THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
August 2004, Week One
Page Three
- August 6: Reporters David Swanson and Joseph Galloway have written a haunting, three-part series that follows a group of Marines, Echo Company, throughout a harrowing offensive in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, a hotbed of insurgency. The articles can be found through the links below. (Knight-Ridder/, Knight-Ridder, Knight-Ridder)
- August 6: Bush tells an audience, "We actually misnamed the war on terror. It ought to be the Struggle Against Ideological Extremists Who Do Not Believe in Free Societies Who Happen to Use Terror as a Weapon to Try to Shake the Conscience of the Free World." (AllHatNoCattle)
- August 6: The nonpartisan Web site FactCheck disproves the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth allegations that John Kerry fraudulently acquired his medals for bravery and wounds in Vietnam. One of the accusers says he was on another boat "a few yards" away during the incident which won Kerry the Bronze Star, and witnessed nothing out of the ordinary, but the former Army lieutenant whom Kerry plucked from the water that day, Jim Rassman, backs Kerry's account. Rassman, a Republican, will write in an August 10 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that Kerry risked his own life to save Rassman when Rassman fell overboard during a heated firefight; he says the ad attacking Kerry was "launched by people without decency"who are "lying" and "should hang their heads in shame." And on August 19, Navy records came to light which contradict the accusers' tales. One of the veterans who says Kerry wasn't under fire was himself awarded a Bronze Star for aiding others "in the face of enemy fire" during the same incident.
- IRS records show that the funding for the SBVT comes largely from a Texas donor with strong ties to the local and national Republican parties, home builder Bob Perry of Houston.
- The allegations are myriad and damning in their allegations, but can be shown to be false on their face. For one, Kerry's former commanding officer, George Elliot, who has gone back and forth with either accusing Kerry of lying or withdrawing his comments, now says that Kerry won his Silver Star for, in Elliot's characterization, shooting a wounded Viet Cong in the back. Kerry admits shooting the VC from behind, but adds that the VC in question was turning to fire a rocket launcher at the Americans. But according to Navy documents, the shooting isn't why Kerry was awarded the medal. According to the citation signed by Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the legendary commander of the Swift Boats units that Kerry was a part of, Kerry led two aggressive assaults on enemy positions, including one very dangerous landing party where Kerry charged a VC emplacement. Another citation, signed by Admiral John Hyland, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, says of the first, river-based assault, "this daring and courageous tactic surprised the enemy and succeeded in routing a score of enemy soldiers."
- The second assault, also led by Kerry, describes the landing party: "With utter disregard for his own safety, and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his boat only ten feet away from the VC rocket position, and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy." Kerry was cited for "extraordinary daring and personal courage...in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire." In 1996, Elliot wrote in support of Kerry, "I ended up writing it up for a Silver Star, which is well deserved, and I have no regrets or second thoughts at all about that.... [It] was pretty courageous to turn into an ambush even though you usually find no more than two or three people there." Now Elliot says, "I have chosen to believe the other men [the SBVT accusers]. I absolutely do not know first hand." On August 22, another Swift Boat commander, William Rood, says he personally witnessed Kerry's bravery, and disputes SBVT founder John O'Neill's version as absolutely false.
- Another allegation is that Kerry's citation for the Bronze Star, and the simultaneous awarding of his third Purple Heart, which allowed Kerry to be cycled home, was false. Here Rassman counters the allegations. Former Navy enlisted man Van O'Dell, who says he was the gunner on another Swift Boat, claims that he was "a few yards away" from Kerry's boat on March 13, 1969, when Kerry pulled Rassman from the water. According to the official medal citations, Kerry's boat was under enemy fire at the time, and Kerry had been wounded when an enemy mine exploded near his own boat. O'Dell insists "there was no fire" at the time, adding: "I did not hear any shots, nor did any hostile fire hit any boats" other than his own, PCF-3. Others in the ad back up that account. Jack Chenoweth, commanding PCF-3, says Kerry's boat "fled the scene" after a mine blast disabled PCF-3, and returned only later "when it was apparent that there was no return fire." And Larry Thurlow, who says he commanded a third Swift Boat that day, says "Kerry fled while we stayed to fight," and returned only later "after no return fire occurred." Damning allegations if true. But eyewitness and Naval accounts disprove the allegations. For one, Thurlow, who says that only his boat was under fire, was also cited that day for a Bronze Star; the citation reads that "all units began receiving enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire from the river banks." Thurlow now claims that the citation was wrong.
