Ben Affleck (originally aired October 2, 2004)
- Debates. President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry faced each other in the first of three debates on Sept. 30. A transcript of the debate is on-line here.
Polls showed that Kerry had narrowed the gap between him and Bush after the debates. For example, the Gallup organization reported that polls showed that Kerry and Bush both had the support of 49% of likely voters when polled from October 1 to 3, whereas polls a week earlier had showed Bush with an eight 8 percent lead over Kerry. Gallup reported that 57 percent of Americans polled said that Kerry had done better in the debate and that only 25 percent said that Bush had done better.
- Debbie Downer (references)
- Swift Boat Veterans attacks on Kerry (Kerry positions on same-sex marraige and on death penalty)
- Kerry, Carville and Clinton (the "Pottery Barn rule," Cheney comments about terrorism)
- Weekend Update
- Jokes about the debates and about Kerry's record on Iraq
- New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey announced on August 12, 2004 that he would resign effective November due to his having a homosexual affair and his desire to avoid having that affect his ability to govern. According to reports, the affair was with a man who had been hired as a state government advisor and who had threatened to sue the governor for sexual harassment. McGreevey took office in January 2001 and his term was to run until 2006.
- The first cloned sheep was created in 1996 and was publicly announced in 1997. The cloning of human embryos for research or reproductive purposes is not illegal in the United States, but calls for such bans have been made. President George W. Bush has called for a ban on cloning for any purpose and announced in August 2001 that he would allow federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells potentially useful for therapeutic cloning purposes only in limited circumstances.
- A patch for treating women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder will be reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on a "priority review," Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals announced on September 21. The press release is on-line here.
- Kitty Kelley: "The Bushes." Author Kitty Kelley's new book "The Bushes" has been attacked for, among other things, alleging that George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David while his father George H.W. Bush was president. One of Kelley's reported sources for this allegation has denied the allegation. In 1999, Bush and his spokespeople said that Bush had not used drugs for at least 25 years but did not deny any drug use beforehand. Source: CNN, Bush faces new rounds of drug questions (August 20, 1999) (on-line here).
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* Question about Iraq elections (back to top)
Questions over Iraq's progress and stability focused in September 2004 on whether Iraq can hold nationwide elections by the end of January 2005. Under the timetable approved in June 2004 by the United Nations, such elections would elect the Transitional National Assembly, a legislative body that would form an interim government and draft a national constitution to be approved later.
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who was selected to head the interim government that took sovereignty in late June 2004, said while visiting United States in September that Iraq would be ready for elections in January 2005 and that 15 out of Iraq's 18 provinces are stable enough for elections at this time.
It is unclear what will happen if the three remaining provinces - which are in the Sunni Triangle where fighting is concentrated - are stabilized by January 2005. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld indicated in a Sept. 23 hearing that elections could proceed without all provinces participating, but Secretary of State Colin Powell said on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sept. 26 that it was still the United States' goal to have completely nationwide elections in January 2005 and that this was an "achievable" goal. Powell also said that Allawi would decide by the end of the year "whether or not he is confident enough in being able to go forward." A transcript of these remarks is on-line here.
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* Reference to Kerry's Past Positions on Iraq (back to top)
Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry has long been criticized for what some call inconsistent positions on Iraq, but he arguably has maintained a belief that the United States should have had more international support in undertaking military action and reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
First, Kerry voted in October 2002 to give President George W. Bush the authority to use military force in Iraq but said at the time that Bush should not exercise that authority unless he had the support of the international community or unless Iraq posed an imminent threat. Kerry explained his vote in an October 9, 2002 speech available on-line here. "Let me be clear," he said at the time. "I am voting to give this authority to the President for one reason and one reason only: to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction if we cannot accomplish that objective through new tough weapons inspections."
Kerry expressed some concern over whether the ultimate exercise of that authority would be appropriate. He said that the United States should not go to war with Iraq unless it either :
- had the support of the international community (i.e., authorization from the United Nations) or
- there was a grave and imminent - "and I emphasize 'imminent'" - threat which required unilateral military force
"Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this," Kerry said at the time. "I will support a multilateral effort to disarm [Saddam Hussein] by force, if we ever exhaust those other options, as the President has promised, but I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible under any circumstances."
Second, Kerry voted in October 2003 against an emergency appropriations act that Bush had requested in early September. The appropriations request for $87 billion in new spending ($51 billion for "ongoing military and intelligence operations" in Iraq, $20 billion for rebuilding efforts in Iraq, and $12 billion for military and rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan) implicitly meant that the war in Iraq had already cost more than $80 billion by the fall of 2003 and would cost at least $150 billion.
Most Democrats ultimately voted in support of the request, but Kerry and 11 other senators (including Sen. John Edwards) voted against it. Both Kerry and Edwards said at the time that they were voting against the request as a protest of Bush's reconstruction plan.
The Washington Post reported in October 2003 that Kerry said that he would oppose the measure unless it was amended to reduce Bush's tax cuts by $87 billion and unless other nations were brought in to share reconstruction costs. The Senate voted to table amendments that would have made such amendments part of the request.
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* Reference to Kerry's Military Record (back to top)
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) did serve in Vietnam, where he was the captain of a swift boat and did receive a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Combat V, and three awards of the Purple Heart. Kerry received the Bronze Star for saving the life of Lt. Jim Rassman on March 13, 1969. According to the Bronze Star citation, Kerry ordered his swift boat to return upriver to assist Rassman, who was overboard. With his boat under fire and having been wounded in the right arm by a mine, Kerry "directed his gunners to provide suppressing fire, while from an exposed position on the bow, his arm bleeding and in pain and with disregard for his personal safety, he pulled the man aboard."
Kerry's military records have been posted on-line here and his after-action combat reports on-line here).
