Wednesday, March 17, 2004
New Bush Ad Assails Kerry on Iraq Vote
WASHINGTON - President Bush, trying to counter John Kerry's record as a decorated Vietnam War veteran, argues in a new campaign ad that his Democratic rival has turned his back on U.S. soldiers engaged in war.
"Though John Kerry voted in October of 2002 for military action in Iraq, he later voted against funding our soldiers," the Bush-Cheney campaign ad says.
The four-term Massachusetts senator backed the congressional resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq. The 30-second commercial focuses on Kerry's vote last year against an $87 billion aid package for Iraq and Afghanistan, contending that the vote denied troops body armor and higher combat pay, and reservists better health care.
The Kerry campaign responded that the Democrat voted against "the failed Bush policy in Iraq" not against soldiers, and faulted Bush for "refusing to take responsibility" for the aftermath of the war.
"He has a mounting, widening and deepening credibility gap in his ability to take care of the troops," said Stephanie Cutter, a Kerry spokeswoman.
Bush's ad, which started airing Tuesday in West Virginia, is designed to counter Kerry's potential appeal — his Vietnam record — in the state that boasts more than 203,000 veterans. It's the first sign of a new strategy for the Bush team: ads targeted to specific states.
Bush is airing commercials criticizing Kerry in 18 states and nationally on cable networks. The new ad is running only in West Virginia, where Kerry was campaigning Tuesday, but Bush advisers said it may run elsewhere where polls and focus groups show it would be successful, if not nationwide.
In 2000, Bush's campaign primarily stuck to a single nationwide theme at a time in its TV advertising. This year, it will pair the global ads with spots crafted for specific states, according to campaign advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In this case, the officials said, criticizing Kerry's record on military issues both undercuts his appeal as a veteran and underscores the White House's argument that he says one thing and does another.
"He's accusing the president of things that his record actually says he did," said Matthew Dowd, Bush's chief strategist.
Kerry's campaign argues that Bush's foreign policies have meant extended deployments and delayed pay for soldiers, and cuts to health care benefits for veterans.
"He refuses to take responsiblity for his failed policies and as a result has no record to run on except attacking John Kerry," Cutter said.
Bush's new ad intersperses pictures of the Capitol building and the Senate floor with scenes of soldiers. The campaign said some of the soldiers are actors. Other scenes, from stock footage the campaign bought from companies, show real troops.
The military has rules limiting troops in ads to avoid the appearance of an endorsement by a certain branch or a service member. But a Pentagon official who reviewed the ad said it doesn't appear to violate any Army regulations or Defense Department directives because the commercial does not clearly show the identity of the soldiers or any insignias of a branch.
Kerry criticized Bush on Monday for using actors to pose as journalists and soldiers in Medicare ads and campaign commercials.
WASHINGTON - President Bush, trying to counter John Kerry's record as a decorated Vietnam War veteran, argues in a new campaign ad that his Democratic rival has turned his back on U.S. soldiers engaged in war.
"Though John Kerry voted in October of 2002 for military action in Iraq, he later voted against funding our soldiers," the Bush-Cheney campaign ad says.
The four-term Massachusetts senator backed the congressional resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq. The 30-second commercial focuses on Kerry's vote last year against an $87 billion aid package for Iraq and Afghanistan, contending that the vote denied troops body armor and higher combat pay, and reservists better health care.
The Kerry campaign responded that the Democrat voted against "the failed Bush policy in Iraq" not against soldiers, and faulted Bush for "refusing to take responsibility" for the aftermath of the war.
"He has a mounting, widening and deepening credibility gap in his ability to take care of the troops," said Stephanie Cutter, a Kerry spokeswoman.
Bush's ad, which started airing Tuesday in West Virginia, is designed to counter Kerry's potential appeal — his Vietnam record — in the state that boasts more than 203,000 veterans. It's the first sign of a new strategy for the Bush team: ads targeted to specific states.
Bush is airing commercials criticizing Kerry in 18 states and nationally on cable networks. The new ad is running only in West Virginia, where Kerry was campaigning Tuesday, but Bush advisers said it may run elsewhere where polls and focus groups show it would be successful, if not nationwide.
In 2000, Bush's campaign primarily stuck to a single nationwide theme at a time in its TV advertising. This year, it will pair the global ads with spots crafted for specific states, according to campaign advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In this case, the officials said, criticizing Kerry's record on military issues both undercuts his appeal as a veteran and underscores the White House's argument that he says one thing and does another.
