Shaun Dale of Upper Left stands up for truth and rejecting the oft-times questionable “common wisdom”. He points out that repetition has caused many to forget the actual circumstances and come to accept and use Karl Rove’s spin.

The reason we remember the line at all is because the Republicans lied about what John Kerry meant and their lie was reported as Kerry’s mistake. It will happen to our next nominee, whoever that might be, and the one after that and every one until they’re called on it every time they do it.

JK gets a nod from conservative blogger, Jay Reding, at jayreding.com – Conservatism with Attitude:

Sen. John Kerry has an important editorial on what the US should do to support democracy in Lebanon. In fact, if you only read the first page and a half, it would be a brilliant editorial on Lebanon. Kerry is absolutely right on the first part — the US government should do everything in its power to assure Lebanese sovereignty against the predations of Syrian groups like Hizballah. Our current #1 recipient of foreign aid, Egypt, continues to be autocratic and authoritarian. Lebanon needs the money — the central government needs to be able to do what Hizballah has been doing and needs to be able to undercut Hizballah in every way. If they need a few billion in the bank to do so, we should be more than willing to oblige since a peaceful and democratic Lebanon is in our national interest. The only way to win the war on terrorism is to undercut authoritarianism, and not just in Iraq.

Jay goes onto disagree about what the correct approach to Syria is.

Jay, as JK pointed out, “Conversation is not capitulation. Until recently, it was widely accepted that good foreign policy demands a willingness to seize opportunities and change policy as the facts change.”

JK’s outlook on talks with Syria was clear in this AP story: “Talking to somebody is not rewarding their behavior. I have no illusions about our differences with these countries … and nothing in the discussion is based on trust,” said. “But you cannot get to (action and verifiability) without setting up the modalities. So you have to engage in some dialogue.”

Pamela Leavey at The Democratic Daily takes on the publicity splash that Terry McAuliffe is chasing in “What A Party – What A Hypocrite”.

Elsewhere a blogger referenced this comment from Terry McAuliffe with the question, “Which Terry McAuliffe do you believe?”

McAuliffe lavished praise on Kerry himself. “John Kerry ran a great race,” he said. “We had every player on the field. We had more money. We had the largest field operation. We got close. We got to the 1-yard line. But we didn’t win. John Kerry gave it all he had.”

Well, this article from The Hill may clear up any confusion you may have about Terry McAuliffe’s motivation and as Terry himself said, “This is my book and I’ve done my best to make myself look good”.

Jim Witkins at Independents for Kerry weighs in with “2008 Presidential Race Should be about Global Warming Solutions”.  He reminds us that “Al Gore and John Kerry have been talking about it for years” and that JK “made it a critical component of his 2004 Presidential bid touting alternative energy Independence as both a national security strategy, a way to create jobs and lead the world in innovation, and an important step to reducing global warming causing gases.” He concludes that “The problems we face today will seem like small potatoes if we don’t address Global Warming immediately.”

Jim, it is important. JK devoted one of his Faneuil Hall speeches to it, helped promote house parties to gather and watch Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and it will be a part of his and Teresa’s forthcoming book, This Moment on Earth.   <!-more-> Dotti Janiak at The Democratic Daily highlighted excerpts from 2 different speeches by JK in her post titled “Run, John Kerry, Run”:

From his 11-3-2004 speech in Faneuil Hall:

“I believe that what we started in this campaign will not end here. And I know our fight goes on to put America back to work and make our economy a great engine of job growth. Our fight goes on to make affordable health care an accessible right for all Americans, not a privilege. Our fight goes on to protect the environment, to achieve equality, to push the frontiers of science and discovery, and to restore America’s reputation in the world. I believe that all of this will happen — and sooner than we may think — because we’re America. And America always moves forward.”

From his 3-12-2006 speech in Nashua, NH:

John Kerry’s “Ten-Point Plan for America:
1. Obey the law and protect civil rights in this country.
2. Tell the truth, and tell it to Americans all the time.
3. Fire the incompetents and restore competence and integrity to Washington.
4. Chase the money changers from the temples of democracy, and reclaim it for the grass-roots of this nation.
5. Bring our troops home from Iraq.
6. Find Osama bin Laden, and secure our ports and homeland.
7. Stop subsidizing “Big Oil,” and start investing in energy alternatives.
8. Make access to affordable health care a right and not a privilege.
9. Reduce the deficit and respect work over wealth.
10. Invest in education and fight for American jobs that restore the American dream.

