John Kerry...Not Too Swift After All
By Ron Marr (09/03/04)
I remember 1996. Bill Clinton was up for re-election. Thanks to the Congressional overhaul of Congress by the Republicans in 1994, the economy was ticking upwards at a phenomenal rate. Still, many remembered that the first two years of Slick Willy's rein had been an utter disaster. He was vulnerable to defeat.
And the Republicans, in what at the time was their incredible ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, could not field a decent candidate. I remember telling my friend Ransom Jack that a one-legged chicken could beat Clinton, as long as the chicken in question spent a few hours in the barber chair getting coifed and primped for the cameras by a gay, Hollywood hairstylist.
But I also said this, "Unfortunately the Republicans are fresh out of one-legged chickens. All they've got is Bob Dole."
We all know what happened. Bob got his tail whipped and went on to star in Viagra commercials while drinking Pepsi and drooling over Brittany Spears. The country got Clinton and Lewinsky, four more years of feckless pseudo-leadership and the beginnings of a serious recession.
Which brings us to now. Karma is a wonderful thing, and the one-legged chicken has come home to roost. Napoleon had his Waterloo. The Republicans had their Bob Dole. Much to the chagrin of their strategists and gay Hollywood hairstylists everywhere, the Democrats are stuck with John Forbes Kerry....the man who would be King of Botox
I'd laugh...if I wasn't already so exhausted by laughter.
There are any number of reasons why Kerry will lose, and lose pretty miserably (you heard it here first...the boy is going to get whomped). However, all these reasons will stem from one basic character flaw. Kerry is a snob and a jerk, soon to join the ranks of McGovern and Dukakis in the political humiliation tank.
For starters, there is the Kerry record. When he bothered to vote (one of the worst attendance records in the Senate) he voted to the extreme liberal viewpoint. That is, he voted that way until he thought it might cost him support with lobbying groups, at which point he would change positions faster than a porn star on a trampoline. The whole flip-flop image put out by the RNC was not a stroke of genius. Kerry laid it in their lap. He has always been of the mindset so beautifully portrayed in the campaign commercials. "I voted for it...before I voted against it." This has been the man's total history.
Thus, to steer people away from his abysmal record, Kerry tried to switch the primary discourse of the campaign to his service in a war that ended 35 years ago. I almost asphyxiated with hilarity when, at the opening of his speech at the Democratic Convention in Boston, Kerry gave that goofy salute and said John Kerry, reporting for duty. It was as if he had channeled the ghost of Gomer Pyle. Truly, this was political theater at it's finest....in the sense that the theater was of the drive-in variety and the featured presentation was the original version of "Gone in 60 Seconds."
In the beginning Kerry simply wished to show that he was firing a gun in the swamp while Bush was flying jets in Texas. When that tactic showed meager results, he got nasty, in the process insulting by association just about every National Guardsman (and many veterans as a whole) in America. The attempt to dredge up Bush's military records brought back to life Kerrys traitorous statements after his massive 12 weeks of service in Vietnam. He made his own bed on this one, and then refused to sleep in it.
Kerrys words in the 1971 Senate hearings come across as smug, self-serving and egocentric. No surprise, because most of his words come across the very same way in 2004. The emergence of the group "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" did even more damage to the Senators reputation for limited veracity. These guys never forgave Kerry for demeaning the war effort. They despise him, to this day, for claiming his former comrades in arms were basically heinous monsters and war criminals.
When the Swifties ran ads from former POWs stating that Kerrys words were broadcast through the concentration camps of Hanoi AT THE MOMENT they were being tortured, people sat up and listened. That so many of the Swifties claim Kerry did not deserve his medals (about 240 of them claim that, versus a spare handful that have signed onto the Kerry campaign) seemed a troubling point to many voters.
Last but not least, Kerry's claim that his "alleged" secret mission to Cambodia on a Christmas day in 1968 was seared into his brain has since been revealed to be just a tall tale. So far, due to public scrutiny, candidate Kerry has changed his tune on Cambodia four times in six weeks. This, after repeating the "searing" story on the floor on the Senate for many years.
While I've no doubt the Kerry mind truly is seared, such is in all probability a result of spending a couple decades as Teddy Kennedys boot-licking towel boy.
If all this wasn't bad enough, Kerry made a debacle of his attempt to extricate himself from the Swift Boat quagmire. The press had to cover the Swifties - they became too well known to ignore them - and Kerry went ballistic. First, he and his campaign tried to scare TV stations into not running their message, sending out letters that hinted of legal action. Mistake #1...he just pissed off the press, a feat never before accomplished by a liberal Democrat. Then, Kerry tried to blame the whole smear campaign on Bush. This effort fell flatter than a flitter, as the Bush people had nothing to do with the ads (though I am sure they loved the spots). Kerry whined and cried like a little schoolgirl, stupidly insisting again and again Bush pull ads over which he had no control. Bush countered with what the public saw as a reasonable and noble gesture, asking Kerry to join with him in condemning ads from all renegade groups...both liberal and conservative.