- Rassman also disputes the SBVT story. According to his own account, Rassman was blown off the back of his and Kerry's Swift Boat, PCF-93, by a mine explosion. Rassman tried his best to avoid heavy sniper fire while in the water, but had given up on being rescued when he realized that all of the boats had moved off. According to Rassman, Kerry must have seen Rassman in the water, and ordererd his driver, Del Sandusky, to turn the boat around and head back, braving enemy fire, to rescue Rassman. He writes, "John, already wounded by the explosion that threw me off his boat, came out onto the bow, exposing himself to the fire directed at us from the jungle, and pulled me aboard." Rassmann says he recommended Kerry for the Silver Star for that action, and learned only later that the Bronze Star had been awarded instead. "To this day I still believe he deserved the Silver Star for his courage," he writes. "I am a Republican, and for more than 30 years I have largely voted for Republicans." But Kerry "will be a great commander in chief." Of the SBVT, Rassmann writes, "This smear campaign has been launched by people without decency. Their new charges are false; their stories are fabricated, made up by people who did not serve with Kerry in Vietnam." Another eyewitness, the machine-gunner on another Swift Boat in the firefight, distinctly recalls all the boats being under fire. Allegations that Kerry "fled" are thoroughly disproven.
- The SBVT disputes the citation for Kerry's third Purple Heart; according to them, Kerry received the wound in his left buttock because of his own poor throw of a grenade which went off too close to Kerry's position. Once again, the SBVT story is demonstrably false. Kerry indeed received a wound from a grenade explosion which destroyed enemy supplies and sent shrapnel into his left buttock, but that is only one of two wounds he received during the action in question. He also received an arm wound when a mine went off underneath his boat, the same mine that threw Rassman overboard. In his own remembrance, Kerry calls the arm wound a "contusion," but the citation states that Kerry was bleeding from the wound. The official citation for Kerry's Bronze Star refers only to his arm injury, not to the shrapnel wound to his rear, and says he rescued Rassman "from an exposed position on the bow, his arm bleeding and in pain." Rassmann states that Kerry's arm was "wounded by the explosion that threw me off his boat," which would make that wound clearly enemy-inflicted.
- Another area of dispute is over Kerry's first Purple Heart. According to Dr. Louis Letson, who claims to have treated Kerry's wound, the injury was not related to enemy fire, but came from Kerry's mishandling of an M-79 grenade, which went off and blew shrapnel into his upper left arm. (Kerry himself has stated that the wound was little more than a scratch, and if left up to him, would never have been reported for a medal. The citation came from his commanding officer.) Letson says "the crewman with Kerry told me there was no hostile fire, and that Kerry had inadvertently wounded himself with an M-79 grenade." But both crewmen with Kerry that day deny ever talking to Letson. Worse, Letson admits in a subsequent interview that his information about the origin of Kerry's wound comes third-hand: he says he was "just talking to my guys.... There was not a firefight -- that's what the guys related. They didn't remember any firing from shore." And though Letson insists he is the one who removed the splinter of metal from Kerry's arm, he is not the one who signed the medical record -- that was J.C. Carreon, a medical corpsman, not Letson.
