Kerrypalooza!
By Moe Lane Posted in 2006 | Spotlight Blogs — Comments (29) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
From the user blogs by Erick, because Moe doesn't get to keep great stuff like this off the front page. This is great troll bait.
...because I'm tired of the entire "N-Gate" formulation, that's why. Although I expect that we'll be using it until well after the last person to remember the Nixon administration dies of old age.
Anyhoo, Jeff's covering that pesky little problem that isn't going away for the Democrats, but I'd thought that I'd include my own observation on it. To wit - and yet again - the Democratic leadership has apparently decided to try to please nobody.
Read on . . .
It's very simple. Either what's happening to Senator Kerry is meaningful in a larger political sense, or it's not. We've been hearing a good deal about how it's not... but we're also getting reports that Kerry's been cancelling appearances - and having appearances cancelled for him. This clashes with the desired narrative; which is a nice way of saying that the Democratic leadership is demonstrating yet again that they have the collective spine of an Aurelia aurita. They can't have it both ways: if Kerry's comments were unacceptable, then they needed to say so; and if Kerry's comments weren't that big a deal, they didn't need to clear his calendar. The fact that they're trying to handle the situation in a certain frantic hush suggests a great deal about them - and reinforces a common stereotype about them, to boot.
In other words, again, this pleases nobody. Us right-wing nut jobs aren't impressed by the completely typical Kerry attitude on display; and our cynical attitudes towards our opponents have been justly reinforced by the whole display. The Middle... the Middle just doesn't like whiners. I've yet to see an election where that wasn't a factor, and it just became one here* (and it's not the GOP that's coming across as whining, for those who came in late). Meanwhile, the Democrats' most determined commodities supporters are largely in agreement with what Kerry both said and supposedly meant; so I imagine that they can't be too pleased to have it demonstrated that the Democratic Party would rather infuriate 1,000 members of the Netroots than worry one undecided voter from Minneapolis. Not that it matters in the slightest - the progressives have nowhere to go - but you do have to wonder whether the party leadership simply enjoys torturing their base like this.
Of course, wrt that last bit I may just be projecting a touch.
Moe
*This is the most speculative part, yes. We'll see how it plays out next Tuesday.
even at the close of the last century, during the last dark days of the Clinton era. It wasn't until Gore tried to avoid the Constitutional method of deciding elections that they began their leming march over the cliff into irrelevance.
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Evil men hide from the truth, but good men stand upon it.
Could the Kerry gaffe-fest be the Evil Right Wing Scientist's late October (Halloween) surprise? I expect to see reports of same start to appear on the left wing kook blogs any moment.
The Drive By Media has been reporting, with severe distress, the confidence of President Bush and Karl Rove in keeping both houses of Congress. I can't wait to hear the questions fly - "What did the President know and when did he know it?"
Whatever the reason for Senator Blowhard's double meltdown, had it been scripted by our folks, it is hard to see where it could have been more helpful - the ignition switch to the Final Turnout Push.
Senator McCain and Michael Barone were awesome last night on Hannity and Colmes. They were calm, indignant, and absolutely unspinnable. I hope the Republicans are generating late commercials on this subject - for Montana, Tennessee, rural Virginia, and Missouri - for starters.
is to emphasize that a vote for your local Dem running for Congress is a vote for the leadership of Kerry, Pelosi, Kennedy, etc. regardless of how much your guy tries to distance himself. The Dems have tried to make Bush the issue, but he's a lame duck, while Kerry is a 2008 Dem candidate for President.
As much as one disdains kicking a dead horse when he's got his silver hoof in his mouth, "Kerryzalooza" sure fits -- twice now.
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Evil men hide from the truth, but good men stand upon it.
He spoke the true mindset of the left. This is exactly how they think and feel. This is what we are up against. All the so called conservitive dems they have running think (I feel they do) the same way as Kerry or they way will be bullied into voteing with the far left. The left has been doing everything in there power to keep thier whacked out thoughts stuffed under a tight lid until after the elections. But every now and then one is able to break free.
"Peace had a chance"
At first, the severe reaction to Kerry's comments surprised me a little. This story really has some legs now, and I don't think this is simply because Republicans are beating the drums on this. The reason this story has taken off, I think, is that Kerry really struck a nerve among people who have served, or are now serving in the military. Many, maybe most, of those now serving joined the ranks because they believe that America is worth defending, and needs to be defended. They resent the implication that they ended up in the military because they couldn't hack it in the civilian world due to a lack of education, or some other kind of failure. So I think this comes down to people feeling demeaned as to their motivation for serving. This anger at Kerry may extend somewhat beyond him to other democrats, because many in the military perceive that this is how they are generally regarded by the left.
because he compounded his mistake with an outrageous lie.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
He gets criticized for saying what he believes is the truth, and responds to that criticism with a bunch of lies.
Just checkin. You don't have a diary record after being here for over a year. That's all.
