Hardblogger.MSNBC.COM Click here for recent postings

• August 22, 2004 | 4:30 p.m. ET

A media double standard (Joe Scarborough)

Just watched Meet the Press and was struck by a few things.

First, the Kerry campaign has obviously adopted a strategy of defending John Kerry's war record by attacking George W. Bush's. Kerry spokesman Tad Devine attacked the President's lack of service while Russert pointed out that the campaign had sent out Wes Clark and Stansfield Turner to bash the President's Vietnam record.

Here are the problems with this strategy:

1. Americans know George Bush has no war record. Therefore, the attacks don't dent his credibility but rather make the Kerry camp look small and mean spirited. And because the Swift Boat ads are 3rd party attacks, you now have a campaign where Bush is calling Kerry's service "noble" while Kerry is calling Bush a draft-dodger. So Bush stays on the high road while Kerry goes on attack and bleeds support because of these ads. The Kerry camp must change this political dynamic quickly.

2. John Kerry has a Vietnam record that his campaign suggests was the defining point of his life. Telling people what they already know about GWB won't get the debate off of the Swift Boat ads. The only way to do that is for John Kerry to continue confronting these attacks as sleazy hit pieces. He needs to let Americans (preferably in swing states) know how these ads break his heart. "Not only are their attacks hurtful to me and my family. They are also slandering those band of brothers who risked their lives alongside of me in Vietnam. And to me, that is unforgiveable."

3. The Bush camp correctly pointed out this morning that $65 million has been spent in anti-Bush ads over the past year by 3rd party groups with close ties to John Kerry. Democratic front groups like moveon.org, ACT, and the Media Fund are all dedicated to electing John Kerry in the fall and have much closer ties to John Kerry than the Texas Republican who spent half a million dollars on this one ad. The Media Fund is run by John Kerry's former campaign manager and the head of ACT, Harold Ickes, spent his week in Boston holed up in the Four Seasons with John Kerry's top money men. Was their coordination between the two? Of course.

There is a media double standard of titanic proportions in this story. News outlets like the New York Times look silly deconstructing the political connections of this one ad while turning a blind eye to the $65 million in hit pieces run by Kerry supporters over the past year.

• August 22, 2004 | 11:00 a.m. ET

You sunk my swift boat! (Keith Olbermann)

You don't need me to tell you that Chicago Tribune's stories of and by its metro editor Bill Rood, confirming John Kerry's version of the events in Vietnam of February 28, 1969, are impactful (subscription only, but free). Rood's words barely hide his anger -- not on Kerry's behalf, but rather on behalf of his Swift Boat Veterans who've been sideswiped by the attacks against Kerry; those who have been branded as accessories after the fact to Kerry's alleged resume padding.

But the back-story is more amazing still, and not only puts a dent in the unseemly "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" but, in a completely backhanded way, takes an unexpected chunk out of the urban legend that the media is under the heel of the evil Argus-Eyed Liberal Scheme. Read on -- what the Trib's doing suggests quite the opposite.

As always, you have to suffer through one of my anecdotes first.

Back when I was the sports director of my college radio station, and my sole ambition was to become a play-by-play announcer, the opportunity of a lifetime dropped in my lap.

For three years, Cornell University had thwarted my bids to get the rights to broadcast any of the school's sports. It owned two professional stations in town and generations of the stations' employees had survived on the revenue from the hockey, football, and basketball broadcasts. As neophytes running our own commercial radio outfit -- and regularly beating the "pros" in the ratings -- we weren't students to Cornell, we were competitors ("You want to take bread out of our mouths," the pro stations' General Manager, later a great mentor, told me, in deadly earnest).

One day, the fellow who ran the Ithaca Stars, the city's semi-pro hockey team which regularly put 2,000-3,000 souls into Cornell's hockey arena on the school team's off nights, came to us with a proposition. In exchange for free advertising on the station, he'd let us broadcast any games we cared to, and we could keep all the revenue.