- Columnist and pundit Thomas Oliphant is barely able to contain his disgust at the media's wide-eyed acceptance of the SBVT's baseless allegations. "Take the first Purple Heart," he says on Al Franken's August 26 radio broadcast. "There's a guy in the first TV commercial who says, 'I know he's lying about that because I treated him.' Say a guy like that walks into your office in a newspaper, and he says, 'I got this story for you. I treated John Kerry for that wound, and he's lying about what happened.' And you say, 'Well, Jesus, that's interesting, guy. What do you got? Anybody else back you up? You got some corroboration?' 'Well, no.' 'How about a document? You treated him. You know, maybe there's a piece of paper that says, gee, you treated him.' 'Well, no, I don't have a document. There is this document, but it says someone else treated him.' Now, at that point, the way I was raised: 'Thank you very much for coming in.' [Oliphant points to the door of the studio, indicating the exit.] You know, we've put a million stories in our wastebaskets over the years, because they don't check out. Today, we publish, or we broadcast, the mere fact of the accusation, regardless of whether it's filled with helium. That's what's changed in our business. We served as transmission belts for this stuff without ever inquiring into its accuracy." (FactCheck, Al Franken)
- August 6: Republican senator John McCain asks the White House to repudiate ads by the Bush campaign and allied groups such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that slanderously attack John Kerry's military record. He says one ad in particular, by the SBVT, is "dishonest and dishonorable," and recalls, "It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me," recalling the gutter-politics ads the Bush campaign used against him in early 2000. So far the Bush campaign has refused to repudiate the ad. The ad, to be broadcast in battleground states such as Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, features Vietnam veterans who accuse the Democratic presidential nominee of lying about his decorated Vietnam War record and betraying his fellow veterans by later opposing the conflict. "When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry," says one veteran, Larry Thurlow. Thurlow didn't serve on Kerry's swiftboat but claims to have witnessed the events that led to Kerry winning a Bronze Star and the last of his three Purple Hearts. Kerry's crewmates support the candidate and call him a hero; Thurlow will later be proven to be a liar, having been nowhere near the scene of Kerry's actions that earned him the decoration. (Thurlow himself won a Bronze Star for bravery during the same firefight that Kerry earned his; if Kerry is lying, then Thurlow himself took a Bronze Star under false pretenses, as did a third US sailor, Robert Lambert. "shouldn't Thurlow give his medal back?" asks columnist William Rivers Pitt, "[a]nd what of radarman first class Robert Lambert? Did Kerry somehow fake Lambert's claim to the award?") Asked if the White House knew about the ad or helped find financing for it, McCain says: "I hope not, but I don't know. But I think the Bush campaign should specifically condemn the ad." The Bush campaign, who boasts McCain as their campaign chairman in Arizona, denies any connection to the ad. McCain adds, "I can't believe the president would pull such a cheap stunt." (www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-mccain06.html, Truthout [cached Google copy])
- August 6: Jerome Corsi, co-author of the Swift Boat Veterans book Unfit for Command, a slanderous "biography" of John Kerry, has a checkered history as a right-wing agitator and writer. Though Corsi has gone to great lengths to hide his past, the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters has found quite a bit of information about Corsi. Corsi has a Ph.D in political science from Harvard, is vice-president of development at the US Financial Marketing Group, and is a contributor to several anti-Kerry sites through SBVT. In his writings, he has accused Kerry of treason, collusion with the North Vietnamese, Communist sympathies, and trying to destroy American democracy in favor of Communism. (Kerry in 1971 said, "I don't like Communists. In fact, I hate them. I hate all totalitarians. I'm totally dedicated to representative, pluralistic, free democracy.") Corsi is a co-founder of the extremist Web blog FreeRepublic, and has posted extensively there under the self-admitted handle "jlrc." (Fellow SBVT colleague Scott Swett posts at the FreeRepublic under the handle "Interesting Times;" the connections between Free Republic and SBVT are extensive.) The following are some of Corsi's posts at FreeRepublic, organized by topic. Spelling and punctuation are Corsi's. The Media Matters Web site links to each of Corsi's posts, but Corsi has since gone through and deleted most of them. Corsi's posts are, demonstrably, extreme in their racism, homophobia, and sheer hatred.
- Islam: "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion." "RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together." "Islam is like a virus -- it affects the mind -- maybe even better as an analogy -- it is a cancer that destroys the body it infects... No doctor would hesitate to eliminate cancer cells from the body." "Islam is a peaceful religion as long as the women are beaten, the boys buggered, and the infidels killed." "How's this as an analogy -- the Koran is simply the 'software' for producing deviant cancer cell political behavior and violence in human beings." "Think the liberal press will ever let out that these 2 were lovers -- typical Islamic boy-buggering -- older man, younger man -- black Muslims? I doubt it. Not a pretty picture, but one certain to be hidden by PC media." "Isn't the Democratic Party the official SODOMIZER PROTECTION ASSOCIATION of AMERICA -- oh, I forgot, it was just an accident that Clintoon's first act in office was to promote 'gays in the military.'"
