Dumb and Dumber
Just because I find George W. Bush distasteful doesn't mean I have to either excuse or defend John Kerry.
In this age of television, Bush is a guy who seems a lot dumber than he actually is (he got a 1206 score on his SAT -- about 100 points more than I did, but then again I was still recovering from some, um, experimentation the night before with lysergic acid). And Kerry looks smarter than he probably is (he got D's in geology, history and political science during his first year at Yale).
What a great, national relief it will be to see Bush retire from the national political stage. I would have hoped Kerry would have been shut down after his 2004 defeat. But no such luck.
His highly-publicized remarks made here in California on Monday were just plain...dumb:
"Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
He now says it was a "botched joke" and that he was really referring to Bush and not to the U.S. troops. Maybe. Probably. But it's still dumb. And typically Kerry. Exactly two years ago, on the eve of the presidential voting, former Slate writer Chris Suellentrop published an excellent piece on Kerry asking "Why can't the man read a simple speech?" Chris wrote:
Kerry proves incapable of reading simple declarative sentences. He inserts dependent clauses and prepositional phrases until every sentence is a watery mess. Kerry couldn't read a Dick and Jane book to schoolchildren without transforming its sentences into complex run-ons worthy of David Foster Wallace. Kerry's speechwriters routinely insert the line "We can bring back that mighty dream," near the conclusion of his speeches, presumably as an echo of Ted Kennedy's Shrum-penned "the dream will never die" speech from the 1980 Democratic convention. Kerry saps the line of its power. Here's his version from Monday's speech in Tampa: "We can bring back the mighty dream of this country, that's what's at stake in these next two weeks."
Kerry flubs his punch lines, sprinkles in irrelevant anecdotes, and talks himself into holes that he has trouble improvising his way out of. He steps on his applause lines by uttering them prematurely, and then when they roll up on his TelePrompTer later, he's forced to pirouette and throat-clear until he figures out how not to repeat himself. He piles adjective upon adjective until it's like listening to a speech delivered by Roget.
Indeed. But why? Beats me. I assume because he's always fearfully editing himself, pre-processing what he says, simultaneously trying to filter-out verbal bombs while striving to project a sense of gravitas.
Doesn't work.
That said, a sinking and desperate George W. Bush leaped to the occasion yesterday and attacked Kerry's latest flub as a statement that was "shameful" and "insulting" to U.S. troops. Trying to convert this into a Republican campaign issue, Bush insisted that Kerry apologized.
OK. I admit it. I liked Kerry's immediate response. "I make apologies to no one about my criticism of the President and his broken policy that kills and maims our heroes in Iraq every single day," he said. Nice retort, John.
You can go now.
October 31st, 2006 at 11:20 pm
Not sure how much SAT scores or even grades for that matter have to do with intelligence, but you are certainly right about Kerry. Watching him fall into holes, and then awkwardly try to dig himself out made for a pretty agonizing election.
October 31st, 2006 at 11:43 pm
It’s interesting that Marc’s position on the war so closely tracks Kerry’s.
Marc serves up lame, juvenile putdowns about Kerry’s speaking style, but on policy, they both have wandered around claiming they simultaneously supported and opposed the war.
Marc has been somewhat more coy about the evolution of his position on the war, so I can’t really say who’s less genuine on the issue, but I can say Kerry has been far more articulate on it.
I’ll take Kerry’s characteristic lapse into complex sentences any day over Marc’s fevered, hyperbolic ad hominem and straw men.
October 31st, 2006 at 11:56 pm
If Bush can get away with nonsense like “I know how hard it is to put food on your family” on an almost daily basis, then why are politicians like Kerry or Dean crucified for their faux-pas?
When it comes to formulating a coherent argument Bush and Kerry aren’t even in the same ballpark. The fact that Bush is nevertheless the more successful politician says something about the nature of political discourse in the United States.
November 1st, 2006 at 12:14 am
Bunkerbuster, I’ve been reading almost all of Marc’s columns/blogs/article since forever and I don’t recall having read anything where he claims to support the war in Iraq. The war in Afganistan yes, but not Iraq. If you could please point out an article in which he came out in favor of the war I’d be greatly appreciative.
November 1st, 2006 at 12:26 am
Marc says he signed something called the Euston Manifesto.
Euston argues that the Iraq invasion was warranted and that the only problem is that things didn’t go as planned and some of the pre-invasion publicity was, um, exaggerated.
In discussions on this blog, I recall that Marc declined to disavow his initial support for the war. True, he has subsequently tried to pretend he opposed the war all along, but if that’s the case, why did he sign Euston?
November 1st, 2006 at 1:10 am
The Eusto manifesto bristles with verbose, condescending apologies for the multiple catastrophes brought by the speculative aggression in Iraq.
It insists, against mounting counterevidence, that the war is best described as the “liberation” of Iraqis.
The Euston wind-fest does say that some of its supporters opposed the invasion, but it then goes on to ennumerate the pre-2005 Kerry logic for speculative military aggression in Iraq.
Here’s an especially emetic piece of it:
“We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted — rather than picking through the rubble of the arguments over intervention.”
The proper concern of genuine liberals indeed. The manifesto is fantasy blueprint for war without end.
November 1st, 2006 at 1:56 am
Jack Kemp’s campaign managers had similar complaints about Kemp, who was probably giving pretty good speeches anyway, just not the right stuff for campaign speeches. He would get a little too cerebral for his own good. I read a story once about an address he gave before a very conservative audience, extolling “liberal democracy”. Quite a few members of the audience were disturbed to learn that Kemp thought there was anything good to be said about liberal democrats, those spawn of Satan.
A disciplined campaigner knows his limitations, listens to advice, and heeds that advice. You can be very smart, but still have discipline problems.
Kerry’s problems with his mouth go back a long way–he was Doonesbury material in (I think) the first year of that strip. Perhaps some staffer should make up a list of Kerry’s better lines, butcher them in the way that he typically does, and present them to him straightfaced. For example:
“How can you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake, is what I’m saying.”
November 1st, 2006 at 2:18 am
“We can bring back the mighty dream of this country, that’s what’s at stake in these next two weeks.”
Yeah, that’s pretty bad, but maybe the real mistake was putting in his mouth some mawkish old line that didn’t improve on rewrite. Gore’s speeches and speaking style seem to have improved in recent years, and I think it’s because he’s found his own voice. Gore has a slight advantage over Kerry, perhaps–he was a journalist early in his career.
