corrente

Fill in your own antecedent for that "it."

Another bold move by our war-time-uh-make-that-peace-pursuing president, as Lambert also discusses previously today.

According to the AP:

President Bush wants to work with Republican Sen. John McCain to pursue court action against political ads by ``shadowy'' outside groups, the White House said Thursday amid growing pressure on the president to denounce attacks on John Kerry's war record.

``The president said if the court action doesn't work, that he would be willing to pursue legislative action with Sen. McCain on that,'' Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to New Mexico.

The AP does mention that Senator McCain had called on the president to disavow the content of the SwiftBoatVets ads, but not that nothing he does with McCain now will have any impact on the huge buys being made by those "shadowy" groups who will be attacking Senator Kerry on the president's behalf. Alas, Senator McCain appears content to let the president off the hook.

``I'm very appreciative of the president's effort to do that,'' McCain said in an interview with The Associated Press. ``I want to emphasize if I could that we're not saying that 527s should be abolished. We're just saying they should live under the same campaign finance restrictions (as hard money groups) because they are engaged in partisan activity.''

McCain added: ``I've said before I would like for the president to specifically condemn that ad, but the president has said John Kerry served honorably and also the president is now committed to acting to try to bring 527s into regulations that are appropriate.''

Everyone should note that O'Neil and his group love all this; they continue to say that they have no intention of stopping their campaign to paint Senator Kerry as a liar and a fabulist.

What Kerry supporters need to do is reframe the question: How long can this President continue to weasel out of taking a stand on a very specific issue by pretending he doesn't get it?

Max Cleland's attempt to deliver that letter was fine. Time now, though, for the Kerry campaign to cease and desist demanding that the Bush campaign get the Swift Vets to take their ads and themselves off the air. It could start to look like pleading. Already one is beginning to see an evolving right wing meme that suggests that the hit Kerry's taken from the Swift Vets suggests he might not be too swift in dealing with "the terrorists."

Time to make clear that the problem isn't that they are exercising their rights to free speech. The problem is that what they are saying is demonstratably untrue. This is a deliberate smear, even if none of the men making these accusations is aware of lying. They are insisting that their's is the only true version of who Senator Kerry is, in the face almost nothing in the documentary record, except their bizarre reading of it, to support their view of John Kerry, while all the men save one who were much closer to the action in question than any members of this Band Of Accusers have a different version of events, which also happens to be consistent with the documentary evidence.

Oh, gee, who to believe? In something as important, sacred even, as taking it upon oneself to besmirch the fundamental character of another human being, it shouldn't depend exclusively on your political bias.

Time for the Kerry campaign to make the issue President Bush's smarmy pretense that he honors Senator Kerry's military service to his country while a cadre of Bush supporters, including journalists, continues to spread what are essentially smears against the Senator's fundamental character. It's not about Bush's record in the National Guard, it's a question of presidential character. Start demanding that the President stop telling us what a straight shooter he is, and start being that straight shooter.

Its very simple. Make a public statement disowning the attacks on Kerry's character, the attacks that claim he is a liar, makes up story, is a coward, and perjured himself in front of the Senate and state categorically that you wish that all who support you, from bloggers, to voters, to pundits, to activist Republicans would stop a discussion which is a disservice to the American people, and is keeping both candidates from talking about what is really important to the American voter.

Does anyone else find it both odd and enraging that despite the fact that almost all the new revelations since the Swift Vets re-emerged with their sixty-second ad in hand support John Kerry and call into question the veracity of his accusers, none but the lucky with leisure, most well-informed independent voter probably realizes that? Please do avail yourself of the comments to elaborate.

It's no real mystery. This smear has been doggedly spread, from Swift Vets to Drudge to Fox News to the hard right blogs and back again; here we have the perfect vicious circle, and this weekend, the next step, expansion of the circle to include the respectable mainstream right-bowing pundits and their centrist comrades in the SCLM. And yes, as promised, I will be discussing in a series of posts my journey into the underworld to test my own ability to confront honestly their rhetorical challanges to the character of my candidate.

PLEASE NOTE: ON C-SPAN THIS EVENING: C-Span will be showing the tape made at the time of John Kerry's 1971 testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations, including, I hope, the questioning by the Senators, i.e., Chairman Fullbright (D) Symington, (D), Javitz., (R), Aiken, (R), Pell, (D). C-Span also has the fullest transcript of the Senate session I've seen anywhere, and the youthful John Kerry's dialogue with the Senators is easily as impressive as his opening statement. I wish it was possible to describe for you young 'uns what it felt like in 1971, watching this long-jawed, sad-eyed, modest, yes, modest Vietnam veteran speak truth to power in quiet, measured words. In this case, it was power that had begun to accept its own limits and wanted to listen.

Yes, I was anti-war; my efforts took the form of working with a group that counceled kids facing induction, and, increasingly, returning vets, to help them get their bearings and their benefits, medical and educational, (no GI Bill for these kids). John Kerry's appearance in front of the Senate was almost the first public statement of what kind of toll, other than being returned to one's loved ones in a body bag, the war had taken on the men who'd been called to fight it. The screening is scheduled for 8 PM EDS. Try not to miss it.