On the surface, the Presidential Campaign is shaping up as a battle between two Ivy League Dullards (as one who went to Dartmouth and Yale, I can promise you I’ve run into more than a few). An Ivy education is no guarantee of intellectual prowess, especially when you get into the lower end of the class rankings. We have long heard this about Bush, the ne’er-do-well son who had some problem getting into law school and ended up at Harvard Business. But now Kerry is being questioned. Boston College Law School, currently ranked twenty-nine on the US News scale (yes, I know its shortcomings), is quite a comedown from number one ranked Yale Law (attended, with distinction, by Bill and Hill). Several explanations come to mind for this relative academic decline (one of them unlikely to be a “economic need to go to night school”), but we will have to wait for the candidate (or his proxies) to tell us. But never mind. Kerry may not be the next Walter Russell Mead when it comes to scholarship, but he is a war hero, right?
Well… the news on that this morning is not good. If even a quarter of what is alleged is true, the war that Kerry was a hero in was his own version of “Apocalypse Now” and he seems to have been playing the Robert Duvall role. Since he has raised the subject… again and again… we now need a full airing, alas — something that is going to be boring, partisan and terrible for the country.
UPDATE: I notice John McCain is condemning the ad by Kerry’s former Naval colleagues (and the book, I would imagine) as dredging up the divisive subject of Vietnam. I would agree with him, had not Kerry “reported for duty” at the convention. But he did.
MORE: The Kerry Campaign is threatening to sue stations broadcasting the “libelous” ad. We shall see.
…and Joe Lieberman, Pat Robertson, and Clarence Thomas. And a certain deity who shall remain nameless. *cough*
Now wait just a minute, there, Roger! Robert Duvall’s role was the stuff of legend. “Kilgore” is God in that movie. Perhaps Kerry was his own tortured Martin Sheen?
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Let me say straight out that Kerry is stupid.
He is a plodding mediocrity.
He has learned nothing from experience. His head was set in concrete at 20 and remains set in the same concrete at 60.
Stupid is not the worst thing in the world, provided you are stamped with the right values. But when you have been stamped with perverted values stupid is dangerous — very dangerous.
Roger,
I can’t get the “not good” link to work. ¬øQue paso? Is there a problem or is it my crummy ISP down here, again?
Mark in Mexico
Bad link on “not good” — you want http://www.drudgereport.com/ufd1.htm. (Double http:// in your link.)
The “not good” link is brokened. Try this: not good.
Kerry has made his service in Vietnam the entire foundation and center of his campaign. He has been begging for this to happen all along.
Waiting for the New York Times to start spinning this – oh, already started.
Just read your previous post, where you said what I just said. Oh well.
From the AP link:
A bona fide war hero, McCain, like Kerry, used his war record as the foundation of his presidential campaign.
Sorry, that is simply nonsense. McCain benefits from his status as “bona fide war hero” but he certainly didn’t center his campaign around it the way Kerry has. (And McCain faced more danger just during the Enterprise fire than Kerry did in his entire tour.)
For example, anyone following American politics with any interest could tell you what McCain has done as a Senator. Kerry himself can barely tell you what Kerry has done.
All,
Got it. Thanks.
Mark in Mexico
Roger:
I have posted this point before but now that you raised it again I will once again object to your characterization of at least one of the Ivy Leaguers as dullards. I refrain from defending or ridiculing Kerry because I don’t know what his academic record was.
First, I agree that GWB got into Yale as a Legacy. The fact is that the only elite private school where legacy doesn’t count is the University of Chicago. I don’t know if GWB [or jfk] would have been admitted to my Alma Mater, THE University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,
either under in-state or out-of-state criteria.
Second, Michael Isakoff examined GWB’s academic records in 2000. He was C+ student. Today, this is considered a dullard’s GPA. But neither Bush nor Kerry went to school today. They went in the 60′s long before grade inflation took hold. C was the average grade. C+ was therefore indication of an above average if not outstanding performance. At the U of I, where 40% of the entering class flunked out in the first year, the typical grading scheme for University required courses was a failure inducing no curve scale of A=95, B=88, C=80, D=75. Effectively 80 was passing since getting D was tantamount to flunking the course for stay in school purposes. I understand that it is almost impossible to flunk out of an Ivy, especially if you have connection, e.g., Al “the pin head” Gore.
Finally, GEB was a History major. Now, I understand History is not in the same league as say Mechanical Engineering [me], but the level of reading and writing skills required to do well is higher then say political science [kerry.] The overall assessment of GWB from his known academic record is that he was decent, but not brilliant student. He may not be up to your level of brilliance but he is certainly no dullard. By the way Roger, how well do you think you might have done in the U of I College of Engineering [Co-ranked #1 with MIT] in a 1960′s environment?
One more thing, I will step up to the plate and defend Kerryís choice of law school. I suspect the a BC law degree means more in Boston and Massachusetts political circles then an Ivy League degree. If he were a Chicagoan and wanted to go into politics he would have attended De Paul Law and not UC, Northwestern or UoI. That was because all the local pols, e.g., the Honorable Richard J. Daley went to DePaul law. Richard M went to UC law but he had a different kind of legacy.
Gee Whiz Batman…
After spending half my life following the exploits of Ted Kennedy and Al Gore, the idea that well-connected morons can get into and through an Ivy League school comes as a real shock. Thanks for clearing that up.
Anyway, call me a furrow-browed, knuckle-dragging Mid-Westerner who graduated without distinction from your basic, thoroughly average land-grant college in the heartland, but the issue of successful leadership rarely revolves around who is a genius and who isn’t. Most successful (and a fair number of unsuccessful) leaders are neither.
Beyond that, it is a well known axiom (“Dennis’ Law”) that when Democrats refer to their candidate as either ‘complex’ or ‘deep’, you are dealing with a candidate who has the I.Q. of a potted plant.
Perhaps John Kerry should have exclaimed “I am a doughnut” in German rather than “Reporting for duty”, eh? That would have aligned him precisely with another Ivy League brain surgeon who went on to be President.
Frankly, I think a history degree (pre-post-modernism) is of more use to a statesman than, say, a degree in newkyuler engineering or even a law degree… You can hire lawyers to phrase the legislation, but it helps to have the context to know which laws work and are necessary… Wouldn’t it be more reassuring to have a President who can say, “You know, the last time something like this came up, Stalin really stuck it to FDR at Yalta,” rather than, “I think that might be incompatible with Section 37, Paragraph 219, Clause 17(l) of the International Herring Fisheries Compact…”
Remember, statesmen got the entire Constitution of the United States into seven articles and 27 Amendments over the course of a quarter-millenium; the lawyers got Hillary’s health plan up to over 1,500 pages, as P.J. O’Rourke tells us, just to promise the real legislation would be much longer.
