Bush Official Uses Nixon Tactics to Smear John Kerry

[sandnsea]

Bring It ON!!! lol.

Richard Nixon just won't go away. Just when you think our country has finally exorcised Nixon's baleful memory, his ghost comes back for another round of nastiness. And if you think I'm kidding about Nixon's ghost being a problem, do a Google search on "Nixon" and "ghost"--I got 76,300 hits tonight.

Wherever else Nixon may still be haunting us, there's no doubt that his spirit spends some time roaming the halls of the Republican National Committee.




Consider: In 1971, the Nixon White House tried to discredit John Kerry by telling President Nixon that John Kerry was sleeping in a Georgetown home while other veterans protesting the war slept in tents on the National Mall.

Yesterday, before a conference hosted by a conservative PAC headed by a former Nixon aide, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie repeated the same smear, nearly verbatim, in a desperate attempt to discredit John Kerry again, this time as his campaign to remove Gillespie’s boss from the White House is gathering strength.

“Ed Gillespie should put down the dirty tricks play book, pick up his pride and apologize to John Kerry for attempting to smear him with the same unsubstantiated charge the Nixon White House used in 1971,” said David DiMartino, Kerry campaign spokesperson. “Or, he could disclose exactly where President Nixon would have had to look to find George Bush during the time Kerry served in Vietnam or protested the war afterward.”

For more background, see below.

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RNC Chair Ed Gillespie Recycles Old Nixon Charge

In front of a conference of a conservative PAC headed by a former Nixon aide, RNC chair Ed Gillespie said: “We heard a good story from John Kerry last night who said, 'I could not be more proud of the fact that when I came back from , having learned what I learned, that I led thousands of veterans to Washington, we camped on the Mall underneath the Congress, underneath Richard Nixon's visibility.'

"But had President Nixon looked out his window, he wouldn't have seen John Kerry. According to a report in today’s Associated Press, “John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who addressed his days as a protest leader against that war, talked about how ‘we camped on the Mall underneath the Congress,’ although accounts of that April 1971 demonstration had him staying in a friend's Georgetown town house while the masses stayed in tents.”

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More Details of the Nixon/Bush smear attempt

Only Nixon Propaganda says John Kerry didn't sleep on the Mall

April 28, 1971, 4:33 p.m. President Richard M. Nixon takes a call from his counsel, Charles Colson.

"This fellow Kerry that they had on last week," Colson tells the president, referring to a television appearance by John F. Kerry, a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

"Yeah," Nixon responds.

"He turns out to be really quite a phony," Colson says.

"Well, he is sort of a phony, isn't he?" Nixon says.

Yes, Colson says in a gossiping vein, telling the president that Kerry stayed at the home of a Georgetown socialite while other protesters slept on the mall.



Colson later apologized to Kerry for dirty tricks

Some 25 years later, as a born-again Christian, Colson wrote a letter to Kerry asking "forgiveness over any ways in which I hurt you in the past."



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Spiro Agnew made same false charge, which Kerry denied in print

Vice President Spiro T. Agnew briefly led the White House charge against Kerry. Appearing in the Bahamas, Agnew said that Kerry, "who drew rave notices in the media for his eloquent testimony before Congress, was later revealed to have been using material ghosted for him by a former Kennedy speechwriter, and to have spent most of his nights in posh surroundings in Georgetown rather than on the Mall with his buddies."

Both of Agnew's charges were false, according to Kerry and Walinsky, the former Kennedy aide to whom Agnew referred.




http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/001066.html#more

[JohnKleeb]

1. I think he should be envied by the other guys

You dont get on Nixon's enemy list for nothing :). They are all great people of course but :) Nixon's enemy list is like the Dean's list I guess :).

[xray s]

2. I thought Kerry didn't do Bush AWOL material?

“Ed Gillespie should put down the dirty tricks play book, pick up his pride and apologize to John Kerry for attempting to smear him with the same unsubstantiated charge the Nixon White House used in 1971,” said David DiMartino, Kerry campaign spokesperson. “Or, he could disclose exactly where President Nixon would have had to look to find George Bush during the time Kerry served in Vietnam or protested the war afterward.”

[bigtree]

3. yeah, how bout that?

“Ed Gillespie should put down the dirty tricks play book, pick up his pride and apologize to John Kerry for attempting to smear him with the same unsubstantiated charge the Nixon White House used in 1971,” said David DiMartino, Kerry campaign spokesperson. “Or, he could disclose exactly where President Nixon would have had to look to find George Bush during the time Kerry served in Vietnam or protested the war afterward.”
Great post sandnsea!

[sandnsea]

4. Bush hit first I guess

He's letting them know he'll fight back.

[Old and In the Way]

5. Pretty funny..........deja vu all over again.

I can remember thinking, back when Kerry was active in the VVAW, that he'd make a great President. 32 years later it's a distinct possibility.

Every character smear is going to come back on George pretty hard. What are they going to do? Dimson can't run on his record, he's going to have to be mighty careful on assaulting Kerry's character.

Maybe he'll just decide to quit....just like he did on his TANG commitment.

[AnnitaR]

6. Pot calling kettle black if you ask me...

“Ed Gillespie should put down the dirty tricks play book, pick up his pride and apologize to John Kerry for attempting to smear him..."

Will Kerry do the same regarding all the dirty tricks he's used against Clark, Dean? They want to act like they're above such stuff then I demand an apology for the flyers. Otherwise hope RNC gives them hell!

[Webster Green]

7. Hope they keep using Nixon's playbook.....

It got Nixon right where I would like to see the chimp. Out of the White House you crook!

[mb7588a]

8. According to "Tour of Duty,"

the new biography of Kerry's Vietnam days, written by Douglas Brinkley, Nixon was impressed by Kerry.

Excerpt from the prologue, Nixon WH reaction to the Foreign Relations Committee testimony where he asked, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?":


Even President Nixon, who had tried to shut down the VVAW march, couldn't help but be impressed by this bright young troublemaker with the impeccable credentials. in an Oval Office meeting the next day, the President noted Kerry's distinctiveness from the other "bearded weirdos." He had been the "real star" of the hearing, Nixon told his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger.

"He did a hell of a great job," Haldeman said.

"He was extremely effective," Nixon agreed.

"He did a superb job on it at the Foreign Relations Committee yesterday," Haldeman repeated. "A Kennedy-type guy; he looks like a Kennedy, and he talks exactly like a Kennedy."


I'm very much looking forward to finishing this book. So far, it is absolutely amazing. Even if you're not a Kerry supporter, gotta check it out.