What does Kerry *really* sound like? I don’t think we know yet. Clinton and the elder Bush had a way of being themselves. Reagan wrote a lot of his own speeches as governor, and he comes across in print as a person, not like a publicist-crafted simulacrum. Even Dubya has some of this fleshly solidity–it may make me cringe, but when he’s speaking unscripted, it sounds like it’s really him talking, and I think that’s a significant source of whatever appeal he has. Kerry often sounds like some speechwriter’s sockpuppet going rogue, but in the wimpiest possible Sesame Street way. He’s the Cookie Monster of orators. He should learn to slow down and dab the corners of his mouth. He should watch a lot of Gore, and learn something about pauses.
November 1st, 2006 at 5:59 am
Al Gore’s 2005 speech at NYU about the Iraq war will go down in history as one of the clearest, most forceful and most rhetorically effective takedowns of a U.S. president by an opposition party leader.
http://www.moveon.org/gore-speech.html
It’s well-worth repeat listenings and/or readings.
November 1st, 2006 at 6:18 am
You have to go back to the week of Swift Boat, when Cooper said A) this is as discusting as anything he’s ever seen in politics, and B) Kerry basicly deserved it.
This is neither paradox nor controdiction. It’s what comes out of the south end of a bull.
So here we have Kerry making some perfectly understandable illusion to the fact that getting into the was war stupid. Then we have Bush, it what must be the most lameo, ham fisted attempt at “gotcha” on record, hiding his faliures behind the troops.
This is the sort of thing Cooper seems to go along with because, ah… come on, Ma, EVERYBODY’s doing it! So the Republicans will get four or five days of largely favorible sound bites from it, just as they did with the Cheeny’s phoney indignation over their daughter having her rights spoken up for. Dumb little ten second asides on one minute news broadcasts. Thirty second free spots on the news.
It’s all made possible by a largely slanted to the right media and people like Cooper who work in it, wedded as they are to an offical media story that it’s always the Dems own fault when the likes of Cooper pimp their cow pies.
Yes Marc, how DARE someone suggest the President hadn’t rigourously considered the consquences of invading Iraq. Oh, maybe you could do that, but it must be done in the kind of puffed up, artfull style of an impressive stylistist like Christopher Hitchens! Then we would feel so bad about the Iraqis who’ll be blown up in the next month as a result of the lean, Hemingway sentences which brought us there. “Fuck Saddam, we’re taking him out.” Bravo!
What a moral stench you bring to your own blog. Stop trying to transfer to Kerry the blood on your own hand from enabling Bush.
November 1st, 2006 at 6:53 am
You just can”t make this stuff up.
GWB, incurious and inarticulate as he is, may mispronounce his $5 words, but Kerry manages to be sententious and politically stupid at the same time. Bad-mouthing “our boys” a week before an election–
Priceless.
November 1st, 2006 at 7:34 am
You were on a roll Marc, until you ended with John should ‘go now’. He made a second mistake by failing to take the opportunity to correct his first. He needed to appologize for any
unintended insults created by his mistake.
Until he does, this injury will continue to bleed democratic candidates.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:01 am
“this injury will continue to bleed”
Sorry, JR, but this election isn’t going to be about metaphors. The injury that continues to bleed is evident to any sane person. Since Republican politicians rarely are found in any situation where they might actually bleed – other than quail hunting with Cheney – they’ll merely lose votes while other people bleed.
When Bush apologizes for doing a comedy skit about WMDs in Iraq – his rationale for sending his betters into battle – Kerry might find the time mend the tender sensibilities of partisan obsessives who read The Corner or still pay attention to a remarkably unpopular President’s rhetoric of desperation.
While you’re waiting, maybe you can find some solace by joining the the folks on the Allen campaign – those not strongarming critics – who are tossing snips from a war novel at Jim Webb (the only guy in that race who’s war service isn’t comprised of playing someone on the wrong side of the civil war in “Gods and Generals”). If that doesn’t suit you, you might hold up a sign at a Duckworth rally accusing her of “cutting and running” from Iraq. Plenty of opportunities for GOPer activists to fight fiercely in the last ditch effort to win this one…
November 1st, 2006 at 8:09 am
What reg said. Every word of it.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:14 am
Incidentally, the notiion being peddled by this Little Shit of a Prez and the bloggers who live in his butt that these comments by a war veteran were a reference to the soldiers rather than to Bush is ridiculous.
And what’s with this “Obama woos backers among the corporate class” and “Kerry stumbles on the stump, even when he’s not running for anything” stuff ? You must be working on an article that’s pretty heavy. Somebody wake me up when the specter of Barack Obama’s “corruption” is our worst national nightmare and John Kerry’s speeches rise to the level of real news. It’s Halloween, Marc, not April Fools.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:28 am
Jim R: “He needed to appologize for any unintended insults created by his mistake.”
I don’t know how Kerry could have intended for John McCain (much less Michelle Malkin) to insult him because of this mistake but I don’t see why he should apologize for their insults.
Oh, wait, Jim, I see–you *meant* to say “any unintended offense caused by his mistakes.” But you blew it! Why, Jim, that’s *unforgiveable*. You should articulate your point of view perfectly at all times. What’s wrong with you?
“… this injury will continue to bleed democratic candidates.”
That much might be true.
GOM writes: “Bad-mouthing “our boys†a week before an election–”
You just insulted tens of thousands of women in uniform, GOM, some of them flying aerial missions into combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. What’s *wrong* with you?! Apologize immediately!
Sin. First stone. Broken clocks. Twice a day. Stop me before I get too proverbial.
The sad truth of this matter is that, right now, there’s somebody driving an armored personnel carrier down a Baghdad street who interrupted his master’s degree program, and is now sitting next to somebody who was given a pass out of high school but didn’t deserve it, and who probably shouldn’t be fighting next to someone so professional. Why? Because because recruiters keep having to lower their standards to meet quota. Why? Because it’s scary signing up now, when you’re only going to find yourself rotated back into kill zones every few months. There was some truth even in Kerry’s mangling, even if it did echo too much of my mother nagging me about my grades and warning me, “Do you want to get shipped off to Vietnam?!”
November 1st, 2006 at 8:31 am
but now all the topic will be Iraq, all the discussion will be about the soldier and the war. Nothing else.
In the last week Bush was pushing the Gay marriage topic, who give some advantage for the Repubblican, but now is dead. The same with North Korea.
Do you really think that Kerry did a mistake ?
November 1st, 2006 at 8:38 am
If it takes Andrew Sullivan, so be it…
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/11/abandoning_an_a.html
November 1st, 2006 at 9:02 am
Bunkerbuster, here’s the relevant Euston Manifesto passage:
“The founding supporters of this statement took different views on the military intervention in Iraq, both for and against. We recognize that it was possible reasonably to disagree about the justification for the intervention, the mann in which it was carried through, the planninng (or lack of it) for the aftermath, and the prospects for the successful implementation of democratic change. We are, however, united in our view about the reactionary, semi-facist and murderous character of the Baathist regime in Iraq, and we recognize its overthrow as a liberation of the Iraqi people. We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in the place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted – rather than picking through the trubble of the arguments over intervention.”
