De-bunking Snopes

Will Collier at VodkaPundit has a sensational post that backs up Zell Miller's rundown of John Kerry's record on defense from last night. The article also de-bunks Snopes' take on the Kerry voting record on defense. Citing Lt. Smash, who has scanned a Kerry campaign poster from 1984, we get to see the full list of weapons systems Kerry found offensive:

NUCLEAR FORCES

* MX Missile --- Cancel --- $5.0 billion
* B-1 Bomber --- Cancel --- $8.0 billion
* Anti-satellite system --- Cancel --- $ 99 million
* Star Wars [sic] --- Cancel --- $1.3 billion
* Tomahawk Missile --- Reduce by 50 per cent --- $294 million

LAND FORCES
* AH-64 Helicopters --- Cancel --- $1.4 billion
* Division Air Defense Gun (DIVAD) --- Cancel --- $638 million
* Patriot Air Defense Missile --- Cancel --- $1.3 billion

NAVAL FORCES

* Aegis Air-Defense Cruiser --- Cancel --- $800 million
* Battleship Reactivation --- Cancel --- $453 million

AIRCRAFT
* AV-8B Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft --- Cancel --- $1.0 billion
* F-15 Fighter Aircraft --- Cancel --- $2.3 billion
* F-14A Fighter Aircraft --- Cancel --- $1.0 billion
* F-14D Fighter Aircraft --- Cancel --- $286 million
* Phoenix Air-to-Air Missile --- Cancel --- $432 million
* Sparrow Air-to-Air Missile

Maybe he would have been against spitballs as well. Not all of these weapons systems were good ideas, mind you -- the anti-satellite missile, for example, was an utter waste. But the Aegis, the Apache, the Patriot... as Smash points out, these have formed part of the backbone of our military.

I'll be blogging later (much later) on the other speeches this week, especially Rudy. One thought on Miller's speech, though -- the Dems keep talking about him as if he were a frightful bogeyman. Here's Terry McAulliffe, as per Jim Geraghty:

I don't think I've ever seen such a hateful speech in my life. He scared people. It was like one of those Jason movies. I think a lot of parents needed to move their children out of the room so that they wouldn't hear it.

As Geraghty pointed out, this is silly for several reasons. It's again the spiel of the Dems that they respond to substance about John Kerry's record by claiming the other side is being mean and dirty. But what's scarier is that the Democrats find a seventy-two year old member of their own party scary. If he's scary, how terrified will they be of Osama?