Don’t you just hate it? Whenever the Bush people think they have landed a punch on Kerry, we discover something worse from the Bush team <lol>.
NY Times
Opinion
March 16, 2004
The Actuary and the Actor
An Orwellian taint is emerging in the Bush administration’s big victory last year in wringing the Medicare prescription drug subsidy from a balky Congress. The plan is being sold to the public through propagandistic ads disguised as TV news reports, and it turns out the government’s top Medicare actuary was muzzled by superiors during the debate about the program’s price tag.
Richard Foster, one of the government’s foremost Medicare experts, says he was ordered not to provide requested information to Congress last fall when doubts were being raised about the drug benefit’s cost. The administration denies this, but a ranking former official has confirmed Mr. Foster’s story. As the bill was being considered, Mr. Foster privately cautioned that its cost could amount to as much as $600 billion, while the White House publicly stuck to the Congressional Budget Office figure of $400 billion over 10 years. The administration eventually conceded a cost of $534 billion, but only after the bill was safely signed into law.
With program in hand, the administration then attempted to rally support — and take political credit — with government-produced TV ads masquerading as news reports. Actors were hired by the Department of Health and Human Services to pose as television journalists purveying faux upbeat “news” segments about the expanded Medicare coverage. The hope is that TV stations will air them as their own. In one version, anchors are offered a script in which they promise that “reporter Karen Ryan” — an actress — will explain the details of the new drug plan.
This sleight of hand only deepens doubts about White House credibility on a complex issue. The public deserves straightforward information about the changes in Medicare, and federal agencies should not be engaging in political spin. This is no way to run a democracy nourished by information and taxpayers’ money.
Look, you’re barking up the wrong tree if you highlight the word “abroad” and not “official.” Official is when a Senator travels with all sorts of military and State Department attaches. It is quite possible that Kerry has traveled abroad in unofficial capacities.
Bottom line, this is a red herring that neither proves nor disproves anything.
My guess is that this is going to play out in the press in the next few days – leading me to think that trying to scoop the press by Googling for this sort of stuff will, at this point, likely be wasted effort. But if nothing comes to light by this weekend, I’ll be happy to look. But, does this mean that you’re accepting my wager?
Sam, you are 100% on the money. Kerry should never have said what he did.
But I remind you that the Administration, in the run-up to the war, frequently made reference to countries that allegedly supported war in Iraq, but would not name those countries for fear that they would be embarassed by their support of the US over the objections of their citizenry. The White House calling out Kerry on his stupid line reminds me of kettle, pot, etc.
Actually, I agree with you there. It wasn’t dumb for him to keep silent on exactly whom these foreign leaders were, but it was dumb for him in the first place to claim to the American public that “support of foreign governments” might be a reason to vote for Kerry. Conservatives take as their sacred cow the notion of American sovereignty, albeit to ridiculous extremes. What happens within our borders is our business, only.
Wouldn’t you agree, Sam Stone?
Although as Ravenman notes, the Bush administration is being more than a little bit hypocritical here. If Kerry were more media-savvy, he’d start trumpeting this factoid.
What does this mean? That the alleged foreign leaders don’t dare say who they are for fear the Bush administration will tell everyone who is the Prime Minister of France?
Look, his managers let Kerry off the leash, he made something up, and is now spinning. Why wouldn’t he come right out and admit who the voices in his head sound like? Because it might be improper for foreign leaders to interfere in US elections by endorsing a candidate? If you believe Kerry, that has already happened. I would hope Kerry would be honest enough to be up front about who his foreign allies are, and tell them to shut the hell up about our elections.
I would hope. It seems Kerry is claiming that they are real, but he isn’t going to reveal them. So there, nyah nyah, and so forth.
Boy oh boy. The skepticism of some people seems to ebb and flood radically based on who is sweeping back the tide.
>Of course it is. Unless you’re proposing we forget the whole Iraq-war-Saddam’s-WMD-stockpiles bit…
Unless you can prove that he knew that no WMDs were there, deliberately lied to the public, and stuck his tongue out at the Dems, you have no point there. He called Bush a “crooked” person. Can you prove 't?
Keep in mind that if there was even a fraction of a case all the liberal papers and Dems would be jumping all over him on this.
Hold on - do you think Kerry lied about talking to foreign leaders who support him, or that foreign leaders support Kerry over Bush?
The first proposition is entirely debatable, because we simply don’t know at this point who Kerry may have talked to, and what was said.