 

As for the right-wing bloggers’ fantasies about the photo of JK speaking with 2 reporters in Baghdad, JK had lots of defenders. Prime among them were TPMmuckraker, Greg Sargent at TPMCafe and The Horse’s Mouth, and Beachmom in a Recommended diary at dailykos.com.

Justin Rood at TPMmuckraker covers it here, here and here.

Greg Sargent at TPMCafe did a little more investigative work and reported on it.

The wingers spent many, many hours on this photo, trying to prove its authenticity. I’m not going to dispute that it’s authentic. Rather, I’m here to report that I’ve now contacted at least two people who say they were at the table with Kerry. And it’s clear that the winger characterization of the photo is entirely bogus.

Specifically, it turns out that Kerry was at that table to conduct an off-the-record breakfast discussion with two reporters, so there would have been no reason whatsover for troops to be sitting with them. In fact, Kerry and the reporters even sought out empty seats, I’m told.

The two reporters who met with Kerry that morning are Marc Santora of The New York Times and Mark Danner of The New York Review, The New Yorker and other publications.

[...]

Danner confirmed to me that he’s the guy with his back to the camera, saying his jacket and the back of his head looked the same as in the photo. He added that his position in relation to Kerry was the same as the photo showed. And here’s what Danner had to say to me about the empty seats:   “If there were empty seats it’s because we sought them out. We wanted an empty table so we could talk. It’s that simple.”

Greg followed up his post at TPMCafe with this report at The Horse’s Mouth blog:

Sometimes all you can do is sit back and marvel at the winger bloggers’ seemingly bottomless capacity for buffoonery and self-parody.

On Friday I posted my case against the “lonely Kerry” photo story. This tale - pushed hard by the winger blogs - held that a widely-circulated picture of Kerry dining “alone” in Iraq proved that the troops had “spurned” the Senator. Yet it turns out that the story’s completely false: Kerry was in fact having an off-the-record discussion with two journalists, and one of the reporters, Mark Danner, confirmed to me that the three had actually sought out empty seats for privacy.

Game over, right? Nope.

Beachmom on dailykos.com made an important point about the incident in her recommended-list diary, “The Character Attack on John Kerry – A Cautionary Tale”

In the scheme of things, this is a minor, and failed, smear on Senator Kerry, but we all know that unsuspecting Americans have been e-mailed this story or heard it on far right talk radio, and they may never learn the truth of how Senator Kerry was greeted by the troops. The Right has their direct e-mail, their talk radio, their Drudge Reports, their NY Posts, and their Fox News. And they will use this weaponry to their last dying breath. It is up to us as a Party to counteract the smears every time, even in the midst of, shall we call it, pre-pre-primary wars. Because if it happens to my guy, you can be darned sure that next week it will happen to your guy or gal.

Here’s some others who stepped up on defense:

TRex at FireDogLake had some fun pointing out just how twisted is the “logic” of some right-wing bloggers in pointing out the major gaffe on the photo of JK talking with 2 reporters in Baghdad.

ellroon at Rants from the Rookery points out how reality fails to support the right-wing bloggers’ views on the photo. ellroon also highlights the Military Times poll: “The fact that the military is becoming … disenchanted … with Bush and his non-plans is even more stunning.”

Ron Chusid at Liberal Values also commented on the Military Times poll in a post titled, “It’s Bush, Not Kerry, That The Troops Really Dislike”. He wrote, “The right wing bloggers have had to resort to falsely claiming that Kerry’s joke about Bush was about the troops and fabricating a story that the troops were avoiding Kerry in Iraq by using a photo of Kerry giving a private newspaper interview in order to claim that Kerry and the troops did not like each other. The reality is that the troops are increasingly opposing George Bush’s policies.”

Luis at The Blog From Another Dimension summed it up neatly with: “the whole thing is a non-issue, little more than wingnut bloggers trying to squeeze yet another let’s-ridicule-Kerry story out of an out-of-context story with a completely fabricated conclusion sewn into it.”

John Cole at Balloon Juice, an independent, conservative-minded blogger, really spelled out his disgust with “the current GOP and their noisemakers” in a piece titled Sick of the Mouthpieces.

And then there was this entry—not exactly a blog but nonetheless, an interesting report on the photo and the right-wing bloggers came from the staff at Editor&Publisher in “Another Setback for Conservative Bloggers: The Great ‘Kerry Photo’ Flap”.