"He's accusing the president of things that his record actually says he did," said Matthew Dowd, Bush's chief strategist.
Kerry's campaign argues that Bush's foreign policies have meant extended deployments and delayed pay for soldiers, and cuts to health care benefits for veterans.
"He refuses to take responsiblity for his failed policies and as a result has no record to run on except attacking John Kerry," Cutter said.
Bush's new ad intersperses pictures of the Capitol building and the Senate floor with scenes of soldiers. The campaign said some of the soldiers are actors. Other scenes, from stock footage the campaign bought from companies, show real troops.
The military has rules limiting troops in ads to avoid the appearance of an endorsement by a certain branch or a service member. But a Pentagon official who reviewed the ad said it doesn't appear to violate any Army regulations or Defense Department directives because the commercial does not clearly show the identity of the soldiers or any insignias of a branch.
Kerry criticized Bush on Monday for using actors to pose as journalists and soldiers in Medicare ads and campaign commercials.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Bush open to more time with 9/11 panel
WASHINGTON -- Showing a new flexibility, the Bush administration indicated Tuesday that the president is willing to sit for more than one hour of questioning when he meets with a federal commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The change in posture came one day after the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, suggested Bush was impeding the investigation, which will look, in part, at intelligence surrounding the attacks.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president would "answer all the questions they raise" when he sits with the chairman and vice chairman of the panel in a private session.
In addition, a senior administration official said there is a new willingness by the president to go beyond the hour previously promised to the commission.
However, McClellan reiterated the president will speak only before the chairman and vice chairman -- former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican, and former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat -- not the full panel, as had been requested.
Kerry, in a stop in Florida on Monday, used Bush's visit to a Houston, Texas, rodeo and livestock show to criticize him about what some Democrats and families of 9/11 victims have described as his limited cooperation with the panel.
"If the president of the United States can find time to go to a rodeo, he can spend more than one hour before the commission," Kerry said.
McClellan insisted the administration has provided "unprecedented cooperation" with the commission, including already handing over 2 million documents, 60 compact discs and 800 audiocassettes; making 100 administration officials available for interviews; and providing four hours of testimony by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
McClellan and other administration officials argue that a limited amount of time before the panel by the president is justified because the questions would only cover the eighth-month period Bush was in office before the attacks, and that much of the information requested by the panel already has been provided.
The 10-member bipartisan panel is known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
The Bush administration initially opposed the commission's creation in November 2002, and the White House's commitment to the probe has been questioned by Democrats and some family members.
WASHINGTON -- Showing a new flexibility, the Bush administration indicated Tuesday that the president is willing to sit for more than one hour of questioning when he meets with a federal commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The change in posture came one day after the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, suggested Bush was impeding the investigation, which will look, in part, at intelligence surrounding the attacks.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president would "answer all the questions they raise" when he sits with the chairman and vice chairman of the panel in a private session.
In addition, a senior administration official said there is a new willingness by the president to go beyond the hour previously promised to the commission.
However, McClellan reiterated the president will speak only before the chairman and vice chairman -- former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican, and former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat -- not the full panel, as had been requested.
Kerry, in a stop in Florida on Monday, used Bush's visit to a Houston, Texas, rodeo and livestock show to criticize him about what some Democrats and families of 9/11 victims have described as his limited cooperation with the panel.
"If the president of the United States can find time to go to a rodeo, he can spend more than one hour before the commission," Kerry said.
McClellan insisted the administration has provided "unprecedented cooperation" with the commission, including already handing over 2 million documents, 60 compact discs and 800 audiocassettes; making 100 administration officials available for interviews; and providing four hours of testimony by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
McClellan and other administration officials argue that a limited amount of time before the panel by the president is justified because the questions would only cover the eighth-month period Bush was in office before the attacks, and that much of the information requested by the panel already has been provided.
The 10-member bipartisan panel is known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
The Bush administration initially opposed the commission's creation in November 2002, and the White House's commitment to the probe has been questioned by Democrats and some family members.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Cheney Says He Supports Gay-Marriage Ban
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday he supports President Bush's call for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, though one of his daughters is gay and he has said in the past the issue should be left to the states.
"The president's taken the clear position that he supports a constitutional amendment," Cheney said in an interview with MSNBC. "I support him."
Cheney said during the 2000 campaign, and again last month, that he prefers to see states handle the issue of gay marriage. His openly lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney, is an aide in the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, but the vice president declined to discuss her.
