Methinks He Doth Protest Too Much
I’ve seen the Unfit for Command TV spot by Swiftboat Veterans for Truth. I don’t know that it’s “devastating,” but it certainly seems to tell the rest of the story that John Kerry doesn’t want anybody to know about. And it does direct people to their book of the same title, which is due out a week and a half from now and is already topping the Amazon.com list.
The Kerry camp certainly seems to be afraid of what they have to say:
Rather vehement, aren’t they, over a “puny $125,000 ad buy”? Perhaps their real fear is that the ad and the book will “light a fire under thousands of veterans” to make sure that John Kerry never makes it to the White House.
Note that there’s not a single word actually refuting anything these swiftboat vets actually allege. All there is is more caustic Bushophobic hissing. Which is itself ironic in that the Bushies have nothing whatsoever to do with the ad.
Consider that this one “puny $125,000 ad buy” is sending the Democrats into contrived conniptions, but they think it’s perfectly okay to eviscerate the spirit, if not the letter, of McCain-Feingold to pour tens of millions of dollars from fascists like George Soros into one unconscionable anti-Bush smear after another (I mean, seriously, Bush is supposed to dociley repudiate Unfit for Command, after half the Democrat elected officeholders in the Beltway attended the D.C. premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11?). Can you say, “hypocrites can dish it out, but they can’t take it?” Especially when what the swiftboat vets are saying is actually true.
And ponder why Kerry’s people are giving so much free publicity to them. The reflexiveness of their overreaction suggests to me that this is a contingency plan they had all ready to go, the objective of which is to bully Bush-Cheney onto the defensive over this angle, and accordingly tar them with guilt by association – and help obfuscate that pesky little thirty-four year gap in the senator’s bio as well.
Is it working? Judge for yourself from these comments from the RNC’s Christine Iverson:
Might sound a tad defensive at first glance, but look closer at what she says. “We have not questioned [Kerry’s] service in Vietnam.” That is a factual statement – the RNC hasn’t done that, and neither has the Bush campaign. And this – “The issue that Democrats don’t want to discuss is his voting record.” Another factual statement, a very nice job of staying on-message, and a very VERY nice job of not apologizing for something the Republicans haven’t done and for which they aren’t responsible.
This 527 “verbal atrocity by proxy” business is a game the enemies of George Bush started and from which John Kerry has avariciously benefited. Kerry himself (1) has based his entire presidential candidacy on his four months in Vietnam and (2) invited the country to examine that record in lieu of anything he has done since. The GOP is concentrating on the latter. But ol’ Gomer Kaye has no imaginable grounds on which to whine when men who served with and actually know all about his service in Vietnam actually take him up on his engraved invitation to the scrutiny under which he’s now squirming.
If the President can manage to refrain from letting his “new tone” idiocy drag him into an insipidly pious condemnation (as John McCain is helpfully demanding), this Lilliputian retaliatory blow for truth, justice, and the American way might actually end up sticking.
UPDATE: Wow, but this story is moving fast. Now the Kerryites and the DNC are threatening legal action against any TV station that airs the Unfit for Command ad on the grounds that – get this – it is “false” and “libelous” and “may not be aired responsibly.” And the letter make this threat is itself chock full of lies about the swiftboat vets.
This is beyond belief, in hypocrisy, sheer chutzpah, and political hamfistedness. Kerry’s haughty reaction in making a mountain out of what he’s claiming is a molehill is what is becoming the story now, particularly the litigation threat and the attempt to smear the two-hundred fifty-plus ‘Nam swiftboat veterans who are arrayed against him (only a small handful are supporting Kerry).
In fact, I think the whole thing is a bluff. Can they really believe that submerging their entire campaign in a publicity-dominating legal fight they cannot hope to win will give Lurch the bounce his convention didn’t? Of course not. They apparently figured that this handful of TV stations could be easily bullied into dropping the ads, after which the problem would just go away. When the truth is that they’d have been far better off just ignoring it altogether.
The JFK wannabe is single-handedly laying waste to his own justification for why he should be president far better than this other “band of brothers” could ever have managed on their own. Which goes to show how much he isn’t Bill Clinton.
Is it really possible for Dubya to lose to this goof?
The Kerry camp certainly seems to be afraid of what they have to say:
This ad is everything that's wrong with George Bush's Republican Party. They just took us right back to the day when Rove pulled the strings and had Bush stump at Bob Jones by day and have his goons question John McCain's record as a POW by night. The Bush campaign is on the thinnest of ice and risks losing their last shred of credibility with the American people. The ooze that brought us the Wyly Brothers' smear campaign against John McCain have launched an ad full of lies and character attacks, and George Bush doesn't have the backbone to say it's wrong — the polar opposite of what Kerry did when Democrats crossed the line. For a puny 125,000 dollar ad buy, they just lit a fire under thousands of veterans who think it's wrong to question a veteran's combat record, especially to do it hiding behind some sham Republican group. Consider this the first sign that the Bush campaign is unraveling.
