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REPUBLICAN/GOP
ATTACK DOGS INC.
SUMMARY
FACTS
(For detailed proof, scroll down or click here)
DETAILED
FACTS
1. Former GOP Senator
Bob Dole sells his soul (if one existed in the first place) and
conveniently forgets about his own past, while slipping in a few lies
about his long-time Senate colleague
2. Former GOP Senator
Bob Dole also managed to slip in a false claim that his own 1996
campaign did not promote his military record
3. Former GOP Senator
Dole admitted in private that Bush should have been ashamed about what he did
to John McCain in 2000 - but attacked Kerry in public this time
around, even after McCain pointed out Kerry is being subject to the
same thing that he [McCain] was. Compassionately conservative
moral clarity and family values at work!
1. Former
GOP Senator Bob Dole sells his soul (if one existed in the first
place) and conveniently forgets about his own past, while slipping in
a few lies about his long-time Senate colleague
[Dole's greatest hits, from several
sources]:
NY
Times via Daily Howler:
He appeared to get behind some of the
accusations raised by the group, when its most serious contentions
have been undermined by official records and conflicting accounts.
“He’s got himself into this wicket now where he can’t extricate
himself because not every one of these people can be Republican
liars,'' said Mr. Dole, whose right arm was left limp by a war injury.
“There's got to be some truth to the charges,” he said.
CNN
via Daily Howler: But three Purple Hearts
and never bled that I know of. I mean, they're all superficial
wounds. Three Purple Hearts and you're out.
...
What I will always quarrel about are the Purple Hearts. I mean, the
first one, whether he ought to have a Purple Heart—he got two in one
day, I think...And as far as I know, he's never spent one day in
the hospital. I don't think he draws any disability pay. He
doesn't have any disability.
FACT
I guess we should all forgive Mr. Dole for not paying attention to
the facts or to his own history of shall we say winning a Purple Heart
for a "superficial wound" or initially trying to avoid service during
World War II. After all, isn't that what compassionate conservatism
is all about?
REFERENCES
Daily
Howler:
“There’s got to be
some truth to the charges,” Dole said. But to put it simply, Dole
doesn’t know what he’s talking about. At one point during
Sunday’s show, Dole told Blitzer that Kerry “got two [Purple
Hearts] in one day, I think.” This, of course, is totally false;
plainly, Dole didn’t know the simplest facts about the matters he
was discussing.
Alessandra
Stanley (New York Times):
Wolf Blitzer's
interview with the tart-tongued Mr. Dole made a lot of news on Sunday,
but CNN allowed him to make misleading assertions without pointing out
where he was in error. Mr. Dole suggested that Mr. Kerry was in a rush
to obtain his Purple Hearts to meet a regulation that allowed soldiers
to leave the war zone after winning three. "I mean, the first
one, whether he ought to have a Purple Heart - he got two in one day,
I think. And he was out of there in less than four months, because
three Purple Hearts and you're out." ( Mr. Kerry did not receive
two Purple Hearts for events of the same day. He received them for the
events of Dec. 2, 1968; Feb. 20, 1969; and March 13, 1969.)
eRiposte note: So back in those
years, according to the Right Honorable All-Knowing Grand Panjandrum
Bob Dole, it was possible to get shrapnel embedded in oneself without
bleeding. Woo-hoo! Perhaps Senator Dole could have shared his magic
skin protection device with all soldiers back in those days. Perhaps
that would have helped reduce the casualties of war in Vietnam.
[Washington
Post]: On ABC's "This Week,"
former White House chief of staff John D. Podesta tackled Bush's
National Guard service during Vietnam. "Senator Kerry carries
shrapnel in his thigh as distinct from President Bush who carries two
fillings in his teeth from his service in the Alabama National Guard,
which seems to be his only time that he showed up," Podesta said.
Atrios
(Eschaton):
Sanduksy
tells Dole
to suck it.
- Crewmate Sandusky
said today, "I was there when he got wounded. I saw the
blood. I don't care what Dole said."
What a sad, sad moment
in the life of Bob Dole, mocking a wounded soldier.
Daily
Howler:
Readers, how fake was
Dole this day? With thanks to Josh Marshall, here’s how Dole
described his own Purple Heart, from World War II, in his 1988
autobiography:
DOLE (1988): As we
approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I
took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the
direction of the farmhouse. It wasn't a very good pitch (remember,
I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the
darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It
exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg—the sort
of injury the Army patched up with Mercurochrome and a Purple
Heart.
Laughable, isn’t it?
As Dole explained when he was being more honest, his own Purple
Heart was the result of a superficial wound—a superficial wound
that was self-inflicted! It takes a special kind of man to say what
Dole said to Blitzer on Sunday—and it takes a non-existent press
corps to look the other way when he does. (Chris Matthews discussed
Dole’s Purple Heart on Hardball last night. Everyone else
knew to duck it.)