- Catholicism: "Maybe while he's there he can tell the UN what he's going to do about the sexual crimes committed by 'priests' in his 'Church' during his tenure. Or, maybe that's the connection -- boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press." "so this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the laywers rip the gold off the Vatican altars. We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that's probably about it."
- John Kerry: "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?" "First let's undermine the US in Vietnam. Then we can go for gay marriage. When you get to be Pres. JFK-lite, there will be no end to how much of America we can destroy." "Just don't let anybody put a tablet with the Ten Commandments in front of the school where that girl wants to wear a Muslim scarf -- OH, No --- then the RATS would complain. Anti-Christian, Anti-American -- just like their Presidential Candidate -- Jean Francois Kerrie." "Kerry has a long history of Communist supporters." "Kerry offers a clear choice. Anti-American hatred." "John F*cking Commie Kerry and Commie Ted [Kennedy] discuss their plan to hand America over to our nation's enemies."
- Bill Clinton: "When is this guy going to admit he's simply an anti-American communist? Won't he and his leftist wife simply go away???? Enough already." "Hey, Bill, didn't you steal enough when you had the chance?" (02/15/2002)Clinton doesn't get it. Afganistan, and other Moslim countries, are not poor because they lack money. The culture itself is anti-modern. But then, maybe Slick did get it and he just wants to create another bork barrel from which he and his wife can draw slop." "Clinton was more interested in gays in the military than going after OBL. Clinton had Janet Rhino pushing the FBI to deport a child to Castro's nondemocratic Cuba, not searching out OBL sleepers in the USA. Clinton was too busy getting BJs in the Oval Office to do more than Wag the Dog after the Cole was hit."
- Hillary Clinton: "HELL-ary loves the Arabs so much (kiss, kiss Mrs. Arab*RAT) -- wonder how she would look in a Burkha?" "Mullah Ali'Gore-ah is very proud of his new Bin Laden beard and he hopes others in the Democratic Party will follow his lead. Hell-ary is disappointed she cannot grow a beard, but her press secretary reminds us she can still enroll in flight school." "Let the FAT HOG run!!! [regarding a possible presidential bid]" "Hellary should resign and go away. What ever happened to the people she ran over with her car at Westchester Airport? Can't anybody sue this b*tch?" "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?"
- Chelsea Clinton: "According to Talk Magazine, Chubby Chelsea had a very great adventure on 9/11 in NYC and Hell-ary had the details wrong -- oh, it was terrible." "Did the Journalist see Chubbie Chelsea among the wives. Little Katie Communist [Katie Couric] on the NBC Today show interviewed Hillary this morning and mom is worried sick about Chelsea. She was last seen in Kandahar at a Starbucks. But now, as Little Katie Communist sighed, 'Who Knows?' Even British disinformation planted reports such as this grocery crap will be useful. Anyone with information about Chubbie Chelsea's whereabouts should post it now. Mom wants to know her daughter is out of harms way. Mom also wants to be at the center of the story." "But the real question is: WHERE IS CHUBBIE CHELSEA? Is she in Kabul in danger, looking for a Starbucks? Waldo wants to know. Please, Little Katie Communist, HELP US FIND CHELSEA. THE SITUATION MAY BE URGENT." "HILLARY SAYS CHELSEA IS MISSING AND JANET RHINO DOESN'T KNOW WHERE SHE IS?"
- Al Gore: "Gore isn't available for television. He is growing his regulation length Bin Laden beard. Mullah Ali'Gore-ah, as he now wishes to be called, is focused on his new career as a pilot. 'Want to fly like bird,' he says after his stint as a professor at Columbia. 'No need to learn take-off or landing, just soar like bird and look at buildings.' As to Florida, Mulllah Gore-ah says, 'No big buildings,' dismissing the importance of the state to his future plans."
- The Media and Media Pundits: "Time to FREEP Chris Matthews of MSNBC. MSNBC is beginning to stand for 'More Sh*t, Nothing But Communism.'" "I didn't realize Little Katie Communist of the NBC Today Show knew how to hack a website. Finally something impressive from the little wimp. [responding to news that USA Today's website had been hacked and that the hackers were mocking President George W. Bush's Christianity]" "COMMUNISM -- it's simple NBC = NOTHING BUT COMMUNISM." "susan Estrogen [Estrich] -- even the voice grates. But then with supporters like her and Ted Kennedy, who needs enemies. Let Susan BLAH BLAH screatch -- only Chrissy Matthews whines better."
