8/24/04
People who are getting upset with John Kerry's perceived lack of nads regarding the Swift Boat controversy have to understand the bigger picture here. You may not know it now, but the Bush campaign is entering into a very dangerous, desperate phase, and I think – hope – it will be the Hail Mary pass that ends up in the hands of the defense.
Let's look at facts: John Kerry has a number of distinguished medals from Vietnam, all of which were corroborated – at the time – by a number of independent sources. His military record, for anyone with half an understanding of how war works – is beyond question.
George W. Bush, on the other hand, was doing lines of cocaine off the wing of his unused airplane, sitting poolside at the Chateaux Dijon watching ambitious secretaries play water volleyball.
So what do you do if you're Bush? That's right, attack Kerry's military record. To paraphrase Fred from "Scooby Doo," it's a plan so mind-numbingly moronic that it just might work. The Republicans have been doing this for years; it's a cousin of the "brazen it out" strategy, which means "doing something unbelievably cruel or nonsensical and then telling detractors to FUCK OFF in the name of WE KNOW BETTER THAN YOU DO."
The Swift Boat Liars have a cozy relationship with the Bush campaign, just as MoveOn.org has a cozy relationship with Kerry. Everybody knows it, and their winking nudge-nudge denials are there to prove a point: We, the Republicans, can play the 527 game as well as you can.
The problem is, Kerry's 527 group, MoveOn.org, doesn't lie. The worst thing they ever did was sponsor a contest challenging their readership to make an anti-Bush video. One of the entries compared Bush to Hitler, and was quickly disowned by the group. But comparing Bush to Hitler is an opinion, which, although misguided, is much better than a lie.
Sure, the Swift Boat people have agreed to lie, but not for the reasons you think. They don't want you to vote for Bush; they want you to vote for NOBODY.
The Republicans know that any time a truly horrible piece of shit is thrown at either opponent, voter turnout goes down. And when voter turnout goes down, Republicans typically gain power. The GOP wants nothing more than for this campaign to dispense with the sunny disposition of Kerry/Edwards and turn into an ugly, disillusioned brawl.
It is when you enter this phase of your campaign that you are truly bankrupt of ideas. This is the last desperate lunge of a dying villain. If Kerry can rise above this mess and stay positive, it will truly be his first act of being Presidential.
Posted by irw at August 24, 2004 10:30 PMSorry, I have to disagree with your analysis here, as I don't see any good news for Democrats here.
Kerry first came to national prominence through his activities in the anti-war movement. For example, his senate tesitimony in 1971, where he accused his fellow veterans of rape, murder, pillage, torture, etc.
Yet Kerry chose to highlight, spotlight in fact, his time in Vietnam.
Once that strategy was decided upon, Kerry, and his campaign, should have focused on the first, most obvious obstacle: the vets he pissed off in 1971.
So far, in their "response", they've blundered into at least two traps, all the while drawing maximum attention to the controversy - trying to shut down the TV ads and the book publication. The Kerry campaign is now off-balance and off-message.Compare this with the dems trashing Bush's military service - near complete silence from the White House.
The lessson I have drawn from the past couple weeks' activity is this: The Kerry campaign is managed by ineffective dullards.
Let us also consider the 527 organizations. How much has MoveOn.org spent in 2004? I don't know but I'll bet it's in the tens of millions. SwiftBoatsVets has spent about a three quarters of a million. And the republican convention hasn't even started.
The Kerry campaign has reached its high water mark. It's all downhill from here.
i don't think there's any contradiction in questioning the validity of a war or its method of prosecution while simultaneously honoring the courage and sacrifices of those doing the fighting. anyone who pretends to be unable to make that distinction has probably been watching too much fox news.
First, I wish more people who can write like Ian were working with the Kerry Campaign.
Second, let's say that everything Pete Stanley points out is an accurate assessment of the current deal-i-o. And let's say that everyone Kerry brings into the West Wing with him might be an apparent dullard like his campaign aides. Even so, I'd prefer them to the deceitful, manipulative, contemptuous minions of the Bush administration.
Rather than letting the adage "better the devil you know" determine their votes, swing voters should elect "the lesser of two evils." Following the latter cliche will reward the U.S. with a genuinely smart, accomplished president -- how refreshing! -- who will serve us honorably on domestic issues as well as regain the international credibility so wantonly destroyed by dubya's henchmen.
Basically it's beyond me how anyone except evangelical Christians (anti-choice, pro-abstinence AIDS prevention instead of condoms, anti-gay marriage, etc.) could consider voting for Bush in 2004, regardless of their usual inclinations. Military types should be voting for the Vietnam vet who served with distinction (yes, he protested the war later and bore witness to atrocities there, the first on political grounds and the second because many of his fellow soldiers were indeed doing bad things and needed to be stopped [shades of, say, Abu Ghraib]). Moderate Republican folks should feel betrayed by the past four years' shameless orgy of industry de-regulation, tax plans benefitting the super-wealthy, and pandering to the increasingly powerful-and-scary extreme far right. Any pro-choice Republicans out there, PLEASE swallow your pride and vote for Kerry this time. Surely your party can offer a more moderate, less ideological better qualified candidate next time around.
The BBC had a sound bite this morning to illustrate how the Swift Boat liars have made inroads with Kerry supporters in Ohio. I can't remember it exactly, but the woman sounded as if she simply accepted what the ads asserted as the truth and was reweighing the pros and cons of Bush v. Kerry in light of this new con. So seemingly there is an electorally significant number of people in this country who think campaigning and TV broadcasting are so pure in their commitment to the truth that nothing said in a political ad could be a lie. Or for whatever reason these people believe whatever assertion they hear the most of. I agree that the Bush campaign seems desparate, but mostly this just scares me. Hitler and Mussolini's speeches sound shrill and ridiculous to us now (as do the Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld WMD speeches before the Iraq war). But of course those words did the trick at the time. Bush is desparate, he's got the entire top deck of the executive branch of government (even the supposedly incorruptible Collin Powell) walking in lock step, if only in fear of retribution, and seemingly the man believes God wants him to be president. He did Florida, Iraq. What _won't_ he do?
In the current New Yorker Louis Menand agrees with you, Ian, that Kerry and Edwards have it in the bag if they just remain upbeat. It's the conclusion he draws after an interesting tour through various ideas about why people vote the way they do.