I’ve got to give today’s MVP in debunking to Fred Kaplan at Slate.
Here, one more time, is the truth of the matter: Kerry did not vote to kill these weapons, in part because none of these weapons ever came up for a vote, either on the Senate floor or in any of Kerry’s committees.
This myth took hold last February in a press release put out by the RNC. Those who bothered to look up the fine-print footnotes discovered that they referred to votes on two defense appropriations bills, one in 1990, the other in 1995. Kerry voted against both bills, as did 15 other senators, including five Republicans. The RNC took those bills, cherry-picked some of the weapons systems contained therein, and inferred that Kerry voted against those weapons. By the same logic, they could have claimed that Kerry voted to disband the entire U.S. armed forces; but that would have raised suspicions and thus compelled more reporters to read the document more closely.
What makes this dishonesty not merely a lie, but a damned lie, is that back when Kerry cast these votes, Dick Cheney—who was the secretary of defense for George W. Bush’s father—was truly slashing the military budget…
I’m not accusing Cheney of being a girly man on defense. As he notes, the Cold War had just ended; deficits were spiraling; the nation could afford to cut back. But some pro-Kerry equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Zell Miller could make that charge with as much validity as they—and Cheney—make it against Kerry.
The whole thing is great.
P.S. In the comments to a thoughtful Obsidian Wings post, a few people have said that delegates were chanting “Hang ’em” when Kerry or Edwards (or maybe just Edwards) were mentioned. Can anyone confirm or deny? Is there a reasonable story behind this?
{ 13 comments }
James Surowiecki 09.02.04 at 8:23 pm
Ted, I think your link is wrong. I think the Kaplan article you want to link to is at:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2106119/
Ted Barlow 09.02.04 at 8:31 pm
Thank you; sorry about that.
T: Central 09.02.04 at 8:55 pm
I was just reading the Kaplan article saying to myself “I wonder why I haven’t seen any bloggers cite this yet.”
It’s the kind of thing I’d like Chris Matthews to hand Zell on-air, and wait for a response ;-)
rea 09.02.04 at 9:21 pm
“I’d like Chris Matthews to hand Zell on-air, and wait for a response”
Zell would respond by challenging Matthews to a duel again. Well, aparently Miller wants to be known as the modern Andrew Jackson . . .
Shai 09.02.04 at 11:19 pm
one problem with the networks, cnn anyway, is that they pretty much limit themselves to the talking points they’re given by the parties (statements about tone and strategy notwithstanding), and the democrats are pretty inept about making good, clear, critiques of facts that a non partisan interviewer can use in cross examination.
so basically you have america’s mayor leading a hit parade of misleading statements from the previous days speeches and the only response (other than “zig zag zell looked awfully angry”) is the “cheney supported reducing those programs too” which is a lot weaker than some of the things we’ve read here and even on instapundit, which is sad because he’s usually a pretty lame apologist for misleading statements if it will score points for the home team.
Shai 09.02.04 at 11:28 pm
I don’t know how that usually got in there. my mistake.
Shai 09.02.04 at 11:29 pm
I don’t know how that “usually” got in there. my mistake.
Tom T. 09.03.04 at 1:42 am
I honestly don’t understand Kaplan’s point. If weapon system q is a subset of appropriation Q, and one votes against Q, isn’t one voting against q? Why is that only “inferred”? Thus, when Kaplan says that “none of these weapons ever came up for a vote,” doesn’t he actually mean only that none of them came up for an individual vote? Or am I missing something?
I can’t help but point out that Kaplan elides his facts; obviously Cheney was not defense secretary at the time of the 1995 vote. I think it behooves him to be a bit more devoted to precision when accusing someone else of “a damned lie.” Somewhat similarly, the argument that “Cheney was cutting the military budget anyway” seems like an inaccurate misdirection in this context, because Kaplan’s doesn’t say that Cheney disapproved of these particular weapons systems. Indeed, if Kerry one of only fifteen senators to vote against these appropriations, it suggests that the weight of consensus was in those systems’ favor, and one might more reasonably infer that Cheney was in favor of those systems, or at least the ones at issue in the 1990 vote.
