Bush waves the bloody shirt
Max Cleland tells Salon: It's "the band of brothers against the slime
machine."

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Sidney Blumenthal (Salon)



March 11, 2004 | "Lucky me, I hit the trifecta," said George W. Bush
in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, according to his budget director.
War, recession and national emergency liberated him to soar in the
political stratosphere. But after several faltering starts this year, he
felt compelled to relaunch his campaign with $4.5 million in television
ads in 16 key states. In 60-second commercials he would lock the
sequence of recent history into the American mind, his narrative of his
presidency as he wished it to be understood. Suddenly, images of 9/11
cascaded on the screen: firefighters carrying a flag-draped coffin at
ground zero juxtaposed against another firefighter raising the flag.
Bush's slogan: "Steady leadership in times of change."

"Where the hell did they get those guys?" responded the president of the
International Association of Fire Fighters. It turned out that the
"firefighters" in the Bush ads were hired actors -- "cheaper and
quicker," explained a Republican Party spokesman. Enraged members of the
9/11 Widows' and Victims' Families Association vented against Bush's
ads, calling them "disgraceful" and "hypocritical." While he used the
flag-draped coffin, he refused to allow the press to photograph coffins
of U.S. soldiers returned from Iraq. What's more, he was "stonewalling"
the official 9/11 Commission, as Sen. John Kerry put it, adamantly
holding back crucial documents, refusing to allow National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify in public, and limiting his own
testimony to an hour.

A few weeks earlier, Bush had remarked, "I have no ambition whatsoever
to use [the 9/11 attacks] as a political issue." Now an administration
spokesman defended his ads as "tasteful." After Bush's ads ran, an
Oklahoma Republican congressman, Tom Cole, stated the rank and file's
political conventional wisdom: "I promise you this, if George Bush loses
the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election, it's that simple."

Sept. 11 was to be Bush's "waving of the bloody shirt," a strategy
Republicans used in post-Civil War presidential campaigns for more than
30 years against the Democrats who were still tainted by the
Confederacy. But firefighters and victims' families are critics he
cannot debate. And the judgment of public opinion has been a terrible,
swift sword. Fifty-four percent said his use of 9/11 imagery was
inappropriate and only 42 percent, his base, said it was appropriate,
according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll. Worse, Kerry has plunged
ahead. Even worse, 57 percent want a "new direction."

The rejection of the central element of Bush's version of his story is
an unexpected shock to him and the Republicans. "I am amazed they have
been thrown on the defensive," James Pinkerton told me. Pinkerton was
research director for George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign and responsible
for developing the "Massachusetts liberal" attack lines against Bush's
Democratic opponent. "They weren't ready for any of it," he says of this
Bush campaign. "They just assume it's all pro-them on 9/11. It didn't
dawn on them it cuts different ways. If they aren't ready for this, what
are they ready for?"

The trauma of 9/11 has been squandered as a political factor. It is not
merely a case of imagery. Just as Bush has misspent the goodwill of the
world, he has wasted his opportunity to create any consensus at home. He
had planned to run his campaign on the Bismarckian formula of the
primacy of foreign policy and kulturkampf. But his "trifecta" has been
turned upside down: David Kay's confession that "We were all wrong" on
WMD in Iraq; job stagnation; increased recriminations about 9/11 as the
commission begins its work in earnest. Bush, moreover, is patently using
9/11 not for "changing times" but to advance his reactionary social
agenda. Rather than appearing "steady," he is setting himself against
change, including changing his own policies. What he has left is a
negative campaign. If he cannot elevate himself on the presidential
pedestal he must throw himself into the abattoir of the culture war.

Losing control of Vietnam to Kerry was a predicate to Bush's loss of
control of 9/11. "Kerry has been draping himself in Vietnam," said
Pinkerton. "Why aren't all wars off the table? Who's using the bloody
shirt in this campaign?"

For decades, the Republicans used Vietnam to cast the Democrats as soft
on communism. But the war hero trumps the National Guardsman who went
absent without leave. Kerry's most fervent campaigner, former Sen. Max
Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, is his veritable "bloody
shirt." Cleland was defeated in a race in 2002 when the Republicans ran
a TV ad conflating his picture with Saddam Hussein's and Osama bin
Laden's. Cleland is the personification of more than Kerry's war bona
fides; he is a living witness to negative Republican tactics.

"They have been shown to trash anyone, anywhere, anytime," Cleland told
me. "They seek to slander a noble veteran's record who was wounded and
the only member of his division in the Navy who won a Silver Star. Use
9/11? Have they no shame? Listen, John Kerry knows that the slime
machine is targeting him and his family. We discussed this before the
race -- somebody's got to fight. That's the way it's turning out, the
band of brothers against the slime machine."

Jim wrote:

Bush waves the bloody shirt
Max Cleland tells Salon: It's "the band of brothers against the slime
machine."

