Monday, August 23, 2004
Going in for the Kill, part 1
I was telling my father a few weeks ago that this election will come down to campaign politics, pure and simple. And I was lamenting that, really. Lamenting that we have such a disengaged populace that crap like whether somebody looked silly on a tank or had to defend the false charge that they claimed to 'invent the internet' could actually be a viable issue to people who didn't follow politics enough in general to have a reasonably formed opinion but who nevertheless voted.
The first real salvo of the campaign has been this Swift Boat Vets crap. All of their charges are utterly, even admittedly, unsubstantiated, yet these guys get airplay on two of the big talking head Sunday morning shows and coverage on the front page of most important dailies, even as their story is falling apart.
Two questions remain today as word comes that the Bush camp is 'denouncing' the ads, a step which they had been unwilling to take for the last two weeks. First, who's getting hit more here, Kerry or TeamBush? Newsweek's conventional wisdom had Karl Rove a bit bloodied, but that's his job.
Second, how will the real attack play? This whole Swift Boat thing was just an attempt to soften Kerry up. The first real hardball was thrown yesterday by Bob Dole, former Senator, presidential candidate, Viagra hawker and lifelong GOP hack. Not only did he suggest that Kerry (who he back-handedly called a friend and a good man) hadn't even bled when he was wounded, so slight were this injuries, but he then challenged Kerry to apologize for his anti-War activities after returning home from Vietnam. That's the real body blow. You can't call a decorated Veteran for being unpatriotic, so the whole Swift Boat thing was just an attempt to make some folks, likely those with a predilection for the military and against street dissent, be more open to the idea that Kerry was a traitor because he supported the Vietnam Veteran's Against the War. In doing so Kerry made a reference to war crimes committed by troops. Any reading of the original would make it clear that that was just a small bit of background about what the VVAW had been doing prior to their March on Washington in 1971, and not an accusation or direct quote of his own experiences.
Nevertheless, Kerry better have a straight up response for this one, because it's the biggie to the jaw coming from TeamBush, and if he can't deflect or avoid it he might be down for the count.
I was telling my father a few weeks ago that this election will come down to campaign politics, pure and simple. And I was lamenting that, really. Lamenting that we have such a disengaged populace that crap like whether somebody looked silly on a tank or had to defend the false charge that they claimed to 'invent the internet' could actually be a viable issue to people who didn't follow politics enough in general to have a reasonably formed opinion but who nevertheless voted.
The first real salvo of the campaign has been this Swift Boat Vets crap. All of their charges are utterly, even admittedly, unsubstantiated, yet these guys get airplay on two of the big talking head Sunday morning shows and coverage on the front page of most important dailies, even as their story is falling apart.
Two questions remain today as word comes that the Bush camp is 'denouncing' the ads, a step which they had been unwilling to take for the last two weeks. First, who's getting hit more here, Kerry or TeamBush? Newsweek's conventional wisdom had Karl Rove a bit bloodied, but that's his job.
Second, how will the real attack play? This whole Swift Boat thing was just an attempt to soften Kerry up. The first real hardball was thrown yesterday by Bob Dole, former Senator, presidential candidate, Viagra hawker and lifelong GOP hack. Not only did he suggest that Kerry (who he back-handedly called a friend and a good man) hadn't even bled when he was wounded, so slight were this injuries, but he then challenged Kerry to apologize for his anti-War activities after returning home from Vietnam. That's the real body blow. You can't call a decorated Veteran for being unpatriotic, so the whole Swift Boat thing was just an attempt to make some folks, likely those with a predilection for the military and against street dissent, be more open to the idea that Kerry was a traitor because he supported the Vietnam Veteran's Against the War. In doing so Kerry made a reference to war crimes committed by troops. Any reading of the original would make it clear that that was just a small bit of background about what the VVAW had been doing prior to their March on Washington in 1971, and not an accusation or direct quote of his own experiences.
Nevertheless, Kerry better have a straight up response for this one, because it's the biggie to the jaw coming from TeamBush, and if he can't deflect or avoid it he might be down for the count.
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