Breaking news on Kerry

1971 Photo of Kerry Doctored


By Michael Rothfeld
Staff Writer


As a 20-year-old photographer documenting the country's struggle over the Vietnam War, Ken Light snapped the picture of John Kerry at a peace rally in Mineola. It captured the future senator alone at a podium, squinting into the sun.

Light did not photograph Jane Fonda on that warm June Sunday in 1971. The actress, who is reviled by many Vietnam veterans for her vocal stance against the war, did not even attend.

But when opponents of the Democratic presidential hopeful began e-mailing Light's picture to one another four days ago, it depicted Fonda standing by Kerry's side. The photo had been doctored.

"I'm horrified," said Light, 52, who grew up in East Meadow and now heads the graduate photojournalism program at the University of California at Berkeley. "I think this kind of alteration is probably one of the scariest forms of trickery, particularly when it's done against a political candidate."

Dag Vega, a spokesman for Kerry's campaign, said, "The smear tactics have started already."

Kerry, who co-founded Vietnam Veterans Against the War, spoke at the Register for Peace Rally on June 13, 1971, when thousands gathered for "the largest anti-war demonstration ever held on Long Island," according to a story in Newsday the next day. Light recalled Long Islanders of all ages sprawled across the State Supreme Court mall in Mineola, with American flags and peace symbols. Former members of Congress who attended included Bella Abzug, Allard Lowenstein and Lester Wolff. Folk singer Peter Yarrow entertained, and the rally ended with a burst of thunder and lightning.

Light, a student in Ohio at the time, took the picture of Kerry but never published it, and it sat in his files until two weeks ago when he shipped it to Corbis, his Seattle-based agent, which placed it in its online archives.

That is apparently where someone found it, and attempted to capitalize on the attention garnered by an authentic photo of Kerry and Fonda at a Vietnam-era rally -- seated some distance apart -- posted early this month on a Web site called www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com. The Web site's creator, Ted Sampley, a Vietnam veteran from North Carolina, said he received the doctored photo by e-mail on Wednesday from a woman in Richmond, Va.

"Thought you might want to include this pic on your site," said the note from Loree Siemek, with an attachment called "HanoiJohn.jpg," a takeoff on "Hanoi Jane," the derisive nickname given to Fonda by her critics during the Vietnam era. It is made to look like a newspaper clipping, headlined "Fonda Speaks to Vietnam Veterans at Anti- War Rally," with an Associated Press photo credit. Sampley said he was immediately skeptical, and e-mailed it to some friends who concluded it was faked. He did not post it.

"I looked at it and it didn't feel right," Sampley said in an interview. "It just looked too good."

Siemek, 34, reached by phone, said she found the picture on a conservative Internet message board and had no idea it was phony.

"This thing has spiraled out of control," Siemek said. "If I had any thought that photo was not real, I would never have forwarded it to the veterans' group."
 
Quote from Error 404:

You are right. LBJ, Nixon, FDR were truly titans compared to some of our more recent Presidents.
More...

ROFL!! FDR was the SINGLE WORST POS to ever be U.S. President. AND certainly LBJ's record on war, domestic spending and deficits stacks up against Bush. My advice....be wary of Texans.
 
Yes, but be more wary of people who worship former B-movie actors.

Quote from Pabst:

ROFL!! FDR was the SINGLE WORST POS to ever be U.S. President. AND certainly LBJ's record on war, domestic spending and deficits stacks up against Bush. My advice....be wary of Texans.
More...
 
A matter of trust

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: February 11, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.


Most Americans yet believe President Bush did the right thing in ridding Iraq and the world of Saddam Hussein. Yet, how we were persuaded to go to war raises grave questions about the character and competence of those who led us into it.

As we now know, Iraq had no tie to Osama, no role in 9-11, no nuclear program, no weapons of mass destruction, no plans to attack us. Its people did not threaten us and did not want war with us.

By what right, then, did we invade their country, destroy their army and inflict thousands of casualties upon their people?

Comes the answer: We acted under the Bush Doctrine, under which we will not permit the world's worst dictators to acquire the world's worst weapons. To eliminate such threats before they go critical, we reserve the right to take pre-emptive military action and to wage preventive wars.

We cannot wait for tumors to become malignant before cutting them out, Bush was saying. After 9-11, most of America agreed.

But why did Bush choose Iraq? Why not Iran, whose hand in terror attacks was more demonstrable and whose missile and nuclear programs were more advanced? Why not North Korea?

The neoconservatives – Wolfowitz, Perle & Co. – we know, had been plotting war on Iraq and propagandizing for a U.S. invasion for years. But why did Bush sign on? Why did he make Iraq the first target of his doctrine? There was no tie between Saddam and 9-11, and Iraq seemed neither a grave nor an imminent threat.

What appears to have happened is this. Sometime soon after 9-11, the neocons persuaded the president that invading Iraq was the next crucial step in winning the war on terror and evil in which Divine Providence had chosen him to be the Churchill of his generation. And if the country and Congress were unconvinced of the need for war, it was his job to convince them.

