 Commentary
~ April 27, 2004: The Bush-Cheney campaign has produced another
television commercial it hopes will brainwash the American public
into believing Senator John Kerry doesn't support a strong military.
The dramatic "Hollywood-style" television spot shows soldiers
advancing on a desolate battlefield; tanks, missiles and fighter
planes disappearing one at a time.
An authoritative voiceover predictably says: "As
our troops defend America in the war on terror, they must have what
it takes to win. Yet John Kerry has repeatedly opposed weapons vital
to winning the war on terror: Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Patriot
missiles, B-2 stealth bombers, F-18 fighter jets and more. Kerry
even voted against body armor for our troops on the front line of
the war on terror. John Kerry’s record on national security:
Troubling."
 The
only trouble is the entire commercial is a work of fiction. According
to The Washington Post and other sources, the senator voted
for every one of those weapons systems — and 76 more —
at other times, or more than $4.4 trillion in military spending
in total. Kerry aides note that Vice President Cheney, while defense
secretary in the first Bush administration, actually was the one
to propose a long list of weapons cutbacks, including elimination
of the Apache helicopter used in Iraq.
The Washington Post article points out that,
as the Cold War was ending, both parties sought to trim defense
spending, and most of the Kerry votes in the ad are from those years.
The article also points out that Kerry never voted
specifically against body armor, and had criticized the president
for sending about 40,000 troops to Iraq without the new generation
of sophisticated armor. Body armor was contained in Bush’s
$87 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan, which the senator
opposed as a protest against the administration’s Iraq policy.
(He earlier supported the $87 billion — the subject of another
attack ad — if Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy were
dropped.)
Another important fact to keep in mind: the ad repeatedly
emphasizes the "war on terror," though many of the president's
opponents – Republican, Democractic, Independant and Green
– say the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism
and the administration has never proven a link between Saddam Hussein
and al Qaeda. In fact, they say, invading Iraq only weakened the
war on terror by spreading out America's resources and stirring
up more hatred in the region.
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