DTP: kudos for the best allusion I have seen in quite a while–for those not familiar with German or German slang for pastries, you may have to explain your comment.
And how can Kerry be Col. Bill Kilgore? Howard Dean is Col. Bill Kilgore in the flesh…
It is more likely that John Kerry commanded the vessel that went by and set fire to Captain Willard’s boat with the flare thrown ‘as a joke’.
In support of what jerry says above my father (a lawyer and the wisest man I’ve ever known) said this about law school: you should attend law school in the community in which you plan to serve.
For all of you out there who just aren’t as complex or deep as I am-
The original J.F.K. did not say “I am a Berliner” in his famous Cold War speech. What he said was “I am a doughnut”.
No doubt everyone in West Germany was very relieved that Kennedy and not the non-Ivy League Richard Nixon was holding down the fort…I know I would have been.
BTW, if an impecunious (not to mention impoverished) bugger like me can pony up the green (short green, but green) for The Swift Boat Ad what’s stopping the rest of you? This is something real you can do, and necessary, since you know the MSM is going to do all in its monolithic power to bury these guys… “to the barricades!” as we old farts used to say.
Dennis the Peasant ó Gilbert and Sullivan had a song about it, (Sorry, Roger, this is OT and will be quick)
If this young man expresses himself
In terms too deep for me,
Why what a very singularly deep young man
This deep young man must be!
Richard-
It wasn’t that off topic and it wasn’t Metallica. Bets are Roger will forgive you.
With all due respect to John McCain, Roger’s right and John isn’t. Kerry is the one who made Vietnam a matter to focus on. Don’t blame Karl Rove for the fact that Kerry sewed a minefield and then danced a jig in the middle of it. There were enough hints when the whole National Guard nonsense was going down, “Pssst… pssst… John! You don’t really want to go there. Back out now while you can still retrace your steps.” Some folks just don’t listen.
To paraphrase one of my daughter’s erstwhile young buddies, “Presidential campaigns are hard. They’re even harder if you’re stupid.”
I thought the Toricelli Option was behind us once the convention ran its course and Dear John reported for duty, but now I’m not so sure again.
BTW, can anyone fill me in on what the Kennedy Clan was thinking when they decided to prop this Scarecrow Kerry up in the backseat of the limo and haul him around for 20 years?
Knucklehead-
What they were probably thinking was either “How do you say ‘I am a Berliner’ in German?” or “Doughnuts. Yum…”
Except Teddy. He was thinking either “Where are the babes?” or “Who hid the key to the liquor cabinet?”
I am not sure that Kerry is congenitally stupid. What I suspect is that any potential that he ever had, got squandered by years of high and easy living.
If you are hundreds of millions of dollars removed from the reality of the cares and toil of ordinary people, if you come by your fortune not by any work or exertion whatsoever (I know that he has to put up with Her Imperial Highness, but this kind of hardship is on entirely different plane), then you are going to assume such arrogance that will lead to actions that look bizarre, if not downright stupid to anybody looking from outside.
It is a bit like with absolute rulers: their flunkies do not ever tell them bad news for the fear of loosing their heads. In case of Kerry, I suspect that nobody, except of the Empress, ever directly told him: No. Nobody laughs at kings, and everything they do is clever and wise. No wonder he is constantly trying to ìintroduce himselfî to the electorate. After all, the only reason why voters do not fall on their knees worshiping wise and benevolent King John is either that they are uninformed, simply stupid, or manipulated by cunning opponents.
I am kind of curious how well King John heeds the advice of his handles. Must be fun job to run his campaign.
The Tortecelli option is just wishful thinking. First, if the Eagleton withdrawal was such disaster then imagine what a Kerry withdrawal would be like. If FDR returned the grave under these circumstances he couldn’t win November.
One thing we have learned from the shellacking the NYT took over the terrorist alert is that although they can no longer dictate the story line you still need the MSM to carry a big story to the general public. That is not going to happen here.
Remember the Ferraro fiasco? The revealing of her extensive Mafia ties and her failure to report certain transactions on her disclosure forms resulted in nothing. Being in the pocket of the Gambino family is a far more serious issue then Kerry’s service record.
Dennis the Peasant ó hey, it’s opera, it’s good for you. Opera and Velvet Chain
And I mean to say ON-topic. I need my coffee. Going to Dennyís. Maybe I’ll see Kerry and Edwards there celebrating an anniversary or something…
Knucklehead ó As long as Kerry was The Other Senator from Massachusetts, Teddy was The Star. Historically, he has always needed an absence of more capable people around him to look good. Who ever heard of him while John and Bobby were still alive?
Hey, Richard, I am sending my hard won money directly to Bushís campaign, and they are bombarding me with so many letters of thanks and solicitations for more donations, so many presidential photos/pins/stickers that I started wondering whether all that I’ve sent is not being spend on mailing this stuff back to me.
In case anybody wonders: this is the absolutely the first time ever that I have given any money to any candidate. I am doing it because I donít think I would look attractive in burka. Even if made of blue silk.
Let’s get serious and let’s get clear-
There worry is not whether John Kerry is a complete moron. The worry is whether he is a complete asshole. There is a difference.
DtP,
Iíd say a complete asshole. And an almost complete moron.
Richard-
Here in Ohio the battle cry is that the movie should have been “John and John Go To White Castle”. ‘Hix Pix Big In Stix’ is the review they are hoping for from the natives, but…
If Teresa would eat a half dozen sliders and a order of onion chips on TV, John would win Ohio by 20 points. Guaranteed.
Sorry folks, but I’m going to have to correct you
. This smear (no doubt started by Oliver Stone?) on JFK’s (the ORIGINAL’S!) good name will not be tolerated!!
The doughnut thing is one of those urban legends that will not die. Many many sites correcting the misconception, but here’s one: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner
Addendum to my post above: if you follow the link posted there, you’ll notice the dark and nefarious hand of the NYT in the genesis of said urban legend. Hmmmm.
Ha! I was prepared for this-
The fact of the matter is what Kennedy really said was “Ich bin ein pfannkuchen.”. Walter Cronkite personally doctored the footage to “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
Darned old MSM.
Katherine:
…I donít think I would look attractive in burka.
Oh pishaw! No doubt that screen door thingie would highlight your eyes.
You might be on to something here, though. I mean, I often stop and wonder what goes on in the mind of someone that would make them jump into the nearest car full of high-explosives.
Think about it guys:
“Honey, does this burka make me look fat?”