- Various: "Perfect Liberal -- lesbian, self-absorbed, hates America, anxious to impose her values on everybody else. [on Martina Navratilova]" "And now we get Pooh-LEFTY [Nancy Pelosi] pushed on us by the RATS as Minority Leader in the House -- here come the SanFrancisco liberals -- hope the RATS go back to focusing the debate on gay marriages and other pro-choice topics close to Pelosi's heart." "Too bad the plane didn't crash into the TV set of the NBC show 'THE LEFT WING' -- especially when Martin Sheen was 'acting.'"
- August 6: The rule in the Help America Vote Act allowing for what are called "provisional ballots" -- ballots given to voters who cannot prove their registration, or are otherwise questionable -- are proving to be virtually worthless. In a recent Chicago primary, of 5914 provisional ballots cast, 5498 are thrown away, disqualified mostly for technical reasons. Provisional ballots were created to help do away with voting problems encountered in 2000, but the provisional ballots are becoming examples of measures that actually help to disenfranchise voters. All but a handful of states have passed legislation creating some form of provisional balloting; most states adopted the new rules to make a deadline to get federal election money this year. Every state has different rules on how provisional ballots are used and applied; few states have worked out the details of how to train workers to carry out provisional balloting and other voting changes, setting up the potential for a protracted ballot-by-ballot fight in any election that is close. "You talk about testing with real bullets, this is going to be testing election reform with real ballots," said Doug Chapin, executive director of a nonpartisan election watchdog group, Electionline. Chicago elections workers blame inadequately trained poll workers for many of the problems with provisional ballots: "Training your poll workers gets harder every election," says Tom Leach, a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections. "We're laying more and more on the judges, and they're not professionals, they're senior citizens and housewives." In the Chicago primary, provisional ballot problems were more likely to disenfranchise minority voters in Chicago than white voters, exactly the problem in Florida four years ago that provisional voting was intended to address. In wards that are 80 percent or more minority members, the rate of disqualified ballots was double that of wards that are 80 percent white. "The Help America Vote Act to many civil rights organizations is not so much about enfranchising the voter," says Maria Valdez, the regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund in Chicago, "but just the opposite, limiting access." (New York Times/Free Republic)
- August 6: The Republican National Committee will allow a small number -- between 10 and 20 -- hand-selected conservative bloggers to cover the convention for their Web sites. All the bloggers have been chosen for their unwavering support of the Bush administration. In contrast, the Democratic convention allowed around three dozen bloggers to cover its proceedings; although most all of those bloggers were Democratic supporters, they spanned the range from conservative to liberal, and many were not outspoken supporters of the Kerry candicacy. (Washington Post)
- August 6: Democratic House member Henry Waxman writes a letter to Attorney General Ashcroft asking why senior Justice Department officials overruled career prosecutors to publicly charge former security advisor Sandy Berger with stealing documents from the National Archives, charges that have since been proven false. It is the practice under the law to avoid making such charges while an investigation is ongoing. He notes the dozens of times that White House officials, including Ashcroft, have refused to comment on the ongoing investigation of the Valerie Plame Wilson outing. He also notes that officials from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) repeatedly asserted this principle in a July 27, 2004 meeting with Waxman's House Committee on Government Reform. But on August 5, Waxman was informed that the DOJ had changed the policy in the case of Berger at the request of unnamed Republican officials. (House of Representatives [PDF file])
- August 6: An unabashed and unrepentant racist has won a Tennessee Republican primary and will challenge the Democratic incumbent for the US House of Representatives in November. James Hart, who believes in the phony science of eugenics, says that, if he is elected, he will work to keep "less favored races" from reproducing or immigrating to the United States. He says in his campaign literature that "poverty genes" threaten to turn the United States into "one big Detroit." Republican write-in candidate Dennis Bertrand failed to defeat Hart in the 8th District primary. "I think his beliefs are not beliefs of any party that I know of," says Bertrand. "I knew it was going to be a really long shot, but in good conscience, I had to at least give it an attempt." While campaigning, Hart sometimes wears a protective vest and carries a .40-caliber pistol, but he said he has run into no trouble. "When I knock on a door and say white children deserve the same rights as everybody else, the enthusiastic response is truly amazing," he says. If a black person opens the door, he says he simply drops off campaign literature and leaves. (AP/CommonDreams)
- August 6: Televangelist and conservative political operative Reverend Jerry Falwell blames the new round of IRS investigations into his tax-exempt church and political-religious organizations on what he calls "left-wing thugs." He says he intends to hold a conference in September with pastors from conservative, politically active churches to explain to them what they can and cannot do, politically, under tax laws. "We're going to be careful not to break the law," Falwell says, "but we are also going to be careful not to be intimidated by left-wing thugs, not to let them intimidate evangelical pastors into silence." Reverend Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State -- a group that complained last month that Falwell was promoting President Bush's candidacy -- says, "The scriptures say, if the blind lead the blind, they both will fall into the ditch. Or in this case, into the hands of the IRS." (Washington Post)