Within a week, we'd rented portable microphones (rarities in those days), found things for five different announcers to do during the broadcast, done a practice game, and sold out the commercials. And two days before the game itself, with me mumbling "the puck is loose in the corner. Out to Ferguson. Kennedy. Ferguson. Back to Kennedy. Shot. Score," my assistant came up to me, his face glum. "Bad news. They forgot to rent the rink."

I told him to stop joking about my sole ambition.

"No, seriously. There's a scheduling conflict. That night is the Cornell Women's JV team's practice. No game."

I didn't say anything.

I marched into our general manager's office and told him what had happened. He seethed. I seethed. I told him what I wanted to do. As he calculated how much money we'd have to give back to the advertisers, he nodded in agreement.

I led that night's sportscast with somber tones. "The Ithaca Stars hockey team has gone out of business. Its game Saturday, and thus our broadcast of it, has been cancelled. The Stars have gone out."

I put you through that to remind you that at its heart, any media organization -- whether my college radio station or The Wall Street Journal -- loves money, loathes businesses or people who mess with it, and bears a grudge like nobody's business.

In that context, consider what The Chicago Tribune actually did by running these authoritative reminiscences of the heretofore silent eyewitness, Captain Rood (so silent in fact that long-time Tribune staffers told me last night they didn't know he'd served in Vietnam, let alone been at the center of such fighting, or of the greatest political tempest of the moment).

It's not big news outside of the midwest, but the Trib has been locked, for weeks, in a death-grip struggle over a panoply of bewildering issues, with the city's Democratic Mayor, Richard M. Daley. In Chicago, where pure partisan politics has devolved into a primary-based beauty contest, Daley is a small-d Dem. But outside of it, he's as Democratic as John Kerry or Bill Clinton. There are no questions about where his loyalties or his national self-interests lie. You will see his late father cast a vote for George Bush sooner than you'll see him do it (not impossible given Illinois's history of post-mortem election returns, but still unlikely).

The Daley/Tribune battle has grown so fierce that the city, on inconclusive structural evidence, has threatened to padlock Wrigley Field, home of the Tribune's wholly-owned baseball money-machine, the Chicago Cubs. This is war between Daley the Democrat and the vast Tribune Corporation.

And the Trib's suits ran Rood's historical valentine to Kerry anyway.

News organizations are populated by humans, most of them politically aware, and many of them politically slanted. But news organizations are owned, virtually uniformly, by gigantic corporations that are, almost by charter, conservative. I worked for Tribune -- they're conservative. I worked within baseball -- it's conservative.

So there's the political affiliation back-story to the Rood pieces. The stories wind up being pro-Kerry, and they're printed while the Conservative corporation for which the editors who approved them work, is locked in a steel-cage match with a Democratic mayor who wants to screw their Conservative ballclub. I think the non-partisanship of the reporting passes the smell test.

It looks like a little truth has escaped, swimming upstream against a torrent of internal self-interest that prevails more often than not.

And by the way, I'm still honked off at that guy who owned the Ithaca Stars.
    

• August 21, 2004 | 5:00 p.m. ET

Case closed - even if the Red Sox lose again (Joe Trippi) 

Note to Hardblogger readers: As I suspected, it looks like Phil has conspired to have me blog all weekend and I need ideas – so email me at and I’ll post some of your ideas and/or comments on Sunday. Thanks all!

Well when it rains it pours, the California Angels have gone ahead of the Yankees 4 runs to 1 and it’s only the 4^th inning.  I haven’t heard from my boss Phil yet – but I can tell you that when I do it’s not going to be pretty.   Actually it looks like it’s even worse than I thought because Boston is winning its day game. Nothing, I mean nothing puts Phil into a bad mood more than the Yankees losing and the Red Sox winning except for maybe me appearing on MSNBC without my hair seeing a comb.  So you can tell its been a couple of tough months for the guy.

But, alas, I digress. Two pieces of news on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth front that I wanted to give my two cents on.  