“Honey, we’re going shopping for your daughter’s prom burka. See you in three weeks.”
The one that would probably put me in the car bomb driver’s seat would be, “Honey, I need a new black burka for the party.”
Knuck- “Honey, does this burka make me look fat?”
And there you have it. If ever garment was invented to make even thinnest woman fat, itís burka. Thanks, but no thanks. W better win thins election thing, so that elegant females may stay well dressed.
That is …look fat…
To be a little fair to Jack Kennedy, what he said was “Ich bin ein Berliner”, which is perfectly good Hochdeutsch for “I am a person from Berlin.” It just happens in the Berlin dialect that one would say “ich bin Berliner” because “ein Berliner” is in fact the local name for a kind of jelly doughnut.
If you think that’s fun, just guess which of these is correctly complaining of the heat: “Ich bin Heiss” or “Ich bin Warm”? (And yes, “heiss” is “hot” and “warm” is “warm.”)
Horowitz is going after Chomsky and his gangs stranglehold of Universities and K-12 education paraphalia which is far left and extremely anti-American in nature. Like Malkin’s latest article that details an elementary book school lesson on how the Navy’s Blue Rangers are all a bunch of murderers that kill little boys and girls.
CSPAN
http://www.c-span.org/VideoArchives.asp?CatCodePairs=,&ArchiveDays=100&Page=3
David Horowitz, Author ”The Anti-Chomsky Reader”
Mr. Horowitz, Author of “The Anti-Chomsky Reader” and Editor of Frontpagemagazine.com, discusses his book and other topical issues.
8/2/2004: WASHINGTON, DC: 45 min.
At 8 minutes in he talks about how groups like Rage Against the Machine and Pearl Jam actually play Chomsky’s boring speeches at their concerts. And Good Will (Matt Damon) in the movie Good Will Hunting quotes and cites Chomsky as a genius.
At 9-14:00 he details some blatant lies Chomsky was caught in. Chomsky after being caught in the lie then denied he said it and then they found tape of him stating it.
Need Real Player 10 and need to go to -
Tools – Preferences – Content / Media Types – Advanced – scroll to the bottom – Other Media – check Real-Time Streaming Protocol
That’s very nice of John McCain, sticking up for his cafeteria buddy and all, but the fact is he has NO firsthand knowledge of what Kerry did in Viet Nam and these guys do.
Mike ó Do you mean Blue Angels? Cause I think Blue Rangers were from the Beatle’s “Tolkien” album…
Roger:
During the Clinton draft evasion controversy Sen. Kerry made a dramatic speech where he stated that the Vietnam War was such a devisive war and to dig into Clinton’s draft record for political gain was a cheap and tawdry political ploy. He talked about re-opening old wounds and basically stated that Clinton’s draft record was not relevant to his ability to serve as a President. It was similar to Sen. McCains speech yesterday and he had some valid points. If you read the speech he is calling for ending the Vietnam war as a issue and putting the strained feelings of that era in the past where they belong.
Fast forward to this years election cycle. The press is claiming Kerry dead and crowning Howard Dean as the Democratic nominee. Kerry is down in the polls and is having trouble raising money. How does Kerry respond? He ignores his gracefull words of the 90′s and makes the Vietnam War the centerpiece of his campaign. When asked to explain why he is more qualified then his Democratic opponents he states that the fact that he has been to War and know’s how it feels makes him more qualified then Dean and the rest.
Meanwhile McAuliffe and the bulk of the Democratic leadership begins the AWOL urban myth. Bush is called a deserter, a shirker. At every opportunity Bush’s service is ridiculed and held in contempt. Kerry and his gang had no problem bringing up the “old wound” and using it for political purposes.Somehow Clintons record was not suitable for the voters to consider but Bush’s service was.I hear there is a book with the title “Deserter” coming out in weeks and it’s subject is Bush’s service in Vietnam.Will McCain step up and call this book dirty pool? Will the DNC cry foul and try to slime the author? Will the MSM dismiss it before it is even released? I doubt it.
I do not know whether the story in this book about Kerry is a fair examination of his war record or if it is a slander. What I do know is that Kerry has decided to base his campaign on Vietnam and his war record. I do know that the Democrats have no problem using Jimmy Carter and any other DNC flunky to call President Bush a shirker and to use the fact that Kerry fought in Vietnam as a reason to disqualify President Bush and his opponents in the Democratic primary. Candidates service or non service in the Vietnam War had been buried until Kerry decide to dig it up. The Democrats had no problem calling Bush a deserter, even after his records proved that he fulfilled his duty to the country properly.Kerry wants to run on His war record but does not allow anyone to examine it or question his story. The double standard is amazing and arrogant.
Blue Angels sorry
Malkin’s article -
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20030416.shtml
Listen, if these guys have some concrete charges then they should make them, the over the top way they are incendiarily flaming them out I don’t approve of whether or not they are against or for a candidate I don’t support. And in the end the incendiary way they are dealing with a controversial issue and time is only going to backfire on the Republicans and them and help Kerry if/when they are proven mainly to be hot air.
Mike
Kerry Critic Under Oath
A few comments on dullards…
Everyone fails to mention GWB’s MBA from Harvard. Those are not easy to get and a worth a whole lot of money. A Harvard MBA provides a lot of training appropriate to being President, including dealing with situations with inadequate information. According to the dean, there is no legacy effect on grading MBA’s. You either cut the mustard or you fail. Bush also cut the cards, was considered one of the best poker players in the Harvard MBA long existing poker culture.
Bush ain’t no dullard. He may not be as smart as many people, but his IQ (which is a meaningful measure – Catherine, no biting) puts him in the top 2 percent of the population.
Furthermore, when he was young he was not a very serious guy (except, apparently, with poker). Did he apply himself to his scholarship or just do what was necessary? I would guess the latter.
Finally, by derived IQ tests, he’s about 10 points ahead of the 60′s JFK.
Today, the Ivy League colleges have official grade inflation, with the curves centered at B+. My daughter’s undergraduate school, Johns Hopkins, is being force do move it’s curves from C to B+ as part of their entry into the Ivy League. In a tough school with no legacy or affirmative action admits, such a change makes sense. If you are taking the very top students, do you really want to flunk out a lot of them? It seems silly, but Hopkins does that, with the competition getting tighter every year as the survivors compete. The result is an outrageous amount of cheating, ranging from taking Ritalin for tests to having entire ethnic groups get the tests the day before form co-ethnic TAs.
Let me mention an anecdote. Around the same time, I attended the University of Kansas (my father is a professor – now emeritus – there). Each year KU picks the top 20 students from the whole state, as a result of high school nominations and extensive, multi-day tests. These are Summerfield Scholars. I was one of those. My year’s Summerfield group had a 50% drop-out rate within 2 years (including myself – voluntarily off to the military).