I find plenty that’s objectionable in the Euston Manifesto, but it’s more than a strech to claim that signing it makes you a supporter of the Iraq war. It explicitly says that some of the EMs writers thought the war unwise. I don’t get why people like you and Wall feel it’s necessary to characature Marc’s positions in order to disagree with him. It’s embarrassing to you personally and the political values we share – so stop it.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:03 am
Anything that draws attention to the crossfire our troops are now caught in hurts Bush and the GOP. And hurting Bush and the GOP – the “architects” of this debacle – is the only hope for moving to the next phase, which is a strategy for getting our people the hell out and minmizing the chaos and bloodletting we’ve unleashed.
Incidentally, regarding Sullivan’s post. A pullback from Sadr City may well have been the least bad tactical move in an increasingly deteriorating situation, but doing it at the behest of Maliki is incredible. And if Maliki really needs some bullshit Kabuki between himself and the U.S. military to gain credibility, they might as well just have the coup this week and get it over with.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:14 am
LaShawn Barber, no Kerryite she, thinks it was a flubbed line intended as an attack on Bush, that came out wrong.
Setting aside the “Freudian slip” angle, she might be right, and along with her, I wonder why the guy didn’t just say “I flubbed a line. Sorry. The troops aren’t stupid.”
Aside from his politics, which I don’t share, the guy strikes me as a pompous ass with a tin ear. The Dems, and the Republic, can do better.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:19 am
Regarding Marc’s post, does anyone know of any articles documenting the process of helping candidates learn to stump? I know political speech coaches exist, but I don’t have a sense of what they do or how they can help a candidate. It’s the kind of thing I guess people look down on, hiring some one to help you speak project inauthenticity, but I imagine it’s invaluable for every politician to have some one help them present themselves well when they’re stumping. And it seems like it would take about 10 minutes to knock off some of Kerry’s bad habits. (Incidentally, my guess is that he throws in all those extra parts to keep things fresh and make himself visably engaged with a speech that might sound dead if he read it verbatim. Give me a week and I could set him straight.) These kinds of troubles for Dems are totally needless.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:24 am
What’s the Euston Manifesto ?
Who’s LaShawn Barber ?
November 1st, 2006 at 9:27 am
(If anybody actually responds to those questions, I guess I flubbed my joke. Deepest apologies to any and all courageously risking their reputations on the frontlines of Marc’s blog.)
November 1st, 2006 at 9:35 am
MB, Marc’s posisitons are close enough to characuture in themselves, and I’m sure the Republicans are thankful you are helping him put the emphisis where they want it, a non apology for a non insult. Now that Kerry has been hectered off the campaign trail (presumably to go off somewhere and invent the internet) the rest of national media can stop “picking through the the rubble about arguements of intervention.” That is, stop making the Republicans face their record. I’m embarrassed for you.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:50 am
GOM: I wonder why the guy didn’t just say “I flubbed a line. Sorry. The troops aren’t stupid.â€
AP: Kerry… told a hastily called news conference, “I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy.” But he also said the comment was “a botched joke about the president and the president’s people, not about the troops … and they know that’s what I was talking about.”
I guess the only way for Kerry to correct such flubs – at least at the level of the “global test” he’s being subjected to in certain quarters – is to have some right-wing blogger script the precise words for any corrective response to desperate GOPers grabbing at straws. Post a memo on the Senator’s website. I’m sure he’ll fix that problem if he runs again in 2008.
November 1st, 2006 at 10:18 am
Yeah, Wall. I just got a thank you note from Karl Rove for my post on Marc Cooper’s blog criticizing bad political debate.
November 1st, 2006 at 10:35 am
First of all Kerry made another joke about Bush just before he made the botched one. Second the audience got it – they laughed. Or are you suggesting that the PCC students were a bunch of “Liberal Elitists” who sneer at the troops?
But let us concede that Kerry mangled the joke and should not quit his day job for the Comedy Store. And let us also note that he is not running for anything this year and will, in all probability, not be the nominee in 2008.
What I find offensive here is that, once again – predictably – Marc immediately jumps on a dem for, well for being not quite up to the high humor standards of, say, Ralph Nader. No the positive glee with which Marc trashes Kerry (or Warner or Obama or Angelides) is a wonder to behold.
Now I know your response Marc. I’m a journalist not an advocate. But that won’t suffice anymore. You praise Norm Geras for his remarks. But in 2002 when they mattered he was right there with the “On to Baghdad” crowd. Kerry? He gets no slack.
(And let me point out here that I was for Dean in 2000 and have a lot of respect for Edwards and Clark and thought then that Kerry tied himself into a knot over his vote on the war. He should have said – “I made a mistake” like Edwards.)
But am tired of people sitting on the sidelines and expecting perfection from candidates here. Funny, you don’t do that overseas. You like Lula and from what I’ve seen he has backpeddled on his campaign promises in order to stay in the good graces of “THE MARKET”. But he gets a break from you.
I guess at home you want more.
Look I have said it before and will say it again here. Politics is not a game. It is not a parlour activity. Real people’s lives are affected.
Take your daughter. you’re proud of her union organizing. Think that will amount to a hill of beans with a GOP controlled NLRB?
Think those students at PCC might want to get more education? Have you seen what happened to Pell Grants? Or to FISL?
Ask the people of New Orleans if the composition of FEMA is just a game!
Are the Dems perfect? No Are they better than Republicans? At this time and place the answer is YES! YES! YES!
(An aside USA TODAY reported the other day that the unit in HHS promoting “Abstinence Only” sex ed now wants to extend it to people up to the age of 29! No sex before marriage! And sex in marriage only for procreation. That ought to tell you all you need to know about the looniness of this crowd)
Do Dems politicize science? Stem Cells? Global Warming?
Am I a shill for the Democrats?
Yeah I want to see progress, even if its only in baby steps.
What do you want?
November 1st, 2006 at 11:05 am
I don’t think that Rove is desperate enough to enlist Mavis in his evil machinations. But he is desperate enough to have Bush grant an interview to Rush Limbaugh.
The only worse thing I can imagine in the annals of dragging the Presidency into the dirt would be if Clinton had Monica service him on the White House lawn.
I thought that my estimation of Bush had sunk about as low as it could go – from the months post-911 when, yes, I was vocally supporting the administration to “far-left” acquaintances who thought America could do no right, to my current disgust at his total and utter strategic failures, awash in an obvious and shocking callowness enduring six years into the job of most powerful man on the planet. But teaming up with Limbaugh is the act of a man who’s descended beneath contempt into the realm of the truly nauseating.
