What's a desperate party to do when they fear their control of Congress is slipping away?
Step one: hope for a miracle.
Step two: get one, in the form of an intelligent, but stunningly inarticulate Senator and would-be repeate presidential candidate who so lacks the common touch that he can't even insult the president succinctly.
Step three: count on the Associated Press and other media outlets to leave off the pre-amble and just reprint the part of the Senator's comments that can be twisted for maximum impact:
"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well," Kerry said. "If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." ... yeah, that part.
Step four: get the White House spokesman, the president, the wholly-owned bloggers, the political hacks masquerading as mavericks the dirt bag, drug-addled radio hosts and the rest of the authoritarian robots on the same page. And just for effect, find some genuinely sympathetic people, preferably military, to jump in too (and don't forget the American Legion.)
Step five: use the non-story against any Democrat you can.
Step six: get on the front page of the Washington Post.
And presto! You've changed the conversation, shifting it away from the unmitigated disaster that is Iraq, the economy that's fattening the very wealthy and killing the middle class, the careening deficit, the corrupt, Republican-controlled Congress, the multiple scandals and felons emanating from the GOP and on and on and on ... and you've even made the president marketable again as a campaign spokeman.
(Sigh.)
Now, the risk to this strategy is that by overplaying the story, you also energize the base on the other side, including energizing your opponent, who apparently is taking his cue from Bill Clinton's combative stance with Chris Wallace. Here's Kerry's response.
“If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.
I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.
The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.
Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.” Now, in the GOP's defense, they have to do what they have to do. They've fucked up the country, and hell, much of the world, and by all rights they should pay for their mis-deeds in November. But that would mean exposing the recalcitrant child they worship as president of the United States to actual oversight, and we can't have that, now can we? And John Kerry is almost an expert at this point at giving his opponents verbal ammo to use against him (though unlike in 2004, he has now figured out how to fight back.) What Kerry said is clear to me, but properly edited, it's perfect fodder for the right wing sound machine. He served it up, they're going to milk it for all it's worth. Good going, Kerry. Please stop talking.
But even worse than Kerry are the weak-kneed Democrats who are fleeing from Kerry like he has transmutable, airborne T.B. Rule number one, Democrats: your guy is ALWAYS right. Back him up, refuse to apologize, and tell the other side they hate America. And for gods sakes, get all your people on the same page.
Sheesh.
Meanwhile, I come dangerously close to agreeing with something Jay Tea says:
He and his staff say he meant to say "you get US stuck in Iraq" -- it was an oblique cheap shot at President Bush, but Kerry omitted the "us." I find that plausible. ... He then goes on to do the Kerry snark-attack you'd expect from Jay, along with putting forward some pretty silly stuff ("Bush volunteered to go to Vietnam" being the most hilarious, and the most Bushlovetastic...) So yes, Jay Tea is still Jay Tea.
I think I'd rather agree with this columnist's take:
"Is Kerry getting paid by the Republicans?" asked the young, cat-hating liberal who helps me with the column. "Did [White House strategist] Karl Rove pay him or what?"
What would you pay a guy to slice off his party's feet in the last week of a campaign that is the Democrats' to lose? By now, Kerry's foolishness will be all over the morning talk shows. ...including the one I'm on...
So Kerry's ridiculous elitism, burbling out of him as if he lives, as I suspect, entirely on a diet of lentils and club soda, is what the Republicans needed. It's a big chunk of wood floating just above Republican hands in deep water.
Yep. And they're grabbing onto it like Mark Foley on a teenager's Speedo.
Yes, Kerry is, at heart, an elitist -- so much so that he doesn't limit his feelings of superiority to ordinary Americans, he also extends it to his fellow elite Yalie, George W. Bush. And yes, in his zeal to insult the president, he made yet another Kerry-esque verbal blunder, which instead of having the desired derisive effect, just makes him look like a stuffy bastard. And yes, he has handed the desperate Bush-bots a rope they hope they can pull themselves out of the swamp with, at least for one news cycle. Will it be enough to get the GOP over the finish line next week? I doubt it. But it's not helpful, and the Dems' weak response isn't either. Maybe they're ambivalent on Kerry like I am, but they need to get together, decide to fight or force Kerry to apologize -- pick one, get the message together, and do something. Update: Don Imus tells JFKerry to just shut up already. Kerry appears to be heeding that advice, or perhaps Rahm Emanuel has finally beaten him down and locked him in a meat cellar. Meanwhile, we just had former Senator Bob Graham on the radio show, and his take was that John Kerry probably wishes he hadn't flubbed that line, but Democrats have to find a way to get the conversation back to basics: Iraq, the middle class squeeze, and corruption in Washington. Tags: John Kerry, Bush, Iraq, Republicans, Military, Blogs, News, News and politics |