Summerfield Scholars were far from being dullards, but my year’s group didn’t have much of an academic record. Even Kansas is big enough that the top 20 students are pretty darned smart. But we dropped out in numbers much higher than other students.
If McCain wants to be the straight talker he claims to be, let him publicly ask Kerry to repudiate Michael Moore and F 9/11.
Another comment on dullards…
John McCain, my Senator, graduated in the bottom 10% of his class at Annapolis. In other words, the darling of the MSM really is a dullard. In fact, that may be why they like him – he is malleable and not hard to fool. When I was in the Navy, McCain’s father was Commander In Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC) and McCain was a POW.
He is also a friend of Kerry’s, which might take a psychoanalyst to figure out.
McCain was attacked, along with Kerry, in the early ’90s when they worked on normalizing relations with Vietnam. One activist, former Green Beret Ted Sampley, earned McCain’s undying hatred. McCain is reported to have written:I am well familiar with Mr. Sampley, and I know him to be one of the most despicable people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. I consider him a fraud who preys on the hopes of family members of missing servicemen for his own profit. He is dishonorable, an enemy of the truth, and despite his claims, he does not speak for or represent the views of all but a few veterans.
In any case McCain is clearly biased against anyone bringing up the Vietnam War, except apparently John Kerry.
I am pleased that one canard has not been brought up in this entire topic–the notion that Kerry must have been a good student because he delivered an address to his graduating class at Yale. In fact, this was due to his position as the head of the Yale Political Union.
Douglas Brinkley skated around the issue of Kerry’s grades at Yale with a comment that he didn’t have the greatest grades because he was interested in so many other things. I suspect this is another one of those cases where the Democratic nominee is considered to be a man of staggering intellect, simply because he is the Democratic nominee. Anybody remember the famous story about Adlai Stevenson supposedly being brilliant in college, but it turned out he had fairly pedestrian grades?
I recall a successful MIT grad who liked say that some study had shown that the MIT alumni who were the highest achievers came from the top and bottom quintiles. Guess where he came from? Along the same line, ISTR that the most successful officers don’t always come from the top of the class in the service academies, or even from the academies. Marshall, I believe, came from VMI.
Chuck:
Yeah, the bottom half of Illinois engineers flunk out only to become the top fifth at MIT. Could not miss an opportunity take a swipe at a rival.
Clearly the best antidote to a privileged, underachieving preppie medicrity like Bush is… a privileged, underachieving preppie mediocrity. I love my party’s logic.
The entire discussion of presidential brainpower is dull. We’ve only elected two intellectuals to the presidency: Jefferson and Wilson. Presidents need other qualities like political savvy, charm, leadership, and—today—telegentility
.
Listen, if these guys have some concrete charges then they should make them, ….
Mike, how much more concrete than “received his Silver Star from a fraudulent application, got his first Purple Heart for a booboo that required a Snoopy band-aid, and shot a random civilian in the back and called it heroism” can you get?
Regarding the correlation between grades and professional achievement, Citibank in the John Reed era did an internal study of their top managers’ performance in business school and found that nearly every one of them had graduated in the second quartile.
Those in the top quartile are typically spending more time than absolutely necessary on their studies and for that reason are likely to be less-than-effective business leaders.
A key attribute of leadership is not brilliance but the efficient application of one’s time for maximum result.
Dave:
I beg to differ. Theodore Roosevelt was the most brilliant man to occupy the office other then Jefferson. He was a world famous historian, naturalist and explorer even without considering his political and miltiary life. Wilson was fool, an intellectually brilliant but self-righteous medicority whose failed policies an ineptitude set the conditions that led to the global depression and WWII. He was also known as the Klu Klux Klan President for obvious reasons.
“[A] privileged, underachieving preppie medicrity like Bush….”
Jesus, thibaud, if a Harvard MBA who was a fighter pilot, made $15 million as managing partner in a pro ball team, and was a successful Governor of one of the biggest States is “underachieving”, then I’d hate to be a kid of yours….
thibaud:
Then what is your complaint about GWB? He fits that decription to a “T”.
Mike_Nargizian – Would it suprise you to learn that these veterans have been trying to bring attention to this subject for MONTHS now. And are only now being heard in the MSM….
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/5/3/92240.shtml
Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democrat nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is “unfit to be commander in chief.” They will do so at a press conference Tuesday in Washington.
“What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension,” John O’Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com. The event, expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
“We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander in chief,” O’Neill said.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/5/19/92517.shtml
Today, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of more than 220 Swift Boat veterans from the unit in which John Kerry served, call on Kerry to stop the unauthorized use of their images in national campaign advertising.
For example, the photo in Kerry’s national campaign ads contains 20 officers, including Kerry, 11 of whom signed a letter condemning Kerry yet their image is being widely used in his own campaign.
It was taken on the island of An Thoi on January 22, 1969. These officers together with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth call upon him to cease the unauthorized use of their photo by his campaign. They are jointly submitting a letter to John Kerry.
Of the remaining eight officers in the photo: two are deceased and four do not wish to be involved in any manner; only two of the 20 are believed to support Kerry.
Yeah, Thibaud, what Charlie said! Given that the only achievement Charlie neglected to mention is POTUS, what would fit your criteria for escaping the “underachieving” label? If one of my kids comes home with a Harvard MBA someday I’m gonna be braggin’ her up like there’s no tomorrow. Managing partner of a ball team – season tickets for Dear Old! $15M I’ll be moving in with her to handle the pool cleaning and gardening chores. If your baby made POTUS would you be disappointed that he’d wasted his life stumbling around the underachievement ghetto?
Charlie, puleeeeez. I’m probably voting for Bush, and don’t consider him a dunce–far from it– but regarding his achievements, let’s get real. He’s the archetypal “legacy” student and never would have been admitted to HBS without his daddy’s strings. His business career was a joke– especially when you compare his sweetheart-deal strewn path with his father’s admirable efforts to break away from New England and start an oil company far from home. W’s own family considered him a hapless clown until he stopped drinking and started to turn his life around.
If I can deliver one message to both sides’ partisans, it would be stop insulting our intelligence. It’s no use pretending that this nation cannot produce better leaders than the choice we’re stuck with this fall. We can do a lot better, and we should demand same.
“If (Kerry) were a Chicagoan and wanted to go into politics he would have attended De Paul Law and not UC, Northwestern or UoI. That was because all the local pols, e.g., the Honorable Richard J. Daley went to DePaul law.”
