February 14, 2004 by s.z.

Playing Dirty! From The Moonie Times [emphasis mine]: Democrats are mounting the "dirtiest" presidential campaign in history, and the press is playing along, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie charged yesterday.  Mr. Gillespie said Democratic front-runner John Kerry and his party have tried to smear President Bush as having been absent without leave from the Air National Guard, while Mr. Bush and his fellow Republicans have campaigned strictly on public policy issues. Democratic activists have gone so far as to plant false accusations that Mr. Bush once paid for an ex-girlfriend's abortion, Mr. Gillespie charged.     "We now know that sometime this fall Kerry campaign operatives intend to go into pro-life chat rooms on the Internet to spread a scurrilous story that President Bush drove a former girlfriend to an abortion clinic, and paid for her abortion, according to the New York Daily News," the RNC chief said. The Daily News reported Monday that rock star Moby, a Kerry supporter, expressed hope of dampening Republican turnout in November by spreading anti-Bush gossip on the Internet.  "For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion," the newspaper quoted the techno-rocker saying, adding: "Moby didn't claim that he believed the abortion story."  Dirty tricks are old news in politics. Several analysts have said Mr. Bush might have won the popular vote in 2000 — and perhaps avoided the Florida recount fight — had it not been for a Democratic operative's success in breaking a story on the Thursday before Election Day that Mr. Bush had been arrested for drunken driving almost 25 years earlier.  Okay, a few points: 1.  Did Gillespie say that "Democratic activists" HAD planted the allegations, or that Kerry campaigners WERE GOING TO do it?  And if he said both, shouldn't a responsible paper call him on it?  And is Gillespie making these charges about Kerry compaigners just because "rock star Moby" suggested that Kerry supporters COULD do things like that?  If so, then isn't Gillespie being kind of paranoid and nutty? 2.  The Bush arrest story was true.  So, is it wise to compare it to the abortion story?   (If you are the RNC, that is.) 3.  The political analysts I read in 2000 said that the DWI story came out too late to actually sway many voters, and that if it had been reported in September, say, and given time to make an impact, it could have really hurt Bush.  Is that's why Gillespie is mentioning the abortion story now: so the media can throughly investigate it, and give it lots of play? 4.  The abortion story first surfaced in October 2000, I believe.  Larry Flynt claimed that Bush was working on Dad's senate campaign in 1970, got a woman pregnant, and then helped her get an abortion at a local hospital.  (Since abortions weren't legal then, I don't believe there were any abortion clinics.)  I don't think Bush was supposed to have driven the woman to the hospital, because Flynt stated that he had an affivdavit from the girlfriend of Bush's campaign manager, saying that she had accompanied the woman to the Houston(?) hospital for the procedure.  Flynt claimed to know the name of the doctor who performed the operation, and to also have affidavits from four of the woman's friends indicating that the woman told them she had gotten pregnant with Bush's baby, and that he had helped her get an abortion.  Flynt said that his investigators talked to the woman, who didn't deny the abortion, but wouldn't speak out against Bush.  So, Flynt felt it was a "he said/she said affair" and wouldn't go public with the affivadavits if the woman wouldn't come foward.  Shouldn't "campaign operatives" know this kind of thing, and get the details of the story right? 5.  The media did not give much coverage to Flynt's claims, but heck, they could be true (Flynt's track record with this kind of thing being better than Drudge's, after all).  So, any mainstream media outlet mentioning the Kerry scandal should, in all fairness, mention the Flynt allegations.  6.  If the Times really wanted to impress readers with the seriousness of Gillespie's claims, was it wise to let the DNC get in the last word? A McAuliffe spokesman accused Mr. Gillespie of "hyperventilating," saying recently released Guard records failed to "clear up this controversy."   9:44:38 AM

Kerry Scandal Update: Still Not Very Scandalous Kerry was on the Imus show Friday morning.  Regarding the rumors about him and the young woman, he said, "There is nothing to report, nothing to talk about. There's nothing there. There's no story." And while there were some news stories (chiefly in the British and other English-speaking foreign papers) about the matter today, there doesn't seem to be anything that would contradict Kerry's statement about there being nothing to report.  The local Philly paper paper described the young woman, Alexandra, as "a tall blonde."  She is now said to be 27 years old, not 24 or 20, as Drudge indicated.  After graduating from Clark University in 2000, she is reported to have studied journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism in New York, and then to have worked for Associated Press.  While reporters spent the day camped outside her parents home, her family had nothing to say. The Sun has "an exclusive photo" of Alex.  It shows a dark-haired young woman who looks about 18.  I'd guess it was her highschool year book photo, and that she's since dyed her hair to become the "tall blonde" described above.  The Sun claims that Alex "went on to graduate from Columbia University, New York, and met Kerry, 60, as she began a career as a freelance journalist."  However, a Google search reveals a Columbia News Service item from June 2002 which indicates that she was in their masters degree program at the time.  There are A.P stories authored by her dating from November 2002 until June 2003.  Therefore, during most of the period when Drudge claims she was involved with Kerry (spring 2001 until fall 2002), she was apparently studying at Columbia.  There is nothing to indicate that she was ever a Kerry intern (or an intern anywhere else). Alex is said to currently be in Kenya with "Yaron," her boyfriend or her fiance (depending on which report you read).  A Google search indicates that he may be a former Columbia film student.  Per the foreign news stories, she in Africa "on holiday," or because that's where she lives now.  No one other than Drudge has said that she "fled" to Africa at Kerry's request when the press started asking her questions. So, let's review our scandal to date: per Drudge, a "close friend" of Alex's tried to push a story about Alex and Kerry late last year, but nobody was buying.  In February 2004 Bush's Texas National Guard record came into question.  On Thursday Drudge reported (in an "exclusive") that the media was investigating stories about Kerry and an "intern" with whom he'd been involved for two years; Drudge said that she fled the country at his request when things started heating up.  Thursday night The Sun followed up on Drudge's report and interviewed  Alex's parents; the tabloid quoted Alex's father as saying that Kerry was "chasing" his daughter, had invited her to Washington and to serve on his re-election committee, but she had turned him down.  Tabloid reports indicate that Alex was never an intern.  Yesterday Kerry said that there is "nothing there. There is no story."   I hope you found this as titillating as I did. UPDATE: WordNetDaily refers us to this story from a REALLY local paper in PA.  From it we learn that Alex's dad went out to get the mail yesterday, and politely asked reporters to get off his property.  But the shocking revelation is that Alex WAS an intern . . .for ABC news in Manhattan, in 2001.  A co-intern/friend was interviewed, and indicated that during the two years she's known Alex, Alex never mentioned Kerry.  She also said that she last heard from Alex six months ago, when she sent the informant an email from Isreal, where she was honeymooning.  So, Alex got married, quit A.P., and left the country six months ago  -- no doubt at the insistence of Kerry, who knew that someday the press would be asking her questions about their "relationship." 4:42:04 AM