And Kerry...the elitist idiot...actually REFUSED! Instead, he made it clear he wanted ONLY the ads stopped that spoke of him. He felt ads put out by Kerry sympathizers Moveon.org - ads labeling Bush a murderer of pregnant women, old folks and babies - should be left on the air!
Imagine for a moment the absurdity of this. Kerry personally defames Bush at every opportunity, but the first time a third party group attacks his reputation, he demands Bush come to his rescue! Moreover, he proclaims by inference that third party ads attacking Bush - from Moveon.org - be allowed to continue. Finally, he discovers that a lawyer works for both The RNC and the Swift Boat group, and publicly accuses Bush of conspiracy. But, it was ok with him (and the press forgot to mention this) that at least two lawyers for the DNC also work for Moveon.org! The Republican lawyer was forced to resign, but the Democratic lawyer is still at the job.
Finally, it should be mentioned that Swift Boat veterans have spent about two million bucks in anti-Kerry ads. Moveon.org, to date, has spent nearly 65 million dollars in anti-Bush ads. As always - in both his political and personal life - everything involving John Kerry and his convictions revolves around those who will give him money.
Im not sure how dumb John Kerry is, but his conduct and strategy in the Swift Boat controversy gained him a place in the back row of the remedial class. A final idiot maneuver was in sending the amputee and former Senator Max Cleland to Bush's Texas ranch to deliver a letter which again DEMANDED the Prez stop ads he had nothing to do with. Even the media made fun of that one, as it was a cheap publicity stunt which exploded harder than the grenade Cleland was playing with (true story) when he blew off both legs and one arm.
There are other Kerry problems. Again, he is a jerk. When he fell down skiing in Idaho (in front of reporters) he jumped to his feet, pointed at a Secret Service agent and yelled "I don't fall down! That son of a bitch knocked me down." This is the Kerry personality in a nutshell. He detests the common man that he claims to revere. He views the average American as dirty and backward. They might be of the caliber that could clean his septic tank or mow his yard, but he would never ever want them entering through the front door. Oh no...to Kerry, the vast majority of Americans should never get past the servant's entrance.
And he has plenty of servants, thanks to mouthy, obnoxious, maniac ketchup widow Teresa Heinz Kerry. Teresa and her gold-digger toy-boy are the only couple I can think of who would bitch and moan about Joe Six pack driving a gas-guzzling pick-up truck, and then hop in their personal jet for a trip to one of their many homes well-stocked with a herd of gas-guzzling SUV's. They spend thousands of dollars in fuel for a joyride (and taxpayers now pay thousands to fund their entourage of security men and lackeys) but think its a crime that a poor working slob would dare drive an old rig that only gets 10 mile to the gallon.
The press still hates Bush enough that they will support Kerry, but this is a good thing. The media is so out of touch with the average American that they are inadvertently aiding the Bush campaign. USA Today - in an incredibly tacky move - sent lying fat-boy Michael Moore to cover the Republican Convention. Each televised picture of Moore probably gets Bush another 400 undecided votes (one for each pound of Moores estimated weight). The press is thriving on showing radical NYC protesters...such as the AIDs marchers who dropped trousers for the camera. The contrast between the gracious manner of Republican demonstrators in Boston (all well behaved and polite) and the hatred and weirdness exhibited by the elitist protesters in NYC (who think themselves morally and intellectually superior to the residents of the hicksville backwaters of Flyover Country) is inescapable.
The elite media thinks shots of the protesters will show the country how much Bush is despised. Instead, it shows the country that liberals have no class, act like a pack of ill-behaved seventh graders, and should not be trusted with the welfare of the country.
The press does have an effect. They refused to televise speeches by Rudy Giuliani and John McCain (both moderate Republicans who appeal to Independent voters) at the convention. Instead, the cited the pressing need to allow their viewing audience to see re-runs of such vital programming as "Fear Factor," "CSI Miami," "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Two and a Half Men." Also, the networks will pull their usual stunt on election night of trying to influence voting on the west coast by announcing that many eastern states have been won by Kerry, when in fact such will not be the case at all.
Luckily, most people now know the media is a pack of biased liars, and will vote as their conscience dictates.
Fact of the matter though, Kerry has sunk his own Swift boat. The Democrats have a problem with their one-legged chicken that supersedes everything I have just reported. Plain and simple, people neither like nor trust John Kerry. The advisors and strategy gurus have figured out that they are in a Catch-22. The problem is this: John Kerry is not a talented enough thespian to act like anyone other than John Kerry.
The more people see of John Kerry on TV, the more they dislike him. Each time he opens his mouth - and this is due to both his words and his attitude - he loses support. His advisors can't keep him off the air, for he is the candidate. But they know that the more face time he receives the more votes he will lose. It has to be driving them bonkers...and my bet is that most of them are already sending out resumes.
John Kerry is the ultimate nightmare of the political strategist, not to mention the Democratic party. He is doomed to massive failure.
Somewhere...sitting with a Pepsi and a handful of Viagra, Bob Dole is laughing his ass off.
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