And here is where the administration began to cross the line. To persuade us that Saddam was a mortal threat to which the only recourse was war, they needed evidence. But, apparently, there was little or no hard evidence to be had. No smoking guns. Saddam had been corralled in his box for a dozen years. America had flown 40,000 sorties over his country without losing a plane.

The only case that could be made was by extrapolating from the weapons Iraq had had before the Gulf War, which the U.N. had failed to find before it left in 1998. What seems to have happened is this.

Frustrated hawks in the Pentagon, impatient with the CIA's inability to find the evidence to clinch the case for a war they had already decided on, began demanding access to raw intelligence.

They set up their own intelligence unit in the Pentagon, the Office of Special Plans. They solicited foreign intelligence agencies and Iraqi exiles to discover evidence that Saddam not only had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, he was working on nuclear ones.

First, they decided on war. Then they sent everyone out on a global scavenger hunt to find the evidence to prove we had no alternative but war. And though the information that came back was suspicious and the sources suspect, at least it pointed, as desired, in the right direction.

And, so, the hawks fed it to their propagandists in the press and "stovepiped" it to the White House, where it soon began to appear in the statements and speeches of the president and his War Cabinet.

Thus, we were told an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague had met with Muhammad Atta before 9-11, that Saddam was buying raw uranium for atomic bombs in Africa, that Iraq was testing drones and fitting them with biological weapons.

Vice President Cheney told "Meet the Press" that Saddam "has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Condi Rice warned us that if we waited too long for proof it might come in a "mushroom cloud" over an American city.

Upon such "evidence," the White House stampeded Congress and the country into war, a war we now know was utterly unnecessary. We were misled, and the only question that lingers is: Were we deceived?

For if Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and the president were truly relying on the ambiguous intelligence the CIA was providing, whence came their absolute certitude as to the gravity and immediacy of the threat? For the CIA was saying there was no imminent threat.

History will record this as Bush's War. And he seems content with that judgment. But the price of victory has been the lost trust of many of his countrymen and of much of the world. The credibility of yet another administration has been compromised. Was it worth it?

And if it was not the weapons, what was the real reason America went to war on Iraq?


Patrick J. Buchanan
 
Quote from Pabst:

ROFL!! FDR was the SINGLE WORST POS to ever be U.S. President. AND certainly LBJ's record on war, domestic spending and deficits stacks up against Bush. My advice....be wary of Texans.
More...

No surprise you are not a fan of FDR.

But assume you are right. Let's say he WAS a "POS". Does this change the fact that he was a larger than life character?

That was the context of the post. Not whether he was a good or bad President. There will always be disagreement as to the public's perception of every President.

Somehow, though, FDR WAS elected four times. So I guess he had some supporters.

Why do you think he was a "POS"? (briefly).

Glad to see you back Pabst.

Peace,
:)RS
 
Quote from ARogueTrader:

Yes, but be more wary of people who worship former B-movie actors.
More...

I thought you Californians were very enlightened with your gubernatorial picks the past few decades.:D
 
Quote from ARogueTrader:

A matter of trust

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: February 11, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Most Americans yet believe President Bush did the right thing in ridding Iraq and the world of Saddam Hussein. Yet, how we were persuaded to go to war raises grave questions about the character and competence of those who led us into it.

As we now know, Iraq had no tie to Osama, no role in 9-11, no nuclear program, no weapons of mass destruction, no plans to attack us. Its people did not threaten us and did not want war with us.

By what right, then, did we invade their country, destroy their army and inflict thousands of casualties upon their people?

Comes the answer: We acted under the Bush Doctrine, under which we will not permit the world's worst dictators to acquire the world's worst weapons. To eliminate such threats before they go critical, we reserve the right to take pre-emptive military action and to wage preventive wars.

We cannot wait for tumors to become malignant before cutting them out, Bush was saying. After 9-11, most of America agreed.

But why did Bush choose Iraq? Why not Iran, whose hand in terror attacks was more demonstrable and whose missile and nuclear programs were more advanced? Why not North Korea?

The neoconservatives – Wolfowitz, Perle & Co. – we know, had been plotting war on Iraq and propagandizing for a U.S. invasion for years. But why did Bush sign on? Why did he make Iraq the first target of his doctrine? There was no tie between Saddam and 9-11, and Iraq seemed neither a grave nor an imminent threat.

What appears to have happened is this. Sometime soon after 9-11, the neocons persuaded the president that invading Iraq was the next crucial step in winning the war on terror and evil in which Divine Providence had chosen him to be the Churchill of his generation. And if the country and Congress were unconvinced of the need for war, it was his job to convince them.

And here is where the administration began to cross the line. To persuade us that Saddam was a mortal threat to which the only recourse was war, they needed evidence. But, apparently, there was little or no hard evidence to be had. No smoking guns. Saddam had been corralled in his box for a dozen years. America had flown 40,000 sorties over his country without losing a plane.