This man should obviously never have been President. Anyone who can’t admit that – “knowing what we know now” – is an idiot I wouldn’t trust as a babysitter. Anyone who voted for him should publicly apologize to our troops, to the country and – IMHO – pray to their God that they don’t burn in Hell along with him, Limbaugh, Malkin and the rest.
Kerry and Gore are giants of intellect, integrity and proposed policies compared to this increasingly sordid and soiled little piece of work. (Don’t ask me what that makes the bloggers and such who have been broadcasting from the tail end of his intestinal tract for the last five or six years.)
November 1st, 2006 at 11:15 am
“Am I a shill for the Democrats?”
Me too. And proud.
Note to anyone who’s solvent enough to have spent $50 going out to dinner recently. Still time to log on to Atrios or some other blogger who links to ACTBLUE and send some last minute money to Congressional Dems. If the GOP scumbags piss you off enough to make snarky comments here, get real and send a few bones to the folks who’ve got the guts to line up in Rove’s target gallery and, if they survive, trudge off to DC to mud wrestle with the swamp things.
November 1st, 2006 at 11:28 am
Here’s a photo of liberated Iraqis celebrating the latest U.S. military victory…
http://tinyurl.com/w2aoc
November 1st, 2006 at 11:40 am
I thought “the joke” was Kerry campaigning for Phil Angelides.
I
November 1st, 2006 at 11:42 am
Two final points:
1. If Bush wants to make the last week of this campaign a discussion of Iraq “Bring it on!”
2. Maybe after the “Outrage” over John Kerry we might ask why the Bush Administration deferred to Maliki and called off efforts to find that missing soldier by lifting the blockade of Sadr City. YOU DO NOT ABANDON YOUR MEN EVER!
Lets see them explain that as supporting the troops.
Andrew Sullivan gets it. Hope you do too.
November 1st, 2006 at 11:57 am
One thing worth emphasizing: Kerry’s joke would have been stupid *even if he had told it right*.
Why? Because as Marc points out, Kerry was also a poor student. (Slightly worse than Bush, in terms of GPA.) And more key, *he authorized use of military force against Saddam*. So his crack at Bush applies just about equally to him. It’s the height of rhetorical blunders to open oneself up to “Those who live in glass houses…” rejoinders. Had he told the joke correctly, the immediate Hannity-esque response would have been, “Kerry didn’t study hard either– I guess that’s why he went along with the President in Iraq but now pretends like he didn’t.”
President Clinton is a master at preempting those kind of retorts, saying, for example, when he endorses higher taxers for high earners, “so rich people like me have to pay their fair share.” But would Kerry say, “… you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don’t, like the President *and myself*, you get us stuck in Iraq”? I doubt it, because he has too much vanity tied up in his self-image as an erudite statesman.
Man, re-electing Bush was a real bad idea, but can you imagine 4 years of Kerry making asinine statements like that and having Fox News and the Republicans jumping down his throat every week, then Kerry’s liberal-left supporters raging back at him, and not a damn thing getting done in Congress? What a fucking quagmire that would have been.
November 1st, 2006 at 11:58 am
Hahaha.. Let’s see, now. Marc Cooper, by posting a criticism of John Kerry on a blog read by a couple of thousand set off a national firestorm on the eve of the election, right? Or was it that John Kerry speaking before a battery of national TV camers with millions of viewers said something stupid that allowed the Bushies to try and take advantage? Will let our massive audience here decide which above sentence more closely defines reality.
Listen Lo Cicero t al… you guys cant have it both ways. You claim that I demand “perfect” candidates. Hardly. They would put me out of business. What you demand are silent and partisan journalists. If that’s what you want, plug your head into Air America and take me off your blogroll. I am going to continue to reserve the right to laugh at any politician no matter which party he’s in and no matter how close the election is.
Kerry has CONSISTENLY sucked as a public speaker and he boldly continues. Bush tried to capitalize and — guess what– he’s probably failed. So like it or not we agree on that final point.
Mr. Wall is simply an idiot. Just like GW Bush had to manufacture the notion that the Iraqis had WMD in order to justify his invasion, Wall continues to manufacture the LIE that I supported the war in order to justify his ongoing and juvenlie temper tantrum.
Now..back to plotting war on Iran….
November 1st, 2006 at 12:00 pm
I am no friend of the Republican party, but I thought Kerry’s remarks make him the jackass of the party. Perhaps future majority leader Hillary will appoint him to the moose dropping removal committe in Alaska. Further, Kerry out in Deep Blue California, stomping for the ultimate lost cause in Governor races, while certainly updating those all important fund raising leads, reinforces the image of a party less about ideas and answers than getting into position to rule out of default. Simply not being the GOP, is good enough for right now.
November 1st, 2006 at 12:02 pm
P.S.
RLC SAYS:
” Politics is not a game. It is not a parlour activity. Real people’s lives are affected.”
Im gonna write that down, laminate it and carry it my pocket. Next time a group of rank opportunists like John Kerry and Hillary CLinton vote a right-wing president a blank check for war I might pull it out and show it to them… reminding them their vote is more than a political game for advantage, that is real life, and that some people might actually die. But then again, that me be demanding unrealistic perfection.
November 1st, 2006 at 12:31 pm
MC – †Politics is not a game. It is not a parlour activity. Real people’s lives are affected.â€
Im gonna write that down, laminate it and carry it my pocket. Next time a group of rank opportunists like John Kerry and Hillary CLinton vote a right-wing president a blank check for war I might pull it out and show it to them… (end clip)
Might also be a neat idea to circulate that thought among the Euston Manifesto crowd…most of whom share the “blank check for war” flaw in their public pronouncements, and with a greater sense of political grandiosity even than Hillary or John, if such a thing is possible. Frankly, Democratic “opportunists” in the Beltway who voted for authorization of use of force have less to account for in the realm of political wretchedness than fervid “humanitarian” cheerleaders who thought that sending GIs and Brits to liberate Iraq was the next best thing to an uprising of the Iraqi workers and peasants waving Quotations of Leon Trotsky. It’s like a contest over relative virtue between an adulterous nun and a chastened whore. The nun, inevitably, looks far worse.
November 1st, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Got to go with reg’s take on all this. The midterm elections are about Iraq, stupid, and the Republican campaign is all about trying to change the subject. Hard to do when 104 Americans were killed there in October, very hard indeed. Talk about your insults to the troops: Sending them to die based on a lie, that’s about as insulting as it gets.
