Truth - Al Franken [129]
Here’s a guy that voted for the $87 billion to fund the war before he voted against it.
Kerry voted against tabling (i.e., voted for) Senate Amendment 1796 to S. 1689. This amendment would have suspended “a portion of the reductions in the highest income tax rate for individual taxpayers” to pay for the $87 billion. The amendment was tabled by a vote of 57–42.
The amendment having failed, Kerry then voted against S. 1689, which passed by a vote of 87–12.
Here’s a guy that was for the Patriot Act. Now against it.
Kerry spoke about this at Iowa State University on December 1, 2003.
No Child Left Behind, for it, now against it.
Kerry voted for HR 1, the No Child Left Behind Act, which passed by a vote of 91–8. His criticism of Bush and his pledge to “fully fund” the act was widely reported, including in the San Francisco Chronicle on May 7, 2004.
Here’s a guy that supported—was against the death penalty for terrorists who kill Americans. Now he’s for it.
As noted in the text, fair enough.
The only thing he seems consistent on is that, throughout the nineteen years he was in the Senate, he voted to raise taxes consistently 350 times.
Factcheck.org provides the documentation for my thorough debunking of this lie at www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=159. But it’s more fun to read Michael Kinsley’s March 23, 2004, Slate piece on the subject.
Chapter 6: With Friends Like Zell
For more on the unprecedentedly negative Bush advertising campaign, see “From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity,” an article in the May 31, 2004, Washington Post.
Matt Bai’s piece on Kerry was titled “Kerry’s Undeclared War” and appeared in The New York Times on October 10, 2004.
If you think it should be My Pet Goat, as opposed to The Pet Goat, then not only are you wrong, you didn’t read the notes from Chapter 3.
For more on the post-convention bounces, check out Newsweek’s web exclusive, “Bush’s Big Bounce,” published on September 4, 2004. The web address is www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5915140/site/newsweek.
The text of Zell Miller’s speech at the Republican National Convention can be found on-line at www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/01/politics/printable640299.shtml.
A transcript of Miller’s far-less-insane speech at the 2001 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner can be found at www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/09/ale04045.html.
Kerry voted for the B-1 Bomber Defense System Upgrade as part of the 2002 Department of Defense Appropriations Act. He voted for a total of more than $16 billion in authorizations for the B-2 bomber in the Defense appropriations bills from 1985 to 2003.
Then–Secretary of Defense Cheney’s cancellation of the B-2 program, as well as the story of the 1991 Defense Appropriations Act that Kerry voted against, was chronicled in Fred Kaplan’s piece “John Kerry’s Defense Defense,” published on Slate on February 25, 2004.
Cheney testified before the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on June 12, 1990.
Judy Woodruff and Wolf Blitzer challenged Zell Miller on CNN on September 1, 2004.
John McCain appeared on The Sean Hannity Show on May 12, 2004. Hannity claimed on May 13, 2004 that Kerry had “voted against every major weapons system.”
Zell Miller spoke at the 1992 Democratic Convention on July 13, 1992.
Barack Obama spoke at the 2004 Democratic Convention on July 27, 2004.
Chapter 7: How Bush Won: Queers
The Detroit Free Press reported on the gay marriage robo-calls in a November 1, 2004, article titled “Presidential Campaigns, Voters Upset About Misleading Calls.”
Thanks to Joshuah L. Bearman and Stephen Elliott for the story of the “pro-gay Kerry supporters” and the photo. Check out their full account at laweekly.blogs.com/joshuah_bearman/2004/10/how_they_do_par_1.html.
The episode of Frontline discussing the Compassion Capital Fund was called “The Jesus Factor” and aired on April 29, 2004. You can view the transcript on-line at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/etc/script.html.
The January 18, 2005, Los Angeles Times article