The article contains a LOT of information, as the archives were delved into, rendering the mountain of hearsay irrelevant. It’s interesting that Kerry didn’t think to have all of this on hand during the campaign, like he thought that his service record wasn’t going to be brought out and pissed on…
His claim of being in Cambodia, his purple hearts and silver star – these were the details of his service the Swift Boaters focused on. And now…OVER A YEAR AFTER THE ELECTION…he’s got the official paperwork to prove they lied about everything. The lesson here of course is, have the paperwork on hand BEFORE you decide to run for President.
The right wing blogs are already saying that he manufactured the evidence. The weird thing about the right is how they love their pretend heros. A guy who REALLY served is vilified. Or look what they did to Max Cleland and are now trying to do with John Murtha. These are all guys who really served their country but instead we are told that people like Cheney and Bush are real patriots.
The rightwingers seems to have been raised on John Wayne or Rambo movies and seem to think it is the real thing.
On another note I saw part of an old western with John Wayne and Rock Hudson, I think I know where they got the idea for Broke back mtn.
Rove was a genius. (Which is why I am so concerned about the mid-term elections. The mainstream press played his recent reassignmet as a demotion, but he really is hunkered down in some bunker somewhere, ready to take aim at the fresh crop of Democratic Congressional candidates, a la Mel Kiper before the NFL draft.) I mean splitting hairs about whether or not Kerry was in Cambodia or 65 miles from the border, totally diverting attention from the real issues of 2004, worked. You attack an opponent’s strongest suit from your weakest. They did they same thing with McCain.
I am reminded of Angela Lansbury in “Manchurian Candidate” –The issue isn’t ‘Are there any Communists working in the Pentagon’, but ‘How many Communists are working in the Pentagon’.
It will be interesting to see what Rove has up his sleeve. Even though he is completely evil you have to admire him a little bit for being good at his job.
Although, hopefully, people are starting to wise up to the republican noise machine. When times are good it is easy to get people to focus on personality and minutia, right now things are not going so well, so the public may be more receptive to the wonky reality based Democrats.
Rove is the best at what he does–win elections…I agree.
Libs need their own turd blossom
It will be interesting to see what the repubs try to run on. My guess is that they would like to run on the need to go to war with Iran, and the usual gay marriage stuff. I don’t think Iran is as good as they hoped because it brings up the mismanagement of Iraq, and it does not seem like their is much enthusiasm for another war.
Hopefully this election will go something like the Patriots first super bowl victory, when everyone thought St Louis was unbeatable. The whole time that I was watching the game I was waiting for the Rams to score 50 points and blow them out, but it never happened. Maybe Rove is in the ame situation, where the hype is starting to catch him.
Rove’s task is to bring out the vote in November, period. The people who came out for the last Presidental election aren’t in the bag right now, for a lot of reasons. The war isn’t much of these people’s concern as much as the various social issues brought up during the campaign then tossed aside.
Certain voters are disgusted by various elements of modern society, namely – gays, abortion, illegal immigrants, sexual education, the persecution of ‘sex offenders’ not going far enough, etc.
In order to capitalize on these issues, Democrats have to be pegged as having supported the pro-position. Howard Dean went on the 700 club and stated that Democrats believed that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and for the first time since I got out of the Army, it seems like they’re starting to get it.
Politics is an ugly reality of life, and in America’s case, it’s about 90% bullshit 100% of the time. That’s not because of the people in politics, it’s because of what it actually takes to win elections. On the issue of gay marriage, it’s a fact that being pro will not bring out as many voters for your candidate as will the opposition running counter to that position. Right and wrong has nothing to do with it, and anyone believing that it does hasn’t been paying attention.
Hillary Clinton understands this, but unfortunately for her, she’s been a Senator for the past few years. As the winds have changed concerning public opinion over Iraq, she hasn’t let go of the “bullshit quotient” long enough to see an opportunity. For a mayor or governor, it’s not as critical to be on time with what you’re saying about certain things…look at Guliani, Romney, Warner, etc…they haven’t HAD TO have a public opinion about the war, and therefore have been spared.
Where Rove is going to run into problems…seems to me that the evangelical-right who came out in droves for 2004 really hurt their own cause with the Shiavo fiasco. This was the first time post-election that Republicans handed over their brains and did what they were told – and they got slammed for it. Now that issue is an albatross should anyone attempt to revive it. Consequentally, it has managed to reduce the effectiveness of a bring out the vote issue involving ‘activist judges’.
Branding the judiciary as out of control would have worked well for the mid-terms had the Shiavo matter not been linked to it as it was by Cornyn, Frist and Delay. So that’s a dead end…because a Republican candidate talking about the Supreme Court making it illegal to execute minors will play into the hands of an astute Democrat who can say something like, “my opponent would like to get on board with the President and push Congress and the Judiciary out the process altogether, allow the government to meddle in the matters of family as it did with Terri Shiavo. Look, is anything in government perfect? No. Is the judicial system in America perfect? No. Is it better than the judicial systems in place throughout the world? HELL YES! I for one am proud as an American to look back on all the good our system of justice has done for our country, and for the sake of one case or a handfull of cases, unlike my opponent, I don’t feel that tossing out the baby with the bathwater makes much sense.”
Gay marriage is another story. I feel bad for gays who have to feel marginalized, but for the sake of winning back Congress, business is business. It’s a fact that most will choose the lesser of two evils and/or simply stay home on election day. That’s a small price to pay considering the amount of GOP voters it will bring out should the Dems latch onto it. In my opinion, gay marriage is an issue that will have to be fought AFTER Dems are in control, not before.
I’ve got a million thoughts concerning the job Rove has ahead of him…those are a few of them. And let’s not forget the fact that preperations for his criminal trial may have to take up a lot of time he could be spending on campaigns! If he’s indicted and facing jail time, it’d be hard to imagine how he’d find the time to go all out 20 hours a day preparing for mid-terms.
It is much easier to pander to evangelicals when you are not in power because you need someone to blame when they don’t get what they want.
In some ways that is the problem for the repubs the religous right wants them to fix “problems” that cannot be fixed politicaly. probably the biggest fear of most evangelicals is that their child will turn out to be a homosexual, but no matter what law is passed junior is still going to be gay.
Immigration is another oone of those issues, certain people in the country want a fence and every illegal deported, that is not going to happen. If the Dems were in charge of the house or senate then the repubs could blame them, but right now it is hard to find anyone to blame other than republicans.
Dr. Dobson has turned his people’s fear of their children being gay into a business, camps to reprogram their minds. Imagine that…parents who undoubtedly love their children, being so soft in the head that they’d believe a man telling them they were ‘diseased in the head’ some way, then give that same man thousands of dollars to do…what?
Do these people even ponder the fact that by handing over this money, they’re accepting the fact that their genes are rubbish? Do these parents then immediately get vasectomies and tubes tied for the sake of the world and their corrupted FAG genes?
Mental illness…the GOP can have these people – – – and get ready for an eruption once these kids grow up! A kid who went to one of these camps is going to walk into an evangelical church straped with all kinds of weapons, go ape-shit and blow the place up. Then the national media will ask Dobson what happened, and he’ll blame secular culture.