If you still have an open mind on what happened the day Kerry won his Silver Star you really should read this story on MSNBC.com that quotes the only other Swift Boat commander who was there that day as validating Kerry’s version of events and essentially asking the group to stick a sock in it. Commander William Rood was there 35 years ago and today is a journalist with the Chicago Tribune.

From the story:

Before now, wanting to put memories of war and killing behind him, Rood had refused all requests for interviews on the subject, including from his own newspaper. "But Kerry's critics, armed with stories I know to be untrue, have charged that the accounts of what happened were overblown." he wrote.

And…

"It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there," he added

Now, for me, this ends it.  A third party with no dog in this hunt, the only other commander left to weigh in one way or another – and someone who has avoided this story for years says the accounts of Kerry’s detractors are untrue.   

Now I am sure some of George Bush’s supporters will come up with some reason why we should doubt William Rood.  But I think the better part of valor would be to stop defending this groups activities – even John McCain has called the ads dishonorable and denounced them. Surely armed with William Rood’s account President Bush, Rush Limbaugh and the gang will denounce the group as well.   But I am not holding my breath.  Scoring points has become more important than the truth on this one.

The second thing I wanted to weigh in on is the Kerry Campaign’s complaint to the Federal Election Commission about illegal coordination between the Bush campaign and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It’s a total joke. I’ve been in politics for over 30 years now and everyone knows filing a complaint with the FEC is pointless. You could have pictures of Karl Rove writing the scripts and feeding these guys their lines and the FEC still wouldn’t take any action.  And the same would be true, by the way, if it was the Kerry campaign that was violating the law.   The FEC has never met a complaint it couldn’t ignore until after the election or maybe…forever.

You want to clean up politics? Give the FEC real teeth – like forfeiture of office if you are caught coordinating illegally. Today the risk is a slap on the wrist and a ridiculous fine.   And when you are running for President of the United States I am sorry to say – a fine after the election is not enough to stop otherwise good people from doing outrageous things, including breaking the law. The equivalent of the death penalty – losing office ill got by breaking the law is something I think is long overdue.

Now back to checking the score in the Yankees game. You never know, Phil might risk his career one more time, and put me on the air again soon.  I am still hearing that he is thinking of making me part of the After Hours team for the Republican National Convention….but if the Yankees keep losing who knows what he will replace me with in the wee hours of the morning...

• August 21, 2004 | 11:20 a.m. ET

The race is becoming politics-as-usual (Joe Trippi)

Oh man its going to be that kind of day... I just got off the redeye from Oakland to Dulles airport in Washington. It was all in all, a good flight. I watched Scarborough, and Andrea Mitchell stand in for Chris Matthews on Hardball so I didn’t get much sleep.

First thing I did when I hit the ground was check the baseball scores to see what kind of mood my boss Phil is in.    Its bad….really bad….The California Angels beat the Yankees 5 to zip, and then the SF Giants beat Phil’s other team (the Mets) 7 to 3.   So I should have known that when I checked my voicemail— it would be Phil leaving a message that told me to head to MSNBC’s Washington HQ and blog all weekend long.

So I am here. But no one else is in the building.   No Dominic, no Shuster, no blogging pals, nada.

I checked my email to see the react to my Swift Boat Vets column yesterday, and of course people on both sides weighed in on that one. But a lot of the Bush supporters condemned me for only raising my voice against Republican ads —so they must have missed the "Trippi’s Take" column I wrote a few weeks ago where I said “if neither of the two major parties wake up to the fact that people are sick of politics as usual, it will be the parties and not just the conventions that will be headed for the ash heap of history.”
You can check out that column by clicking here.

I mean I am a lifelong Democrat, but more than anything I am a decidedly anti-politics-as usual guy. And this race is becoming a very politics-as-usual race on both sides— the losers are the American people— because instead of a healthy debate over legitimate differences and the future direction of our country, we are getting another round of personal attacks and mutually assured destruction politics centered on an Alabama National Guard post, and action on the Mekong Delta over 34 years ago.  And what I’ve learned is that no one can stop that cycle but you.  The two campaigns are not going to do it.   

