How cool is this! Just when I thought coincidences couldn’t happen anymore, one does!
Yesterday, in an email to supporters and a press release to major news organizations, the Kerry Campaign jumped all over the President for mischaracterizing his words with regards to Iraq, a claim he frequently makes in his various debates with himself. I heard about the email on ABC yesterday, and now today I see this piece of fair and ubiased journalism on the front page of Yahoo!:
Well Gosh diggity damn, that’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it? One day after the Kerry campaign claims that the President misused his words, the AP comes out with a story that says the President twisted Kerry’s words. I swear, this is such an odd coincidence, that if it were any closer to being a coincidence, we wouldn’t be able to believe it.
Anyway, let’s look at this hit piece fair and balanced news story and find out exactly what the AP is talking about.
WACO, Texas – President Bush (news – web sites) opened several new scathing lines of attack against Democrat John Kerry (news – web sites), charges that twisted his rival’s words on Iraq (news – web sites) and made Kerry seem supportive of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein (news – web sites).
It was not unlike the spin that Kerry and his forces sometimes place on Bush’s words.
Well, actually, it’s very much unlike any spin put on anything because they usually don’t rate a blaring AP headline, but let’s not kid ourselves here. You want to compare the spin of someone like Kerry who can’t make up his mind on what his position on Iraq is to anything come out of the President’s campaign, you’d have to be out of your mind.
We continue
Campaigning by bus through hotly contested Wisconsin on Friday, Bush sought to counter recently sharpened criticism by Kerry about his Iraq policies:
_He stated flatly that Kerry had said earlier in the week “he would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in Iraq today.” The line drew gasps of surprise from Bush’s audience in a Racine, Wis., park. “I just strongly disagree,” the president said.
But Kerry never said that. In a speech at New York University on Monday, he called Saddam “a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell.” He added, “The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.”
So the AP (Kerry Campaign Press Release) claims that Kerry never said he would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam to what’s going on now, and then they specifically pick a quote that says that. Some defense. If Kerry doesn’t prefer the way it is now, the only other alternative to compare to is what it was, which is under Saddam Hussein. Forgetting that Kerry said almost the same thing the President said, the AP has done one hell of a job twisting the President’s actual comments. Here they are, in full:
“Today my opponent continued his pattern of twisting in the wind,” Mr Bush said at a rally in New Hampshire.
“He apparently woke up this morning and has now decided, no, we should not have invaded Iraq, after just last month saying he would have voted for force even knowing everything we know today.”
Mr Bush went on: “Incredibly, he now believes our national security would be stronger with Saddam Hussein in power and not in prison.
“He’s saying he prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy.
“I couldn’t disagree more, and not so long ago, so did my opponent.”
Would have been nice if the AP used the actual quote and not the Kerry Press Release version of the quote, wouldn’t it? I think that speaks volumes for the validity of the story.
Completely discounting that the President basically said what Kerry did in fact say, and the President was actually the one misquoted, let’s carry on and see how else the vicious evil mean Bush campaign twisted Kerry’s sacred words:
_Bush attacked Kerry for calling “our alliance ‘the alliance of the coerced and the bribed.’”
“You can’t build alliances if you criticize the efforts of those who are working side by side with you,” the president said in Janesville, Wis.
Kerry did use the phrase to describe the U.S.-led coalition of nations in Iraq, in a March 2003 speech in California. He was referring to the administration’s willingness to offer aid to other nations to gain support for its Iraq policies.
But Bush mischaracterized Kerry’s criticism, which has not been aimed at the countries that have contributed a relatively small number of troops and resources, but at the administration for not gaining more participation from other nations.
I thought this was untrue spin from the Bush administration? Instead of proving the spin, the AP instead says, “yes he did use those words, but he meant them differently.” Who’s spinning and twisting now? Kerry has repeatedly called the “coalition of the bribed and coerced” a false coalition, a coalition of the bribed and coerced, and has panned the President for not forming a coalition like in the 1993 Gulf War, when incidentally he voted against that war saying on the Senate floor that we didn’t have a strong enough coalition to proceed.
What the AP would have you believe here is that Kerry criticized Bush by calling the coalition coerced and bribed, not the allies that are in Iraq. Again the AP is spinning for Kerry in an article about Bush spin. Think about that. Instead of just reporting the quotes, or saying, “Kerry did in fact say that, but claims he meant…” we get what Kerry meant, straight from the mouths of the AP.
The final “twsiting”:
_Bush also suggested Kerry was undercutting an ally in a time of need, and thus unfit to be president, when he “questioned the credibility” of Iraqi interim leader Ayad Allawi.
“This great man came to our country to talk about how he’s risking his life for a free Iraq, which helps America,” the president said in Janesville. “And Senator Kerry held a press conference and questioned Prime Minister Allawi’s credibility. You can’t lead this country if your ally in Iraq feels like you question his credibility.”
Bush repeated the attack later in the day and Vice President Dick Cheney (news – web sites) echoed the message in Lafayette, La. “I must say I was appalled at the complete lack of respect Senator Kerry showed for this man of courage,” Cheney said.
Kerry’s point was that the optimistic assessments of postwar Iraq from both Bush and Allawi didn’t match previous statements by the Iraqi leader, nor the reality on the ground, and were designed to put the “best face” on failed policies.
“Kerry’s point was?”
Are you kidding me?
The President said that John Kerry questioned the credibility of Prime Minister Allawi. In his speech, John Kerry said:
“The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA (news – web sites) estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story,” Kerry said.
So, if that isn’t questioning the credibility of the Prime Minister, what is it? In fact, let’s take the AP’s spin for Kerry as the actual argument. That he wasn’t questioning his credibility, only pointing out that the “optimistic assessment” didn’t match that of the reality on the ground or even previous statements made by Allawi.
If questioning his claims based on CIA reports, or “reality on the ground” or even previous statements by Allawi isn’t said to question Allawi’s credibility, and counter his claims, then what is it for? I’d love to hear the AP explanation of Kerry’s comments if we take it as a given that he wasn’t in fact questioning Allawi’s credibility. Notice also that the AP got in every single dig possible at Allawi and Bush that the Kerry campaign has been making. Very interesting.
The story then degenerates into a Kerry campaign press release, until two paragraphs at the bottom:
That’s not to say Kerry hasn’t been playing fast and loose with Bush’s words.
Just Friday, the Kerry campaign sent an e-mail to supporters entitled “He said what?” citing Bush’s remark that he had seen “a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America.”
The e-mail from campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill accused the president of having “no plan to get us out of Iraq” and thinking “the future of Iraq is brighter than the future of America.”
Bush has a plan for Iraq — Kerry just disagrees that it is working. And the president wasn’t comparing Iraq’s future to that of the United States, only accurately reflecting one recent survey in Iraq and the latest trends in America that asked participants for their assessment of the direction their countries are going.
Well there you have it. The Kerry campaign actually is mischaracterizing the President’s words, and through an examination of what lead the AP to conclude that “BUSH TWISTS KERRY’S WORDS” we’ve found that Kerry’s words were not only not twisted, but accurately represented, we have to wonder where the AP gets their headline writers from, their information from, and most importantly, does anyone bother to fact check an AP story before it makes the airwaves?
Look at the difference in how they reported the misuse of a Bush quote and a Kerry quote.
Then go ahead and justify the AP as a fair and unbiased source of news.