- August 6: Economist and columnist Paul Krugman says that one of the biggest advantages enjoyed by the current crop of conservatives is that their opponents generally fail to recognize just how radical they truly are. "For four years now, some of us have been saying, whether or not you think they're bad guys, they're certainly radical," he says. "They don't play by the rules. You can't take anything that you've regarded as normal from previous US political experience as applying to Bush and the people around him. They will say things and do things that would not previously have made any sense -- you know, would have been previously considered out of bounds. And for all of that period, the critics have been told: 'Oh, you know, you're overreacting, and there's something wrong with you.' ...It scares me sometimes how blind people are. I first started talking about the Bush cult of personality early last year, although it was sort of obvious even before that. And I got slammed for that. What are you talking about? You are crazy, descending into madness, I think somebody wrote. And then, just a few months later, we had Operation Flight Suit, which was beyond anything even I thought they would try to do." Of the presidential campaign, he says, "You have to expect that it's going to be the dirtiest campaign in American history, and so it's proving. We probably ain't seen nothing yet." Of the media's overt favoritism towards conservatives, Krugman says, "Reporters and producers know very well that if they do anything that can be construed as an unfavorable misrepresentation of Republican positions, there will be hell to pay, while misrepresenting what Democrats say is cost-free. Historically, there has been no punishment. Specific examples are not all necessarily cases of deliberate slanting of the news, but they sometimes are. For the most part, it's simply asymmetric threats -- it's safe to be snarky about Democrats, but to play it safe, you have to be extremely respectful towards Republicans." (Buzzflash)
"Tribal sovereignty means that; it's sovereign. I mean, you're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities." -- George W. Bush, August 6, 2004
- August 7: NBC's Washington bureau chief, Tim Russert, testifies before the Patrick Fitzgerald grand jury investigating the leak that outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. NBC, like other media outlets and their reporters subpoenaed by Fitzgerald, had wrestled with fighting the subpoena. The legal ground for any resistance is slim, constrained by the 1972 Supreme Court decision in Branzburg v. Hayes that ruled a journalist's pledge to protect an anonymous source must give way to a grand jury subpoena. While some lawyers, particularly Time's Floyd Abrams, are all for fighting Fitzgerald to the end, NBC's lawyers conclude that they don't have a legal choice, and that this battle isn't worth fighting; Russert should testify. Russert gives a deposition to Fitzgerald that includes details about the July 10, 2003 phone conversation between him and Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Libby has previously testified to the grand jury, and previously to the FBI, that Russert told him of Plame's identity, and that "all the reporters know about it." Russert flatly denies Libby's story. Instead, Russert testifies, he knew nothing about Plame until he read about her in Novak's July 14 column. When he read the column, Russert says, his reaction was, "Wow. When I read that, it was the first time I knew who Joe Wilson's wife was and that she was a CIA operative.... It was news to me." Russert says the conversation between himself and Libby centered on MSNBC talk show host Chris Matthews, who at the time was angering Libby by criticizing Libby and Cheney over the Iraq-Niger uranium claim. Russert later tells colleagues that "not one word" of what Libby said about him was true. Fitzgerald now has direct testimony from one of Washington's most respected newsmen that contradicts Libby. He forges ahead with his investigation. (Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- August 7: Conservative pundit and reliable administration defender Robert Novak denies, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth organization is affiliated in any way with the Bush campaign. "They're not Republicans at all," Novak says on CNN. Novak's comments are in defense of the SBVT and their new book, Unfit for Command. He says, in part, "I've read it all. It's coming out it'll be published soon. It is a shocking presentation of Senator Kerry's record. I just couldn't believe some of the things in there -- very carefully documented. [T]hese are not partisan Republicans. They're not Republicans at all. They're naval personnel. They're not interested in George Bush. One of the authors of the book told me he would have voted for John Edwards if he were nominated. Not particular Bush fans, but they just are appalled by John Kerry." Novak is ignoring the mountain of evidence connecting authors Jerome Corsi and John O'Neill to Republican politics and the Bush campaign; O'Neill's ties to the GOP go back as far as the Nixon administration, when he was a protege of Charles Colson. But Novak is determined to paint a different picture. When Al Hunt, the executive editor of the Wall Street Journal, says of the group, "I think this is some of the sleaziest lies I've ever seen in politics. John O'Neill, one of the principal authors, has been a Republican functionary for over 30 years..." Novak shouts, "That's not true! That's a lie!" Hunt, commendably, refuses to be shouted down: "He's [O'Neill] a liar. He started with -- he started with Chuck Colson. He was a pawn of Chuck Colson."
