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host · 02-21-2008, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

.....Bob Dole on the other hand is a true hero, and he never promoted it in his campaign, in fact the first time I heard anything about his record was after the election.....

From my post #20, on the thread linked at the top of the following quote box, in response to UStwo making the same erroneous claim about Bob Dole, two years ago.....as he does today:

Quote:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=102426

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Just to make it clear to some people, Kerry was not attacked FOR his war record, he was attacked for trying to use it to advance his political goals. In so doing he opened it up for debate and it turns out there was a ton of debate there. Democrats use their war record as some sort of invulnerability shield from criticism. Republicans almost never bring there’s up, even Bob Dole who lost use of his hand in true heroic fashion. I never heard the story though until AFTER the 1996 election was over.

The page linked here, from the conservative National Review's own 1992
print edition archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/...0408231323.asp
makes enough references to the techniques that the George HW Bush campaign used
in 1992 to repeatedly attack opponent Bill Clinton's anti-war record in the Vietnam
War era, to reasonably call into question, the reliability of your central point.

There are even more accounts at the above link, of GHW Bush promoting his presidential
candidacies in 1980, 1988, and in 1992, by making statements in media interviews and in campaign
appearances, that were obviously intended to link his WWII military service with his presidential
campaigns, to promote his own leadership, and to favorably compare himself to his opponents' lack
of combat service.

The next two quote boxes provide ample evidence that Bob Dole promoted his candidacy, as far back as
his 1966 congressional campaign, and in his several presidential campaigns via the recounting of his
WWII military service, and his combat "wound". Dole was still denying how blatant his use of his war
record had been in his politcal career, as recently as on Aug. 23, 2004, in a CNN transcript linked
below.

Quote:

http://www.slate.com/id/2067/
The Wound
How bashful is Dole about his wartime injury?
By Jack Shafer
Posted Saturday, Aug. 24, 1996, at 3:30 AM ET....

Quote:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408240003
Dole falsely claimed that '96 campaign didn't promote his war record

On the August 23 edition of CNN's Crossfire, co-host Tucker Carlson repeated a false claim made by former Republican presidential candidate and regular CNN contributor Bob Dole on CNN the day before, then falsely denied that Dole had made another.....

....On August 23,{2004] Dole <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0408/23/wbr.00.html">called in</a> to CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports to discuss his comments from the day before. During that call, Dole suggested he was irritated by how much Kerry talked about his war record and claimed, "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."

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 <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/candidates/campaign.96/the.story.mov">TV ad</a> 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, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/newsletter/ce52/52text/01legal.htm">article</a> published in Capital Eye, a newsletter of the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/">Center for Responsive Politics:</a>

"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 <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/candidates/campaign.96/dole.values.mov">TV ad</a> boasted that he was "tested in war."

The two quote boxes below contain information tha makes a strong case for an argument that it is
doubtful that, examining Kerry's "war Record" "it turns out there was a ton of debate there".
Who can offer an argument against my observation that, if George W. Bush received confirmation that he had
indeed continued his ANG service when he moved to Alabama in 1973, as he claimed that he did, by a witness
with the independence and integrity of William Rood, the newspaper editor who vouched for the legitimacy of
John Kerry's combat actions that resulted in Kerry's receipt of the Silver Star combat medal by the U.S. Navy,
the controversy over Bush's inability to offer convincing proof that he served in Alabama ANG, would have disappeared.

Quote:

http://www.factcheck.org/article231.html
Republican-funded Group Attacks Kerry's War Record

Ad features vets who claim Kerry "lied" to get Vietnam medals. But other witnesses disagree -- and so do Navy records.

August 6, 2004

Modified: August 22, 2004

Quote:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...l=chi-news-hed
Published August 22, 2004

......William Rood, an editor on the Chicago Tribune's metropolitan desk, said he broke 35 years of silence about the Feb. 28, 1969, mission that resulted in Kerry's receiving a Silver Star because recent portrayals of Kerry's actions published in the best-selling book "Unfit for Command" are wrong and smear the reputations of veterans who served with Kerry......