By the way, how many
people know that Dole evaded the draft during World War II? It’s
not that the press corps will ever discuss it. But in his
widely-acclaimed 1992 book, What It Takes, Richard Ben Cramer
described the way Dole chose the good life at college over the
army—even after Pearl Harbor:
CRAMER (page 97):
Bob Dole didn’t want to go to war. He was doing what he wanted,
at KU, in the Kappa Sig house, doing what he never had time to do
before: fooling around.
That’s the start of
Cramer’s chapter 5. It was the fall of 1941, and Dole was a
fresh-faced freshman at Kansas. Cramer picks up a bit later:
CRAMER (pages 97-98):
Before he left in December, Dole was elected vice president of
Kappa Sigma. In his first term! But with all the new things he was
trying that year, something had to slip: his grade point slid
below the gentleman’s C, and he couldn’t make initiation. He
was still a pledge in December, when the Japanese bombed Pearl
Harbor, and Bob Dole’s bright new world started to change.
But that “bright new
world” didn’t change very fast. Despite the start of World War
II, Dole tried to hang on in Lawrence:
CRAMER (page 98):
He hung on at KU as long as he could. Heck, people said the war
might be over before they got to him. He ran track that year,
finished the school year and started another. He played another
season of football, then basketball, and more than a year after
Pearl Harbor, Bob Dole was still at school. But it got to be
obvious that every man was going. Pretty soon his draft board
would turn up his number—they were already coming for [his
brother] Kenny, back in Russell—so Bob looked to his chances,
and signed up for the Army Enlisted Reserve Corps. That way,
he’d at least get to finish the term.
So there you see it, A
Tale of Two Veterans. Dole, of course, is a famous war hero—for
trying to stay out of World War II! By contrast, Kerry is a big
sleazy goat—although he volunteered for Nam! And don’t worry.
None of the pundits will ever tell you that Dole tried to sit
out the famous “good” war. And no one will tell you how fake he
was when he sat there making a fool out of Blitzer. Blitzer is paid
to be played for a fool, and the rest of them know that certain
things can’t be said. Last week, they let Cheney get away with the
world’s biggest faking. This week, the pass goes to Dole.
VISIT OUR
INCOMPARABLE ARCHIVES: In the 1996 New Hampshire primary, Dole
ran the most dishonest TV ad campaign in political history. And how
did Time’s Joe Klein react? He ran a lengthy
piece—“Saxophone vs. Sacrifice”—designed to help Time readers
see how honest Dole was compared to Bill Clinton! That was a basic
script for Campaign 96, and pundits like Klein were sworn to type
it. Trust us—you won’t believe how cheap this one was, or what
the “saxophone” had to do with it; it’s truly a Clinton-era
classic. But as we’ve told you, you no longer have a press corps;
what you have is a gang of script-typers. Saxophone vs.
Sacrifice? To watch Joe Klein as he sticks to the script, see THE
DAILY HOWLER, 4/10/00.
Atrios
(Eschaton):
Bob
Dole History
March 6, 1971, about most of the potential Democratic nominees for
1972:
- They are the new
Chamberlains in what they hope will be another era of peace
through appeasement.
In same speech,
regarding genuine war hero George McGovern:
- He named only
Senator George S. McGovern... who has come, Mr. Dole said,
"as close as anyone has yet come to urging outright
surrender"...
5/12/71, UPI:
- But Senator Dole
expected Nixon's Vietnamization program would allow withdrawal
of all but a residual American force and eliminate casualties.
1/21/72, NYT:
- The Kansas
Republican said that the "present crop of Democratic
hopefuls" had gone along with the war's escalation in the
mid-1960's, adding that it was two-faced of them now to
criticize President Nixon's position on the issue.
...
Last June, Mr. Dole denounced the press for printing the
Pentagon papers, saying that their disclosure had left heads of
state "at the mercy of sensation-seeking newspapers."
5/13/72, UPI:
- The Republican
National Chairman, Senator Robert Dole of Kansas, denounced
today what he called an "attempted media sabotage" of
President Nixon's Vietnam policies and said "it could cost
the lives" of American soldiers.
Atrios
(Eschaton):
More Dole History
NYT, 8/7/68:
- Mr. Dole, who
served four terms in the House, and Mr. Avery, who served five
House terms before being elected Governor in 1964, both called
for a cease-fire or truce in Vietnam with strict United Nations
supervision.
NYT, 1/23/69:
- 9 Senators Offer
Bill to End Draft [including Dole]
NYT, 8/12/76:
- "Let there be
no confusion at to President Ford's position on this issue. It
is unequivocal, and applies equally to draft evaders and
deserts, no blanket pardon, no blanket amnesty, no blanket
clemency."
...
