Scott Bateman ([info]scottbateman) wrote,
@ 2004-08-12 14:51:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry


You want Kerry to win in November? You and I have to stop these lies about Kerry's service that are out there in the news media, because this is how Bush beat McCain, and how the Republicans beat Max Cleland in Georgia--taking bona fide American heroes and destroying them. I'm doing my part--believe me, when I do a cartoon like this, I get angry email. But you can help too--email this cartoon to CNN, the New York Times, Fox News, MSNBC--wherever Kerry's record is getting distorted. Send it to your crazy GOP uncle. Get the damn word out, Slappy--Kerry is a hero, and bush and Rove and their ilk are sleazy.

UPDATE: I added even more of Kerry's military service in the cartoon.

(Post a new comment)


ex_hotlavamo352
2004-08-12 10:16 pm UTC (link)
the worst part is that i have to show this to my dad, who was actually in the navy in vietnam.

(Reply to this)

[info]hammercock
2004-08-12 10:35 pm UTC (link)
Did you see Bill Clinton talking about this kind of stuff on The Daily Show earlier this week?

BTW...thank you for the followup link to the Khan story the other day.

(Reply to this)

[info]moebius_rex
2004-08-12 10:39 pm UTC (link)
I'd also add that folks ought to evangelize the frequent visiting of sites like Media Matters and The Daily Howler, where lies such as these--generated by the wingnuts on the right and perpetuated by the lazy/compromised/dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks media--are pulled kicking and screaming into the light of day.

The Daily Howler has been around for a long time, but I only started reading it regularly after Krugman mentioned it in a column a couple weeks back. It rules.

The wingnuts have tried their best to marginalize the importance and meaning of these sites, but they've never managed to effectively refute the things they've said (as far as I can tell).

Tell your parents, tell your friends, hound the guys who sit around smoking in front of the corner coffeeshop! Make stickers and put them on STOP signs! Their URLs ought to be common knowledge in every American community!

(Reply to this)(Thread)

[info]scottbateman
2004-08-12 10:54 pm UTC (link)
Excellent sites, those. Highly recommended. As is Krugman.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]xforge
2004-08-12 10:40 pm UTC (link)
What ticks me off almost as bad, is people belittling the medals. Dude, get your lily-white ass out in front of seven or eight hundred total strangers shooting at you with full-auto weapons and see if YOU don't want something to show for it!

(Reply to this)(Thread)

zhixel
2004-08-13 01:16 am UTC (link)
belittling the medals? Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Kerry kind of... uh... throw his away?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]xforge
2004-08-13 03:04 am UTC (link)
Yeah but he was still awarded them. Throwing the ribbons at the white house was symbolic protest, fairly effective at that. But his detractors keep saying he begged for Purple Hearts for wounds that were no worse than papercuts, and he got the Bronze Star on some kind of trumped-up glory. To which I reply, put your ass out there in front of those guns and get back to me, y'knowwhatImean?

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]unquietmind
2004-08-12 10:53 pm UTC (link)
the bush campaign and the right wing's lies about kerry's military service would have caused my dad - a republican who spend a year on the front line in korea - to reject bush. in his eyes, bush would have been considered a draft-dodger, which was a very serious offense in his mind.

my dad loved boxing, but he always rooted for muhammad ali's opponent because he felt ali was a draft dodger.

i bet there are plenty of vets who normally vote republican who are being completely alienated by this crap.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

[info]kaela
2004-08-13 12:12 am UTC (link)
The stupidest thing is that when they smear Kerry's record they piss off John McCain. McCain is not a guy you want to talk to about dodging your duty. He was tortured for 5 years in a Vietnamese prison. Every time they belittle Kerry's record McCain comes out swinging, and McCain is someone who commends a fuckload of respect from Republicans, Democrats, and everyone in between. Seriously, that kind of idiocy is criminal.

So yes, there are indeed a lot of vets who aren't putting up with this shit and it's going to come back to bite the GOP hard.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]unquietmind
2004-08-13 12:34 am UTC (link)
and yet, mccain was at bush's side today on the campaign trail. hopefully, he told W to knock that shit off.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]kaela
2004-08-13 12:36 am UTC (link)
He has, repeatedly. Just recently he took the White House to task for not explicitly condeming the "Swift Boat Veterans for Making Shit Up" ad. I think that basically McCain is a good person and a good Republican in the traditional sense who is probably horrified at what the neocons have done to his party. If his goal in standing with them is to bring the party back to what he thinks it should be, more power to him. He'll never switch parties (he's pretty socially conservative) but hey, we have Zell Miller, they need a cross to bear too.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]squarkz
2004-08-12 11:29 pm UTC (link)
gulf of tonkin?

(Reply to this)(Thread)

[info]scottbateman
2004-08-12 11:50 pm UTC (link)
Ack! Egad, I suck today!

It's fixed now.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]dryad271
2004-08-13 12:08 am UTC (link)
Very nice. As usual. =)

Would you mind if I reposted a few of these on the front page of my site (with credit and a link, of course)? We don't get tons of traffic, but it would get a little more exposure that way. =) If that's ok, let me know if you want the link to go to your LJ or your website.