Note that I hold no brief for Miller’s speech or the particular weapons systems at issue. Those weapons may or may not have been worthwhile, and Kerry’s votes may or may not have been wise. I leave those questions for others more knowledgeable than I. I’m just suggesting that the particular tack Kaplan has taken to defend those votes strikes me as confusing and inaccurate.
Kimmitt 09.03.04 at 3:12 am
I think the idea is that one votes for or against entire bills, so pulling out one piece of a bill is disingenuous — while the legislator may have an opinion about a bill as a whole, that opinion may not apply to a given portion of a bill. About the only thing you can do is to take bills or amendments sponsored by a legislator, make certain that they were not strategic ploys, and put that forward as likely to reflect the legislator’s views.
Mischa 09.03.04 at 3:35 pm
Tom T.,
Read Kaplan’s first article–it clarifies all (or most?) of what you are asking.
Jonathan 09.03.04 at 4:30 pm
The problem of course is that the votes are an imperfect notion of opposition. Fortunately, we have much better evidence, which makes the whole Kaplan piece disingenuous. See http://vodkapundit.com/archives/006566.php Whatever his votes, does anyone doubt that Kerry was against all of these weapons? Now there may have been good reasons — the weapons may have been inferior to feasible alternatives. But Kerry has to make that argument, not the argument that he never opposed these weapons — loudly and often.
dipnut 09.03.04 at 6:53 pm
I’ve poked into this a little; here’s the scorecard, with criticism to go ’round:
Kaplan cherry-picked his Cheney quotes. He characterizes one quote as boasting about the peace dividend, but the quote itself gives no positive indication whether Cheney was boasting, lamenting, or simply stating the facts. It doesn’t make much sense to suppose he was boasting; as SecDef he didn’t control the budget, and only had limited control over allocation.
Defense budget cuts in 1992 were politically inevitable; at the same time many in Congress feared the shutdown of defense contracts in their districts during a recession. There is no reason to suppose Cheney was happy about any of this. Where he takes members of Congress to task for not cutting defense programs, he specifically complained about pork-barrel spending that didn’t serve America’s military interests as he saw them. Do you think we needed the Seawolf nuclear-powered attack submarine in 1992? Neither did Cheney. Kaplan draws the wrong conclusions, in favor of his partisan argument.
On the other side, it is disingenuous to say that Kerry voted against such-and-such a weapons system, when in fact he voted against a requisition of which that system was only a line item. Perhaps Kerry rejected the bill on balance, despite wanting the system in question. And Kerry shouldn’t take blame for cuts on which there was powerful consensus.
The problem for Kerry is, he seems to have argued and voted consistently for the least possible military spending, preferring to spend government money on entitlements and such, regardless of the situation. I say, “seems to have”; the question is open whether an examination of Kerry’s record would bear this out.
Kerry’s defense, if applicable, would be to point to instances where he argued or voted for greater military spending. Did Kerry ever oppose a military budget cut? Did he ever propose greater spending than anyone else? Did he ever demonstrate principled understanding of military needs, when arguing for a cut or reallocation?
cafl 09.04.04 at 6:38 pm
“It doesn’t make much sense to suppose he was boasting; as SecDef he didn’t control the budget, and only had limited control over allocation.” — dipnut
Control, perhaps not. Strongly influence, yes. The Secretary of Defense has a large input to budget formation by the executive branch. He certainly is the primary decision maker within the Pentagon about allocation, especially regarding weapons systems, as well as an influential voice within the administration as a whole.
Do domestic political considerations (job loss at defense contractors, e.g.) factor into these decisions? Of course, and Cheney was as capable of assessing these concerns as anyone in the Bush 41 administration. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t strongly influencing priorities and decision-making about the budget.
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