November 1st, 2006 at 1:04 pm
If John Kerry doesn’t apologize to the troops, the situation described in this WaPo article will just continue to get worse…
http://tinyurl.com/y7n4ol
November 1st, 2006 at 1:58 pm
By the way I am just back in Paris from a month long trip to the East Coast, observing the natives close up as it were. It is amazing what passes for politics in the USA, no wonder we are the laughing stock of the world. At the same time, however, there is a level of participation in the public debate that you don’t find anywhere else. Now, if we could just find a way to conduct that debate on a higher level, we would really have something.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Meanwhile, back on the campaign trail, Dick Cheney has prominently featured Kerry jokes in his campaign rally for the loathsome Conrad Burns today in Kalispell, Montana.
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2006/11/cheney_tackles_.html
Terrifyingly enough, the ploy may work if combined with a bit of hammering on the “the democrats are coming to take your guns†meme.
Burns, considered to be one of the ten most corrupt members of the US Senate, was roundly headed for defeat by Montanans who are rightly sick to death of the creep, and were all set to elect an excellent guy name Jon Tester. But now BIG money from the RNC and the NRA is rolling in, along with Cheney (again), Bush tomorrow, and the race is too close to call.
The commercials are great, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joQi27QG7Cs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d72sEcfBC3c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alEwRlkS1rk&NR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smgINBHJ0AM&NR
If Angelides had Testor’s ad company, he might be in entirely different shape in California.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:09 pm
So Marc, apparently, says he opposed the war from the beginning. In that case, I withdraw my assertion that he supported it and apologize as well.
I had sincerely believed Marc argued both in favor of military action to “remove” Saddam and for staying in Iraq, since leaving would be worse for he Iraqi people. I’m not sure why my memory fails on this, but apparently it does, and I’m happy to acknowledge that Marc has consistenly opposed the war.
When you hear Kerry talk, he sounds quite like a person who opposed the war from the beginning as well. But we all know he didn’t.
As for the Euston Manifesto, it may claim to include supporters who opposed the war in Iraq, but the principles it espouses are indistinguishable from the cant that forms the foundation for the invasion’s rationale.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Kerry is such a hypocrite that I bless the day I DIDNT vote for him two years ago.
After all, I believe it was Donald Rumsfeld on January 7, 2003, who said that enlisted soldiers were “adding no value, no advantage really, to the United States Armed Services over any sustained period of time.” (Do a search sometime, you will find the quote is exact).
Furthermore, I believe it was John Kerry, along with two other Democratic congressmen (Tom Daschle, then Senator from South Dakota, and Rep. Lane Evans from Illinois) who demanded in a personal letter to Rumsfeld that he apologize. Rumsfeld, in turn, after apologizing, said that “it was not eloquent” but complained that it was “so unfortunately misinterpreted.”
In context, Rumsfeld apparently meant that enlisted men are thrown into battle with so little training that they are in worse danger than proper cadets. At least that is how Rummy described it.
Apparently, John Kerry didn’t accept that explanation in 2003. I guess he is finding out now that paybacks are a witch.
Still, I find it interesting that Bush never demanded in a public speech that his Secretary of Defense apologize to American troops for his remarks.
As for Kerry’s angry response to Bush: What a barf-a-rama. Just like Howard Dean did in 04, Kerry evokes the name of that famous cigar smoking radio pundit slash failed NFL television analyst for political posturing…and in the process giving that fat idiot pig more attention, more publicity, more money….I cannot even begin to state how sick I am of both parties at this moment.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:33 pm
But as for all these pundits (like that idiot morning shock jock on MSNBC) who say, “Kerry shouldn’t do jokes.”…neither should you. He’s at least as funny as that dumb Santorum wrestling commercial thing that the pundits are hee hawing.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:49 pm
In 2002 2/3 of Democrats in the House and half the Democrats in the Senate voted “No” on the war powers resolution. I think one Republican – Lincoln Chafee – voted that way. In the House maybe Ron Paul. So tell me Marc, whih party was more opposed?
I wish Kerry had voted right or had said in 2004 that he made a mistake (as John Edwards has done) but he didn’t and it cost him dearly then and will again in 2008.
And while you’re laminating the quote of mine for your wallet remember that in 2000 you were so sure that Gore and Bush were peas in a pod. Guess that didn’t qualify as cavalier though because your motives were pure. So when people like Jonathan Kozol, Tom Hayden and Jesse Jackson Jr tried to explain why the choice that year mattered a hell of a lot at Arianna Huffington’s “Shadow Convention” it just didn’t register with you. And I’m sure you were satisfied to join the likes of Chris Hitchens in deriding that line of argument as a sell-out to the truth.
Well we know where Hitchens stands. And we know where David Ignatius, Norm Geras, Tom Friedman and the signers of the Euston Manifesto stood.
So, yeah I’ll take Kerry’s “Apology” today for what is was: Self-criticism by a deviationist who has been “reeducated”. Kerry should have realized that his garbled remarks would be seized on by a servile media (see Mark Halperin) that finds an unfunny joke more important than a failed war and abandoning the troops as happened in Baghdad yesterday.
November 1st, 2006 at 4:40 pm
My side is right, yours is wrong.
Sorry, correction: my side is absolutely right, yours is absolutely wrong. Chotu the dog
November 1st, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Marc Cooper always reads these real fast and ends up blaming me for all the negative comments about him; but ya know, I kind of take it as a complanment. I blamed him, rightfully, for taking his usual bland “tit for tat” stance on the Swift Boaters, which happens to be true.
Yawn. And if that rank opportunist Kerry had taken Bill Clinton’s advise and came out strongly in favor of the Defence of Marrige act,
(probably fairly meaningless anyway) he might have well have put himself over the top. He didn’t do it because he thought it was wrong. I guess he’s a lousy rank opportunist too.
November 1st, 2006 at 5:50 pm
This is where we would really be better off as a people if all the political combatants would agree to take a step back and return to a world where an awkward slip of the tongue was accepted, once explained, as just a mistake, not “treason.”
Kerry didn’t take that route because he has been hearing for 2 years that he should have fought back against the swift boaters, and has been brooding over the choice to think Americans would see thru all that and accord him a hero’s treatment. They didn’t, the slander succeeded, and it made it just a little harder to handle the next perceived slight gracefully.
Most thoughtful liberal/leftists have probably thought frequently the past 20 years that our side doesn’t fight back against the calumnies of the Atwaters and the Roves, and that is why we are perceived as weenies and losers. I wonder about this. I doubt if it is really true.
First, there is a difference between “fighting back,” which would include defiant utterance of our own ideas in response to unfair attacks, and “fighting fire with fire,” which, as the courageous brushfire fighters would tell you, is a tactic to be undertaken by only the most skilled professionals in the most controlled and favorable wind conditions.
