The Bush campaign and the Washington Post

Blogs for Bush posted a link to the Bush campaign's "rebuttal" of a Washington Post article entitled "From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity." They attempt to rebut all the charges of the Washington Post, but in this post I'm just looking at the PATRIOT Act, the gas tax, and the 350 tax increases.

Let's start with the PATRIOT Act. The Bush campaign claims (from the WaPo article)

Kerry was 'pressured by fellow liberals' to oppose wiretaps, subpoena powers and surveillance in the USA Patriot Act. 'Kerry would now repeal the Patriot Act's use of these tools against terrorists.'

The Bush campaign offers nothing in the way of actual evidence for the "pressured" statement. And of course, Kerry has never called for the repeal of "wiretaps, suboena powers and surveillance." The only piece of evidence they cite for this claim is this quote from Kerry:

So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft. That starts with replacing the PATRIOT Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time.

FactCheck.org state:

It's true that last December, during the Democratic nomination fight, Kerry did call for "replacing the Patriot Act with a new law." But Kerry is not calling for repealing the law-enforcement powers alluded to in the ad. He's calling for modification -- specifically tighter control by judges. There's a big difference between "repeal" and adding judicial oversight.

...

On sneak-and-peak searches, Kerry says he would change the law to require "more oversight" but would still allow secret searches with no notice to the subject for as long as a week, or indefinitely so long as a judge approves the continuing need for secrecy:

...

Similarly, Kerry wouldn't end roving wiretaps of suspected terrorists, but calls for adding "adequate checks (and) safeguards" against eavesdropping on persons other than the authorized target.

(quotes from Kerry's website at FactCheck link)

None of which conflict with the quotes from Kerry in the Bush response. FactCheck also note:

Craig is lead Senate sponsor of bill S.1709 , the "Security and Freedom Ensured Act" (SAFE Act), which would amend the Patriot Act to add precisely the changes Kerry is calling for regarding roving wiretaps and sneak-and-peak searches. It has four Republican co-sponsors: Michael Crapo of Idaho, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and John Sununu of New Hampshire.

Among the 14 Democratic co-sponsors is, of course, John Kerry.

The gas tax is fairly simple. WaPo states "Kerry...has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years..." And the Bush campaign can't counter it. They list a multitude of bills where Kerry voted for some kind of gas tax. Here are the dates:

3/18/93
3/23/93
6/25/93
8/6/93
6/24/93

None of those matter, seeing as they're over 10 years old and they aren't for a 50 cent tax. And the next ones:

5/9/96
5/14/96
3/11/98
4/11/00

But all of those are no votes on repealing the 1993 4.3 cent gas tax. And then, from a quote on the Bush site:

Kerry conceded that a 50-cent gas-tax hike 'appeared to be a good idea at the time' when it was proposed in 1992 to help reduce the federal deficit. 'But when you looked at how it was going to impact drivers in the Midwest, truck drivers across the country, and perhaps have a negative drag on the economy, we decided it was not a smart idea,' said Kerry, adding that he doesn't favor the increase today and never voted for it.

So, he supported it for a while, then changed his mind. That works for their flip-flop propaganda, but not here.

The 350 tax increases rebuttal isn't really a rebuttal at all, they basically just stand by what they said, which is technically correct. Here's what the Post said:

For example, Cheney's claim in almost every speech that Kerry 'has voted some 350 times for higher taxes' includes any vote in which Kerry voted to leave taxes unchanged or supported a smaller tax cut than some favored.

Also correct, as they admit:

Sen. Kerry's 350 Votes For Higher Taxes Can Be Broken Down Into Five Categories:

Votes for raising taxes/outright tax increases;
Votes against tax cuts;
Votes to reduce the size of a proposed tax cut;
Votes against repealing previously enacted tax increases (i.e. votes against repealing certain provisions of the 1993 Clinton tax increase);
Votes for Democrat "tax cut" substitutes, which would have provided billions less in tax relief to American families.

So where's the Post's misstatement?

UPDATE: A post I missed from Diogenes about this subject, on his Bush Campaign Lies blog is here.