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DEAN JOKE

Popular joke down here in South Carolina/Georgia low country, which thankfully was spared too much damage from Hurricane Charley: “Howard Dean announced he thinks the timing of this hurricane, and the fact that it hit the swing state of Florida, was suspicious. He thinks the timing of the National Weather Service’s hurricane warnings may be politically motivated, and wants to know why, ‘every time Bush is in trouble, some horrific natural disaster comes along at the right moment to help him out.’”

It may be considered a joke, but in Dean's strange little world, he could be thinking just that.

ABOUT THOSE CLOSED INTELLIGENCE HEARINGS...

Kerry served on the Intelligence Committee from 1993 to 2000, and according to official records, John Kerry missed 76 percent of the public Senate Intelligence Committee hearings during that time. Do you think Kerry has a lousy attendance record at the closed-door hearings of the intelligence committee?

There's an old saying that a lawyer never asks a witness a question that he doesn't already know the answer to; while the GOP has made plenty of tactical mistakes in the past, they seem to be confident that Kerry's attendance record is lousy. A collection of recent calls to Kerry to release his attendance records:

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., current committee chair: "The easiest way out of this is for John Kerry and John Edwards to request of Senator Rockefeller and myself to release the attendance hearings; not only the public hearings, which they have rebutted, but the closed hearings." (NBC's "Meet The Press," 8/15/04)
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., current committee member: "So I would go to what is solid, uncontrovertible fact, and that is the records that each committee keeps with regard to the attendance at every hearing of all the members, whether they're there or not. Now, those records are available. John Kerry, if he questions the authenticity of this ad that's out there now, should simply get those records and put them into the public domain." (CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer," 8/15/04)

Sen. Saxby Cambliss, R-Ga., current committee member: "The fact of the matter is, even though he claims to have gained a lot of that expertise by serving on the senate intelligence committee, during his eight years of service on the intelligence committee there were forty-nine public hearings held by the intelligence committee, and John Kerry was absent from thirty-eight of those forty-nine hearings. That does not include the classified hearings. ... And I would hope that he would agree to release to you the record of his attendance at meetings and hearings of the Senate Intelligence committee over the last year and a half, or his total service on that committee." (Republican National Committee And Bush-Cheney '04, "Transcript of Wednesday, July 28, 10 a.m. Republican Press Conference," Press Release, 7/28/04)

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., former committee member: “The other illustration of lack of leadership with regard to this issue is the question of the intelligence. And since I served on the Intelligence Committee with Senator Kerry for eight years I believe, I call for him to disclose his attendance at the briefings and hearings of the Intelligence Committee. The classified briefings and hearings of course are not on our public record, but he could make his attendance public. He missed 38 out of 49 of the public hearings, and those are the hearings most people want to be seen at, but he missed those. John Edwards was on the Committee and came on later, and he missed half of the public hearings as well. But I think that they should both disclose their record of attendance in the Intelligence Committee.” (Bush-Cheney ’04, “Remarks By U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl And U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis During Today's Bush-Cheney '04 Conference Call,” Press Release, 8/7/04)


If the records are released and Kerry's got a good attendance record, these guys will look pretty foolish. Which makes me suggest the current committee members have looked back in their notes and carefully recalled whether Kerry was there, and concluded his attendance was spotty.

The more Kerry and his team bring up Bush administration intelligence failures, the more you will hear the refrain from the GOP, "Where was Kerry?"

UPDATE: The guys at CrushKerry.com point out the Kerry campaigns limp response to the attendance charge: One, the Bush Cheney campaign is miscounting the number of meetings, and two, Kerry's attendance may not be in the record because he may not have spoke:

Ad Text: "As a member of the intelligence committee, Senator Kerry was absent for 76% of the committee’s hearings."
Selective math and sketchy methods:

The Bush-Cheney Campaign is using misleading numbers and cannot pretend to have the facts. They rely only on whether Sen. Kerry made statements in one of a small number of open hearings. For example from 1993-1998 the Select Intelligence Committee held more than 329 meetings, hearings and markups. Just 65 of these were open meetings. [Senate Report 104-1; Senate Report 105-1; Senate Report 106-3]

Ad Text: "In the year after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Kerry was absent for every single one."

Fuzzy Math Again:

Again, the Bush-Cheney Campaign is using misleading numbers and cannot pretend to have the facts. They rely only on whether Sen. Kerry made statements in one of seven open hearings. All in all, during the 103rd Congress, the Committee held a total of 103 on-the-record meetings and hearings. There were seventy (70) oversight hearings and seven (7) business meetings. Twelve (12) hearings were held on the budget including the Conference sessions with the House. Hearings on specific legislation totaled nine (9) and nomination hearings totaled one (1). [Senate Report 104-1: Oversight Over Intelligence Activities in the 103rd Congress].

The following Republican members also failed to speak at a public hearing that year: John Chaffee; Malcom Wallop, Ted Stevens, Slade Gorton, John Danforth.