I think that that’s true in general (and pleasing to me as a DePaul graduate), but it’s not an iron-clad rule. Before Jack Ryan dropped out of the Illinois Senate race, the major party candidates were a Dartmouth graduate with an MBA from Harvard (Ryan) and a Columbia graduate with a law degree from Harvard (Obama).
Thibaud-
Oy.
You say you want partisans to stop insulting your intelligence while simultaneously posting straight out of the The Handy Handbook of Bush Memes for Dimwitted Democrats by Al Franken and Michael Moore. Given your the content of your 12:14 and 1:00 posts, I’d say the partisans will continue on their chosen path for the foreseeable future.
Why tinker with success?
Jerry-
Bingo on Teddy and Woody. You’ve been reading Paul Johnson, haven’t you?
Thibaud,
This is one of those areas I think of a Knucklehead’s Disconnects. For example, when Dear Old has flown dive bombers in WWII and fought the Japanese and survived being shot down and then been Director of the CIA and two term VP and POTUS, Young George is gonna look like a freakin’ piker if he don’t cure cancer of somesuch. “Legacy” and “Development” admissions to Ivies are a fact of life. Somebody’s gotta pay full freight and cough up the endowment dukats. Being a “Legacy/Development” admission does not automagically mean the student was unqualified to be in an Ivy.
Have you investigated the admissions criteria for the Ivies? They take in some 1500 Frosh per year and have about 3000 or more 1500+ SAT applicants. They get more Valedictorian/Salutorian applicants than then they have spots to fill. Nothing suggests he was out of range for accepted and matriculating students. He went to a highly selective school and passed middle of the pack. That ain’t no Einstein but it ain’t nobody’s idiot either.
Nobody handed Dubya his Harvard MBA. He may or may not have putzed around getting crony deals here or there for a while and putting that white hair on Bab’s head, but he did turn it around, do some real jobs and successfully run a major state and get re-elected by a lot. I don’t see the case that Daddy handed him that or that an “underachiever” could have managed it.
There’s a whole lot of Children of Privilege who accomplished a whole lot less than that. Teddy Kennedy comes readily to mind. But no doubt there are thousands upon thousands of people who had advantages similar to Dubya and did far less with them.
These aren’t people living the Middle Class American Dream where mom and dad work their butts off and do what they can to turn out decent citizens who get a little further and a little more comfortable in life than they did. Different standards. Silver spoons are all well and good and I wouldn’t have minded having one myself, but you can’t just dismiss people’s obvious achievements because the started out with a silver spoon and the spent some time wandering and pondering a bit and, well, engaging a bit too much partying. Fair is fair and I don’t see that your assessment is particularly fair.
What bothers me about Kerry the most is the disturbing degree to which Kerry lives in a fantasy world of his own creation.
First, in his own mind he was a war hero and managed to con some people into giving him some medals that he apparently never earned. Then, he made up a bunch of war crimes that he never actually witnessed and got himself in front of the Senate and cameras.
Then, prior to the convention, when he knew that a large number of his ìBand of Brothersî were speaking out against his claims (I knew about it months back), he featured his Viet Nam experience as the focus of his campaign. He is still living in a movie that exists only in his head, it seems to me.
What did he think, these veterans would go away? Did he just pretend they werenít there? Sounds to me like the way he is looking at the terrorists – maybe they arenít there or they will just go away. Not a good sign.
DNC threatening to sue stations for airing the swift boat ad….hmmmm. this can’t be the democratic party who scream about censorship of Linda Ronstadt or the Dixie Chicks, can it? You have to give the DNC credit for chutzpah, if not judgment.
As I recall, the last time someone sued over Vietnam stories, CBS News (60 Minutes) kicked William Westmoreland’s ass. I really doubt that Kerry would be so foolish as to actually sue on this – especially since he’d never get a verdict in time for the election. Besides, at the moment it’s just allegations and counter-spin – if the Swifties were to prove even some of their points in a libel defence, then even the MSM would have to acknowledge them.
The DNC/Kerry will bluster about, but there’s no way they’ll actually sue. This letter is a masterpiece of midirection and obfuscation.
The threatening letter from DNC lawyers that Roger links to, states that the swift boat vets for truth were not actually members of Kerry’s crew and the doctor pretending to be was not. Therefore the ad is “an outrageous lie”. However the film, what I have read on the swiftboat for truth website, and the released book chapter only state that many of them were officers-in-charge serving on other boats associated with Kerry, not crewmembers. As to the second charge Letson says in the released book chapter that while he attended the wound he did not make the entry into Kerry’s medical record, that was done by Dr. Carreon. Thus the DNC letter appears to misinterpret. It seems to me there is a real opportunity for an enterprising journalist to follow up and determine the veracity of these charges. Are these guys who they say are? Were they colleagues of Lt. Kerrey? What does Dr. Carreon say? You know do what journalists get paid the big bucks for, right? Furthermore if the DNC lawyers want to drown this brushfire before their candidate is immolated they might persuade him to ask for release of all his military records. That ought to clear up this whole mess right quick
Anybody recall BushCo lawyers threatening stations to not show the 9-11 ad? Maybe I missed it…
Knuck,
I never said W was dumb; I think he’s quite cunning and in some ways as shrewd about people and situations as Lincoln was. And of course HBS is not for slouches.
But you’re confusing the current Ivy admissions situation with what prevailed in the late 1960s, before the great democratization occurred. In W’s time, one did not need 99th percentile scores to get into HBS or HLS or Harvard Med. Esp not if you went to Andover and Poppy could pull all kinds of strings. And I’m sorry, but W’s biz track record (Harken, Rangers) is a joke. I’m sure that 90% of his classmates from HBS have vastly exceeded his achievements in the business sphere since getting their MBAs.
Again, I don’t minimize his achievements in the war against the jihadists. No one expected him to be anything more than a transitional figure as president, but he stepped up to the occasion regarding Afgh and Iraq after 9/11 and for that he deserves tremendous credit.
But please don’t try to spin his record before then as world-class. That record is no more impressive than that of Dukakis or pre-1992 Bill Clinton.
holdfast,
This letter is a masterpiece of midirection and obfuscation.
Well, it was written by attorneys. Would anyone expect clarity?
Not only can I not see a political calculus in this move, I can’t see political first grade arithmetic. The MSM had not really moved on the story, the Swifties don’t have the dough to go national. Why use a bulldozer to move a wheelbarrow full of soil? With this letter, the MSM has been given permission to go after the story. The campaign and the DNC just gave it a lot more “leg” than it had up to this point. This is absolutely naked political pressure using the threat of the broadcast laws to impose prior restraint.