So everyone can join in and side with their guy and point fingers saying that what’s good for the goose is what’s good for the gander, and let the decline of our political discourse roll further downhill.  It's not about who started it.  Its about who will stop it.  And in the end the only you can stop it, regardless of your party.

So I am going to go get some rest and come back-mid afternoon to make sure the blog is hopping and that Phil is happy.   He’s not a bad guy really, just a little crazed about baseball, and more recently a little crazed about Hardblogger. Man, I hope the Yanks or Mets don’t have a day game... two loses in less than 24 hours and Phil turns into a madman.

• August 20, 2004 | 9:13 p.m. ET

Not so swift (Joe Scarborough)  Interesting media developments in the Swift Boat ad controversy.

Check out the New York Times front page story from Friday. The Times' aggressive expose on the 260 decorated Vietnam veterans who make up "Swift Boat Captains for Truth" came complete with a do-it-yourself Vast Right Wing Conspiracy chart. All that was missing was the suggestion that Karl Rove and Meryl Streep implanted chips in their brains while these war heroes were serving in Vietnam.

Funny how attack ads by left-wing groups like moveon.org didn't provoke the same moral outrage as this vet ad.

I wonder why these high minded media types never drew charts connecting anti-Bush 527 groups to John Kerry. Oh wait. I know the answer. It's because 90 percent of the reporters and talking heads who work for national news outlets will be voting for John Kerry this fall. If you don't believe me then ask Newsweek's top political gun Evan Thomas, who admitted last month that the majority of reporters in America wanted Kerry elected president.

I don't mind these "journalists" professing profound shock at the Swift Boat ads. Because unlike them, I actually fought in the political arena as a candidate. That makes me skeptical of all political ads. But what is so maddening about the Swift Boat coverage is that these same attack dogs laid down like lap dogs when liberal attack ads filled the airwaves over the past year--all blasting George Bush. And why don't you check the transcripts of your favorite left-leaning talk show and see if these noble warriors of truth raised the slightest concern when a liberal ad ran in 2000 suggesting that George W. Bush committed an act as heinous as dragging an old black man to his death.

Look if you want, but don't expect to find the same shock and outrage being expressed over this Swift Boat ad.

Again, this is the first anti-Kerry ad that has hit the national stage after scores of inflammatory ads ran about George W. Bush over the year. Do these reporters and talking heads have no shame? Are they unable to see the contradictions in their own news articles? And why are they so offended by John O'Neill's book-- the contents of which may be true-- when they French-kissed Joe Wilson for writing a book that we now know is filled with lies?

One final thought on these Swift Boat vets. As a Congressman who represented more vets and military retirees than just about any other member of Congress, I know what makes most of these guys tick--and it sure as hell isn't partisan politics. They are about as cynical as me when it comes to politicians.

Instead, most of these aging vets are guided by a sense of justice. Any Northeast liberal reporter who suggests that 260 or so military heroes would spread malicious lies at the end of their lives simply to reelect a Republican president has no idea what drives retired military heroes. That is why it is so offensive to have reporters in New York and Washington (who never spent a day in Vietnam) passing judgment on these Vietnam vets.

By the way, it is just as offensive for reporters to pass judgment on John Kerry's military career when they have no idea how honorably he served his country in Vietnam.

This is a war between Vietnam vets who were there and know what really happened. The rest of us would be smart to sit back, ask tough questions, and see where the truth takes us.

And one more thing. It would probably be a good idea if media types at least tried to look like they were being fair to all sides.

• August 20, 2004 | 6:30 p.m. ET

Connection? (Dominic Bellone, Hardball producer and newsletter editor)

This flyer fell into the hands of the Kerry-Edwards campaign in Florida and was distributed to the press.  It is a flyer which promotes a political rally with the anti-Kerry "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" and the local Bush/Cheney campaign. 