Rather vehement, aren’t they, over a “puny $125,000 ad buy”? Perhaps their real fear is that the ad and the book will “light a fire under thousands of veterans” to make sure that John Kerry never makes it to the White House.
Note that there’s not a single word actually refuting anything these swiftboat vets actually allege. All there is is more caustic Bushophobic hissing. Which is itself ironic in that the Bushies have nothing whatsoever to do with the ad.
Consider that this one “puny $125,000 ad buy” is sending the Democrats into contrived conniptions, but they think it’s perfectly okay to eviscerate the spirit, if not the letter, of McCain-Feingold to pour tens of millions of dollars from fascists like George Soros into one unconscionable anti-Bush smear after another (I mean, seriously, Bush is supposed to dociley repudiate Unfit for Command, after half the Democrat elected officeholders in the Beltway attended the D.C. premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11?). Can you say, “hypocrites can dish it out, but they can’t take it?” Especially when what the swiftboat vets are saying is actually true.
And ponder why Kerry’s people are giving so much free publicity to them. The reflexiveness of their overreaction suggests to me that this is a contingency plan they had all ready to go, the objective of which is to bully Bush-Cheney onto the defensive over this angle, and accordingly tar them with guilt by association – and help obfuscate that pesky little thirty-four year gap in the senator’s bio as well.
Is it working? Judge for yourself from these comments from the RNC’s Christine Iverson:
It is important to remember that we have never and will never question John Kerry's service in Vietnam. The Democrats may try to claim otherwise, but that is not the case. We have questioned his statements on war on terrorism, but not his service in Vietnam…We have not questioned his service in Vietnam. We're focusing on his inability to explain his vote on the $87 billion and his changing stand on the Iraq war… The issue that Democrats don’t want to discuss is his voting record. They didn’t want to discuss before the convention, during the convention, and after the convention. The real question is, 'why is John Kerry running away from his own voting record?
Might sound a tad defensive at first glance, but look closer at what she says. “We have not questioned [Kerry’s] service in Vietnam.” That is a factual statement – the RNC hasn’t done that, and neither has the Bush campaign. And this – “The issue that Democrats don’t want to discuss is his voting record.” Another factual statement, a very nice job of staying on-message, and a very VERY nice job of not apologizing for something the Republicans haven’t done and for which they aren’t responsible.
This 527 “verbal atrocity by proxy” business is a game the enemies of George Bush started and from which John Kerry has avariciously benefited. Kerry himself (1) has based his entire presidential candidacy on his four months in Vietnam and (2) invited the country to examine that record in lieu of anything he has done since. The GOP is concentrating on the latter. But ol’ Gomer Kaye has no imaginable grounds on which to whine when men who served with and actually know all about his service in Vietnam actually take him up on his engraved invitation to the scrutiny under which he’s now squirming.
If the President can manage to refrain from letting his “new tone” idiocy drag him into an insipidly pious condemnation (as John McCain is helpfully demanding), this Lilliputian retaliatory blow for truth, justice, and the American way might actually end up sticking.
UPDATE: Wow, but this story is moving fast. Now the Kerryites and the DNC are threatening legal action against any TV station that airs the Unfit for Command ad on the grounds that – get this – it is “false” and “libelous” and “may not be aired responsibly.” And the letter make this threat is itself chock full of lies about the swiftboat vets.
This is beyond belief, in hypocrisy, sheer chutzpah, and political hamfistedness. Kerry’s haughty reaction in making a mountain out of what he’s claiming is a molehill is what is becoming the story now, particularly the litigation threat and the attempt to smear the two-hundred fifty-plus ‘Nam swiftboat veterans who are arrayed against him (only a small handful are supporting Kerry).
In fact, I think the whole thing is a bluff. Can they really believe that submerging their entire campaign in a publicity-dominating legal fight they cannot hope to win will give Lurch the bounce his convention didn’t? Of course not. They apparently figured that this handful of TV stations could be easily bullied into dropping the ads, after which the problem would just go away. When the truth is that they’d have been far better off just ignoring it altogether.
The JFK wannabe is single-handedly laying waste to his own justification for why he should be president far better than this other “band of brothers” could ever have managed on their own. Which goes to show how much he isn’t Bill Clinton.
Is it really possible for Dubya to lose to this goof?
posted by JASmius at 5:58 PM
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