What political purpose does this letter advance?
Roger:
Is the threat to sue any stations that run this ad “the chill wind of censorship” that actor Tim Robbins warned us all about.Notice that they are not saying that they are going to sue the swift boat members themselves, just anyone that might broadcast their ad. I thought this was the party that championed free speech. Now they are trying to bully and strong arm anyone that might cross their paths. They had no problem with Michael Moore sliming President Bush, hell they put him in the presidents box with President Carter. Imagine the furor if the RNC had sent out blackmail letters and threats of lawsuits to any theatre that showed “Farenheit 9-11, the entire news world would have been screaming censorship and prior restraint for the next 20 years. Do you think the MSM will mention the bully boy tactics of the DNC? I doubt it.
The threatening letter is much more useful than simply announcing a threat to sue.
Think about how many stations shy away from controversy. Whereas a simple refusal to air the Swift-boat ad would be taken as muzzling or affecting free speech, a refusal to air a controversial ad, in the name of avoiding a lawsuit, is very plausible.
This is without reference to the actual content of the ad.
One suspects that the Kerry campaign is providing an “out” for stations to choose not to air the ad, rather than actually planning on undertaking a campaign of lawsuits 12 weeks prior to the election.
Thibaud, you’re being a dolt. Let’s say all of those things are true — some of them, like the point about the Harvard MBA are ill-informed at best, but let’s assume, for the sake of hypothesis, that they’re true.
Then all you’ve got left is “fighter pilot”, “successful Governor of Texas”, and “got sober and turned his life around.”
You don’t get to be a qualified fighter pilot by pull. You just don’t — the laws of physics don’t allow.
Too damn few drunks get sober and turn their lives around.
And hardly anybody gets re-elected as Governor of Texas.
That’s more than enough for me to admire him. Calling Bush an underachiever is just stupid.
Thibaud,
you’re confusing the current Ivy admissions situation with what prevailed in the late 1960s, before the great democratization occurred.
Now that’s a danged valid point. I’m too lazy to go look it up but IIRC Princeton didn’t even go coed until the early 70s. When did they integrate?
Don’t know anything about Harkin but turning around a ballteam is nothing to sneeze at. I’d wager its more difficult than you might imagine.
Will the ad go on the air ? Hannity who is now being heard on hundreds of radio stations has been pounding it for 150 minutes. Tonight he will broadcast the ad and interview members of the group on Hannity and Colmes. The cat might not be out of the bag, but there’s so much blood, does anyone need to see the cat ?
Is there a legible version of that letter anywhere on the web? I could force the issue but my eyes were not cooperating with trying to ready that.
What is the basis of the threat to sue radio stations? What are they thinking? Will we discover if the MSM has even a little backbone? They’d be going triple-ballistic if if the RNC threatened to sue stations which refused to run an anti-Bush add. Good grief, nobody sued anybody (did they?) about that ad trying to connect Bush with the murdered black guy dragged around by the pickup truck.
heh, heh…
4 months in Vietnam, shooting the injured and goats, and burning down huts while documenting your “accomplishments”…
vs
3 1/2 years as Commander in Chief, liberating millions of oppressed Muslims.
Roger ó There’s no way the Democrats will sue O’Neill or the Swifties themselves; too much risk of having to put the Emperor John on the stand under oath and then there goes that election….
But hey, the Kerry campaign threatens to sue people who challenge their story…
Michael Moore threatens to sue anyone who challenges F9/11…
Don’t you love this devotion to freedom of speech.
Everyone on this blog should e-mail 60 minutes, 20/20 and the Today Show and challenge them to have O’Neill and the Swifties in that commercial come on the show and defend their claims.
That lawyer letter is getting really dirty. Small radio stations could very well not run the ad because of it.
So any bets on whether the lawyer letter makes the MSM?
John Moore: I predict it will make the editorial page of the NYT and they will decry the “savage attack on JFK,” and the motives of the RNC. Just a guess–remember how they spun the Linda Ronstadt walk out? the audience was to blame.
Oops–sorry John-I didnt read the specific lawyer letter part–nope–the letter wont make it, the story will.
Thibaud & Charlie:
Just wanted to take a second or 600 to try to better make my point here. I tend to get a bit whacky with some of the “standards” people want to use to judge candidates and presidents. I would expect my local part-time mayor, for example, to be “in touch” with the everyday issues of life around town.
On the other hand, when some dope from the MSM stands up and wants to know whether or not the candidates for POTUS know the price of a gallon of milk I wind up screaming at the TV. I REALLY don’t expect somebody who has been CIA director and VP and is running for POTUS to be bopping into the Piggly-Wiggly to pick up a gallong of milk on his way home from work. And I’m pretty sure I could spend some serious time canvassing every local place I can think of where one can purchase a gallon of milk and other groceries and not find a single person I’d vote for for POTUS.
I’m looking for somebody who has shown some aptititude for leadership and has managed something a bit more complex that his daily commute. I’ve known a few geniuses but not one of them strikes me as a prospective POTUS (heck, one of ‘em walked everywhere backwards and another wore a freakin’ pith helmet and safari shorts 365 days/year).
Its amusing how Kerry’s “lawyers” misrepresent libel law.
Either Kerry is a war criminal (like so many others in his day – he claims) as he testified in ë71 or he is not.
If he is a war criminal (as he claimed) he should be prosecuted. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes.
If not he is a liar who severely damaged his nation and the lives of millions in Vietnam with his lies.
Which is it?
I thought Democrats detested war criminals and liars. Here is your chance to get one or the other. Same man. How convenient.
Now, onto this business about threatening to sue…
Yet another one of the systemic problems with the Democratic Pary Machine and Those Who Worship at its Altar is that they run to, or threaten to run to, court about every darned thing they don’t like.
And threats to sue can be extremely effective for anyone who is aware how expensive it can be to go out and defend against even a stupid lawsuit. If you can’t afford to defend yourself (and who can against the sort of money Soros and the Zillionaire Moonbats can bring to bear) then you just might capitulate without a fight rather than mortgage the farm to stand on principle. There is always that nasty little gotcha called fiduciary responsibility.
We haven’t heard much about Edwards as a VP choice, but is a tort lawyer (commonly called an Ambulance Chaser by the Little People) as VP really going to play in Peoria? And isn’t this threat to sue even a little bit likely to bring something like that to mind?
I don’t see how this can work out well for the Kerry campaign, but then again, nobody is hiring me to run any campaigns.
K – you set the bar awfully low. In the age of dotcoms and Seinfeld and b-jobs, low standards were prefectly OK by me. In this century, I think it appropriate to demand a president who’s a cut above.
