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

So What...

[ThePilgrim]

The election is for Presedent, not head coach.

Re:So What...

[Keebler71]

Need new moderation category: "Didn't get the joke"

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.

So what

[Lars T.]

Pleasure Boat Captains for Truth: George W. Bush is no party animal. And never was.

Stop 527 Groups?

[ImaLamer]

Restricting 527 (non-profits) is bad for our "free" society.

Sure, they can be propped up by corporations and even candidates - but removing yet another voice is wrong. Think about the ads you see without 527s. All you would see is RNC, DNC, Bush and Kerry ads. And that would get really confusing really quick. Both candidates lie about the positions of the other and play on American's ignorance.

Remember, 527 status wasn't intended for Swift Boat Veterans or MoveOn. 527 status was intended to help out legitimate organizations that wanted to have a voice, while keeping them from contributing directly to candidates. It was supposed to encourage people to speak up instead of sending a check to their party.

Imagine that you are a farmer. In theory you could get with a group of farmers and create a "527" and advertise without throwing your money in the candidates pocket. Why would you do that? Because your position may not even be on their radar. Sure, you may side with [NAME] but are they really listening? Once you get your voice heard then people start to ask questions and your issue becomes important. Case in point: Swift Boat Veterans for Truth/Lying. To many of us (hopefully most of us) it didn't matter, but to them it did (we hope, again). Their screams were so loud that this became the topic of talks for weeks.

Think of 527 groups as those third party candidates that don't have a chance. If they don't run, many of those issues go un-addressed. Remember, not everyone can challenge the President and not everyone is a reporter. Sometimes the rest of us need a voice too.

To get rid of 527 groups would mean that we would rely on "journalists" when it comes to bringing up the issues we care about. How good are they at doing that now? With 527 groups, slashdotters could form a non-profit and actually take out ads. Without them, we'd have to rely on our inadequte two party system.

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:Questionable origins of the "Eddie Yost" story

[pudge]

First, jeez, lighten up. Anyone who would put this much thought into the actual truth of the story has some issues. It's a joke. Maybe it is true, maybe it is not, but either way, it's funny.

Second, we know Kerry doesn't even the names of the two star hitters on the Red Sox, thinking they are one person. That's far worse than thinking Yost played for the Sox, even if it is not true.

Third, you can't be serious about the forgeries. We know beyond any reasonable doubt that they are forgeries. Any criminal jury would have returned a quick verdict on this one. There is no open question remaining, except who did it. The only people saying they still believe they are authentic are Burkett and CBS: CBS' own experts, the secretary from the base, Killian's family and colleagues from the base, all say it is not real. If you put half the effort into investigating the memos as you have the Yost story, you would know they are forgeries.

Fourth, of course the criticisms about Kerry are about what he says, because he hasn't done anything. Kerry himself rarely talks about what he has done (except in Vietnam), because there's nothing there of interest. Further, I don't know how you can consider what Bush has done in Iraq a substantive issue, but the fact that Kerry has completely reversed his position on Iraq is not (e.g., the invasion was "the right decision" in May 2003, but now it is "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time"). How is this not substantive, when he might be taking over responsibility for the war, and we don't know where he stands on it?

Fifth, there's nothing unpatriotic about having some fun and making jokes. You're humourless, and that is your problem, not ours.

Yay!

[EnglishTim]

He's a True Nerd then....

Re:lighten up!

[rhild]

"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." - George Bernard Shaw

Yeah, well..

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

I dare Bush and Kerry to a Linux install contest!

You know...

[dmayle]

You know, Slashdot has been a lot more fun since they added this new humour section. I don't always find all of the jokes to be great, and I still don't get why there's an American flag for a logo, but it's still mostly amusing, nonetheless...

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

[Johnny Mnemonic]

There's a problem with that, and it's called the First Amendment. While I believe that financial contributions are not the equivalent of speech, and can therefore be regulated, I do think that speech equals speech. Stopping the free and unregulated voicing of support is extremely problematic.

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]

---
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.
---

Which, of course, is why it was impossible for you to post the above anti-government message.

Cognitive Dissonance. Say it slowly while looking in your mirror.

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

[b-baggins]

---
Everyone is interested in restricting 527s.... as long as the 527 in question represents someone of the oposite political background.
---

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.

Sad Truth

[ltsmash]

It's unfortunate, but this article should not be in the "Funny" section. Most experts on politics agree that having a "macho" images is very important for both of the candidates. So, while we all laugh at this, a lot of swing voters will pick the guy who seems more "manly".

This is probably going to get modded as flame bait, but compare how many photo-ops that Bush and Kerry have showing them doing some sort of physical activity, and then see how many they have posing with groups that demand truth about the Iraq war and 9-11, truths that many of us consider sacred.

The point is, you're blind to American politics if you write physical image off as inconsequential.