Football Fans For Truth

Football Fans For Truth, a real 527 organization, has updated their site with more evidence showing that John Kerry is not a true sports fan or athlete. Among the charges: he doesn't know the name of the venerable home of the Green Bay Packers, he "throws a football like a girl," and he "can't catch a football at all." Not limiting themselves to football, they also provide plenty of evidence he doesn't know much about baseball.

Comments

Big Fat Deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so John Kerry claims to like football, but he isn't a hardcore football fan. Who cares.

I consider myself to be a NASCAR fan. I can tell you that I root for Mayfield and Kahne (despite driving a Chevy myself ;). I can tell you that I don't have much respect for Dale Junior, that I think Tony Stewart has a serious attitude problem, and that I'd love to see Mark Martin's Viagra-endorsing self win the cup again. I watch the race almost every week. But beyond that, I can't tell you much.

There are people out there who could tell you, from memory, Junior's last five wins, which tracks they were at, which months they took place. There are people who could tell you how many yards Brett Favre has passed for in his last 10 games, what team he was up against in each of those games, and who the opposing QB was.

There are people who could recite all kinds of NASCAR stats, or football stats, or baseball stats, or QuakeCon winners, because they're obsessed.

John Kerry "throws like a girl?" GWB was a freakin' cheerleader. Let's see the "Football Fans for Truth" post that on their front page...

Re:What the Fuck?

[Sailor Coruscant]

You missed the fact that it's a parody of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth campaign.

Questionable origins of the "Eddie Yost" story

[elwinc]

I've been in an email discussion about the "Eddie Yost" story -- the claim that several years ago, Kerry claimed his favorite Red Sox player was Eddie Yost, who coached for the Sox but never played there. Here's what I've dug up:

First Mention is in this 7/15/04 Peter Gammons piece. Most of it is about Baseball, but here's the relevant paragraph:

Thing called love

We have been led to cynically believe that many politicians are disingenuous and generally phony, but few will ever beat Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. This man, who changed his middle initial to be JFK and at an anti-Vietnam rally threw someone else's medals into the water, made a self-promotion appearance with Boston talk-show maven Eddie Andelman and claimed he was a big Red Sox fan from his days growing up in Groton, Mass. And at the promotion he said Eddie Yost was his favorite player.

This remarkable paragraph contains three assertions about Kerry: "middle initial", "medals", and "Yost." The first two are erroneous, and the third is not testable. "Middle initial" is false -- Kerry's middle name is his mother's maiden name, Forbes, a famous old Boston name. Gammons has an error in his "medals" story, Kerry threw ribbons over a fence; not medals in the water. You can read Thomas Oliphant's eyewitness account here or here. To summarize, Gammons makes three assertions about Kerry, and the first to are erroneous. What about the third? I don't know any way to prove a negative, but the very first mention of the "Yost" story that I can find, in Boston or anywhere else, is that 7/15 Gammons column. It's all over the blogsphere now, but Gammons has first mention. Given Gammons' other errors, I don't find it very credible.

Now just to complicate matters, Gammons brings up the "Yost" story again five days later in another column. Again, it's mostly about baseball, but here's the relevant paragraph:

So who puts the bug in candidates' ears about seeming what they are not? John Kerry last week professed to be a big fan of "Manny Ortez," then re-emphasized the phoofery by correcting it to "David Ortez." No, that was Dave (Baby) Cortez and "The Happy Organ." A few years back Kerry went on a Boston station with Eddie Andelman and said "my favorite Red Sox player of all time is The Walking Man, Eddie Yost," who never played for the Red Sox. Kerry is going to sweep New England. He's going to get 70 percent of the vote in Massachusetts. He doesn't have to be a Red Sox fan, all he has to do is not be John Ashcroft.

This time, the "Yost" story is folded in with less controversial claims. If you're an anti-Kerry blogger, this version looks less foolish, but given the first mention amongst two canards, I don't find it credible on Gammons' say-so alone. I say bring me independent confirmation or dump it.

And now a bit on the meta-story. Let me shamelessy copy the Daily Howler and quote David Broder:

In a year when war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism and looming problems with the federal budget and the nation's health care system cry out for serious debate, the news organizations on which people should be able to depend have been diverted into chasing sham events: a scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam service of John Kerry and a forged document charging President Bush with disobeying an order for an Air National Guard physical.

Almost. Ladies and gentleman, we're watching a brilliant campaign at

Re:Luckily, people don't seem to pay attention

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that it matters, but when he threw out the first pitch during the 2001 World Series, he threw from the mound and didn't bounce it. Also, he managed a marginally successful baseball team -- through he did trade Sosa -- so we can assume he doesn't have to fabricate knowledge about the sport.

He still has no respect for the Constitution and will deprive you of each and every right he deems necessary in the name of security.

Re:Mod parent up and mod me down...

[Rayonic]

> I figured this story was describing yet another baseless 527 attack on Kerry.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are far from baseless. They've already gotten Kerry to concede on a few points, and haven't had any of their accusations disproven. I mean, there's:

• Kerry's story about how Nixon sent him to Cambodia during Christmas, and how this was "seared, seared" in his memory. Only now we find out that he was never in Cambodia, and Nixon wasn't even president then anyways.
  
  
• It was also seared in his memory about when he was in Vietnam when he heard MLK Jr. was shot. Only MLK Jr. was shot months before Kerry went to Vietnam.
  
  
• Kerry has admitted that his first Purple Heart "may have" been self-inflicted (by accident). This is mainly because Kerry's journal from the time stated that they hadn't been attacked yet.
  
  
• Kerry said he got an honorable discharge before schmoozing with the North Vietnamese, but in fact he was still an officer.
  
  
• He now claims that he requested and signed up for the most dangerous job in the Vietnam War, but in actuality he tried to sign up for the safest. (After failing to get a deferment.) How do we know this? Not only because of records (swift boats were changed from easy coastal patrols to dangerous river missions after Kerry signed up). But we also have Kerry's own admission of this fact a few years ago.
  

Now, what does this say about John Kerry as a candidate in 2004? I can already hear the cries of "that was 35 years ago", but his lies and exaggerations of his deeds are very recent. I can hear the cries of "at least he went", but Bush volunteered to go to Vietnam.

But hey, at least when he was called up, Kerry didn't run off to Canada or something. Instead he took a crack at emulating his personal hero, John F. Kennedy.

Re:Luckily, people don't seem to pay attention

[b-baggins]

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Everyone is interested in restricting 527s.... as long as the 527 in question represents someone of the oposite political background.
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Actually, this is incorrect. Outside of Bush (and who is very wrong in doing so), calling for the elimination of all 527s, no one even mentioned them at all until the Swift Boat Vets came out. Then all of a sudden, all the Democrats wanted conservative 527s shut down.

I don't seem to recall the massive outcries from Republicans about shutting down moveon.org and all the other 527s Soros and the DNC have been bankrolling for the past year.

I understand that stereotypes are hard to shed, but a little research will show you that it is not the Republican party or conservatives in general who have a demonstrated pattern of trying to stifle dissenting political opinion.

The RNC wasn't the group who put protesters in a cage.