_______________________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
Yes Kyle, I agree that Kerry's blunder was made much worse by his implausible explanation for it. I just don't think the story would have ever gone anywhere if Kerry hadn't really struck a nerve in the first place. The newsmaker threshold for a democrat blunder is much higher than for a republican. For instance, if George Allen had written that salacious passage from Webb's book involving sexual contact with a child, it would still a be major news story, and Allen wouldn't have a prayer. But because it was Webb, the MSM now treats it as a yawn. It was a really big deal that Allen might have used the N-word 30 years ago. But the allegation that Webb drove around Watts yelling racists slurs and pretending to shoot at black pedestrians got nary a mention. I don't know if either story is true, but with a republican, an unsupported allegation is often enough to create a major story. Things are better now than before (with Fox News, Limbaugh, Internet, etc.), but it is nowhere near a level playing field. Also, I think the MSM senses that it has lost some of its advantage as newsmaker oligarchy, so it is even more biased (to the left) than before to try to make up for lost ground.
From his daily post, this morning:
OK ... all bets are off.
Don't get me wrong ... I still have this deep felt desire to see the Republican's get punished by the electorate in next week's midterm election ... but suddenly the stakes seem to be too high.
What turned the tide for me? John Kerry, that's what. That insipid, haughty, pretentious jerk uttered another one of his absurd statements about our men and women in uniform ... and in a flash my fear of Democrats and their disdain for our military services overcame any desire I had to put Republicans over my knee.
...
This is such a gift to the Republicans. It's as if Karl Rove himself paid John Kerry a large amount of money to read from a script. It couldn't be better. Here we are, on the even of the 2006 mid-term elections...in which the Democrats are poised to take over the House and maybe the Senate. Now here comes John Kerry, standard-bearer of his party in the last presidential election...to slander our troops. Bad move....even the most anti-war politician never blames the troops. It's political suicide.
So .. that's it. We're six days out, and I've come unglued. Sure, the Republicans have become just another party of big government and pork barrel spending ... but at least they don't slander the very men and women who are shedding blood every single day to defend our country.
Give me the big-spenders who support our troops over the big-spenders who slander them any day.
I'm voting Republican.
We'll just have to figure out another way to take these Republicans miscreants to the woodshed.
He includes this link, just published 4 days ago, on the demographic characteristics of our armed forces.
Welcome back to the side of sanity, Neal.
---
Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community
this morning.
"Good on Ya . . .'
De Opresso Liber
Clearly my corruption to the Dark Side is complete. Although I hope to avoid the entire slaughtering of Jedi Babies thing.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
burning up in lava flow thing is to be avoided this time, too, one might suppose?
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Evil men hide from the truth, but good men stand upon it.
I find your lack of faith distressing.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
De Opresso Liber
'entire', concerning the slaughter of Jedi Babies?
A man of intellect, strength , restraint AND compassion.
At any rate: Welcome to the Dark Side. Soon, the 'Committee' will be in contact to initiate you into the secret organization planning the coup against Darth Vader and his lily-white, mass murdering star troopers (or, whatever).
Nevertheless, it was good - very good - seeing you quoted in the WT as representing RedState!
GB
They grow up so fast, we're all proud of him :)
Just as every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints - Sympathy for the Democrats
I believe that this will have a much greater impact than what the other side (Dems) are anticipating. I think they believe they can sweep it under the rug. But, as in bee's post about Neal Boortz, it only takes one or two percent in some key races to have that same type of sway, where they were thinking about not voting or voting Dem to send a message and have now changed their mind because of Kerry's comments, to swing those elections in our favor. And the more they don't distance themselves, the worse it becomes. So while I don't think it'll be a major shift with this, it doesn't need to be major in terms of numbers, to be major in terms of control. Ironic thing is what others have already been saying, and that's that a simply-worded apology would have basically taken care of any potential ramification of this gaffe. But the Dems have never known how to neatly handle something like this.
Republican attorney in a Red State, with, unfortunately, a moderately conservative Democrat and a moderately liberal (in terms of foreign policy) Republican for my Senators.
much along the lines of what you're saying.
All he kept repeating were that Kerry's words speak for themselves and all he needs to do is to say "I'm sorry" if that's not what he meant.
The idiot reporters were asking things like, this with my paraphrasing of Snow's responses:
"Why is this any different than Rush Limbaugh not apologizing directly to Michael J Fox?"
- Snow: Rush Limbaugh is not a top elected official of one of the political parties.
"Why is this any different than VP Cheney not apologizing for his 'dunking' remark?"
- Snow: I read back to you what the VP said and that speaks for itself. All Kerry has done is give a response that seems to need clarification from you guys.
"Does the President really think Kerry meant to offend the troops?"
- Snow: It doesn't really matter what the President thinks he meant. What matter is what he said then and what he said afterward.
Posted at Drudge. Brilliant! Too bad Kerry's sense of humor doesn't measure up to theirs.
Remember Zoe? Bill Clinton's first choice for Attorney General, who had Social Security tax issues with her nanny.
At first, the MSM reported that this was no big deal, just a technical issue and no impediment to her appointment.
Then Middle America found out and went ballistic!
Note to MSM- it's the ATTITUDE, stupid!
as the example. The democratic party at the start of the last century was a relatively reasonable entity. Truly it was the loyal opposition. As time progressed more radical and insane elements have occupied positions in the party. Every so often you have a new outrage coming from the supreme party congress and elements are purged. This process keeps on until all that is left are those that will take anything.