Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! - TalkingPointsMemo - Shrub's TANG fixer, etc

[TacticalPeek]

(August 27, 2004 -- 05:27 PM EDT // link // print)

You'll want to link through to this one -- it's a video clip of Ben Barnes, the former Speaker of the House in Texas, the guy who got President Bush into the Texas Air National Guard.

I'm told the tape is from a recent Kerry rally and in it Barnes says the following ...


Let's talk a minute about John Kerry and George Bush and I know them both. And I'm not name dropping to say I know 'em both. I got a young man named George W. Bush in the National Guard when I was Lt. Gov. of Texas and I'm not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. And I got a lot of other people into the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do, when you're in office you helped a lot of rich people. And I walked through the Vietnam Memorial the other day and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been because it was the worst thing that I did was that I helped a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard and I'm very sorry about that and I'm very ashamed and I apologize to you as voters of Texas.


Now, I don't know what Ben Barnes looks like. And I do not independently know the provenance of the tape. But I've spoken to two sources who know Barnes. And they tell me that that is Barnes on the tape.

One of those two men is Jim Moore -- co-author of Bush's Brain . Moore told me this afternoon that the clip is from June 8th of this year, at a Kerry rally in Austin. Moore assures me that the tape is legitimate.

I placed a call to Barnes' office and left a message with one of his assistants; but the request for comment has not yet been returned.
-- Josh Marshall


Go there for the hot links .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003360


(Snagged at Eschaton)

[tishaLA]

1. Beautiful!

But where was Kerry on Christmas eve, 1968? :eyes:

[dennis4868]

3. Almost 1000 soliders dead in Iraq.....

but where was Kerry on Christmas eve 1968? :-(

[hlthe2b]

2. Majority Report just played this clip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can only hope someone makes a tv ad of this!

[TacticalPeek]

4. More transcription from Atrios:

Cut to Interview:
"John Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam. And that was a pretty courageous thing, because John Kerry could have gone on and gotten another degree. He was in a position where he didn't have to go to Vietnam. I admired that so much, that he went. But I admired even more the fact that he came back talking about Vietnam and what a mistake it was. A matter of fact he talked about it so much that he got the FBI looking at him and got on Richard Nixon's list. And that took, that takes a lot of courage of a young man who particularly has an interest in politics and that wants to serve this county to go get on the President's black list. And I know a little bit about that because I got on Richard Nixon's black list also, and that's a story for another time. But it's, it's incredible that John Kerry, uhh, had the courage to go do that. And, you know, I think he deserves to be in Profiles of Courage for his service in Vietnam. But I also think, and I'm not upset with him at all that he came back and, and, talked about Vietnam and said that we were wrong. And I think he deserves equally as much credit for that as he does fighting. We should not look upon anyone that disagreed with our Vietnam policy as being unpatriotic. As we should not look upon anyone today that disagrees with our policy, or our lack of policy in Iraq. I am very unhappy with Republicans that want to make anyone that questions this administration's policy in Iraq is, is not being a freedom loving American."


Cut back to him speaking to the audience:
"And I tell you, for the Republicans to jump on John Kerry and say that he's not a patriot, after he went to Vietnam and was shot at and fought for our freedom and came back here and protested against the war - "he's a flip flopper." Let me tell you, John Kerry is 100 times a better patriot than George Bush or Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld."

[Gothmog]

5. Barnes has been quoted on several occasions

This is somewhat old news. Barnes was quoted as stating that he fixed it for Bush several years ago. It is nice to have it on tape. This could be a good commercial.