For more on this story, click here and here.

Hardball is coming up in a few minutes!

• August 20, 2004 | 4:30 p.m. ET

And heere come the e-mails (Keith Olbermann)

For a moment there I thought I owed Michelle Malkin an apology.

Very few people who find themselves criticized on television, or even critically characterized, go out and make the criticism sound worse than it was. Evidently, judging by the fact that the same e-mail appeared a few hundred times in our Countdown inbox today (not similar e-mails; the identical one, with different return addresses), Ms. Malkin is one of the very few.

“How dare you call this woman an idiot?”

That’s apparently what she said, while appearing on Rush Limbaugh’s Entertainment Radio Program today. She certainly wrote it on her blog. To be precise: “his (Chris Matthews’) scurrilous charges were repeated by his MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann, who called me an ‘idiot.’”

Well, I felt terrible. In my little naïve old-fashioned way, I feel you preserve terms like that exclusively for men. I was preparing a formal apology. Political differences, fault or innocence, are all secondary. There are codes.

Funniest darn thing happened, though. Checked the tape of the show, re-read the blog. I never called Michelle Malkin an “idiot.”

Never used the word.

Second time I referenced her, I did say “this woman, Malkin, who made a fool of herself on this network, about an hour ago…”

So that’s what you’re dealing with here. She’s an author or a journalist or something, and she misquoted the insult to herself.

For those of you scoring at home, the excerpts of both references to her on Countdown last night are appended below (look for the asterisk)

One more thing. Crack Senior Producer Denis Horgan reminds me that Ms. Malkin appeared on 'Real Time With Bill Maher' last Friday, and was shut down by my Cornell contemporary (he’s older) when Maher referred to President Bush as “The Boy In The Bubble.”

Last night on 'Hardball,' Ms. Malkin went for a similar thrust against John Kerry by calling him… “The Boy In The Bubble.”

Now that’s a coincidence.

Final note here: Ms. Malkin complains online that I wrote I was never prouder of Matthews, which reminds me of something from my sportscasting days.

15 years ago, when I was still a comparative newcomer in television, I made a gigantic rookie’s mistake. Bill Stout, the legendary Los Angeles newsman who haunted the hallways as a figure of indomitable moral force, looked at me later that day and said, “I’m proud of you. You have courage. If I had just done that on television, I would go home, and open my veins.”

So, Michelle Malkin, I’m proud of you, too.

• *Olbermann on Malkin, during an interview with John Harwood, 8/19/04, No. 1: “And perhaps nothing better symbolizes that, at least in this week’s headlines, than the story of the ‘Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’ ad and now the fact that there’s another one coming out, and I guess we’re getting a hint, after the appearance of two people on “Hardball,” earlier this evening on MSNBC, Larry Thurlow and Michelle Malkin, that the next ad is going to be even more… I don’t know how to characterize it, it’s going to be more ‘out there’ than the previous one.”  (My note: I got kinda lost in this question. I’m glad John Harwood knew what I was talking about).
• Olbermann on Malkin, still with Harwood, 8/19/04, No. 2: “Larry Thurlow said, and we just played a clip of it, that his belief was that John Kerry had arranged for not only his heroism in Vietnam, but also his ‘early out,’ which is a code word for being sent home, and you get sent home usually because you have been injury, meaning he arranged his own injury in some way. And this woman, Malkin, who made a fool of herself on this network, about an hour ago, basically said that in this -- in what she was reading, the book that accompanied the Swift Boat ad, that Kerry, at least, somebody asked whether or not Kerry should be asked, in that sort of, ‘let‘s step away from actually making a statement, let‘s just put it as a question about a question about a question...’” (My note: Boy, John really rolled with the punches here. This actually reads better than I sounded. But I believe the operative point is what I said about her, and what she says I said about her, and just how good her journalism really is when she can’t get a quote right when the show’s on tape, and the transcript’s on the Internet. For free!)
  