- Novak is not the only media pundit buying into the SBVT lies, and omitting critical information in the process. MSNBC's Chris Matthews tells his viewers that one of the veterans in the SBVT's television ad, a doctor who claims "Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury," "could hurt" Kerry. "If the doctor said, 'I treated him, it was a scratch, he shouldn't have gotten a Purple Heart.' And then if he did get a Purple Heart, it just diminishes one of his medals," Matthews said. Matthews fails to note that documents prove that while Dr. Louis Lettson claims to have treated Kerry's injury, his name does not appear on the medical record as the "person administering treatment" for the injury that earned Kerry his first Purple Heart. Like the rest of the SBVT. Lettson will later be outed as a liar with no personal knowledge of Kerry's service. But the media spin has already begun. (Media Matters)
- August 7: Washington State GOP officials selected Will Baker to run against Democrat Brian Sonntag for state auditor. But once the media revealed that Baker is a convicted criminal, state GOP officials have tried and failed to get him removed from the ballot. "We are stuck with him," says Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance. "It's somewhat embarrassing. We should have been more thorough in checking him out." Baker is described by his hometown paper, the Tacoma News Tribune, as "a roadside flower salesman with a history of annoying elected officials." Since 1992, he's been booked into the Pierce County Jail 19 times, says Pierce County detective Ed Troyer. Tacoma City Councilman Kevin Phelps says Baker is a former exotic dancer, an ardent conspiracy theorist and an intelligent person "who has the ability to put a train of thoughts together -- they're just not real factual." Most of Baker's violations are for disorderly conduct. "The goal should be to find respectable candidates who run an honorable race," says Sonntag. "Holy cow, this is not what the process is supposed to be about." (Seattle Times)
- August 7: A videotape of an American supposedly being beheaded by Iraqi terrorists is a fake, an investigation shows. The videotape was made months ago by the supposed victim, Benjamin Vanderford, who says he staged the beheading at a friend's house using fake blood. Vanderford says he made the tape months ago and posted it on the Internet as part of his failed campaign for San Francisco's city council; he revived it days ago as "social commentary," he says. "It was part of a stunt, but no one noticed it up until now," Vanderford says. "I did this for a couple of reasons. One is to attract attention. But two is to just make a statement on these type of videos and how easily they can be faked." On the tape, he told the cameras before his faked murder, "We need to leave this country alone. We need to stop this occupation. Everyone's going to be killed this way." He also said that he had been offered in exchange for Iraqi prisoners. The videotape, titled "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Slaughters an American," was posted on a militant Web site and aired on Arab television, where it drew immediate media attention. Vanderford's video also showed images of disfigured and injured people in Iraq taken from a Hamas web site. A recording of the Qu'ran, Islam's holy book, played in the background. "I see how it could be considered disrespectful," he says, "but I think people, if they look at it, will understand two other big issues it brings up. A small group of disgruntled people in Iraq or Saudi Arabia could just get more attention just by easily releasing something like I did on the Internet." (AP/St. Augustine Record)