Second, the Republicans benefitting from the attack machine believed that they were victims of unscrupulous Democrats for too many years [how many times did you hear 25 year old charges against Gerry Studds used to "defend" Foley and Hastert, or see that Osama's Coming ad justified because Johnson ran the Little Girl and the Daisy ad one time 40 years ago?]. I think that most of them are seeing that they have become addicted to the blood sport aspect of politics, and would like it to end just as much as many of us would.
Third, it is possible that a break is coming in the clouds. I think that if Dems get effective control of the House, it is imperative that Pelosi (assuming she gets elected to the chair) demand, publicly and privately, that no one pursue impeachment, however justified an investigation might show it to be. Investigation is proper, but an impeachment effort would just be seen as revenge, and we would continue in the downward spiral that grips places like Iraq and other tragically split communities.
November 1st, 2006 at 5:59 pm
I agree with Balter. This controversy created by Kerry’s speech is completly ridiculous and serves only an example of how pathetic our political discourse is in this country. The only journalist I’ve read so far who has been able to take this in another direction is the good Phillip Weiss. He said
“John Kerry’s statement about education and military service may be a political liability to the power-lusting Dems, but journalists (most of whom vote Democratic) aren’t politicians, they’re the busy bees of the information age, and they should perform their jobs now: Is Kerry’s statement true?
I bet it is. I am sure (without data; I see this feelingly) that the kids who are serving in Iraq are not nearly as well educated as, say, the kids who are getting internships at media companies that served the Koolaid on WMD, or serving as pages to closeted gay Republican congressmen.
It’s an economic draft, stupid.
Bravo John Kerry, for exposing the terrible hypocrisy of the Iraq war: the journos and thinktankers and pols who banged the drum were never at risk, and neither are their kids. Because they didn’t fall off the back of the meritocracy bus. Do I hear some resentment? Yes. Jim Fallows established his reputation with a famous piece called Where Were You In the Class War, Daddy? about the class divide between those who served in Vietnam and those who protested the war in the safe streets of America. The piece appeared in the Washington Monthly, published by Charlie Peters, the former Peace Corps exec who has long called for mandatory national service. The class divide is (I bet) even wider today; including in the officer corps, where Ivy grads are (another wild wager on my part) far less likely to be found on the Tigris than their predecessors were to be found on the banks of the Mekong. E.g., John Kerry and Donald E. Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, who for whatever stupid, noble, democratic, or ambitious reason, served in that disastrous war.
Maybe we can’t have the conversation for another week, while John Kerry is held in a safe house inside the green zone in D.C., but let’s have it out. What’s Charlie Rangel saying? Help my man out!”
November 1st, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Ahmed – you’re displaying a common left-wingish, upper-class bias (paradoxical ? maybe…) that is something of a hold-over from the Vietnam-era CW, became no longer very accurate in the early stages of the Iraq war and is on it’s way coming back round as factual, primarily because this administration has broken the military by over-extension and non-strategy in occupying Iraq.
See Fred Kaplan for one of the better recent journalistic pieces on the complexities of this issue.
http://www.slate.com/id/2133908/
November 1st, 2006 at 6:23 pm
You’re right, incidentally, about the upper reaches of the Ivy league, ruling class, etc. – but the fact is that the draft during Vietnam produced disproportionate numbers of folks at the socio-economic bottom in combat brigades, while more recent higher recruitment standards have somewhat shifted the field of recruits toward what I’d roughly call “the middle” and less disproportionately “non-white”. Of course, various economic benefits, college loan payments, promises of technical training, etc. etc. are strong incentives that kids who are well-off don’t have to even consider.
November 1st, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Actually there was an earlier Kaplan piece that contained this, using 2003 data (the last year available…hmmmm…)
“Not many nations have an all-volunteer army, and the concept could not be sustained if the burden of service fell entirely on the lowest classes—on those who joined the military because they couldn’t find jobs elsewhere. The inequity would be intensified—rendered impossible to ignore—if the face of this lower-class army were disproportionately black. This was precisely the kind of military we had in the early days of the all-volunteer force: overwhelmingly poor, uneducated, and African-American. But this is no longer the case. The racial mix, reading levels, and aptitude scores of today’s Army are not much different from those of 18-to-24-year-olds in American society as a whole.”
November 1st, 2006 at 6:45 pm
This post is jumping.
A shout out to Mavis for the Euston Manifestom – I needed that refresher.
I do agree with Guisseppe that positive or negative Kerry’s comments have at least shifted the debate from what was going on the NJ court system back to the topic at hand which is war. Overall despite Kerry’s lack of touch with “the people” I believe this can only be a positive: 101 American casuaties, al-Maliki’s recent skirmish with Bush and the continued disintegration of what should have been our primary focus Afganistan. An apology to Bush for the war no, an apology to working class America who are the ones putting their bodies on the line, hell yes.
If the words (whether it was a slip or not) of the prince consort of Heinz are enough to sway a voter soured on Iraq to change their vote from Dem to Rep we’re in serious trouble. Instead I hope it will be final nail in his presidential aspirations coffin,
I cling to the the populist argument, to each his own state: Cardin (MD), Tester (MT) and Ford (TN and in few view of the beatific glow of Clinton) have asked for an apology. They know their crowd and the races are close because of local goodwill.
November 1st, 2006 at 6:46 pm
I read French and keep up with their politics from Lutte Ouvriere to Jean Marie Le Pen. Although their politicians’ syntax is more polished than ours’ (Le Pen’s most of all), I’m not impressed. The statism across the whole spectrum is stifling and stagnant, with rare exceptions. While our colonialism is shabby and negligent, theirs is arrogant and oppressive.
Nor is the controversy about JK’s remark as inane as some people think. Things like “macaca,” George Allen’s disgraceful attacks on Webb’s novels, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,†and the latest “stuck in Iraq” remark are surrogates for underlying attitudes and character. These gaffes resonate because they disclose inner truths. George Allen no doubt is a snotty opportunist bastard, and Kerry an upper-class twit with a stick up his ass and a haughty disdain for the Great Unwashed.
The GOP House leadership giving a bye to Mark Foley was a critical moment, not because it’s inherently so important, but because it epitomized their hypocrisy on moral issues.
Underlying character and attitudes are better predictors of performance than wonkish concern about things that won’t even be on the political radar two years from now. Gaffes and slips can be keys to these predictors.
November 1st, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Wow! and what, Grumpy, do you make of George W. Bush’s gaffe-a-thon presidency? He puts Kerry, Allen and all the others to shame as regards idiotic remarks.
November 1st, 2006 at 7:49 pm
It depends on the gaffe. Does it provide a “teaching moment”?
Bush has many failings, but we might not agree on what they are. Here are five, in no particular order–federalizing educational policy, the complex and costly Medicare drug benefit, unwillingness to veto Congressional pork, failure to plan for the day after Saddam fell, and negligence on illegal immigration. Oh, and Michael Brown.
Gore, of course, would have been worse, and Kerry incomparably worse.
Pray for the Republic.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:24 pm
“I don’t get why people like you and Wall feel it’s necessary to characature Marc’s positions in order to disagree with him.”
I think it entirely fair to criticize anyone who signed the Euston Manifesto. It’s a public and political statement, for Pete’s sake, and one should be accountable for signing one’s name to it.
That said, the final part of the quote (full of misspellings, incidentally–did you copy/paste that, or redact that after tossing back a few?) was a perfect example of the uncritical mentality spouted by many war-supporters, and even non-war-supporters who tried to stifle debate. To wit: “rather than picking through the trubble (sic) of the arguments over intervention”. So I wonder what our “proper concern” should be now? What a pathetic, embarrassing, and shameful document. It will be interesting to see how history judges all who signed it.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Grumpy, how do you say “eat me” in french?
As Bunkbuster points out, if gaffes were a sin, W would own Hell. I would suggest these gaffes resonate because of the right’s Multi million dollar gaffe resonating machine. The fact that an issueless White House is able to pull this flaming red herring out of their bottoms and have it dominate the news for even one day tells us a lot about our “liberal” media.
For the record, Reg is, as usual, putting in mildly. People are more apt to end up in the service because you have less choice if you have less money. That’s why when Micheal Moore points out the disconect in the power structure between the people who choose to go to war and the people who go and fight it; he’s not doing something cheap; he’s pointing out something quite relevant. To be fair, when I say disconnect here; I mean, literally, they are just not the same people, the choosers have more money than the fighters.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:47 pm
I don’t understand why you are so hard on me Reg. I gave JK and the Democrats good advice, for their own good. John should appologize as soon as possible for any unintended slight to the troops, and it would be over.
Is it my fault he does not read Marc’s Blog? Apparently a few Democratic Candidates do, because they encouraged John to take my advice. But what did John do, make such an unbelievable lame attempt on Imus In the Morning, it made Imus’s sidekick retort “I thought he was against torture”.
I did my best to help you guys. Don’t shoot at the messenger. Fact is John has such a resentment and irrational hatred of Bush, that he is totally blinded by the effect of his screw-up and believed it was all a vast right-wing conspiracy and grossly underestimated.
Even now, his 4th attempt is a post on his blog. This just won’t do. It must be in public and with contrition and sincereity.
Are you reading this John. It is you making a mountain out of a mole hill. It is your blind hatred, with a little ego thrown in, that has made this small gaffe a grotesque giant.
I’ve done my best to help Reg. You guys aren’t helping me.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Oh, and MB. I think you have found your home. I think your open border, appeasement, godless, gutless, socialist, pc country with a history of others having to fight their battles and fix their fuck-ups, will be needing us again as the un-assimalated unemployed masses continue to burn your house down from within.
And you rely on the fact we will come, while you stick your dick in our eye. Blink bastards.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:02 pm
That would be ‘Blind bastards’.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:19 pm
Oh, and as a friendly reminder, if France had stepped up to the plate of responsibility in Iraq, instead of sleaze-bagging the people of Iraq by helping Saddam build his palaces with French black market blood money, the Iraqi people would be much closer to the democracy and freedom they so much deserve.
November 1st, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Well, we’ll see how you do with Kerry thing, Jim R. It at least puts to rest any doubt about weather the Swiftboaters took there orders from the White House. The draft dodging President pissed on the War hero, and now hides behind the troops.
As Wolcott observed not long ago, part of the Dems problem is they keep asking, at long last, have you know sense of decency? That would be a no, no, not on your life.
I recall a Mo Dowd piece about Clinton and the Arlington Cemetary Scandel. You probably faintly remember, Limbaugh and a host of Congressmen were on about how Clinton and Gore had auction off 10 or 12 plots in Arlington Cemetary to the highest bidder. Big play for about a week. Problem was, the story was Bullshit.
But Mo, who had pimped the nonsense herself, had a real epiphany, see, She, she felt if She could believe Clinton was CAPABLE of doing it, it was in fact a legitimate black mark against him. Also, Clinton had not effectively SET THE RECORD stright about the false charges against him. So it was as much his fault as anyones.
You’ll be hearing a lot of that kind of tortured, if all too typical logic in the next week, why our emphisis should be on the imaginary insult of a non candidate, why these non gaffes “resonate.” King Soloman’s like Marc Cooper will cut the baby in
“half” handing the republicans the disabled child while the
Dems get the the knees to the toes.
Will it all work again? Only a fool would bet against it.
November 1st, 2006 at 10:54 pm
“Kerry has CONSISTENLY sucked as a public speaker and he boldly continues. Bush tried to capitalize and — guess what– he’s probably failed.”
I sure hope Marc’s right that Bush has failed. It’s important that the Dems win (and choose someone with halfway-decent political instincts as their next Prez candidate). Kerry is not a deft stump speaker or campaigner, to say the least. Pretty good debater though. He seems more comfortable in that formal environment, more like himself.
November 1st, 2006 at 11:15 pm
“Reg is, as usual, putting in mildly.”
Obviously I’m losing my touch….
Who do you have to pistol-whip to get any respect around here ?
November 2nd, 2006 at 2:21 am
Well reg.. nice try back there about the Euston Manifesto boys having to be reminded about parlour games and blank checks.
One minor difference, alas… The Esutorner are blogger who signed letter posted on some websites.
Kerry and Clintion handed a sub-par President legal autority to initiatate an optional war. Not exactly the same league.
On a less point.. you know Reg, your politics merge perfectly with those of Euston. If u were a brut, most of them would be ur political allies. They are practical social democratic left. I dont imagime you in the waistcoast of Mr Galloway and the SWP=led stop the war coalition.
Anycase, I read everyline of Euston before signing it. Didnt find anything to object to.
November 2nd, 2006 at 5:42 am
Reg, the next post answers your question! =)
November 2nd, 2006 at 7:35 am
So I’m supposed to admire Norman Geras and Paul Berman because they’re nobody intellectuals who are only playing parlor games ?
The U.S. version of Euston was so unobjectionable that apparently even Michael Ledeen felt comfortable signing on to it. Just because I don’t have anything in common with the Answer coalition, despite their attempts to hijack anti-war sentiment, I’m sure as hell not going to attach myself to the waistcoat of Marty Peretz or Ronald Radosh (see “American supporters of the Euston Manifesto” at the Telos site). I can’t get to the manifesto site now for some technical reason, but if I’m not mistaken the Brit original featured Oliver Kamm, who’s a prominent member of the Henry Jackson Society – which is exactly what it sounds like: rabid neoconservatism for
English twits.
