CNN's Jake Tapper Points Out How Republicans Treated John Kerry in 2004

[erpowers]

It is somewhat crazy that Dana Bash seems to have forgotten the treatment that John Kerry received in 2004.

[Nite Owl]

1. I seldom watch CNN

I don't know who Jake Tapper is but the GOP deserves for this to be discussed. Karma can be a wonderful thing sometimes.

[redstateblues]

2. Remember Max Cleland. Total hypocrisy.

The Rs are scared of Trump's appeal. The more they attack the more the wing nuts will rally behind him. The wing nuts have the same disdain for JEB! that we do. For different reasons perhaps but calling him the "smart Bush" says it all.

[tblue37]

10. And Tammy Duckworth. nd

[Enthusiast]

14. In the media, Republicans can get away with damn near anything.

The media gives Republican words more weight. No question.

Yes, it's total hypocrisy and the media acts like this hypocrisy doesn't exist.

Funny that Jake Trapper would point out attacks on John Kerry while ignoring the other, even more egregious Republican attacks on wounded veterans.

It's not only total hypocrisy, it's total bias on the part of the media.

[IHateTheGOP]

3. OMG it went way farther then that against Kerry!!

The decrepit right wing said Kerry injured himself in Nam because he knew he would run for President 40 or so years hence!!!

[mr_liberal]

4. Trump will beat his critics over the head with this

Itll be fun to watch.

Kerry would have won if it wasn't for the swiftboat attacks. Republicans won an election and got two supreme court justices doing the same thing they're criticizing Trump for. Hypocrites.

[mountain grammy]

5. Finally!

[mr_liberal]

6. Jeb Bush supported the smearing John Kerry's war record

by the SBVT (Swiftboat Veterans for Truth).

In January 2005, Governor Jeb Bush, the President's brother and Florida chairman for his 2004 campaign,[107] sent a letter to SBVT member and former POW Bud Day, thanking him for his "personal support of my brother in his re-election." In addition, Governor Bush said of the SBVT:
As someone who truly understands the risk of standing up for something, I simply cannot express in words how much I value their willingness to stand up against John Kerry.

Connections with the Bush campaign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_Vets_and_POWs_for_Truth#Connections_with_the_Bush_campaign

[drynberg]

12. Yep, Jebby has a shameful record that should haunt his posh ass, good point.

[maddiemom]

18. Until Jebbie started talking as a candidate in the National Public Eye,

I didn't realize that his reputation as the "smart brother" was only within his family, AND only in comparison to Dubya.

[sabrina 1]

7. And he didn't fight back. At least you expect it from Republicans. But now we have

Dems doing it to other Dem Candidates. Thankfully we learned from the Swift Boaters, that there needs to be a swift response to lies and distortions and negative, deceptive talking points.

Today, with Social Media and an army of supporters, what happened to Kerry could not happen, we would have destroyed the Swift Boaters.

But at that time, we were unable to go to bat for him.

Not so today, thankfully, the minute the talking points re Sanders, eg, were 'unveiled' they were instantly quashed.

[progressoid]

8. Good. Hope others also start rubbing this in their faces.

[mackerel]

9. I suppose Kerry could have challenged George Bush's purple hearts.

[montana_hazeleyes]

11. Good one!

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

13. The problem with the Republican congressman saying "You don't do that"

Is that they did exactly that to Kerry.

In Vietnam, they had what was sometimes called the "Three Heart Rule": If you got a third Purple Heart, you got to go back to the States. When Kerry got his third Purple Heart, he took advantage of this to get reassigned to a post at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. A Republican complained to me that Kerry acted improperly in taking advantage of the rule -- a true hero would have stayed in Vietnam. (I was not surprised to discover that this man had never served in the military, let alone ever been in combat.)

I asked him if he had ever read the novel Catch-22. He hadn't. I quoted him the entire bit about "Anyone who wants to get out of combat isn't really crazy." (Incidentally, I had read the novel twice, once before I went into the army, and again after I got out of the army. I got a lot more out of it the second time.)

No, Republicans have no shame about sneering at war veterans if it suits their purposes.

[Enthusiast]

15. +1! Yes, Republicans have no shame and the media aids them in their shamelessness. nt

[JHB]

17. Exactly. "You don't criticize anybody's service" BUT YOU HAVE!

Repeatedly, whenever there was the chance to drag down a Democrat's numbers at the polls.

"You don't" takes a back seat to pandering to a base that eats up ANY attack on the hated Democrats, no matter how dirty or how big a lie. Every time. That lady wasn't the only one wearing mock-purple-heart band-aids, and no one was forcing those people to wear them openly.

[Charles de Gaudless]

16. Damn Right!

And Bash suffers from Selective Memory Syndrome, conveniently.