If Bush could speak with the same moral clarity and eloquence that he summoned for his trip to London last November, then I’d be his strongest supporter, but I can’t bear to listen to the guy. He massacres even the simplest sentences and he has no excuse! As you’ve pointed out again and again, he’s a Harvard B-School grad, an intelligent guy, an experienced pol. His bogus bubba routine leaves me cold.
Again–I’m probably going to vote for him– but in no small measure because I find listening to Kerry’s Thurston Howell imitation even more annoying than W’s ersatz BillyBob.
If this sounds deflating or depressing, well, that’s what the state of American leadership is today. I don’t think it helps us to deny that we have a serious deficit of leadership, and it’s not sufficient in my book to say kwitcher bitchin’, pull up yer bootstraps and stop lookign for a man on horseback, let’s roll etc.
Even if we have the courage of a thousand Todd Beamers, we still need strong, articulate, clear-thinking leadership. Neither candidate supplies that.
Threatening to Sue!!! How scandalous! The “chilling effect” on free speech is staggering. Call the ACLU immediately!
Re the contrarian interpretation of the the swiftboat ad: Instapundit reported the futures market reacted unfavorably for the BC04 campaign shortly after the drudge report was released. I puzzled about that for a bit–the only thing I could come up with is that independents, exposed to the recent democratic convention and the panegyric to Kerry’s Viet Nam service, just MAY see the ad as a republican dirty trick. Just my .02
Mike_Nargizian,
You are so right. We ought never believe anything our government or anybody for that matter says.
I remember it like it was yesterday. Our government said them communists was a bunch of mean bastards who were going to kill a whole bunch of people. Put others in camps. And drive a half-million to sea.
John Kerry showed us the lies of our government.
All those bad things the government said would happen if we left Vietnam happened.
Fortunately in the Iraq War today we have John Kerry to show up the government lies for what they are.
There are a lot of us OFs out there with memories who vote.
Go Kerry.
The argument about the intelligence and academic achievement of President Bush is simply a red herring.
The question is can the man do the job better
than the alternative available? Should America have a President who is at best an unknown quantity, at worst a man who is trying to expiate his beserker bloodlust thirty years ago or the incumbent? Why take the risk in times of peril?
Thibaud
“A key attribute of leadership is not brilliance but the efficient application of one’s time for maximum result”.
No the key attribute is the application of others time and talents for maximum result,that is what the job is about.
I’m by no means a specialist in it, but a small chunk of my practice over the last 20 years has involved various types of defamation claims (including successfully representing CBS in an appeal in the Fifth Circuit). My strong hunch is that most media outlets, even the small ones, are already pretty well aware of New York Times v. Sullivan, the “actual malice” standard, the difference between “fact” and “opinion,” etc. In other words, I doubt that many of them will take the threat letter very seriously as a threat of legal action that could lead to an adverse judgment.
On the other hand, I can certainly imagine that some of them will take it as another kind of threat, in which what’s at risk is not their exposure in a libel or slander lawsuit, but their access, their goodwill, and their advertising revenues from folks who have a whole lot more to spend than the SwiftVets. I hope that most media outlets have enough integrity, even if they congenitally lean left, to react negatively to such threats, but I suppose there will be some on the margin who will crater.
My hunch, however, is that the purpose of the letter was to give a nice talking points memo to the Dem spinmeisters. “Why, our lawyers have already pointed out that ….” and so forth. The lawyers who signed the threat letter, of course, don’t have to give press conferences where someone might ask an unfriendly question. So they’re serving as “mouthpieces” — a traditional slang epithet for lawyers, traditionally used to describe their in-court utterances, but flexible enough to fit these circumstances as well.
Oh yeah — and the folks who do give the press conferences can always fall back on the “Our lawyers have advised us not to talk about that matter because it involves pending or threatened litigation.” Wicked clever strategy, actually, when you’re running a bluff.
thibaud:
We are going in circles here. Since you are so sure about GWBs academic skills, I am wondering what your credentials are? Mine are three degrees from the University of Illinois in Mech E. Do tell us your University, degrees and if only BA your GPA. Mine was a pretty good 4.3/5 in the pre grade inflation era at one of the so-called Public Ivys.
Obviously the Dems need some help getting ahead of the curve.
Check out what your opposition has to say about Winter Soldier and Dewey Canyon.
Get yer ammunition ready.
It is going to get worse.
The Vietnam War ain’t over punks and here I find I am on the “other side” again. (pro War Vet, VVAW [whose headquarters surpisingly enough are in Rockford, Illinois where I now reside], pro-Vietnam War – pro Iraq).
I always did like a good fight (Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner).
Speaking about Illinois, can I change the subject ?
Alan Keyes, a well known right wing Christian will run against Barak Obama, a muslim (?) for the US Senate seat from Illinois. Any observations ? Predictions ?
jerry,
I don’t know why it’s so improtant to you but since you asked, I have an MBA (Finance) and MA (Politics) from an Ivy league school in a town that’s two towers short compared to when I attended. I have a BA Magna (History) from a “Public Ivy”.
To be clear, I look down on W’s achievements because he started out with extraordinary advantages and then some. He could have traveled around the world; he chose not to travel at all. With a Harvard MBA, he could have had any of a hundred different jobs providing tremendous intellectual challenge; he chose to run, if that’s the right word, a baseball team. He continued drinking to the point that his wife threatened to pack up and take the kids. After that, he got religion and now wears it on his sleeve.
Along with a redneck accent that is completely bogus. Does Jeb talk that way? Do his daughters? Any of his siblings? Of course not. It was manufactured sometime after he lost his first congressional race, and it makes him look neither authentic nor presidential. It’s embarrassing. I live in Dallas and no one with any education here, not even the goodliest good ol’ boy, speaks as badly or as offensively to the ears as W.
I prefer him to Kerry but I refuse to view him as a world-class leader. That he stands above that old French thief Chirac and that moron Schroeder and Bambia Zapatero and their sort does not mean much.
Again, he’s my president and I resolutely support him, but I would do the same if Dean were in the White House today.
wx: dont know about Illinois, but Obama seems to already be canonized. I like Keyes, but he is basically a carpetbagger. I look forward to seeing how any race cards might be played in the election.
thibaud:
You have increased my respect for you opinions for which I still disagree with. I have seen a lot “public figures” denigrate his brainpower who went to lesser institutions with a less then stellar academic achievment.
Obama is a Socialist (they claim former card carrying).
Keys is an American Taliban. Who hates the drug war – go figure.
Obama I think is likely to win but it is not going to be a cake walk. Both are excellent public speakers and can move audiences.
http://www.obamatruthsquad.com/
This is tilted against Obama but it is not rabid. Just the facts.
