John Kerry's Desperation
By Tom Barrett (09/21/04)
You can almost smell John Kerry's fear. For a while he had almost convinced himself he could win this election. Now as his numbers drop, he is watching states that were once considered "Kerry" states becoming "contested" states. And he is becoming more and more desperate. His recent actions prove the adage that desperate people do stupid things. We'll look at three of them.
Kerry has made many mistakes in this campaign. One of his biggest was the so-called "rally" at which he spoke just one hour after President Bush's speech at the Republican Convention. There is an unspoken rule that presidential candidates do not campaign during each other's conventions. To do so would make the candidate look - well, desperate. Bush honored this rule. Kerry embarrassed himself by breaking it.
Fearful because the Republican Convention was going so well following the many and embarrassing mistakes at the Democrat Convention, Kerry decided at the last minute that he would deliver a "response" to Bush's speech. To my knowledge this has never been done by any candidate. To compound his error, Kerry delivered his response at midnight.
Of course, he had to have an audience. He couldn't very well hold a press conference because few media would have covered it at midnight. So he faked up a "rally" of die-hard liberal supporters to listen to his "response." It was a very small crowd, but since Kerry is the media's candidate they were kind with their camera angles and made it appear as if a larger crowd had showed up to listen to Kerry embarrass himself - at midnight!
Another huge mistake he has made is that he continues to ignore the advice of leaders in his own party by continuing to make this election about events surrounding Viet Nam. My regular readers know that I do not hold Slick Willie Clinton in high regard. But even I will give him his due by recognizing that he possesses finely-honed political instincts. Clinton told Kerry to bring his campaign into this century. But Kerry has ignored him and other top liberals, and has made a fool of himself.
His latest attempt to campaign on the past is the "Memogate" fiasco involving fake documents publicized by Dan Rather and CBS. The documents purport to show that one of Bush's commanders in the Texas Air National Guard didn't like him, and that he failed to report for a physical. Supposedly written by Colonel Bill Campenni (now conveniently deceased), the documents have now been shown to have been produced by a desktop computer using Microsoft Word. Of course, Microsoft and desktop computers didn't even exist when these documents were supposedly written.
Dan Rather, in his zeal to smear the President, failed to do what any junior journalist would have done - check his sources to avoid embarrassing himself. The other networks did his job for him, much to his chagrin. At first Rather and CBS stonewalled the questioners. Then, after they realized that they had made a huge mistake, they compounded their problem by defending the indefensible.
Rather and CBS dredged up "experts" to validate the documents, all of whom turned out to be less than credible. They included a document "expert" who turned out to have no formal training and no credentials. His one claim to fame is that he claims to be able to determine the "spirituality" of individuals by examining their handwriting.
Another "expert" turned out to be a retired typewriter repairman. He stated that there were typewriters available three decades ago that could have produced some of the sophisticated superscripts that were found in one of the documents. He neglected to mention that they would have cost $20,000 and certainly would not have been available to someone as low on the totem pole as a National Guard commander who did not even type.
Their main document validator never even saw the documents. A retired general who was senior to the colonel whose name was used in the fake documents at first said that they sounded like something the colonel might have said. The only problem was that the material was read to him over the telephone. He assumed they had been handwritten, which was the colonel's custom. As soon as he found out they were typed, CBS lost his testimony because he stated that the colonel hated typewriters and never used them.
Fox News typed the exact wording of the document in a Times New Roman font (not used on typewriters of that period) and overlaid it on a copy of the faked documents. They were an exact match. Other holes in the CBS documents include the fact that the colonel's son has stated that he would never have written in such a negative manner about then Lieutenant Bush. He said that his father liked Bush and often spoke favorably about him.
Also, colonels did not send letters demanding that officers take a physical, then or now. According to officers who served with Bush, physicals had to be completed by the last day of the officer's birth month. Bush had over three months from the time of the faked memo to complete his physical. The memo required Bush to report for a physical by May 14th, two weeks from the date of the memo. On that account alone, the memo must be classified as a forgery.
Why have I referred to this whole sordid affair as Kerry's mistake? There is no absolute proof linking Kerry to this felony (yes, forgery of government documents is a felony). But the circumstantial evidence continues to mount. And many people have been convicted of more serious crimes, including murder, based on circumstantial evidence alone.
First, police detectives always look at motive when trying to determine who is guilty of a crime. Who benefited from this attempt to smear the President? Obviously John Kerry. He is the only one who seems to believe that the key to this election will be the moldy service records of George Bush and himself. Then there is the fact that the individuals suspected of forging the documents are Texas Democrats closely tied to Kerry and his campaign. And of course there is the fact that immediately after the release of the documents, Kerry staffers admitted they had copies when no one else had them. Kerry really had to be desperate to pull this one.
Kerry's third big mistake involves the UN. Remember when Kerry claimed that he had received calls from world leaders who wanted him to president rather than Bush? Do you remember how he fumbled and fumed when he refused to name those leaders? Well, we have discovered that there is at least one.
Just days before President Bush was due to give his annual speech to the UN, General Secretary Kofi Anan has announced that in his opinion the war in Iraq is illegal. There can only be one reason why he would attempt to embarrass President Bush in this way: John Kerry is Anan's candidate.
Kerry is so desperate that he has called in a favor from fellow Socialist Kofi Anan. Again, no one can prove what goes on behind closed doors, but what other motivation would Anan have to make such a ridiculous statement at one of the most critical junctures of the presidential campaign? He could have expressed his opinion any time since we entered Iraq, but he chose the time when it would do Kerry the most good. Kerry has been down in the polls since the Republican Convention. He desperately needs something, anything, to give him a boost. I am convinced that he turned to Anan for help.
Why, other than their remarkably similar world views, would Anan do Kerry such a favor? Kerry has expressed repeatedly his view that the United States is subordinate to the UN in all things, including our defense. In his book he makes it clear that America should never commit troops to any action, including self-defense, without a permission slip from the UN.
Bush, on the other hand, believes strongly in our national sovereignty. He made it clear before we attacked Iraq that our national defense would NEVER depend upon the many countries in the UN who envy and hate us. If you were a corrupt official who had made it to the top of the UN (Anan reportedly made millions in Oil for Food rip-off), who would you support to be President of the United States? Kerry, who wants the US to be just one state in a world government controlled by a small elite, or Bush, who believes the UN should be a forum with no authority to govern or tax? (Yes, Anan is behind the scheme to tax all income in the world through the UN.)
Fortunately for America and for the international war on terror, Bush will be reelected in November. No matter how desperate Kerry becomes, whatever desperate schemes he comes up with, Bush will prevail. This will happen because the majority of American voters, whether liberal or conservative, know that Kerry doesn't have what it takes to lead this nation. Bush has proven that he does.
INTERNET RESEARCH:
Proof that Dan Rather's Memo's are Forgeries
http://ratherbiased.com/news.html
Kofi Anan's Attempt to Influence US Elections
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm
Kerry's Plot to Upstage Bush's Speech
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5877541/
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