But I think that there is overwhelming evidence that there are a number of foreign leaders who do not support Bush. With the exception of Berlusconiand Putin, I have a hard time thinking of major European leaders who would be inclined to support Bush. Even Blair has got to be leaning toward, if not in outright support of, Kerry, seeing as how they have similar views on the UN and Europe, as compared to Bush, at least.
Shodan, m’man, you’re hilarious! “Kerry fibbed”. Are we to compare this with the record of GeeDubya, that paragon of candor and straight-talk? The Bushiviks are trying desperately to pump this piffle up into an issue, rather like swathing the skeleton of the Hindenburg with duct tape in hopes it will float.
And as long as we’re on the subject of veracity and truthfulness, when you get a moment could you skip over to ExJesus thread? You have an appointment there to offer proof of your contention that Clinton sold military secrets to the Chinese for campaign contributions. Given your deep and abiding respect of truthfulness, I’m sure you will be eager to clear that up for us.
The Bush administration has a reputation for retaliating against its political opponents. Why should Kerry help the president fill out his enemies list?
OTOH, Kerry extended the courtesy of accepting the administration’s claims that Iraq posed an imminent threat to America, without demanding proof. It’s only fair that the president extend that same courtesy to Mr. Kerry’s unsubstantiated claims.
Don’t you see this is a carefully laid trap? The dumbest thing for Kerry to do would be to tell the American public that some prime minister or president in Europe supports him over Bush. Can you just imagine the press the Bush Team would get out of waving around “The French Like Kerry! The Dutch Like Kerry!” – it would play right to their base. Furthermore, they can claim it is approaching sedition or treason for Kerry to seek foreign support for his movement at the time when the country is at war.
[QUOTE=athelasUnless you can prove that he knew that no WMDs were there, deliberately lied to the public, and stuck his tongue out at the Dems, you have no point there. He called Bush a “crooked” person. Can you prove 't?[/quote]
You mean besides the continued lack of WMDs in Iraq, the well-known lack of WMD evidence found by UN inspectors before the war, plus the long-publicized analysis from the CIA before the war that they didn’t believe Saddam had any sizable WMD stockpiles nor any links to al Qaeda, despite repeated statements from Bush and Cheney otherwise?
Good gravy, man, at this point in the game, the only people who believe the “George W. Bush was given bad intelligence” myth are addle-minded children, Barbara Bush, and Dubya apologists. For the rest of us, the fcats are in – the Administration was told there was no WMD threat from Iraq, and lied about it to sell a war.
Oh, you believe the “liberal media” fairy tale as well… :rolleyes:
I’m just sitting over here, waiting for the Bush campaign to address some issues. Just sittin’ and waitin’ while they preach about peccadilloes.
Kerry has challenged Bush to monthly debates on the issues, in order to turn this into an issue-driven campaign. I wonder if Bush will go for it? Or will this campaign continue to consist of Kerry pushing the issues, and the Bush machine pushing buttons?
They’ve been doing that prior to this remark. Maybe, Kerry is trying to turn that tactic to his advantage, or get more control over it. I’m not sure why he said it, but I doubt it was an unintentional gaffe; Kerry is too seasoned a politician. Anyway, every time he strikes out like this he makes a few million more in campaign contributions, so some people either believe it, and/or like that he said it.
edwino, you’re never going to see it. he Bush campaign strategy is clear already. Don’t even try to defend an indefensible record; just use the old misdirection tactics that have been backfiring on the hater right for years. The attempt will be to use his greater advertising resources to make their version of Kerry’s character the issue, not all this boring war and recession stuff.
And Sam, see, it isn’t just me who wonders why you don’t mind your own business just a little more often. In case you still harbored that illusion in your vast collection of them, that is.
Wow. That’s a stretch beyond even Mr. Fantastic’s abilities, and I’m saying this as an Asian-American.
What’s next, John Kerry can’t eat Cheese Nips while on the campaign trail?
What little respect I had for Colin Powell – which took a severe beatdown after his lying-through-his-teeth performance before the UN – just withered and died.
Ooh… We have a public debate on the SDMB, but someone who’s opinion you don’t like is not invited!
I’ll repeat what I said to the other person: Since there are tons of non-Americans participating in these threads, why don’t you ask THEM to ‘mind their own business’? Maybe you should ask the mods to make an Americans-only section where you can debate these things without the foreign riff-raff getting in the way. How come I’ve never seen you take, say, London_Calling or Collounsbury to task for their despicable foreign interventions in American business?