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Sidney Blumenthal (Salon)



March 11, 2004 | "Lucky me, I hit the trifecta," said George W. Bush
in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, according to his budget director.
War, recession and national emergency liberated him to soar in the
political stratosphere. But after several faltering starts this year, he
felt compelled to relaunch his campaign with $4.5 million in television
ads in 16 key states. In 60-second commercials he would lock the
sequence of recent history into the American mind, his narrative of his
presidency as he wished it to be understood. Suddenly, images of 9/11
cascaded on the screen: firefighters carrying a flag-draped coffin at
ground zero juxtaposed against another firefighter raising the flag.
Bush's slogan: "Steady leadership in times of change."

"Where the hell did they get those guys?" responded the president of the
International Association of Fire Fighters. It turned out that the
"firefighters" in the Bush ads were hired actors -- "cheaper and
quicker," explained a Republican Party spokesman. Enraged members of the
9/11 Widows' and Victims' Families Association vented against Bush's
ads, calling them "disgraceful" and "hypocritical." While he used the
flag-draped coffin, he refused to allow the press to photograph coffins
of U.S. soldiers returned from Iraq. What's more, he was "stonewalling"
the official 9/11 Commission, as Sen. John Kerry put it, adamantly
holding back crucial documents, refusing to allow National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify in public, and limiting his own
testimony to an hour.

A few weeks earlier, Bush had remarked, "I have no ambition whatsoever
to use [the 9/11 attacks] as a political issue." Now an administration
spokesman defended his ads as "tasteful." After Bush's ads ran, an
Oklahoma Republican congressman, Tom Cole, stated the rank and file's
political conventional wisdom: "I promise you this, if George Bush loses
the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election, it's that simple."

Sept. 11 was to be Bush's "waving of the bloody shirt," a strategy
Republicans used in post-Civil War presidential campaigns for more than
30 years against the Democrats who were still tainted by the
Confederacy. But firefighters and victims' families are critics he
cannot debate. And the judgment of public opinion has been a terrible,
swift sword. Fifty-four percent said his use of 9/11 imagery was
inappropriate and only 42 percent, his base, said it was appropriate,
according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll. Worse, Kerry has plunged
ahead. Even worse, 57 percent want a "new direction."

The rejection of the central element of Bush's version of his story is
an unexpected shock to him and the Republicans. "I am amazed they have
been thrown on the defensive," James Pinkerton told me. Pinkerton was
research director for George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign and responsible
for developing the "Massachusetts liberal" attack lines against Bush's
Democratic opponent. "They weren't ready for any of it," he says of this
Bush campaign. "They just assume it's all pro-them on 9/11. It didn't
dawn on them it cuts different ways. If they aren't ready for this, what
are they ready for?"

The trauma of 9/11 has been squandered as a political factor. It is not
merely a case of imagery. Just as Bush has misspent the goodwill of the
world, he has wasted his opportunity to create any consensus at home. He
had planned to run his campaign on the Bismarckian formula of the
primacy of foreign policy and kulturkampf. But his "trifecta" has been
turned upside down: David Kay's confession that "We were all wrong" on
WMD in Iraq; job stagnation; increased recriminations about 9/11 as the
commission begins its work in earnest. Bush, moreover, is patently using
9/11 not for "changing times" but to advance his reactionary social
agenda. Rather than appearing "steady," he is setting himself against
change, including changing his own policies. What he has left is a
negative campaign. If he cannot elevate himself on the presidential
pedestal he must throw himself into the abattoir of the culture war.

Losing control of Vietnam to Kerry was a predicate to Bush's loss of
control of 9/11. "Kerry has been draping himself in Vietnam," said
Pinkerton. "Why aren't all wars off the table? Who's using the bloody
shirt in this campaign?"

For decades, the Republicans used Vietnam to cast the Democrats as soft
on communism. But the war hero trumps the National Guardsman who went
absent without leave. Kerry's most fervent campaigner, former Sen. Max
Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, is his veritable "bloody
shirt." Cleland was defeated in a race in 2002 when the Republicans ran
a TV ad conflating his picture with Saddam Hussein's and Osama bin
Laden's. Cleland is the personification of more than Kerry's war bona
fides; he is a living witness to negative Republican tactics.

"They have been shown to trash anyone, anywhere, anytime," Cleland told
me. "They seek to slander a noble veteran's record who was wounded and
the only member of his division in the Navy who won a Silver Star. Use
9/11? Have they no shame? Listen, John Kerry knows that the slime
machine is targeting him and his family. We discussed this before the
race -- somebody's got to fight. That's the way it's turning out, the
band of brothers against the slime machine."




The firemen in the Bush tv ad were actors?

There's nothing the Republican konservatrash won't do...

Jim wrote in message ...

Let me paraphrase for you.... Kerry said...


Bush bad

Bush bad

Bush bad

I served in Vietnam...

the end...

Does this guy ever say anything else?