• August 19, 2004 | 11:01 p.m. ET

Self-inflicted politics (Keith Olbermann)

My producer handed me a piece of paper, unexpectedly blank except for a brief quote that had just been clipped from Chris’   'Hardball' interview with Larry Thurlow. He told me he thought the brief sound bite would fit ideally at the end of page A-2, our story on the conflict between Thurlow’s current version of the day John Kerry got his Purple Heart, and the Navy’s official records of 35 years ago— records that should have been written by Thurlow himself.

“I’m saying that he had a plan that included not only being a war hero, but getting an ‘early out.’”

There wasn’t much time to reflect —Countdown was to start about 20 minutes later— but the question formed quickly in my mind. “An ‘early out’? What the hell does he mean by that?”

The answer magically appeared moments later: “The Swift Boat Veterans For Truth” are going to steer the Kerry-Shot-Himself flotsam into the mainstream media.

Michelle Malkin, the unfortunate and overmatched author of a self-loathing book that attempts to justify our World War II internment and robbery of Americans of Japanese heritage, became the harbinger of the next mucky smell of low tide. She raised the story— heretofore consigned largely to Robert Novak and everybody to his right— in that delightful, Teflon way of modern politics: ‘I’m not saying that John Kerry shot himself. But in the Swift Boat Veterans’ book, they ask whether or not his wounds were self-inflicted.’

If Ms. Malkin isn’t seen on television, or moving on her own power, in the next few days, it’s understandable. My colleague Mr. Matthews forced her to hang herself out to dry ten or eleven times (never prouder of you, Chris). He may have directed the momentum, but her wounds were ultimately, uh, self-inflicted.

As Chris rightly pointed out, nobody has produced an iota of evidence that John Kerry’s wounds were anything other than the result of combat. Even in the book, the references to it are speculative and without provenance. Ms. Malkin wouldn’t even go so far as to attribute the suspicion to herself. It was in the book.

Late Thursday, the Swift Boat gang announced a second commercial to premiere in the morning, and to this writing, nobody’s been tipped about what it contains. Yet the Thurlow comment (“he had a plan”) and Malkin’s humiliating performance reek of a trial balloon. The story of the wounds will appear somewhere— probably soon.

When I raised this prospect with John Harwood of 'The Wall Street Journal,' several viewers e-mailed to chastise us for not recognizing the difference between wounds that are “self-inflicted” and those that are deliberate attempts to injure one’s self. Throw a grenade, wipe out an enemy enclave, and get a piece of shrapnel in your head in the blow-back, and you’ve received a self-inflicted wound. It isn’t intentional and it isn’t dishonorable.

But of course that’s not what Thurlow said. He spoke of some vast Swift Boat Conspiracy in which Kerry steered not a crew of soldiers through hell, but rather, steered history. “A plan,” Thurlow said. “Included not only being a war hero,” Thurlow said. “But (also) getting an ‘early out’,” Thurlow said.

He’s not talking about an inadvertent blow-back wound. It was all a plan. And if the wounds weren’t deliberately self-inflicted (again, kudos Chris— he immediately told Malkin that such an act constituted a criminal offense), they must have occurred thanks to the timely cooperation of the Viet Cong, who were good enough to shoot Kerry on cue so he could go back home with all those medals and ribbons. You know, the ribbons he threw away in protest.

We’ll save the logical disconnect that pops up right there for another time.

This is about the politics of the Smear Thrice Removed. I’m not saying this, but questions have been raised by others.

It is a perfected version of what many of President Bush’s opponents have tried in the murky depths of his reservist days. It is execrable no matter who presents it, no matter which party benefits from it.

We will hear from the very jaded that it is nothing new. It was Winston Churchill, 70 years ago, who so succinctly, and so English-ly, noted “Politics are foul.” But with instant communications, the internet explosion, and the 527 Groups, they are foul at warp-speed. The blur between an accusation with at least a thimble of evidence upon which it can rest, and the whole cloth fabrication, is so rapid as to appear as a solid line.