"One of the most unpleasant aspects of this business is the extent of which private lives are intruded upon when these kinds of issues come up," he said. "I really have always considered my private — my daughters' lives private and I think that's the way it ought to remain."
John Aravosis, co-creator of a new Web site that seeks to pressure Mary Cheney into speaking out against a marriage amendment, called the vice president's position hypocritical.
"Now that's rich — the vice president wants to include the details of my private life in the U.S. Constitution yet laments a lack of privacy for his daughter?" Aravosis said. "The vice president can't have it both ways."
Cheney said he will be on Bush's re-election ticket in the fall, as the president himself has said, although there is speculation to the contrary. Cheney, who has had four heart attacks, said his health has been good and he couldn't think of any circumstances that would prompt to decline the role.
"He's asked me to serve again and I'll be happy to do that," Cheney said.
He dismissed talk that he has become a liability to Bush, with Democrats pounding the administration over allegations of profiteering in Iraq by oil services giant Halliburton, which Cheney once headed, and the vice president's frequent but now much-doubted claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
"I think the fact that you become a lightning rod is, it goes with the turn," he said. "I'm not concerned about that."
Cheney's popularity with the public has dropped in recent weeks, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey. In October, 43 percent of the public had a favorable view and 26 percent had an unfavorable view. In the last two weeks of February, people were about evenly split, with 33 percent favorable and 36 percent unfavorable.
The vice president's popularity declined with most groups, with the biggest drop among Republicans. Seventy-four percent of Republicans saw him favorably in October and 58 percent viewed him that way in late February. Six in 10 in late February said Bush should keep Cheney as his running mate, while a quarter said Bush should pick someone else.
The Annenberg survey in late February of 2,700 people has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points
In his interview, the vice president also took a shot at the leading Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, and his chief rival, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who have skewered Bush over lagging job growth even as the economy improves.
"If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last two or three years, the kind of tax increases that both Kerry and Edwards have talked about, we would not have had the kind of job growth that we've had," Cheney said.
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday he supports President Bush's call for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, though one of his daughters is gay and he has said in the past the issue should be left to the states.
"The president's taken the clear position that he supports a constitutional amendment," Cheney said in an interview with MSNBC. "I support him."
Cheney said during the 2000 campaign, and again last month, that he prefers to see states handle the issue of gay marriage. His openly lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney, is an aide in the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, but the vice president declined to discuss her.
"One of the most unpleasant aspects of this business is the extent of which private lives are intruded upon when these kinds of issues come up," he said. "I really have always considered my private — my daughters' lives private and I think that's the way it ought to remain."
John Aravosis, co-creator of a new Web site that seeks to pressure Mary Cheney into speaking out against a marriage amendment, called the vice president's position hypocritical.
"Now that's rich — the vice president wants to include the details of my private life in the U.S. Constitution yet laments a lack of privacy for his daughter?" Aravosis said. "The vice president can't have it both ways."
Cheney said he will be on Bush's re-election ticket in the fall, as the president himself has said, although there is speculation to the contrary. Cheney, who has had four heart attacks, said his health has been good and he couldn't think of any circumstances that would prompt to decline the role.
"He's asked me to serve again and I'll be happy to do that," Cheney said.
He dismissed talk that he has become a liability to Bush, with Democrats pounding the administration over allegations of profiteering in Iraq by oil services giant Halliburton, which Cheney once headed, and the vice president's frequent but now much-doubted claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
"I think the fact that you become a lightning rod is, it goes with the turn," he said. "I'm not concerned about that."
Cheney's popularity with the public has dropped in recent weeks, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey. In October, 43 percent of the public had a favorable view and 26 percent had an unfavorable view. In the last two weeks of February, people were about evenly split, with 33 percent favorable and 36 percent unfavorable.
The vice president's popularity declined with most groups, with the biggest drop among Republicans. Seventy-four percent of Republicans saw him favorably in October and 58 percent viewed him that way in late February. Six in 10 in late February said Bush should keep Cheney as his running mate, while a quarter said Bush should pick someone else.
The Annenberg survey in late February of 2,700 people has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points
In his interview, the vice president also took a shot at the leading Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, and his chief rival, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who have skewered Bush over lagging job growth even as the economy improves.
"If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last two or three years, the kind of tax increases that both Kerry and Edwards have talked about, we would not have had the kind of job growth that we've had," Cheney said.