"Today, we have those who would signal weakness and
generate strife by declaring that those who served this nation
in her armed forces deserve no greater consideration than those
who turned their backs and scurried away."
...
In his legion speech Mr. Dole recalled that four wars in this
century had been fought under Democratic Presidents.
"We know that wars become self justifying once they've
begun," he said, "but once the harsh light of history
reveals that they rarely begin for reasons that are self
justifying, but rather because of weakness, wishful thinking and
bad leadership.
"No one hates war more than those who have had to fight.
And none have a greater right to insist upon leadership that
understands how to prevent war, to protect liberty, and to
preserve peace, than those who have had to fight."
NYT, 10/26/1976:
- Senator Robert J.
Dole, the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, withdrew today
his content that World War II and the Vietnam conflict were
"Democrats wars," but he contended that American
weakness contributed to one and American indecision led to the
other.
...
"American weakness contributed to World War II and American
indecision gave us the nightmare that was Vietnam."
2. Former GOP
Senator Bob Dole also managed to slip in a false claim that his 1996
campaign did not promote his military record
[Dole via Media
Matters]: I reminded him [Kerry] that in
1996, I didn't have anybody out writing these great stories about Bob
Dole's war record and I don't think we were feeding them to people.
Media
Matters:
Though Blitzer didn't
point this out, in 1996, Dole and the RNC heavily promoted Dole's
war record. For example, the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran
a TV
ad that used photos of Dole recovering from war injuries. And
Dole explained that the RNC ad was coordinated with his campaign.
From a March 15,
1998, article
published in Capital Eye, a newsletter of the Center
for Responsive Politics:
"We can,
through the Republican National Committee, through what we call
the Victory '96 program, run television ads and other
advertising," Dole said on ABC television. "It's called
'generic'....It doesn't say 'Bob Dole for President' it has my --
it talks about the Bob Dole story. It never says that I'm running
for president, though I hope that it's fairly obvious since I'm
the only one in the picture!"
In addition, a 1996
Dole campaign TV
ad boasted that he was "tested in war."
3. Former GOP
Senator Dole admitted in private that Bush should have been ashamed about
what he did to John McCain in 2000 - but attacked Kerry in public this
time around, even after McCain pointed out Kerry is being subject to
the same thing that he [McCain] was. Compassionately conservative
moral clarity and family values at work!
NY
Times via Daily Howler:
He appeared to get behind some of the
accusations raised by the group, when its most serious contentions
have been undermined by official records and conflicting accounts.
“He’s got himself into this wicket now where he can’t extricate
himself because not every one of these people can be Republican
liars,'' said Mr. Dole, whose right arm was left limp by a war injury.
“There's got to be some truth to the charges,” he said.
Chris
Suellentrop, Slate via Atrios
(bold text is eRiposte emphasis):
For
Shame
A leaked video reveals what Bob Dole really
thinks about Bush's tactics.
...
For pretty much the
duration of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth controversy, the Kerry
campaign has been trying to demonstrate that the smear campaign
being conducted against the Democratic presidential nominee is all
the more loathsome because it is part of a pattern of behavior by
George W. Bush: the use of front groups to damage his campaign
opponents by putting false statements into the political
bloodstream. Particularly salient, Democrats believe, is the 2000
campaign conducted against John McCain during the South Carolina
primary.
Democrats now have an
unlikely ally in their quest to prove that Bush has a history of
these kinds of dirty tricks: Bob Dole. No one has done more to lend
establishment respectability to the falsehoods being peddled against
Kerry than Dole. The former Senate majority leader and 1996
presidential nominee of the Republican Party made several
demonstrably false statements about John Kerry's war record this
past Sunday on CNN's Late Edition before saying that
"not every one of these people can be Republican liars. There's
got to be some truth to the charges."
But Dole also made
another statement that day, one that hasn't been aired until now. Of
McCain's charge to President Bush during a 2000 debate—"You
should be ashamed"—Dole told Wolf Blitzer, "He was
right." Dole made the remark off-air, while CNN broadcast the
Kerry ad called "Old Tricks," the one featuring McCain's
2000 debate remarks. The campaign stopped airing it recently at
McCain's request.
Although the
remark was made off-air, it wasn't made off-camera. A CNN employee
who asked not to be named made a digital file of the raw camera feed
from the Late Edition studio. The footage does not
include the graphics or other video, such as the McCain ad, that was
shown during the live broadcast. "Once the control room punches
the ad, it automatically kills the mics in the studio," the CNN
employee told me. "He knows he can speak to Wolf and no one
will hear him." Slate has posted
the video, so you can see Dole's remark for yourself...
Question for Bob
Dole: If President Bush should be ashamed of his behavior four years
ago, why aren't you ashamed now?
Atrios adds:
"Of course, it's Blitzer who should be
ashamed".
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