It is remarkable to think that we are living in the same country where a vast majority of the population never knew that Franklin Roosevelt was in a wheelchair, and where four different Republican presidential challengers, successively more and more distant of electoral chance and more and more desperate to close the widening gap, actually believed it inappropriate and unfair, just to mention it.

And that one was true.

Could Mr. Roosevelt’s limitations have been self-inflicted? Maybe some historian is asking that question. Because certainly I’m not.

• August 19, 2004 | 8:10 p.m. ET

On tonight's interview with Michelle Malkin (Chris Matthews)

One of my jobs on 'Hardball' is to cut through to the truth.  Tonight on 'Hardball,' one of our guests pushed the idea that John Kerry had won his Purple Heart by deliberately shooting himself.  The charge was without merit and baseless, as our guest under close questioning herself admitted. 

We'll keep covering the political issues and will stand up against any attempt to broadcast misinformation.

(Click here to read the transcript to Thursday's show.)

• August 19, 2004 | 11:50 p.m. ET

Senator Kerry is fighting back on the Swift Boat vet issue (Campaign reporter Becky Diamond)

For the first time since “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” began their full front assault on Senator Kerry’s Vietnam war record, the Democratic nominee is responding. At the International Association of Firefighters Convention, John Kerry entered the room to Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender” and delivered remarks to a group that endorsed him back in the fall of last year.

Fighting back
“Over 30 years ago I learned an important lesson, when you are under attack the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attacker. That’s what I intend to do today...”

Swift Boat attacks
“Over the last week or so, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been attacking me. Of course this group isn’t interested in the truth— and they’re not telling the truth. They didn’t even exist until I won the nomination for president. But here’s what you need to know about them. They’re funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They’re a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the president won’t denounce what they are up to tells you everything you need to know - he wants them to do his dirty work. ...Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three purple hearts. Thirty years ago that was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam.”

The Return to ‘Bring It On’
Senator Kerry first used a rallying cry of “Bring It On” in the JJ dinner in Iowa on Nov. 16^th.  He stopped using these three words in the heat of the primary season but has returned to this rallying cry in this event.

“...of course the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a republican funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: Bring It On.”

Watch 'Scarborough Country' tonight for more discussions and debates on the Swift Boat controversy.

• August 18, 2004 | 3:52 p.m. ET

Of being accused of being schizophrenic, and other reactions to your posts (Joe Scarborough)

Bill from Delaware took exception to my last blog. He said, "I find Joe Scarborough's characterization of President Bush as 'humble and humorous' very amusing." Bill went on to give examples of how Bush's image as President doesn't match with Bush the man that I saw up close.

Hey Bill, that was the entire purpose of my last blog! As I said, some leaders are better able to convey their personal traits on a national stage. George W. Bush is not as effective. Again, as my last blog notes, that failure may be one reason he is fighting for his political life right now.

Another Hardblogger reader accused me of being schizophrenic by actually taking positions that liberals could agree with while also liking George Bush. How sad that being independent and rejecting certain elements of both major parties' ideology is seen as a sign of mental illness. I'm pro-military, pro-environment, and pro-conservation. That may make me more of a Teddy Roosevelt Republican than a Bush Republican, but it does not make me deranged.

One final point: George Bush is more comfortable speaking in front of certain groups than others because like his father, he is oratorically-challenged. I doubt his failures in front of a microphone have much to do with his belief systems as one reader suggested. Love him or hate him, you have to admit that George W. Bush knows exactly where he stands on most every big issue of the day.

