, he had ’other priorities than military service.’ " The vice president has become the go-to man when President Bush’s re-election campaign needs an authoritative voice to challenge Mr. Kerry on defense. In a speech in Fulton, Mo., yesterday, the site of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech, the vice president said Mr. Kerry’s voting record is a long trail of supporting defense and intelligence cuts. The Kerry campaign said yesterday that Mr. Cheney was "smearing John Kerry’s patriotism," and Mr. McAuliffe said Democrats have learned from past elections that they must answer such charges instantly and forcefully. "We shockingly saw what they did to Max Cleland in 2002," Mr. McAuliffe said of the former Democratic senator from Georgia, who lost his seat after a barrage of ads criticizing him for supporting a filibuster to delay creating the Department of Homeland Security. "We remember how their ads put Max Cleland’s face next to Osama bin Laden’s and told America that a triple amputee who fought in Vietnam would not defend the security of his country," he said. Meanwhile, Democrat-leaning political organizations took up the charges yesterday, with one group suggesting that Mr. Cheney’s wife, Lynne, became pregnant to help her husband avoid serving in Vietnam. Mr. Cheney received five deferments, the first four because he was in school. But the Thunder Road Group, a consultancy working for America Coming Together, one of the Democrat-leaning "Section 527" political operations, said Mr. Cheney’s fifth deferment came when his wife became pregnant. The group noted that the rules governing the draft changed Oct. 26, 1965, to allow married, childless men to be drafted. Mr. Cheney received a deferment three months later on the grounds that his wife was pregnant. The Cheneys’ first child, Elizabeth, was born, the group noted, "nine months and two days after childless men were deemed eligible for the draft." The accusation that Mr. Cheney used the pregnancy to avoid serving in Vietnam was made in the 2000 campaign, and resurfaced in a March opinion article on Slate.com and several Web discussion forums, including one sponsored by Mother Jones magazine.
It looks to me as if Max Cleland and Kerry are/were being attacked on their voting record. I read Cheney’s address and see nothing in it concerning Kerry’s military service or his time escapades as a war protester. It seems as if Kerry is accentuating the negatives in Bush’s record and the GOP is doing the same. How does that qualify as a personal attack? | ||
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #5 Are they playing a game where they accuse Cheney of making a statement he didn't make figuring that most Americans will never look at the transcript to see what Cheney actually did say? |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-04-27 11:30:36 PM |
| #4 Dave, when you voted DNC, you still didn't buy this type of bull. The GOP criticizes Kerry's record and Kerry complains that the GOP is attacking his service in Vietnam. It's a shell game. I think most of Kerry's VN firestorm is being fed by Vets and/or Pundits. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-04-27 10:13:54 PM |
| #3 "Can you say: Nothing new to offer?" Anymore, that has to be classed as an understatement: in all my 55 years, I have never seen a candidate for public office less inspiring than John Kerry, nor a political campaign more ineptly run than his. I was a Democrat for three decades, until last year; but even if I were still a Democrat, and even if we were not in a fight for our survival against militant Islam, I don't see how I could possibly work up the energy to vote for this fool. What an utter, farking idiot. Bill Quick, at dailypundit.com, has been saying for months that the Democratic Party is toast; I'm beginning to think he may be on to something. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-04-27 8:50:53 PM |
| #2 Heh, if it ain't Kerry bringing up Vietnam, it's someone else of his political stripe doing it. Can you say: Nothing new to offer? |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-04-27 8:35:46 PM |
| #1 Jeez, John, what ever happened to "Bring! It! On!" eh? |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-04-27 8:13:09 PM |