I started reading the @Issue (That's what they call the editorial section. Cute, huh?) section of the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation this morning, and the very first thing I saw was a hatchet job on Laurie Mylroie, whom he calls a right wing Cynthia McKinney. I'm not gonn fisk this column, but I will quote the first paragraph.
Almost 70 percent of the American people believe -- incorrectly(emphasis mine..GOC) -- that Saddam Hussein played a role in the attacks of Sept. 11.
Well, there you have it. Jay Bookman positively knows that Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. I wish he would reveal his sources on this.
But I'm not after Jay tonight, I want to go after Cynthia Tucker's latest bullshit column.
What happens to President Bush's pseudo-machismo now that a real general has entered the race?
She must be talking about Wesley Clark the Dimocrats' saviour.
For months now, the prospect of running against Gen. Wesley Clark has been gnawing at GOP strategists, haunting their otherwise pleasant reveries about a bulldozer re-election campaign. They know it took a marketing genius like Karl Rove to sell President Bush as a commanding military leader.
Wait for it. Here it comes. The National Guard thing.
Without Rove's Madison Avenue strategy (and the cooperation of a fawning press), Bush, who neglected his duty when he was in the National Guard, would be less Top Gun and more Stop! Run!
I've been saying for years that military service ceased to be an issue after we elected a draft dodger as president.
Already, Bush's borrowed flight suit has been sullied by the increasingly hazardous situation in Iraq.
Just damn! Don't the liberals just hate it that Bush landed on a carrier in a jet? They hated seeing him in that flight suit. I saw Clinton in a bomber jacket many times and the liberals had nothing to say about that.
But when Clark announced his candidacy last week, the calculus of the presidential campaign changed instantly. Now, Bush will find himself compared with a West Point graduate who not only was decorated in Vietnam but who also led a successful military campaign in Kosovo with the cooperation of international allies.
Who gives a fuck? Clinton, the cowardly draft dodger, ran against war heroes twice. It didn't help the war heroes. The scumbag was elected both times.
No matter how many photo ops Rove gins up, Bush can no longer count on easily convincing voters that he is the right man for these dangerous times. Clark brings actual military credentials to the campaign.
OK. What is his plan? Is he gonna do what most Dimocrats want to do? Cut and run? Decrease military spending? In other words, is he for Howard Dean's policy or Joe Lieberman's? We won't know until he tells us. He's gonna have to run to the left to beat Dean, and maybe the American public will think he's full of bullshit. I do. After all, he's running as a Dimocrat and he's being advised by Bill Clinton.
Clark could yet turn out to be a poor presidential candidate.
He's already started waffling on Iraq.
He is good-looking, accomplished and razor-sharp. But he has a reputation as arrogant and aloof.
He owes his rise in the Army to Clinton. Most of his subordinates describe him as an asshole.
If he comes across that way on the campaign trail, he'll sink like an old shoe. Bush won, after all, not because of his accomplishments (they were thin) or his policies (voters rejected most of them) but because of his personality. People liked him.
And unfortunately for you liberals, they still do. He usually means what he says and is not afraid to do what he thinks is right in the war against terror.
To advance against the platoon of veteran legislators already in the Democratic field, Clark will also have to hone his résumé on domestic issues. His political instincts put him squarely in the mainstream of the Democratic Party: He says he is pro-choice on abortion; he favors affirmative action; he supports environmental protections.
He also said
I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation. .... Meet the Press ... June 15, 2003
And all the writers of the Constitution are rolling over in their graves. This country did not have an income tax until the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. The first attempt by Congress to place a tax on incomes was declared unconstitutional in 1895. The Sixteenth Amendment was passed in 1913. That is quite some time after the founding of this country you socialist asshole. But back to Cynthia.
His greatest challenge on the domestic front, however, will be convincing voters that he has a plan to create jobs. (On that subject, though, the president presents no great challenge. Bush has presided over the loss of 2.5 million jobs, a record that rivals Herbert Hoover's.)
