KERRY ATTACKS BUSH PLAN THAT WASHINGTON POST SAYS 'DOESN'T EXIST'
Howard Kurtz doesn't think highly of the latest Kerry ad:
The commercial is misleading in two ways. The "admission" by the president comes not from a public statement but from a New York Times Magazine article yesterday in which the president is quoted as making the privatization comment to a "confidential" Republican luncheon. No source for the comment is cited, but Bush campaigned in 2000 on allowing younger workers to divert a portion of their benefits to private savings accounts. Bush has repeatedly said current recipients would not be affected, although the ad implies that benefits would be slashed immediately.
The estimate of retirement benefits having to be cut as much as 45 percent comes from a Congressional Budget Office report on a proposal by a commission on Social Security named by Bush. That proposal would also cost the government $2 trillion over 10 years, the CBO says. But since Bush hasn’t endorsed a particular plan, there is no way to calculate the impact of what he might do in a second term.
Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt accused Kerry of "misleading" the elderly, saying the president has never used the word "privatization." Referring to the Times article by Ron Suskind, who wrote a book on former Treasury secretary Paul H. O’Neill that sharply criticized the president, Schmidt said: "The Kerry campaign is taking third-hand, made-up quotes from avowed Bush antagonist Ron Suskind to scare seniors."
Asked how the campaign could predict what the president might do, Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton said Bush "is either going to blow a bigger hole in the deficit or have some major cuts in seniors’ benefits."
Accusing the Republicans of plotting to cut Social Security is the oldest page in the Democratic playbook. The Kerry ad, however, is attacking a plan that doesn’t yet exist.
I think the late attacks against Bush on Social Security were a big part of Gore's strategy, too.
ODDITY IN NEW JERSEY POLL
So, you have probably heard about the Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind poll that shows Bush and Kerry tied at 46 each in New Jersey. Pollsters interviewed 508 likely New Jersey voters, conducted from Oct. 8 to Oct. 14, 2004, and the margin of error is 4.5 per cent.
But the weird part? The party breakdown was 47 percent Democrat, 39 percent Republican, and 12 percent independent.
Now - traditionally, New Jersey has a huge number of independents, and lately the state’s Democratic party has done a better job in its turnout efforts than the state GOP.
But perhaps the Bush campaign was looking at numbers like this when they decided to have the president deliver a “significant” speech on terrorism in Marlton, New Jersey today.
THE STANDARDS OF CBS SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE MEDIA
Blogger Wizbang notes that John Kerry's latest attack on Bush, charging that the President has admitted he would "privatize" Social Security, is based on some shoddy New York Times reporting. (I can hear the jokes now — "is there any other kind?")
Suskind did not attend the event he got the quote from. Further, it was not televised, it was a private event and there were no transcripts available. Yet he reports the quote as fact.
Suskind does not explain how he got the controversial quote so accurate but does say about an earlier quote "According to notes provided to me, and according to several guests at the lunch who agreed to speak..."
So Suskind got "notes provided to him" and that was good enough to run such an important quote. I hope Bill Burkett was not the source. Is this what passes for reporting at the Times today?
The Kerry/Edwards/NYTimes campaign has decided they can't convince voters with ringing endorsements so they'll scare old people to death.
For their part, the Bush campaign is denying the quote and some even claimed Suskind made the quote up from whole cloth. In the end, it is of little use, the media is running wild with the story, facts be damned.
— Oh, and who is Ron Suskind that the New York Times is having write a 10 (web) page story on Bush just days before the election? He is the author of "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill.''"
What do you think the odds are that the NY Times would let John O'Neill write a piece on John Kerry next Sunday?
Update: Jim Kouri is working this story for Wizbang and he has been in contact with Fox News who has questioned the Kerry camp. So far, Kerry is saying "Hey, it was in the NY Times". (paraphrased of course)
FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE ASK KERRY TO STOP MISREPRESENTING THEIR SUPPORT
Note this release from the Fraternal Order of Police:
Today Chuck Canterbury, the President of the nation's largest police labor organization, called on John Kerry to stop making misleading statements regarding his support from the law enforcement community. Both on the campaign trail and in Wednesday night's debate in Tempe, AZ, Senator Kerry has alluded that he has the support of the majority of these brave men and women.
"As the elected leader of the largest organization representing America's Federal, State and local law enforcement officers, I believe it's important to point out yet again that we do not support his candidacy for President," Canterbury said. "And to be perfectly frank, the groups which do support him actually share the same membership rolls and, taken together, probably comprise less than one-quarter of our nation's police officers."
Canterbury further noted that unlike the organizations which Senator Kerry touts, F.O.P. members as a whole decided that the Fraternal Order of Police would endorse the reelection of President George W. Bush. They based their decision, he said, on the record of the Bush Administration in supporting America's first responders-including helping to secure passage earlier this year of H.R. 218, the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, the organization's top legislative priority. Bush also successfully fought to greatly enhance the benefits for the families of officers killed in the line of duty.
"While Kerry was flying around the country campaigning and leaving the actual work of the nation to his colleagues in the Senate, the President was out there working on our behalf," Canterbury said. "Senators Kerry and Edwards have missed so many crucial votes this Congress that I was beginning to believe there were only 98 members of the U.S. Senate."
Canterbury also said it was the height of irony that Kerry would use his position on the reauthorization of the assault weapons ban as a reflection of his support from police. "First, if a police officer is killed by an AK-47, Kerry would oppose the death penalty for the killer," Canterbury said. "In addition, where was he when this issue was being discussed in the 108th Congress? Where was he when we were working to pass H.R. 218? When it came time to help push for final passage of legislation important to law enforcement, Senator Kerry was regrettably A.W.O.L."
"Given the facts, I would greatly appreciate it if Senator Kerry would refrain from making similar whimsical assertions regarding his support from the law enforcement community," Canterbury said. "The real majority of my fellow officers are standing behind President Bush, because he has been there for us."
The Fraternal Order of Police is the nation's largest law enforcement labor organization, representing more than 318,000 members.
Do you ever get the feeling we're dealing with the first postmodern deconstructionist political campaign? Where the words themselves just don't have any meaning, because the candidate believes all truth is relative?
I gues that according to Kerryspeak, "The FOP endorsed me before it did not."
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