Asymmetrical Information

I pretty much agree this story isnt helping Kerry much. I have read the story has knocked down Bushs trustworthiness and leadership numbers, but overall I cant see this story helping Kerry much. One thing the Dems seemed to learn under Clinton was to stay unified throughout hard times, but they appear to have forgot that lesson. The reps on the other hand have tolerated no opposing rep voices since Buchanons culture wars speech. For example, I have heard very little criticism of Bushs defecit spending, the complete failure of Condie Rice as NSA, and the new Senior script entitlement, despite the fact many reps have problems with those issues.

I dont completely agree with the idea media coverage is a zero sum game, theres twenty four hour a day cable news to fill and people can wrap their mind around more than one issue at a time. Kerry has tried to talk about health care, jobs, and the war in Iraq, but the Swiftys pulled the ratings, so the cable talking heads stuck with the story, even after the story was exposed as nothing more then self contradicting bitter old fools with an ax to grind. Imo Kerrys best topic right now is the war on Iraq, because its clear national security is the primary issue this election. Hes boxed himself in somewhat with his comments on continuing to support giving Bush the authority to go to war, even knowing there were no Iraqi wmd. But what Kerry should start to talk about is what he would have done differently in Iraq, and that should be regieme change without occupation. Every war expert I have read has stated that regieme change in Iraq could have been accomplished by bombing and letting the Kurds and Northern Alliance remove Saddam. In fact, there is near unanimous agreement among the experts the only reason to have troops on the ground in Iraq is to protect the oil.

If Kerrys within 5 points going into the debates, he will likely win the election. As long as the dems dont give up and eat their own now.

I'd disagree that most of the SwiftVet's charges didn't pan out. Kerry ran away from his holiday in Cambodia and a recently unearthed After Action report about his Silver Star actions casts doubt on that episode. The Swifties were quickly written off as partisan attack dogs and no Big Media outfit really ever gave their charges a close look.

But Rather's insistence on pursuing his attack on Bush's National Guard days, even after the documents he's using to justify the attack have been thoroughly discredited, will probably make a good percentage of those mythical swing voters believe that "Yes, Virginia, Dan Rather is a partisan hack in bed with the Kerry campaign."

Dearheart,

A sweet old lady like yourself ought not to say things like, And while I agree that most of the SwiftVet stories didn't pan out.

A. Your statement is factually untrue: The best the Kerryites can do is to contest the sworn affidafits of sixty-plus eyewitnesses. And, as more documents are discovered (the after action reports and damage reports), the more the weight of evidence tilts towards the Swifties.

B. You are, in your own sweet way, calling the Swifties, Liars -- didn't pan out, Indeed

C. If you'd like to start a thread in which you express your specific doubts about the
Swifties (and why you believe the Kerryits), I'll bet you'll generate a lot of traffic to your site.

TCLP imo the only thing the Swiftys proved was Kerry made a mistake on the date he was in Cambodia. But the point the Christmas in Cambodia was suppose to support, that US soldiers illegally operated in Cambodia, has been substantiated by Brinklys review of Kerrys Vietnam journals. The attack on Kerrys Silver Star is ridiculous, the statements that Kerry wasnt heroic in beaching his boat, running down a VC with an rpg, and killing him, is reprehensible. We saw Bush freeze in fear on 911, what would he have done if he was Kerrys shoes in Vietnam? This is way off topic, and Im done commenting on the Swiftys here.

The documents are only part of the story, the content of those likely forgeries have been confirmed by Killians secretary. If Bush continues to be silent on the content, this story will stick around and may damage him much the way the Swiftys story took on a life of their own after Kerry refused to speak on it.

Norm the Swiftys are lying scum. The medals were vetted, the Swiftys revisionist history thirty years after the fact is a joke. Eleven out of twelve members of Kerrys squad support Kerrys version of events, so its OK to call them liars, but not the Swiftys?

Now Begbee tells us that the Swiftees are "lying scum". Perhaps you'll tell us in detail why you think John Kerry spent Christmas of '68 in Cambodia, how he came to obtain his magic hat, why John Kerry won't release his service records, and why John Kerry won't appear at a press conference to answer questions.

Oh, the after action report for the Silver Star incident has just been released by the Navy (check swiftvets.com). It sure doesn't comport with his citation.