Um... Are we supposed to believe that Senator John Forbes Kerry of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who supposedly carries a lucky hat from a CIA officer in his briefcase, who is a leading member of this vitally important committee, went to these hearings and didn't say anything? Didn't have any questions for the witnesses? Offered no statements for the record? Why did this guy suddenly get so quiet and taciturn?

Second, in that long list of information, the Kerry camp never says just how many meetings, hearings, or sessions the candidate actually attended. One has to suspect that if they had a better defense on this charge, they would have used it.

AND HE INVENTED THE INTERNET, TOO

You may have seen this in the Corner, but the guys at Red State have noticed a Kerry press release stating he was Vice Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It appears this is not the case, and that someone — presumably, some low-level staffer on the Kerry campaign — is mixing up Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts with Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska (both Democrats). Doh!

Is it just me or does the Kerry campaign seem to have some really stupid people working for it?


SHORT THOUGHT ON FLORIDA & OHIO

John McIntyre offers, in a nutshell, what ought to be the current thinking about Bush's electoral chances in Florida instead of the current yelling and excitement about Kerry being up a few points in the latest polls.

Maybe people are putting a lot of stock in the Florida polls that show Kerry ahead. I don't. In my estimation Bush will have an easier time winning Florida than Ohio. Don't forget all the big talk from Terry McAuliffe who declared that "job number one" was to send the President's brother packing in 2002. Jeb Bush went on to win by 13% and the GOP swept the state from top to bottom.
His thought on Ohio: "With Gallup's just released poll showing Bush ahead nationally by 2-3 points and his job approval above the supposed magic 50% level at 51, I'm perplexed why the Democrats are so confident the Kerry/Edwards ticket is going to carry a state that typically is two-four points more Republican than the national vote."

Another thought: Ohio has a Republican governor, Republican Lieutenant Gov., two Republican senators, and 12 out of the 18 House members are GOP. Ohio's last Democratic governor was Dick Celeste, who left office in 1991. Talk show host Jerry Springer is periodically touted to run, as a Democrat, for statewide office. Beyond that, the state's most prominent Democrats in recent memory have been indicted "Beam Me Up, Mr. Speaker" House member Jim Traficant and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, often credited with playing Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Conclusion: The state Democratic party is in shambles.

Can Kerry count on a broken down state party to get out the votes for him?

AN ANALYSIS OF KERRY'S CIA HAT STORY

Many Kerry Spot readers have wanted more information about what is rapidly getting nicknamed "Kerry's magic hat," a hat he was reportedly given by a CIA guy who Kerry transported over the border into Cambodia on a top secret mission.

Hugh Hewitt quotes an associate in the intelligence business who says Kerry's story seems more than a little odd to him.

Let me make a couple observations:
1) The CIA has its own budget for things like getting people where they
"shouldn't" be. They wouldn't need to use the Navy, and most particularly some random Lieutenant, to get an agent into Cambodia. Honestly. Talk about unwanted attention. If they absolutely had to use the river (which is just straight-up stupid, from a tactical standpoint,) the CIA would have used a local, who had his own boat, and thus could conceivably survive a chance encounter with border authorities.

2) If Kerry had an agent on his boat, there is no way on this earth he would have mentioned, casually or otherwise, that he was with the CIA. Especially not to a mere Lieutenant. That's like the cardinal sin of the Clandestine Service. Even if the person knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who you are (which Kerry would not have), you *still* don't talk about it.

3) As I think you've already noted, in one way or another, the magic hat
may sound cool, but let's be serious. What possible conversation could have come up to result in the gift of the man's hat? And what kind of idiot gives his boonie cap away right before diving into the bush for an extended period of time?

4) Finally, I would like to expand on my statement that the river is the worst possible choice to get into the country. Rivers are important things, when it comes to borders. They are, generally speaking, treated just like a road between two nations. Which means, especially with a bloody civil war going on next door, Cambodia would have almost certainly had permanent checkpoints established on trans-boundary waterways. This is expressly because a waterway is a primary route of travel. Even if there were not any sort of checkpoints established on the Mekong, there would be a higher frequency of regular border patrols in the area. A CIA agent, who by nature doesn't want to announce his presence to authorities, is going to take the least conspicuous route of ingress possible. Which means not the river.


Does this mean Kerry's lying? Not necessarily. It is just one more story from his Vietnam years that doesn't quite add up, that seems incomplete, or odd, or at odds with the facts. But maybe some fuller version of this story would make more sense. Of course, it sure would be easier to believe Kerry isn't exaggerating, lying or making these stories up if he would answer a few questions about it. And if he says he doesn’t feel like talking about it with the media, why did he make his Vietnam service the centerpiece of his campaign, the whole point of his convention biography and speech, complete with hammy salute and declaration that he’s “reporting for duty”?

Does the hat say "CIA" on it?

If you have ever watched the movie, Apocalypse Now," you should realize that no one on a clandestine mission is going to talk about it. "Just drive the boat, chief." (Martin Sheen's character to the Swift boat driver.)

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