(Reply to this)

[info]kaela
2004-08-13 12:10 am UTC (link)
Did you see the stuff on dkos about the other lives he's saved? In addition to hamster CPR and pulling guys out of the river, he also performed the Heimlich on a choking Republican senator in 1988. The guy and his wife call Kerry's secretary once a year and they find him wherever he is and talk. They thank him every year for saving his life. He also once left the Senate floor to help a former Vietnam buddy who was suicidal. Kerry talked to him on the phone until he calmed down and immediately sent members of his staff to stay with the guy.

How many fucking lives do you have to save before the SCLM and the Rove smear machine can admit you're a hero?

(Reply to this)(Thread)

[info]gillen
2004-08-13 03:20 am UTC (link)
Let's look at the flip side and ask how many people he killed.
"In 2004 elect John Kerry, multiple murderer." Yeah, that'll work.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]paulkienitz
2004-08-13 03:34 am UTC (link)
His friends say that he won't talk about the time he won the silver star because the act of shooting another guy down, even though he was lining up a rocket at his boat and about to sink it, was traumatic. As far as I know that's the one time he actually killed someone face to face, and the other guys on the boat say he saved all their lives by doing so.

Bush never directly killed anyone, but he had fun lubricating the wheels of justice when it came to executing people convicted on often sloppy evidence.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]gillen
2004-08-13 03:36 am UTC (link)
So the choice is between the remorseful killer or the self-assured apparatchik... where's the NONE OF THE ABOVE lever?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]paulkienitz
2004-08-13 03:41 am UTC (link)
Nader probably hasn't killed anybody...

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]gillen
2004-08-13 03:43 am UTC (link)
You read my mind (or my LJ...)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]pigmymarmoset
2004-08-13 11:24 am UTC (link)
Unless you want to pin the blame on Nader allowing Bush to 'win', in which case there is an argument that he's indirectly responsible for the death of c 1000 American troops and c 100,000 Iraqis, and more in case this year's petulant excercise of ego gets another 4 years of Bush.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]gillen
2004-08-13 02:21 pm UTC (link)
Why the Democrats seem willing to blame everyone for a Bush victory except those truly responsible (the people who voted for Bush) is beyond me. I guess it's easier to single out the minority than suggest that half the US could use some time in a reeducation camp.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]auros
2004-08-13 04:31 pm UTC (link)
I don't blame the Nader voters for Bush's victory in FL -- Gore campaigned rather poorly, and bungled the recount legal proceedings -- but I would say that had Nader not been in the race, or endorsed Gore over Bush at the last minute, Gore would've won. Only 10% of the FL Nader voters would've had to vote for Gore there, for Gore to win with a recount-proof margin, and I don't believe that more than 90% of those voters just would've abstained, nor that any significant number would've voted for Bush.

As for calling Kerry a murderer... look I suspect we agree that the Vietnam war was pretty awful and unjustified, but at the time people were a lot more conflicted about it than we are now, with the benefit of hindsight. Once he was there, what do want him to do? Just die, and take his subordinates with him? Kerry did what he thought was right, and lived to regret it -- and to act on that regret, becoming prominent in the anti-war movement. What more do you want from the guy?

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]auros
2004-08-13 04:34 pm UTC (link)
I'll add that I'm a major supporter of reforming the electoral system (I favor implementing Approval Voting), but the fact is, the current choice we're being offered is Bush or Kerry, and one of them is way, way better. This time around, the difference is absolutely clear, and anyone who opts not to cast a vote for Kerry will be culpable if ShrubCo wins an actual majority of votes (though that may be hard to determine if they rig the machines *sigh*).

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]auros
2004-08-13 04:35 pm UTC (link)
Crap, I flubbed that link. http://www.electionmethods.org/

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]trishylicious
2004-08-13 06:19 pm UTC (link)
well, George W. Bush has governed over the murdering of many in his state, the highest number of death row cases in the US... and then he sent many people over to Afghanistan and Iraq and killed thousands... I'd say he's the bigger murderer.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)
Murderer? Don't think so, Sucker.
(Anonymous)
2004-08-14 12:01 pm UTC (link)
Bush didn't "murder" those on death row. And considering most on death row have found God and asked forgiveness, their being put to death would sent them to a great reward.

-Joe

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]sally_suga
2004-08-13 05:51 am UTC (link)
I emailed the comic to a few of those links. I like to help the democrat side as much as possible. (if I had it my way.. I would vote in a socialist though).

(Reply to this)

[info]jeetuk
2004-08-13 04:09 pm UTC (link)
This is very interesting

(Reply to this)(Thread)

[info]scottbateman
2004-08-13 04:42 pm UTC (link)
Ooooh, that IS interesting! Brilliant that someone finally graphed that phenomena. Thanks for posting that!

(Reply to this)(Parent)

(Anonymous)
2004-08-13 05:51 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for posting that awesome graph. I'll have to plug it.

eliz.
evso.blogspot.com

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]trishylicious
2004-08-13 06:21 pm UTC (link)
what do the numbers on the right mean? percent, or millions?
(bc. most folks I know were not in favor of Iraq war)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]scottbateman
2004-08-13 10:08 pm UTC (link)
Approval rating, in percent.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]designgirl
2004-08-13 07:25 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for this. It's going to everyone I know!

(Reply to this)

Create an Account
Forgot your login?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…