The only case that could be made was by extrapolating from the weapons Iraq had had before the Gulf War, which the U.N. had failed to find before it left in 1998. What seems to have happened is this.

Frustrated hawks in the Pentagon, impatient with the CIA's inability to find the evidence to clinch the case for a war they had already decided on, began demanding access to raw intelligence.

They set up their own intelligence unit in the Pentagon, the Office of Special Plans. They solicited foreign intelligence agencies and Iraqi exiles to discover evidence that Saddam not only had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, he was working on nuclear ones.

First, they decided on war. Then they sent everyone out on a global scavenger hunt to find the evidence to prove we had no alternative but war. And though the information that came back was suspicious and the sources suspect, at least it pointed, as desired, in the right direction.

And, so, the hawks fed it to their propagandists in the press and "stovepiped" it to the White House, where it soon began to appear in the statements and speeches of the president and his War Cabinet.

Thus, we were told an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague had met with Muhammad Atta before 9-11, that Saddam was buying raw uranium for atomic bombs in Africa, that Iraq was testing drones and fitting them with biological weapons.

Vice President Cheney told "Meet the Press" that Saddam "has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Condi Rice warned us that if we waited too long for proof it might come in a "mushroom cloud" over an American city.

Upon such "evidence," the White House stampeded Congress and the country into war, a war we now know was utterly unnecessary. We were misled, and the only question that lingers is: Were we deceived?

For if Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and the president were truly relying on the ambiguous intelligence the CIA was providing, whence came their absolute certitude as to the gravity and immediacy of the threat? For the CIA was saying there was no imminent threat.

History will record this as Bush's War. And he seems content with that judgment. But the price of victory has been the lost trust of many of his countrymen and of much of the world. The credibility of yet another administration has been compromised. Was it worth it?

And if it was not the weapons, what was the real reason America went to war on Iraq?


Patrick J. Buchanan
More...
Nice commentary by Buchanan. He generally cuts thru the pap and gets to the core of issues, and unlike just about all others is willing to ask the hard questions and make his fellow conservatives uncomfortable with the truth.
 
I doubt we really find out what happened inside the Bush administration until he is out of power. We got a glimpse from O'Neil, and you saw the hatchet job they did on him.

My gut tells me that history will not view Bush's presidency kindly.

If nothing else, the "leadership" we saw following 911 will probably shown for the over-reaction it really was.

Hard to believe 20 lunatics with box cutters could put such events in motion.

Why Americans are so afraid of terrorism is beyond me. I guess now that communism is dormant, the right has to have something to keep people in fear.

Quote from Magna:

Nice commentary by Buchanan. He generally cuts thru the pap and gets to the core of issues, and unlike just about all others is willing to ask the hard questions and make his fellow conservatives uncomfortable with the truth.
More...
 
Quote from Maverick74:

Irma, you never answered my question. Why aren't you placing any blame on your local elected officials. Why don't you get out and vote? Surely you don't really believe there is one man in Washington running everything? Stop trying to place blame where it is most convenient for you.
More...

I do vote Maverick74. I always vote and always have. You sure are a presumptuous fellow.

But you are right about one thing, I absolutely do not believe there is one man in Washington running everything, unless maybe it is Dick Cheney. It sure as hell isn't GWB.

I voted for GWB--what other choice was there? But he is not the moderate conservative he portrayed himself as during the campaign. But then, I'm not sure what he is.

Irma
 
The Buchanan commentary is probably pretty close to the mark. Let's not forget however that Saddam was very close to having nukes before Desert Storm. I've said this several times: I was somewhat dubious about this war, but I don't think it was totally unreasonable either, particularly in light of Saddam's confrontational behavior. Would we prefer a president who sat back passively like Clinton did after the first World Trade Center bombing, US Cole bombing and Khobar Towers bombing? Would you want to be the US president who allowed Saddam to get nuclear weapons, take over all the middle east oil fields and basically control the world economy? Or sell those nukes to terrorists?

Kerry and the Dem's have had a field day calling the president a liar, undermining our troops and encouraging Al Qaeda and Iraqi terrorists, much as Kerry and Jane Fonda encouraged the North Vietnamese to hang on until their supporters in Washington could win the war for them. At some point Kerry will be forced to answer the ultimate question--what would he be doing differently to ensure security? I doubt the voters will find his answer very impressive, except for those like ART who think the whole terrorism thing is overblown.

The Kerry intern story is a fascinating example of how the media controls the country. Every major paper has had numerous frontpage stories on a subject on which there is no evidence of misconduct whatsoever--the slander that Bush somehow had less than perfect Guard attendance. By contrast, they have avoided the Kerry scandal like poison, even though the woman's father had a juicy quote calling Kerry a sleazbag. Can you imagine the headlines if it had been Bush? Fortunately, foreign countries have an energetic press, even if we don't, and we have the alternative media, led by Matt Drudge. In the old days of JFK, the media would just refuse to touch this kind of story and , presto, it never happened. Apparently they still think they are in that world, even as they scratch their heads over declinging circulations.
 
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