I'm not gonna get in a tit for tat ... oh, hell, why not?
>>We saw Bush freeze in fear on 911,>The documents are only part of the story,

I don't think the Kerry campaign's latest moves can rightly be called an effective tactic, especially with Bush professing to "honor" Kerry's service, etc. I think these moves are a function of Kerry's Locked-In Syndrome, in which his obsession with the late 60's and early 70's serve as the Diving Bell around his head.

Query: when is the last time anybody has ever met(in real life) somebody so obsessed with their military service? Normal people just don't act this way.

I don't know who this will help but Kerry is now up by 1 in the Harris poll (out today) and down by 1 in the Rasmmussen and Economist polls.

Begbee,

"Every war expert I have read has stated that regieme change in Iraq could have been accomplished by bombing and letting the Kurds and Northern Alliance remove Saddam"

What a terrific idea. On their way from Afghanistan to Iraq, the Northern Alliance could have accomplished regime change in Iran as well. Why didn't Bush think of that?

Begbee: "I have heard very little criticism of Bushs defecit spending, the complete failure of Condie Rice as NSA, and the new Senior script entitlement, despite the fact many reps have problems with those issues."

Begbee, you should expand your reading horizons a bit. National Review and the Weekly Standard, to name just two, have published several articles critical of Bush's spending (in general) and his Medicare expansion. Many conservative talk radio hosts have also been very critical of these aspects of his domestic program. So, the Republicans are not nearly as united in their support of the President as you seem to think they are. It's just that the war allows us to overlook a lot that we may not like on the domestic side -- besides, John Kerry is unlikely to be any better on these topics from a Republican perspective.

Re your observation on Bush-haters' reaction, "much as the Clinton haters were thrown into militant frenzies by the fact that Mr Clinton had a rather excessive taste for the ladies":

While some people may have had conniptions about the Slickster's penchant for adultery (but who could blame him?), that is not what troubled me and many others in my bunker complex. I was in the grip of the quaint notion that the nation's chief executive officer ought not lie under oath, especially when his quibbles about privacy had been explicitly rejected by the presiding federal judge in the case (a lady appointed by WJC himself, and one who fined him for "false and misleading testimony"). Further, I would note that there is a useful distinction to be made between hatred and contempt.

Begbee

The fact that you refer to 11 out of 12 people supporting Kerry as his "squad," shows how very little you know about military parlance.

What's devestating about the SwiftBoat Vet book is the primary sources they cite are Brinkley's "Tour of Duty," the Boston Globe exposes by Kranish, adn Kerry's own words.

If we are to use the CBS logic on the SwiftVets, Dan Rather should be demanding that Kerry explain why 60 eyewitnesses to his conduct in Vietnam and 250 SwiftBoatVets overall find him unfit for command - and why his own campaign and biographies contain so many conflicting accounts.

"didn't pan out"

Excuse me? Did I miss something?

Let's cut through the crap.

Swift Vets have made allegations about Kerry's service medals and his actions after he left Vietnam.
John O'Neil invited Kerry to sue him if he's lying.
Kerry has resisted every effort to get him to release ALL his records.
If Kerry is telling the truth, he can end this with a signature.
I have not seen a single story that refutes the substance of the accusations, only smears against the accusers.
Not one of the Swift Vets has anything to gain by coming forward.

Think about what you know about people. Think about what duplicity looks like when you've seen it from neighbors or co-workers. John Kerry is not addressing problems, he is trying to deflect them.

(Full disclosure: I am a Bush supporter (not fan) because I believe his LONG TERM VISION of democratic arab countries are our best hope of security at home.)

"didn't pan out". Indeed.

US News & World Report
The Democrats Real Problem (Sep. 20)
Kerry was hurt because at least some of the SBVT charges proved true. On August 11, his spokesman admitted that he was not on an illegal mission in Cambodia at Christmastime 1968--the memory of which, he said on the Senate floor in 1986, was "seared--seared--in me." His campaign left uncorroborated his frequent claims to have been on secret missions to Cambodia at other times. He has not authorized release of his military records. As this is written, Kerry has not taken questions from the press since August 1. Sometimes there is no good defense, and the only thing you can do is try to change the subject.

