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In his speech to the Republican convention, Senator Zell Miller suggested that the president of the United States is not a legitimate target of political criticism, an anti-democratic tactic that echoes a long line of attacks on dissent since Sept. 11. Rather than backing away from his words, Miller has made an even stronger claim this week. Sadly, these are far from the only examples of this approach, which is also echoed in a recent Heritage Foundation fundraising letter written by Steve Forbes.
Miller famously told Republican delegates on Sept. 1 that "Now, while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief."
This statement came under widespread criticism. But rather than backing away from the irresponsible suggestion that it is unpatriotic or even treasonous to criticize the president during wartime, Miller expanded the point in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Monday:
As I have said time and again, 9/11 changed everything. Everything, that is, except the national Democrats' shameful, manic obsession with bringing down a commander in chief. John Kerry has been wrong many times, but he's never been more wrong than in his failure to support our troops and our commander in chief in this war on terror.
Here, Miller again equates criticism of the president with an attack on his role as the civilian leader of the military, even suggesting that Kerry himself must go along with Bush. Moreover, the Georgia senator extends that principle even further, suggesting that Democrats had a "shameful, manic obsession with bringing down a commander in chief" even before 9/11, and that they should not have attacked Bush during any portion of his presidency.
Miller's language echoes that used by Steve Forbes, the former Republican presidential candidate, in a fundraising letter (404K PDF) distributed this summer by the Heritage Foundation. In it, Forbes suggests that liberals are a "threat to America" and that their ideological attacks on President Bush weaken the country:
Have you ever seen liberals and the Left so hostile? And do you think they're a threat to America, or are they just making outrageous talk?
I think they're dangerous. In all my years I have never seen such venom in American politics. Even mainstream liberals are saying things and promoting policies that could rip our country apart and weaken our national security.
He later adds:
Since September 11, the divisions in our society have deepened with every passing day. At a time when the majority of Americans want to rally round the flag, defend our land and defeat our enemies, liberals seem to be promoting their delusions about America and President Bush that could weaken us and strengthen our enemies.
In a democracy, no political leader is above criticism. These sorts of attacks on open debate are reprehensible.
(Addendum: The Heritage letter also falsely claims that MoveOn.org put a "test campaign ad on its Web site comparing Bush to Hitler." The ad was actually submitted by a member and posted as part of a MoveOn.org contest to select a member-created ad to air on television; it was not a "test campaign ad" created by the group, as Forbes suggests.)
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Related links:
-Deception becomes all too conventional (Brendan Nyhan and Ben Fritz, 9/7/04)
-See Chapter 5 of All the President's Spin for an examination of the Bush administration's attacks on dissent after Sept. 11
By Ben Fritz
Did Dick Cheney suggest last week that voting for John Kerry would increase the risk of a terrorist attack?
Reports written soon after the Vice President spoke at a town hall meeting in Des Moines on Sept. 7 indicated that he did. And a transcript released by the White House showed that such an interpretation was not unreasonable. However, the full story is more complicated.
As the Washington Post noted, the original version of Cheney's remarks sent to reporters and posted on the White House web site said, "(I)t's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again." (Some outlets, such as the Associated Press, had a comma between "choice" and "because," but the Federal Document Clearing House transcript uses the version cited by the Post.)
However, in an altered version sent to reporters later on Sept. 7 and posted on the White House web site the next day, the period after "hit again" was changed to a comma, linking his comments together more directly. The quote now reads, in full, that "[I]t's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war."
Given the ambiguity of Cheney's comment and the way it was initially transcribed, the Vice President did appear to be suggesting that Kerry's election would make a terrorist attack more likely. But it's also reasonable to interpret Cheney's word to mean that the "danger" is that "we'll fall back into that pre-9/11 mind set," after a "devastating" attack. Indeed, that's the explanation Cheney himself gave when later asked about it. Further supporting this interpretation, Cheney has used this same argument on numerous occasions (here, here, and here, for instance).
A number of liberal pundits attacked the Vice President without providing his full statement or noting the contradictory interpretation, even after the revised version was released. In a September 9 piece, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen quoted Cheney as saying, "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States." Because he included a comma after "hit again," it's clear he was quoting from the revised transcript. Nevertheless, the columnist omitted Cheney's full quote that would, for some readers, alter the meaning of the section he quotes. This makes it much simpler for Cohen to back up his claim that Cheney, "elevated the election to a choice not between two men or two parties, but between life and death."
Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman did the same thing the next day. She quoted Cheney as saying that if voters make the wrong choice, "then the danger is that we'll get hit again, and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating." The "and" appears to be Goodman's own invention, but nevertheless, the comma after "hit again" makes it clear she too is quoting from the revised version. She also omits Cheney's full, more complex assertion, aiding her conclusion that, "In the days leading up to 9/11 anniversary, the vice president finally raised the alert -- color it crimson -- that a vote for Kerry was a vote for terrorism." And in the September 27 issue of The Nation, Judd Legum and David Sirota from the liberal Center for American Progress make the same omission.
Then, American Prospect executive editor Michael Tomasky went even further in an online article Monday, criticizing "Dick Cheney's extemporaneous remark that a Kerry election would ensure another terrorist attack." Under any reading, Cheney said there was a "danger" we'd be hit again, not that it was assured.
If these pundits want to go after the Vice President, they owe the public a fair quotation so his words can be considered in context. Cheney's point is not necessarily as simple as they make it appear.
Update (9/16): A version of this post appeared in our Philadelphia Inquirer column today.
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By Bryan Keefer
A new ad from the Bush/Cheney campaign continues a pattern of distorting Sen. John Kerry's record by presenting votes on large appropriations and budget bills as if they were votes cast specifically on individual provisions contained in those bills.
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The Bush campaign released the ad last Thursday to counter criticism by Kerry and other Democrats over an automatic increase in Medicare premiums of 17.5 percent for next year. Turning the accusations back against Kerry, the Bush ad claims that the Massachusetts senator "voted five times to raise Medicare premiums. Kerry voted to require premium increases, calling passage of the bill 'a day of vindication.'"
However, the "five times" claim, as the New York Times pointed out, is based on Kerry's votes in favor of large budget bills between 1985 and 1997 that included numerous changes not just to Medicare, but to other federal programs as well.
Bush's quotation of Kerry is equally misleading. Kerry was speaking about passage of the massive Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which made dozens of changes to several different federal entitlement programs, including the provision which triggered the automatic 17.5 percent increase this year. On the Senate floor, Kerry noted that "this is a day of vindication for Americans who believe, as Democrats have proven, that it is vital to balance the federal budget and extend health care to children, provide broader educational opportunities, ensure the future for our senior citizens and safeguard our environment." By snipping a small piece out of that quotation, the Bush campaign suggests that Kerry was speaking about Medicare premium increases, when his comment actually applied to a much broader set of proposals.
While the ad's charges are technically true in some limited sense, Bush's depiction of Kerry's votes and statement about the 1997 bill are directly misleading. The Bush campaign has employed this tactic on a number of occasions this campaign season to attack Kerry's record, particularly on defense issues and taxes. (For more on this tactic, see chapter ten of All the President's Spin.)
Such distortions have become a sad signature of Campaign 2004.
Update (9/16): A version of this post appeared in our Philadelphia Inquirer column today.
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