In light of recent developments of Bush's appointment of a former Swift Boat douchebag to a Belgium Ambassardorship, I'm dedicating this post to Little Wing. This one is for you buddy:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/02/2 ... at-funder/

and from factcheck.org (nonpartisan website): http://www.factcheck.org/article231.html

The swiftboat Ads definitely have the ring of "truthiness". And really, the facts don't really matter. John Kerry was a traitor, regardless of what actually happened in 'Nam.

I think its generally agreed upon that he was a weak candidate. Did they really have to go after his service record when they could have easily attacked his apparent lack of conviction?

I don't think how weak of a candidate Kerry was is the question here.

That is correct sir, its not at issue here; the main drift is there were many, you know ACTUAL issues that could have been discussed, but for whatever reason it was deemed most important to distract everyone from policy and the like.

Then what is the question?

What I took from this video is that Kerry (rightly) called out a guy who funneled massive amounts of money to a smear campaign that submarined his candidacy, but this just exhibits what he should have done 3 years ago. Even "crooksandliars" goes on about how Kerry chose to ignore the whole thing and it damaged his campaign badly.
On a side note, this shit was happening on both sides. I'm no fan of Senator Obama's national security agenda, but one thing I greatly admire him for is his effort to rise above this smear by proxy stuff. I don't know if he will be able to keep himself from being dragged down into the mud in the long run, but it is nice to see someone who is making an honest attempt to avoid it.

Not to the same extent, Karl Rove has really taken things to a new level as far as smear tactics go.

i would contend that you are the traitor. how dare you question someone that has seen the ill's of war and finds the courage to return home and speak to what he has seen, and how he feels about the atrocities being commited in his name, and his countries name. Men far greater than you or I have fought on the streets, in the courtrooms, and in the fields of battle to assure him the right to speak truth to power, and hopefully many more will continue to do so.

why do you cal him a traitor? because he spoke out against the war? and the slaughter of 1,000,000 south asians? the loss of 50,000 americans? the destruction of an entier ecological region? the poisoning of the land the the inhabitants? for what simpleschoolboy? so you can sit on your couch and brag how great america is and how we "won" the vietnam war? why were we there? was it worth 1,000,000 people? and if you say "communism" i am going to throw up in my office. I guess you would call a soldier speaking against the current war a traitor?

John Kerry was not a hero for going to war, John Kerry was a hero for speaking out against the scourge of war.

it is the populations fault smear works. i do not blame politicians for using it, i blame the masses that let it influence them. considering we live in a country that debates more about a nipple or a dead celebrity then they do about poverty, the enviroment, or war, i am not really surprised that it works

He was joking dude, ease up on the pontificating.

didnt realize he was joking, what am i supposed to keep track of his opinions and realize anytime he is being sarcastic? sorry, this place isnt fun enough to frequent THAT much

and dude, maybe you should ease up on your insults, i was simply expressing my opinion. which is pontifiacting by nature for everyone. i genrally care less what others think or say about others, but attacking anti-war advocates that express their opinion through free speech by saying their "anti-american", "or hurting the troops", or "traitors" is something i find intollerable, just like the swift boat adds.

I forgot about the whole " " no longer being cool to use for sarcasm. What I intended to convey was that some segment of his opposition considered him a traitor for speaking out against the war, and did what they could to dismiss his service as less than honorable.

But I can understand your assumptions based on our previous disagreements.

John O'Neil can eat a dick.

Yes, Karl Rove has done a lot of damage to the process in that regard, but we're talking about independent groups that run around and smear their candidate's opponent. There was plenty on both sides taking place in 2004...to assert otherwise would be to deny reality.

What I admire is that Obama has stayed above the fray when necessary, and gotten right down in it when needed. For example, since the whole madrassa shit, Obama has told FoxNews that they can go fuck themselves and won't be getting any interviews with him. More candidates ought to stand up like that.

If Kerry had fought when he needed to fight in 2004, instead of trying to "stay above the fray" that was burning his bootheels, things might have been different.

Absolutely. Although he can't avoid Fox News forever....they're hosting the DNC primary debate in Nevada.
As far as the Madrassa thing went, I agee with his current stance. They didn't let it go after it was debunked, so they reap what they sow in that regard.

If I were as high profile as Obama, I'd skip that debate to make a point.

Just out of curiosity - does FNC hold exclusive rights to that debate? In other words, is Fox News the only channel that people will have access, or are they just the "official" network and will be handling the moderating?

It's an exclusive.

Expressing an opinion is not pontificating. You could say expressing an opinion is acting like a pundit.

Pontificating: to speak in a pompous or dogmatic manner

Well that sucks. It doesn't serve the voters if the debate is on only one channel, let alone a cable channel. There should be as much access to the debates as possible, not exclusive deals with individual networks.