I think the CBS story hurts Kerry in this sense: It dominates the airwaves, pushing out the larger story of the implosion of Iraq (over the weekend) that could be benefitting him. Why he's letting it happen is beyond me.

Begbee says, "Every war expert I have read has stated that regieme change in Iraq could have been accomplished by bombing and letting the Kurds and Northern Alliance remove Saddam."

Leaving the military aspects aside for a moment, this would have been a political nuclear bomb! If you think for one second that the Turks would have let the Kurds conquer Iraq, you're nuts. And once Saddam was removed, then what? Remember, Iraq has three divergent power groups (including the Kurds), and the other two groups would not have stood idly by in the aftermath. Can you say "bloodbath"?

Look, what Bush has done is not perfect, but plans change once reality is encountered. "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." This is even more true in politics than in military campaigns, and what has been going on in Iraq after the fall of Saddam is politics.

Overall, I think it will work to Bush's advantage when people actually make the real vote decision: in the voting booth at election time. There are many things that one can hold against Bush, but legitimate concerns about authenticity of sources documenting these "things" diminishes their weight when the final decision is made -- yes, they are concerns, but the degree to which they actually influence which chad you pop is influenced by how really truly accurate you think they are. And this fuzziness decreases that influence.

As Chesterton said (paraphrase), accuse a man of being a murderer, a thief and a cat-skinner and he triumphantly produces the cat -- no one feels like the full issue has been resolved. CBS triumphantly produced the secretary; the Nation triumphantly produces the "main story line;" the Kerry campaign is left with mostly negatives: NOT harping on the documents, REDUCING air time on Viet Nam.

None of this does much to reduce the fuzziness introduced by major media claiming vetting and tradition and big-name status -- I say it will not help Kerry and is worth maybe a point against him.

GT -
Latest Ramussen tracking (today) is 49.3 Bush vs. 44.7 Kerry. Prior was Bush 47.3/46.4

Mindles,

Yes, that came out after I posted.

But the same poll has Kerry up by one on the battleground states today.

Squawkbox, that was priceless.

Tradesports betting (the most liquid market out there, with more than $100 million wagered so far) shows a 67%+ chance of Bush winning (and it was up to 70% this morning). It was 63% before CBS made its "clarification" last night. The market thinks this helps Bush.

Begbee, you should expand your reading horizons a bit.

A pleasant idea, but we here at the Institute doubt that it would benefit him. If one tracks his statements over time and then analyzes the results, what one quickly discovers is that he has a steel-plated partisan filter installed around his head, and this completely corrupts his ability to handle information and engage in logical reasoning.

For example, if his partisan leanings were focused on green, and he then read or heard a statement offering "the sky is blue," he would report this the next day as either "the sky is green" or "charges that the sky is blue are unsubstantiated," depending on how argumentative needs dictated. Anyone still claiming blue afterward would be written off in his reasoning as foolish; the fact that their skin itself appeared a bit greenish would not cause him to check his glasses, because anything other than green sky won't get Kerry elected in November.

It's a sad way to go, not questioning one's prejudices like that. But since he has chosen that route for himself, we look fully forward to scraping his quivering remains off the ceiling on the morning of November 3, and subjecting them to a variety of interesting tests.

I make no predictions, but what is interesting to me are the polls in states that have been assumed to be safe for Kerry. The Gallup Poll (as opposed to the consistently wrong Star/Tribune poll) has Minnesota neck and neck. If Kerry actually has to work hard to carry Minnesota, to say nothing of New Jersey, this race is over.

In reality, I think everything turns on events in Iraq over the next 6 weeks, and I have very little way of assessing things there. It seems obvious (although I very well could be wrong) to me that the U.S. is losing the initiative right now, and 45 days is an eternity to wait in a war in which one is losing the initiative, if indeed the Bush Administration's notion is to try to keep Iraq quiet until after November 2nd. To adopt the ultimate cop-out, we shall see.

Even if there were photos of Kerry forging documents or Bush directing swift boat vet commercials it still wouldn't make a lick of difference. Bush/Kerry are are still relatively even in various polls. The election is over, we just don't know who's won.

Will,

I think you are right.

I suspect in the end this will be decided by Iraq.

