Conservative Media Twists Kerry Statement on Downing Street Memo

[Dr Ron]

From Light Up The Darkness (see original post for links)

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?view=plink&id=1000

Conservative Spin on Kerry Statement
3 June 2005



We know that many modern conservatives no longer support the Constitution in backing the principles the country was founded on such as individual liberty, separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and separation of church and state. We also learned during the Clinton years that they have a strange sense of what constitutes an impeachable offense, such as a private consensual sexual relationship. What is a surprise is to learn is that the conservatives apparently don't even recall the Constitutionally mandated procedure for impeachment.

The Conservative Voice has twisted one of Kerry's statements reported yesterday, claiming that "Kerry advised that he will begin the presentation of his case for President Bush’s impeachment to Congress, on Monday."

Actually Kerry said nothing of impeachment when he said, "When I go back on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," when speaking of the Downing Street Memos. A basic understanding of the Constitution, not to mention a respect for honest journalism, should make the author realize the absurdity of this false statement. Impeachment must begin in the House of Representatives, and therefore Senator Kerry would not be involved in a move towards impeachment. However, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, it would be reasonable for Kerry to investigate such evidence that President Bush lied to Congress, as well as the American people, while preparing to go to war against Iraq based upon distorting intelligence reports.

Such misquotations of John Kerry are not unusual from the right. Afterall, this was the main means by which the Republicans attacked Kerry throughout the 2004 Presidential campaign. This again raises the question of why, if they apparently have so many areas of disagreement with John Kerry, they don't have the honesty--or guts--to attack him based upon things he actually said.

[Stand and Fight]

1. Precisely! Please see my thread on this very issue!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3777685&mesg_id=3777685

[LisaM]

2. Oh, no, don't you know -

Kerry just ran a bad campaign. It had nothing to do with the tactics of the right or the press.

:sarcasm:

[Dr Ron]

3. Sorry, I forgot n/t

[damntexdem]

4. And what's really important is ...

for impeachment to be raised in the House.

[tmorelli415]

5. Beautiful!

Well done - it links the name of the publication with the story inaccuracies. This will proliferate through the Web and shortly any search or news retrieval will bring up this with the original story. Game. Set. Match.

[Dr Ron]

6. Search engines

I first suspect something was up when I cheched the stat counter for the Unofficial Kerry Blog--where both the original story and the above post were also mirrored.

There were searches coming from the Fox News site for "Impeachment comments by john kerry"

The site came up because of multiple stories on Kerry, as well as other stories by others calling for Bush's impeachment.

Someone also has an annonymouse post on the conservative news site protesting their inaccuracies and has a link to my post at LUTD.