Gomez the swiftboater.
The fevered obsession in the GOP with 9/11 fearmongering still hasn't died, apparently. Sen. John McCain relived the bad old days of GOP fear-mongering in Massachusetts Monday, campaigning with Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez (the guy who
tried to swiftboat Obama for the bin Laden killing). It's a sign of Gomez's slipping approval numbers that he's resorting to old, tired
campaigners attacks and
fear-mongering against Ed Markey.
At a VFW hall in Dorchester with the 2008 GOP presidential nominee standing by his side, Gomez attacked Markey for voting against a 2004 resolution expressing sympathy to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and a similar 2006 measure.
“One thing that I just can’t understand is how my opponent, Congressman Markey, has voted more than once against a very basic Congressional resolution, to simply honor the victims of 9/11,” Gomez said.
There was a very good reason Markey, and 15 other members, didn't vote for that resolution. It's because it was election-year politicking that didn't just honor the victims of 9/11; it perpetuated the lie that Iraq was involved in the attacks and was the justification for that war. Here's, in part,
what the resolution said:
Whereas three years after September 11, 2001, the United States is fighting a Global War on Terrorism to protect America and her friends and allies;
Whereas since the United States was attacked, it has led an international military coalition in the destruction of two terrorist regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq while using diplomacy and sanctions in cooperation with Great Britain and the international community to lead a third terrorist regime in Libya away from its weapons of mass destruction; [...]
Markey voted against this 2004 resolution because it was politicizing the 9/11 attacks and falsely justifying Bush's war in the lead up to the 2004 election. He voted against this resolution because it perpetuated the biggest and most destructive lie of the Bush administration. Markey also repeatedly voted against reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act because, as a Markey spokeperson said, he did not support "giving permanent, overly broad powers to investigate private records without consistent oversight and public debate." Gomez and McCain attacked him for those votes, as well.
Gomez is attacking Markey for standing up for the truth. Far from refusing to honor the victims of 9/11, Markey was refusing to participate in the crass politicization of their deaths. It's pretty clear from this stunt from Gomez and McCain which is the candidate with principles.
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