The election might turn on perceptions of Iraq, but it won't turn on Iraq. Policy in Iraq has been disastrous since prior to the invasion: every reasonable bad outcome predicted by centerists (on both sides) has come to pass, and the general trend line (bad->worse) hasn't deviated at all. So unless you anticipate a Halloween Miracle ("and suddenly there was peace and candy corn in the land of Ur"), events in Iraq are unlikely to deviate from predicted outcomes over such a short time period.

OTOH, if the media focuses on what is actually happening over there, Iraq might matter. Voters might be inclined to replace the group that has led us to …this But, since we're officially no longer in power, the only thing that attracts our media's attention is the spectacular. And, as much as I want Bush out, I don't want anything too much more spectacular to happen in Iraq - if worst comes to worst, better we muddle through another Bush Administration and repair the results afterwards.

What I meant was that, absent some sort of spectacular catastrophe, Bush will likely win, and even if a spectacular catastrophe were to occur, Kerry would have to demonstrate a capacity to deliver a compelling case for himself. He has yet to do so.

Where Iraq is now does not suprise me very much, even though I favored the invasion. Where I differ with most people who opposed the invasion, from either party, is in the assessment of how truly untenable the situation in the Persian Gulf was, and perhaps still is. Shortly after 9/11 I concluded that there was a better than 50% chance of terribly bloody conflict that left millions dead, because the combination of chronic despotism, the failure of the Islamic world to modernize culturally, politically, and economically, the approaching and unavoidable ubiquity of technology of mass destruction, and the location of the world's most important natural resource, made such an event a likelihood. I saw the only way out of this mess to be a rapid, revolutionary, and positive change in the political, cultural, and economic structure of the Persian Gulf. To say the least, this was and remains an exceedingly difficult enterprise, without any assurances of success.

My largest criticism of the Bush Administration is that they either underestimated the difficulty, or they did understand the difficulty, but did not communicate this to the electorate. I'd be happy to examine alternatives, if they were not, in my view, hopelessly reactionary in stance; utterly attached to a world which has not existed for some time now.

SomeCallMeTim writes:

And, as much as I want Bush out, I don't want anything too much more spectacular to happen in Iraq - if worst comes to worst, better we muddle through another Bush Administration and repair the results afterwards.

Old (or, at least, middle-aged) people like me remember the October 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon -- 241 dead in an instant. I am beginning to wonder how far we are from that kind of catastrophe. An event like that would certainly refocus the election; I pray that's not how it happens.

The AWOL thing has got Dubya plastered all over the TV wearing his TANG uniform, and the Powerline people say the chicks find him hunkariffic.

Unintended consequences again.

The public is not worried about Iraq. Only pants-wetting pundits worry about Iraq and how it affects the election.

Kerry is obsessed with contrasting his heroic service in 'Nam with Bush's slacking in the National Guard. The biggest problem with this strategy is that Bush has been President for the last four years. Voters are a lot more concerned about that than they are about the 1972 Alabama National Guard. Is this one of these things that is just too simple for the terminally nuanced?

What I meant by the rep party staying on message is that Ive yet to see a media outlet focus on disagreement in the rep party. The logcabin reps had 5 minutes prior to the convention, but there has been next to no media coverage of the right to lifers or fiscal conservatives that disagree with Bush.

My thoughts on regieme change without occupation come from several sources, but the idea that action on the ground by the Kurds and Northern Alliance could overthrow Saddam was the US reasoning behind the no fly zones and economic sanctions in Iraq. Add US bombing, and regieme change would have occurred without a thousand dead US soldiers on the ground in Iraq.

First, its not 250 swiftys that attack Kerrys medals, its about 60 of them. Many of there new statements contradict their previous statements. The guys closet to Kerry were the guys on his boat, and 11 out of 12 support Kerry. So what we have is the closest eyewitnesses to the events that resulted in Medals agreeing with Kerrys story, the vetted record of the US Navy agreeing with Kerry, and 60 bitter old guys trying to rewrite history. Does anyone really believe these 60 guys were paying attention to what Kerry was doing while mines were exploding under boats and while they were being shot at? Does anyone think these guys thought, "Im under attack, I better watch what Kerrys doing?". Does anyone believe Oneill can state anything first hand about Kerrys service when he wasn't in Vietnam at the same time? One things for certain, either the Swiftys are lying, or the guys on the boats are lying, and considering whos paying for the Swiftys airtime and how old these "memories" are, its clear the Swiftys are lying scum. Brinkly states Kerry was in Cambodia, the date doesnt matter much, it was illegal, it happened, and the date is nothing more than the fog of war.