It's the economy stupid. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Blah. Blah. Blah. The economy is coming back. I do not want the terrorists to come back. Until they are wiped out it will not be safe to have a Dimocrat running the country.
Still, a Clark campaign -- even if it is short-lived -- comes at a propitious time because it cuts against the stereotype of Democrats as wimps. Though it's hard to say just how that notion took hold -- a host of well-known Democrats, including Al Gore,
He was in Viet Nam for four months (a normal tour was a year) working for the Stars and Stripes. And he had a bodyguard. He was there to provide political cover for his father and to position himself for a career in politics.
John Kerry,
Who, in protesting the war after his return, threw his medals away (Whoops! Years later it turns out they weren't his medals. He was only kidding). Washington threw a dollar across the potomac. Kerry threw medals across the Potomac.
Bob Kerrey
He doesn't have a leg to stand on.
and Max Cleland,
More on whining Max later.
served in Vietnam -- it has hardened as conventional wisdom.
So did I. BFD! We ceased to have military service make a difference when we elected a draft dodger twice. Why do you liberals keep bringing this shit up? According to you, when Clinton was your man, it didn't matter. STFU! But no. She continues.
(Perhaps some enterprising academic will write an essay explaining how stereotype so easily overwhelms substance on this subject. Cleland, a former U.S. senator, lost three limbs to a grenade in Vietnam; yet, he was defeated by Saxby Chambliss, who labeled Cleland unpatriotic. Chambliss claims a bad knee kept him out of Vietnam.
Max thought union jobs were more important than national security. He was also way too liberal for Georgia. Georgians are patriotic and believe in national defense. Max and the rest of the Dimocrats, with a few exceptions, do not. And can we stop with the Viet Nam bullshit?
(Similarly, the elder President Bush is a bona fide war hero, a torpedo bomber pilot who was shot down in the Pacific in 1944. Yet, hard-right Republicans dismiss the elder Bush as a gutless wonder and hail Junior, who never got within 5,000 miles of the enemy, as a daring flyboy. Go figure.)
The elder Bush was defeated for four reasons:
1. He reneged on his no new taxes pledge which made a lot of conservatives stay home.
2. Ross Perot siphoned off many voters who would have voted for Bush the elder.
3. He refused to go negative in the last few days of the campaign. He thought the American people were smart enough to see through Clinton's bullshit. Alas, he was wrong.
4. Independent prosecutor Walsh, who was a Dimocrat (no partisan politics here) released the report on Iran Contra right before the election. Imagine the firestorm if Ken Starr had released any reports right before an election. The press and the Dimocrats would have howled with rage.
That may help explain why thoughtful Democrats in the Senate -- notably, John Kerry -- failed last winter to articulate a rational objection to Bush's rush to invade Iraq.
There was also this little event called an election and the American public was for action against Iraq. The Dimocrats did not want a disaster. Even so, they lost seats in an off year election, which seldom happens. Imagine if they talked then like they're talking now. The election would have been a real debacle!
As a decorated Vietnam vet, Kerry had the credentials to point out the flaws in Bush's brief for war. Instead -- perhaps fearing a backlash -- he voted to support it. So now he seems the hypocrite when he tries to criticize Bush's occupation.
And your point is ... ? That Kerry is a craven politician? That what he did was politically expedient? Inquiring minds want to know.
Though Clark has been a harsh critic of Bush's strategy on Iraq, he has seemed lately to edge closer to Kerry's position, saying last week that he "probably" would have voted to invade.
And then again maybe he wouldn't. Bill Clinton is trying to teach him these little tricks.
1. Take a poll.
2. Convene some focus groups to see what sells.
3. Wet your finger and put it up on the air to see which way the winds are blowing.
But with no vote on the record and with the flexibility to hedge, Clark doesn't have Kerry's problem. Nor does he have Bush's problem: When he goes to a campaign photo op, he doesn't have to borrow a uniform.
Maybe he should borrow a personality instead.
Anyway, I want Dean to win the nomination. And I want to see him in a tank. With a helmet on. Looking just like Dukakis.
It would be a dream come true.
Posted by denny at September 21, 2003 08:03 PM