Kerry's military record has been attacked by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (on-line here), an organization comprised largely of Vietnam veterans who served on swift boats other than Kerry's. Among other things, the Swift Boat Veterans say that one of Kerry's three Purple Heart awards was the result of his own negligence rather than enemy fire, that Kerry lied about U.S. military personnel committing atrocities in Vietnam, and that Kerry lied about whether he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968 at a time when the Nixon administration said that no U.S. forces were there.
Kerry has long defended his military service and record, and attacked the Swift Boat Veterans himself in an August 19 speech (on-line here). "Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is," he said. "I'm not going to let anyone question my commitment to defending America-then, now, or ever. And I'm not going to let anyone attack the sacrifice and courage of the men who saw battle with me."
President George W. Bush has denied responsibility for the ads run by the Swift Boat Veterans, though reports have questioned some connections between the group and people affiliated with Bush and political advisor Karl Rove. Bush has said that "Senator Kerry served admirably and he ought to be, he ought to be proud of his record" (transcript on-line here), and has said that the larger problem was that organizations like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are running ads without supervision by a campaign.
Some of the criticism stems from Kerry's anti-war activities upon returning from Vietnam. In April 1971, he testified about the war before a Senate committee and later threw away the ribbons that he had with him over the White House gate. Some have criticized Kerry over the years for throwing away the ribbons, for throwing away the ribbons but referring to them as "medals" to the press at the time, and/or for not throwing away all of his ribbons and medals.
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* Debbie Downer (back to top)
Debbie makes a lot of references. Here's a look at some:
- As of October 4, 2004, British engineer Kenneth Bigley had been held hostage for almost three weeks. Bigley was kidnapped on September 16 and two men kidnapped along with him were beheaded in videos posted on-line and then shown on television.
- Several hurricanes and tropical storms have hit Florida in recent weeks and months. On Sept. 26, President George W. Bush declared parts of Florida a major disaster area due to hurricane Jeanne. He declared parts of Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia to be major disaster areas because of hurricane Ivan on September 16 and 18.
- Movie critic Gene Siskel died in 1999 at the age of 53.
- Human rights organizations and the international community have called attention to the ongoing crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, where Sudan's armed forces and government-backed militias reportedly have targeted civilians belonging to the same ethnic groups as two rebel groups. Both Sen. John Kerry and President George W. Bush called the ongoing crisis "genocide" during the first presidential debate on Sept. 30. Kerry said that he would offer logistical support to the African Union to handle the situation and would send U.S. forces to help the African Union if necessary. Bush said that the United States had committed aid and was involved with negotiations in Sudan and at the United Nations.
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* Swift Boat Veterans (back to top)
Sen. John Kerry's military record has been attacked by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (on-line here), an organization comprised largely of Vietnam veterans who served on swift boats other than Kerry's. Among other things, the Swift Boat Veterans say that one of Kerry's three Purple Heart awards was the result of his own negligence rather than enemy fire, that Kerry lied about U.S. military personnel committing atrocities in Vietnam, and that Kerry lied about whether he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968 at a time when the Nixon administration said that no U.S. forces were there.
Kerry has long defended his military service and record, and attacked the Swift Boat Veterans himself in an August 19 speech (on-line here). "Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is," he said. "I'm not going to let anyone question my commitment to defending America-then, now, or ever. And I'm not going to let anyone attack the sacrifice and courage of the men who saw battle with me."
Kerry's military records have been posted on-line here and his after-action combat reports on-line here).
President George W. Bush has denied responsibility for the ads run by the Swift Boat Veterans, though reports have questioned some connections between the group and people affiliated with Bush and political advisor Karl Rove. Bush has said that "Senator Kerry served admirably and he ought to be, he ought to be proud of his record" (transcript on-line here), and has said that the larger problem was that organizations like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are running ads without supervision by a campaign.
As for some of the claims made in the ad :
- The fake ad included a reference to same-sex marriages implying that Kerry supported such marriages. Kerry has said that he does not support same-sex marriages but does support civil unions as a legal equivalent to marriage. He did not participate in a Senate vote in July 2004 that derailed a proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, but has said that he opposed such an amendment.
- The fake ad included a reference to Sen. John Kerry's opposition to the death penalty. Kerry has long opposed the death penalty and testified against it in 1983 when Massachusetts was considering an effort to repeal the death penalty; the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court struck down the death penalty in 1984. After September 11, Kerry said he would consider death sentences for terrorism offenses.
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Kerry-Carville-Clinton Sketch (back to top)
In this sketch, Democratic advisor "James Carville" berated "Sen. John Kerry" in a sketch for not getting tougher in his campaign. Here is an explanation of some references:
- Kerry did reference the "Pottery Barn rule" in the Sept. 30 debate in explaining that he would not abandon the war in Iraq even though he believed that the military action was a mistake: "Secretary of State Colin Powell told this president the Pottery Barn rule: if you break it, you fix it. Now, if you break it, you made a mistake. It's the wrong thing to do. But you own it. And then you've got to fix it and do something with it."
Bob Woodward reported in "Plan of Attack" that Powell made this point to Bush in an August 5, 2002 meeting in order to make him understand that the United States would be responsible for rebuilding Iraq by itself if it did not have international support for taking action in Iraq. Woodward also wrote that he asked Bush about this meeting in December 2003, and that Bush's response suggested that Bush had not fully grasped Powell's argument. "As I listed [to Bush] I glimpsed what Powell had apparently seen - uncertainty that the president fully grasped the potential consequences," Woodward wrote.
- Vice President Dick Cheney has been criticized by some for comments he made on September 7 that arguably suggested that if John Kerry was elected, the United States would suffer a terrorist attack. "It'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 acts are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us," he said (remarks on-line here).
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