• August 18, 2004 | 1:50 p.m. ET

From the Hardblogger mailbag: Reactions to recent posts

On Dee Dee Myers' post
Dee Dee Myers is oh so right on about focusing on the present and not on the past in this election. I hope Sen. Kerry will forget about the smears and continue to point out how many of U.S. senior citizens are being used and abused by the Bush White House . I can hardly remember my 20’s and early 30’s but I would not want to be held accountable for them. -Jackie Hines, Mesa

Rick Davis
Davis makes some good points about Kerry, but saying that "you always know where he (Bush) stands" is a bit optimistic of an assessment. Yes, the President has several core beliefs. But more importantly, I think the ability to "stay the course" and not change your mind is over-rated. I used to have a dog who couldn't rememeber that while there was a doggie door in the back of the house, the front door was solid. So every day he would go running across the living room, and slap hard into the closed oak door. You could make the argument that the dog stayed true to his beliefs. I would argue that he was too stupid to learn from experience. -Rick Ellis, Birmingham

Rick Davis claims that one always knows where the president stands on the issues, however, that is not true.  The president has changed his stance on a number of issues, including, wanting Osama “dead or alive” right after 9-11, and six month later saying he’s not our priority.  He did a U-turn on the 9-11 commission.  First he was against it, then he was for it.  He also U-turned on testifying before the commission both for himself and Condi Rice.  He was against the department of Homeland Security, but caved in on that.  In 2000 he said gay marriage was a states’ rights issue, now he wants to amend the Constitution.  He recently said abolishing the IRS in favor of a federal sales tax was an interesting idea that should be further pursued.  The next day the White House (now the White House is distancing itself from Bush?) was denying that Bush was interested in this.  Desite his numerous flips on issues, Mr. Bush isn’t a flip-flopper.  He’s just a flop. -S. Herman, Phoenix, AZ

• August 18, 2004 | 10:20 a.m. ET

We were all young once (Dee Dee Myers)

Four years ago, when then-Governor Bush was running for president, he steadfastly refused to answer certain questions about stuff he did or didn't do in his twenties.  "When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible,"  he said.  Voters accepted that, the issues went away and Bush became president.  And that's fair, I think (at least the issues going away part.)  Candidates shouldn't have to answer for every impetuous, misguided or downright dumb thing they've done in their lives; campaigns should be more about voters' futures and little less about candidates' distant pasts.

Darren McCollester / Getty Images Class cut-up: Bush's sarcastic humor made him an Andover star

But it seems to me there's a huge double standard in the current presidential race.  So far, Pres. Bush's early life has gone virtually unexamined.  Yes, there was a dust up over the years he spent in the Texas Air National Guard, fed by conflicting recollections and incomplete documentation.  But again, voters seem to have accepted the idea that until Bush gave up drinking and got serious after his 40th birthday, he was more the fraternity president of his past than the American president of his future.

Meanwhile, Sen. Kerry's early life has been deeply scrutinized, beginning in high school and college.  He was serious and ambitious even as a student, and while some saw that as admirable, others (including his college schoolmate, George W. Bush) mocked him for it.   For better or for worse, there was never a time in John Kerry's life when he seemed either young or irresponsible.  He excelled at St. Paul's and at Yale, joined the Navy, served in Vietnam, came home to lead protests against the war, went to law school and was elected Lt. Governor of Massachusetts all before his 40th birthday.

Courtesy Of John Kerry via AP Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is seen in this 1969 photo as a Navy Lt., second from left top, with members of his crew aboard PCF-31 in the Mekong Delta during the war in Vietnam.

So what is it about Americans that make us uncomfortable with this?  Shouldn't we want a president who has worked hard his whole life, seeking to prepare himself for the kinds of life and death decisions that president's face every day?  Shouldn't we want a guy who's traveled the country and world, grappled with tough issues, read and thought widely?  Yes, of course we should.  But there's something about the frat boy, the guy who never tries too hard or cares too much, that appeals to us.  

Oh enough of this.  Crack me another beer.

MORE FROM HARDBALL

Hardball Section Front

All roads lead back to Obama New information surrounding Kennedy assassination Barbour dodges Palin question Verdict is in on Burris Has Obama taken too many political risks? High hopes for Saturday vote Has health reform reached its final leg? Barbour on the fate of GOP governors Obama more popular than his politics Forensics team analyzes Nixon tapes Hardball Section Front   Add Hardball headlines to your news reader: