Kerry team, DNC hit Bush on Guard issue

By Patrick Healy and Rick Klein, Globe Staff  |  September 10, 2004

NEW ORLEANS -- The Kerry campaign and leading Democrats yesterday launched a new line of attack aimed at President Bush's character, using military veterans and political allies to accuse him of skirting his National Guard service requirements during the Vietnam War and charge that such behavior foreshadowed Bush's "dishonesty" in justifying the invasion of Iraq.

Advisers to Democratic nominee John F. Kerry said they helped craft the battle plan with the Democratic National Committee but were leaving it to the DNC to execute to keep Kerry publicly above the fray and focused on criticizing the incumbent's leadership -- as he did in a speech in New Orleans yesterday where he compared Bush's policies to racist "Jim Crow" laws.

For the second day in a row, the DNC held a conference call with reporters on newly disclosed documents about Bush's service, with Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and Richard Klass, a retired US Air Force colonel, repeatedly questioning the incumbent's "character" and "honesty."

"If the president will lie about this, will he lie about how we got into Iraq, for example?" Harkin said. "This goes right to the heart of the character and the truthfulness of the current occupant of the White House."

A group of veterans in West Virginia, organized by the DNC, also held a news conference yesterday to challenge Bush's Guard record, and veterans in Pennsylvania and Ohio plan to do the same today. More such events are planned in other battleground states, DNC adviser Howard Wolfson said yesterday. He said criticism will continue almost daily, "at least until Bush himself answers these questions about his service directly."' Last spring, Kerry said that he would not question Bush's decision to serve in the Guard instead of going to Vietnam but that he would challenge the president on whether he had fulfilled his Guard obligations.

Earlier this week, the Globe reported that Bush had failed to meet specific training requirements required in documents he had signed in 1968 and 1973 as a member of the Texas Air National Guard.

On Wednesday, CBS News broadcast an interview with Texas lobbyist Ben Barnes, who said that in 1968, when he was speaker of the Texas House, he had helped Bush gain entry into the Guard at the urging of a Bush family friend. Barnes, now a fund-raiser for Kerry, said he had helped many other sons of prominent Texas families join the Guard so that they could avoid being sent to Vietnam.

CBS also produced documents that appeared to show that in 1973 Bush's superior officer complained of being pressured to "sugar-coat" an annual officer evaluation for Bush even though Bush had not been at the base for the year in question.

The Washington Post, in today's editions, quoted specialists as saying those documents include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter. The Post contacted several independent specialists who said they appeared to have been generated by a word processor. An examination of the documents shows that they are formatted differently from other Texas Air National Guard documents whose authenticity is not questioned, the Post said.

CBS News released a statement yesterday standing by its reporting, saying that each of the documents "was thoroughly vetted by independent experts, and we are convinced of their authenticity." The statement added that CBS reporters had verified the documents by talking to unidentified individuals who saw them "at the time they were written."

The White House yesterday accused the Kerry camp of directly coordinating attacks on Bush's record to try to shake up the race given recent national polls showing Bush had pulled ahead of Kerry 54 days before the election.

"It's not surprising that you see a coordinated effort by Democrats to attack the president when Senator Kerry is falling behind in the polls," Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, told reporters on Air Force One. "These are the same old recycled attacks that we see every time the president is up for election."

Both candidates avoided direct mention of the Guard controversy as they campaigned across three battleground states yesterday, with Kerry passing up three chances to comment, saying only, "That's for the White House."

Instead, the Democratic presidential nominee delivered a withering critique of Bush's leadership before a gathering in New Orleans of the predominantly black National Baptist Convention, where he mixed civil rights and religious imagery to try to energize black supporters.

"Our dream is dim and denied in the Washington of today," Kerry said. "The fact is, the wrong choices of the Bush administration -- reduced taxes for the few and reduced opportunities for the middle class and those struggling to join it -- are taking us back to two Americas, separate and unequal. Our cities and communities are being torn apart by forces just as divisive and destructive as Jim Crow -- crumbling schools robbing our children of their potential, rising poverty, rising crime, drugs, and violence."

"I also know that George Bush has asked the question, 'Does the Democratic Party take African-American voters for granted?' " Kerry said of a remark by Bush to the National Urban League in July. "Well, here is my answer. The Book of Matthew reminds us, 'Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing.' "

Bush campaigned yesterday in Pennsylvania, a state he lost to Democrat Al Gore by about 4 percentage points in 2000 and that has seen its base of manufacturing jobs shrink since Bush was elected. The president predicted that voters will reject the "hidden Kerry tax plan," which he said would stifle growth.

"He wants to give more power to Washington by raising taxes," Bush said in Colmar, Pa., where he spoke in a warehouse owned by Byers' Choice, a company that makes products with Christmas themes. "If you have a job, he voted for higher taxes on you. . . . The good news is, on the second of November, you have a chance to vote."

Kerry also came in for a slashing rebuke from independent candidate Ralph Nader, who said at a Washington breakfast yesterday that the nominee was receiving terrible advice from his campaign strategists to talk too much about Iraq.

"The Democrats are going to lose this election, and they are going to lose it for reasons unrelated to this [Nader] candidacy," Nader said. "Even though this is the most vulnerable administration in many years, they're not letting him [Kerry] think for himself."

Yesterday marked one month since Kerry held a news conference with reporters traveling with him, despite pledging in August that as president he would hold "a press conference at least once a month to talk to the nation about what I'm doing, because I don't have anything to hide." Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter denied that the candidate was avoiding the media at a time when polls are going against him.

"He's concentrating on delivering his message right now to voters -- today it's Medicare, yesterday it's wrong decision on Iraq," Cutter said.

Kerry did speak with an Associated Press reporter during a visit yesterday morning in Des Moines and said twice that he believed he was going to win on Election Day. "You know, we've been through a month where we had a huge financial disadvantage to the Republicans because of the convention timings. And I think, every day, we're gaining," Kerry said.

He and his aides also shrugged off separate polls issued yesterday by ABC/Washington Post and CBS that showed Bush holding a lead of nine and seven points, respectively. In what could be a troubling sign for the Kerry campaign, more voters had unfavorable rather than favorable opinions of Kerry in both polls.

Bush, meanwhile, had a 27-point advantage in the ABC poll on the question of which candidate would be the stronger leader, and a 22-point lead on which would best handle terrorism.

Susan Milligan of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Healy traveled with Kerry, Klein with Bush. Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com.