Logical reasoning fairy support your tracking over time shows inconsistancy claims, otherwise admit there arent any. As to the partisan filter comments, in Presidential elections I voted for dems twice, reps once, and obstained last time because jr was to dumb, and Gore to full of it.

Kerry got one of his medals for shooting a wounded guy in the back. What's so heroic about that?

Kerry is just a terrible candidate. Bush probably would have lost if the Dems had put in their first string.

shamus -- Kerry actually got the Silver Star for turning his boat into an ambush, beaching it in a nest of machine gun fire, charging ashore, and killing a retreating VC who was trying to get far enough away from the boat so that he could fire a rocket launcher to blow it up. Knocking these lies down gets pretty boring. The only so called "swift boat veteran" who was part of that operation -- a guy name Lee -- told a KY newspaper that Kerry deserved the silver star. So there is no witness taking your side -- only the liar O'Neill who wasn't there.

But getting back to the post above, the memos hurt Kerry a lot -- some people will blame him, and some people matter in a close election. But even more, it deflects from the underlying story, which these memos did nothing to strengthen. US News had a hard hitting article destroying Bush on his shirking of his guard duty that didn't cite any of these memos, but that's lost in Dan Rather's incompetence. This was a huge gift to Bush.

I guess I really don't know what happened with Kerry in Vietnam. Some of the reports say he did good things and some say he did bad things.

But really -- why does it matter? That was then and this is now.

Some of Kerry's policies could conceivably be better than Bush's, but most of what he's for involves confusing new bureaucracies. He wants to ensure that Americans get their health care through their employers, which is a really dumb idea. He talks about renewable energy, but his ideas on that score aren't very good. He won't even say straight out that he would pull troops out of Iraq. Kerry doesn't offer an alternative to Bush's worst policies.

It's too bad the Democrats couldn't find a better candaidate.

Hold up, Rathers in the clear. It turns out A Chalibi was the source on NG documents, and we all know this administration doesnt care how many forgeries Chalibi makes, I mean his word is good enough to launch a preemptive war..

Shamus,

I can agree with you on that. It would be great to have to choose the better of two good men than the least worst candidate.

It would also be great to get a sane, grown up and objective picture of BOTH sides rather (no pun)than having to sift through the partisan spin for kernels of truth.

It would also be nice to be young again, 50 pounds lighter and win the lottery, since we're wishing our lives away here.

Oh well, guess we'll just have to be grown ups the best we can and struggle through that using our judgement thing and facing our problems with courage and resourcefulness.

Bummer.

Dear Begbee,

Your statement that Bush "Froze" for some minutes after being informed of the WTC attack is the sort of idiocy that is driving people with any ability to think away from Kerry. Consider the situation: as the president, Kerry in the same situation, would have the news whispered in his ear, and the agent would very likely be telling him that more secure transportation is being arranged, and some alternate routes are being checked for greater security under the circumstances. They wouldn't necessarily all jump in a vehicle and go rushing pell-mell in a spinal reflex. What makes you qualified to think you can read the mind of the person sitting in that seat? Kerry himself has said that he sat paralyzed for half an hour when he heard the news.

I think it was Bush personal secratary Card that whispered in his ear. There wasnt more than a few seconds that Card whispered in his ear, so I doubt there was much detail involving secure transport. Plus, Bush never said anything about transportation arrangements, he said he thought, "What a bad pilot". Even though he was told it was the second plane to crash into the WTC. I think Kerry would have calmly excused himself from the classroom, and at the very least sought more information. What if this attack could have been minimalized in the 7 minutes Bush sat there terrified?

Bush “froze” for 7 to 20 minutes depending on who you want to believe and when the stopwatch started. Kerry, Pelosi, and the other headcheese that were in a meeting at the time claim to have been “senseless” for 40 minutes. So, in a real crisis Bush responded 2 to 6 times faster than the entire Dem leadership. From the news reports, only prejudice would characterize Bush as “terrorized” (sounds better I'm sure), he appeared to me to be profoundly engaged in both keeping the kids from panic and finishing the “where do we go from here” question. He did damn well (my opinion).

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