Weekly Team Leader: Brace Yourself For the Dirty Politics Dear Republican, For the last 10 months, day after day, spending over $40 million in campaign ads supported by $7 million from third parties, Democrats have attacked the President and his policies using some of the most vitriolic rhetoric in the history of presidential politics. Sadly, Bush-Cheney has collected only $142 million since June, and so has no way to counter this unfair spending on the part of the Democrats. We highlight policies and note Senator John Kerry's long record. Um, right.  Like last week, when Ed highlighted John Kerry's long record of accepting money from special interest groups, and sometimes voting their way.  Of course, Common Dreams claims that Bush-Cheney accepted $6.5 million in funds "bundled" by lobbyists, but they're just noting Bush-Cheney's long record when they do that. But back to the inspiring words of Ed Gillespie: They, in turn, accuse the President of desertion-a military crime punishable by death - as the Clark campaign did; or accuse the President of being AWOL, a felony punishable by imprisonment, as DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe has done. Terry McAuliffe has become the John Wilkes Booth of Presidential character assassination. Good one, Ed!  If only George Bush had an Abraham Lincolnesque character for McAuliffe to assinate.  But that reminds me of the opening credits of the late, lamented "Police Squad!" with, as the anouncer informed us every week, "Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln."  It showed Lincoln seated with his wife Mary in a lodge seat in the playhouse.  Booth fires a shot at Lincoln, who slumps down . . .only to pick up a Luger and open up fire on the potential assassin!  So, I guess that's what Ed is: Bush's Luger.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts. On Tuesday, new documents proved again that the President served honorably in the National Guard: The Washington Times published a letter from Col. William Campenni who says he was a lieutenant with President Bush in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. The White House released military records that show the President fulfilled requirements necessary for an honorable discharge from the Texas Air National Guard in 1973. The documents include pay and accreditation records stored on microfilm in a U.S. government military archives in Colorado. On Thursday the military released records of one Lt. George W. Bush's visit to an Air Force dentist while on guard duty in Alabama. The media was probably ready to follow up with, "Well, that only proves his teeth were there, but do you have any proof of the rest of his body being there?" Another good one, Ed.  Yes, that was exactly what the media was going to say, only you beat them to the punch.  So, they had to content themselves with saying, "Why was Bush getting his teeth fixed in Alabama when, per those records released by the White House, he wasn't performing any actual duties for the Guard in Alabama at that time?" Until today, when John B. "Bill" Calhoun, an officer in the Alabama Air National Guard, said he remembered President Bush sitting in his office in Montgomery during 1972: "He'd sit on my couch and read training manuals and accident reports and stuff like that," Calhoun told The Washington Post. "The pilots would read those so they would see what other guys did wrong. . . . He never complained about coming." Until later today, when the media tells us: WASHINGTON - President Bush released a stack of his Air National Guard records Friday evening, but there appeared to be no new documentation to blunt Democratic charges that he shirked his duty while on temporary assignment in Alabama in 1972. Meanwhile, a retired Alabama Air National Guard officer said he remembers Bush showing up for duty in Alabama in 1972, reading safety magazines and flight manuals in an office as he performed his weekend obligations.   However, the time John Calhoun says Bush was in the unit conflicts with documents. Of course, while we did learn about some new brushes with the law from Bush's application, we still don't know why he didn't take his required physical.  It's only February and they have made clear they intend to run the dirtiest campaign in modern presidential politics. This is because they don't want a debate on the issues, and they don't want to run on Sen. Kerry's record. I guess I can't blame them for that. We as a party cannot sink to their level. We must stick to the truth in this race. The truth can be found at http://gopteamleader.com. Sincerely, Yeah, THEY (well Michael Moore, who is part of them) can say that the President is guilty of a crime punishable by death, while we have to stick to the truth.  But thank God for people like Matt Drudge, who aren't bound by our strict truth-telling requirements! Anyway, team, our assignment this week is to "Call your local radio stations today and make sure the media is getting both sides of the story. We rely on you to combat the millions of dollars being spent by liberal organizations like MoveOn.org."  So, call your local radio station and make sure they know both sides of the story.  All the stories.  Remind them of the Plame investigation.  Mention how Republican Senate staffers stole documents from their Democratic colleagues.  Talk about how selected intelligence was used to justify the war in Iraq, and then the CIA was blamed when the Chalabi info (which they had always discounted) turned out to be untrue.  Do this because the Republicans don't have any money, and so can't afford to buy ads or anything to get the truth out.  2:04:24 AM