The Slate just posted an excellent piece on how the GOP is trying to screw with John Kerry's voting record. I'm not talking about their attacks on his patriotism, but rather that they are just trying to make shit up. The latest analysis by slate, which is brilliant, talks about what the Republicans say Kerry voted for as opposed to the facts.
As the article so plainly points out, Kerry did not vote to reduce intelligence spending, or vote to reduce defense spending in general. In fact, the opposite is the case. Kerry voted several times to actually repeal any mandatory cuts in defense spending and oftentimes made sure that the Republicans(of all people) did not cut national defense spending. The times where he did vote to cut defense spending, the majority of the Senate was on his side.
As Slate points out, Kerry voted for reductions which were suggested by George Bush the elder and by Dick Cheney. This is another classic case of the right wing trying to have it both ways and purposely misleading the public about the record of an elected official. Everyone remembers the famous "seaweed" ad which they ran against Paul Wellstone in which they criticized him for voting for a bill which would spend $800,000 researching seaweed and its benefits. Of course, the GOP failed to mention that this was a large appropriations bill which had as its total budget several hundred billion dollars. They also failed to mention that then chairman of the RNCC, Bill Frist, also voted for the bill, along with 82 other senators. This is the game of politics, tough as it comes, plenty of strings, but no boundaries.