Euston was, IMHO, a not too clever attempt to re-legitimatize an apparently liberal (or “Labor”) version of the neo-con, neo-imperialist world view that was in tatters in the wake of people like Geras and Hitchens having positioned themselves in Paul Wolfowitz’ waistcoat and played cheerleader to Bush’s bamboozling and bungling and bloodletting in Iraq.
One can put a benign read on the Manifesto out of context – and I’m not trying to smear you by association – but certainly in retrospect, given the way it’s been played and by who, I’m not only not impressed, I’m creeped out. I know it’s “make fun of John Kerry week”, but I respect him more than I respect Geras because it didn’t take him nearly as long to begin to oppose the war. Too long and typically inept in his path – and damned before he does anything in any direction because he’s a pol and a Dem – but not as long, or even as tortured, as Geras was in recognizing reality.
Euston may have been a parlor game or tavern discourse by ineffectual intellectuals that could be read as all things to all people, but it was a tavern document heard round the world in certain intellectual circles and the folks who saw it as useful were mostly a singualrly nasty element who want to insure that a neo-imperialist interventionism doesn’t exist as a last resort but is kept on the front-burner of U.S. “best practices” when we survey the world.
Geras and Peter Beinart and the whole lot of the “liberal” Iraq cheerleaders are candidates in my book for pretty much shutting the fuck up for some decent interval if all they have to contribute is more mindgames. (George Packer proved himself an honest journalist, not a hack pundit, by following up with in-depth reporting on the consequences of what he had supported. Honorable man.) But most of these folks will continue to demand attention to their boring, disconnected discourse by any means necessary because they are emblematic of a liberal elite that believes fervently in their moral and intellectual superiority, even though they’ve amply demonstrated that any such pretense is a bad joke.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:27 am
reg -
Excellent post but not sure it can sustain that many waistcoat references.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:37 am
I think that might be the first time I’ve used the word in my life. It was exhilirating. Guess I got carried away.
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:05 am
Geras is one of those who has been bleating lately that he was wrong for the right reasons on Iraq with the ongoing implication that those of us who opposed the war on principle were right for the wrong reasons. His arrogance is matched only by his disingenuosness.
On the other hand, he has very good taste in music.
Berman seems to me to be speeding along with Hitchens on the David Horowitz Highway, especially as exemplified by his recent dishonest review of a book about I. F. Stone.
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:24 am
Cooper: “Anycase, I read everyline of Euston before signing it. Didnt find anything to object to.”
Huh? Then you’re either morally obtuse or you have serious reading comprehension problems. To wit:
“We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in the place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted – rather than picking through the trubble of the arguments over intervention”
Your “proper concern” hasn’t been very proper with every criticism you’ve made of the preemptive Iraqi invasion, “since the day it occurred”. Or maybe you voted for the war before you voted against it? In any case, I find it laughably insulting (and intellectually vapid) to be told how to “properly” align my concern by focusing only on… (wait for it)… democracy building! No, thank you very much, I think I’m able to chew gum and walk at the same time: support Iraqis, while also continue to angrily berate the clowns who put us in this mess. If we don’t shine light on the tragic lies and mistakes that were made, well, you know the rest: we’re doomed to repeat them.
So, to put it elegantly, your “Manifesto” could at least “properly” serve as toilet paper, but that would require wasting the paper and ink to print it up. I think the wasteland of solipsistic bloggerdom is probably the more fitting burial ground for it.
November 2nd, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Oh, and MB. I think you have found your home. I think your open border, appeasement, godless, gutless, socialist, pc country with a history of others having to fight their battles and fix their fuck-ups, will be needing us again as the un-assimalated unemployed masses continue to burn your house down from within–Jim R.
France does not have open borders and never has. Jim R is still suffering from the ignorance that infuses most of his posts. Most of the rioters are French citizens of parents who were either born in France too or immigrated to France because they are from the former North African colonies of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia and had the right to come legally. As for France being socialist, I wish that were true. France is a capitalist country. We just have universal health care, something most Americans would love to have too. I could go on but the ignorant get that way willingly in many cases including Jim R’s.
November 2nd, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Well, since I’m the only one here who actually heard Kerry speak before the Foreign Relations Comm. in 1971 I can say that he’s a pretty good speaker when he wants to be. But, of course in those days the media didn,t play “Gotcha” and “Swiftboating” was yet to be invented.
November 2nd, 2006 at 5:23 pm
OK I’ll say it:
Euston, we’ve got a problem!
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:54 pm
Andrew Montin:
“If Bush can get away with nonsense like “I know how hard it is to put food on your family†on an almost daily basis, then why are politicians like Kerry or Dean crucified for their faux-pas?
When it comes to formulating a coherent argument Bush and Kerry aren’t even in the same ballpark. The fact that Bush is nevertheless the more successful politician says something about the nature of political discourse in the United States. ”
Is what this boils down to. Lecture Kerry over a few, perhaps ambiguous words, but give Bush honor and credibility for what?
Also, a SAT test score is not indicative of intelligence that’s relevant to understanding right from wrong, which is more important than understanding SAT questions. Granted, there are mass killers who would score well on a SAT test. Moreover, if we’re going to go back to the past, and highlight Bush’s past achievements, why not highlight the fact that John Kerry went to Vietnam and helped put an end to a de facto peasant massacre there? Would you rather have someone who scored well on a SAT test, but was indifferent about innocents burning from Napalm? Including children?
Then, I’m sure Kim Jong Ill would love to hire you. Clearly, academic efficacy is of higher priority than human compassion, in a dictatorial government.
November 3rd, 2006 at 5:35 pm
And Let me say what Bush deserves honor for in my opinion:
1) Investing $15 billion in the fight against HIV in Africa
2) Being a very noble man when it comes to immigration, by showing understanding and compassion that’s otherwise rare on his political side
If Bush was that, minus the war, the neglect of Katrina, and a few other human demise related misteps, I’d defend him more consistently.
But as far as bashing Kerry over words–when it’s clear that Kerry is a good man is about what Andrew Montin said. Kerry helped stop the war in Vietnam by a sheer care for human beings getting burned and slaughtered for no good reason other than a blatant indifference toward dead peasants and children. The pressure he stood up against, at that young age, is heroic, and shows an integrity that very few have, or have the courage to uphold against public pressures, let alone a war pushing government/army. Therefore Andew is right on the head: this is about the nasty level of politics, not Kerry’s “bad” character.
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