I live in Illinois and I don’t think the carpetbagger stuff will stick.
Hillary.
If they repudiate Keyes they have to stick it to Hil. If they defend her they defend him. Unless is is not is is it or isn’t it. And there for the Republicans are wrong. Always and forever.
They might get over pulling that stuff on the smart people of New York. We in Illinois are too stupid to fall for that trick. I think.
Jerry – peace.
Re Obama, as long as I’m being the house contrarian– and bashing our politics of identity and family origin– may I say I find it extraordinarily patronizing that a man is hailed as a political genius for 1) stating things that Moynihan, and WJ Wilson, and Glenn Loury and Tom Sowell and Bill Cosby and a gazillion others before him have been saying since 1965 and 2) stating them in good English.
If I heard him right, the dude says he wants to scrap NAFTA. This is a major leader of the future?! Would anyone take him seriously if his father had not been African?
BTW,
Hil is an Illinois girl. Goldwater Republican.
Go figure.
Forget his resume and the fact that he’s “well-spoken”, that guilty white person’s patronizing, racist backhanded compliment. His economic agenda is a joke. This isn’t 1972. Why is this taken seriously?
Do Americans assume that the challenges of a minority subset of one minority ethnic group– which very soon will not even be our largest minority ethnic group– are so important that they’re willing to ignore to a leftist candidate’s economic incompetence purely because of his membership in that group? Isn’t that more than a touch patronizing?
It strikes me that threatening to sue is exactly the wrong approach for Kerry to take. It only prolongs the story and makes people think that it struck a nerve. The better approach would be to try to brazen his way through, a la Clinton. Say they are liars, blame the Republicans for dirty tricks, then say it’s old news and not really relevant anyway so we need to move on and talk about his vision for America. As long as this story is in the headlines, it hurts Kerry. (Hopefully, it will stay there for a loooong time). Of course, I could be wrong.
“I didn’t really want to get involved in the war,” Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. “When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that’s what I thought I was going to be doing.”
http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2004_08_01_archive.html#109167970892274992
The Dem’s are going after it with anything they can. The main attack will be ad hominem, guilt by association, and every thing else.
Interestingly, Dick Morris claims the ads are dangerous to Bush and “stupid.”
O’Reilly is against it, but I’ve never considered him to be rational.
For those who don’t like Bush’s Texas accent and consider it phoney, have you ever been to Texas? Midland (a nice little city in the ugliest, from oil activities, land you’ve ever seen)?
Bush lived many years in Texas, and in Texas, they speak with a Texas accent. There’s nothing phony about Bush talking that way.
The ads are temporarily damaging Bush because they are seen by those who don’t know as “dirty tricks” which will backfire.
However what they haven’t done is study the history of Winter Soldier and Dewey Canyon.
This is only the opening salvo.
Softening the target.
Notice how brittle the target is already? Another good shock or two should start an accelerating slide.
I grew up in a town of 12,000 people about 60 miles north of Midland, Texas. We used to go to Midland to have a big night on the town. Why, they actually had a Chinese restaurant there, “The Blue Star Inn”! Plus liquor stores on the outside of town; mine was a “dry” county, and this was before “liquor-by-the-drink” was legal in Texas outside of private clubs.
So I can solemnly affirm that Dubya’s accent is genuine West Texan. So are a lot of his idioms and expressions.
His syntax, though, and tendancy to mangle words — well, I can’t say I’ve ever known anyone who sounds quite like him, of any socioeconomic background or social class. The man clearly has a Yalie’s passive vocabulary, but I don’t think his active vocabulary quite keeps up with it. And although I’ve seen him improve dramatically since he first entered public life in Texas, he’s just not a polished speaker.
I think part of it is that he didn’t go to law school, for which I’m frankly glad. And developing his oratory hasn’t been very high on his priority list.
Personally, I find it endearing and reassuring, but I certainly understand that many folks don’t. (And by the way, thibaud, no offense, but most Texans outside of Dallas think y’all talk kinda funny there.)
thedragonflies:
That bothers me, too. Did he think these accusations were going to go away? Didn’t he realize there were real people behind them? Does he even understand people?
The photo of him at Wendy’s told a lot by itself. You see the body language of the guy he’s talking to, and you see Kerry’s obliviousness to it.
Bostonian ó and then he went back out to his gourmet $200 lunch on the bus…
Long, long time lurker, first time poster. Regarding syntax and fumbling, if I remember correctly, wasn’t Bush sr. also an abysmally poor speaker. I think it may be a cogenital condition. Good men, poor articulators. But maybe I’m wrong and it was just the MSM misrepresenting GHWB.
I’ve recently been developing the impression too that the reason the message is sometimes garbled is W’s discomfort with politically necessary double-speak. He flounders when he needs to cover the fact that his real response is “WTF, what’s wrong with you people?”
Then again, I’m not an impartial judge. He’s the most influential leader of my life time, to me, and I find him very compelling. If I was lacking in commitment to him, it evaporated sometime around 9 p.m. 9-11-01.
There is story in the news today about Kerry’s ridicule ala Michael Moore, of GWBs seven minutes spent finishing his reading for the kids. Kerry says he would have stopped immediately and told the children that President hawe some urgent business. This says two things about Kerry. First, he likes to let people know how important he is and second that he probably panics under stress and make rash decisions. Good commanders do not go into overdrive when faced by an unexpected event. That’s called panic. If you want to know how good commanders act under pressure read how Hancock acted at Gettysburg or Grant in the Wilderness. I would also recommend reading about BGEN Norman Cota on Omaha Beach in Stephan Ambroseís book on D-Day.
George Bush acted like a trained fighter pilot. He remained calm, focused on completing the immediate task, and did not run off with his hair on fire.
To those familiar with stress under command, Kerry’s remarks are consistent with the opinion of the Swifties in the ad.
Here’s one prof’s view of Bush at Harvard Biz School. Obviously, not the definitive word, but a word nonetheless. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=503181
Meanwhile, Mr. Elliott retracts. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/06/veteran_retracts_criticism_of_kerry/
Oh boy, Hollywood, that’s some damning stuff there… A visiting professor (almost certainly not only non-American by background but quite probably from Japan where expectations of students are quite different, especially in the early 70′s) and finds a jet-jocky American flyboy, “shallow and flippant” back in the early 70′s.
Wow. That’s gotta be impeachable stuff there. Shallow and flippant… man, if I woulda known that… I coulda voted for a True and Sensitive Intellect… Hey wait! I still have a chance to vote for Deep, Introspective, Nuanced Yet Fiercely Bright. I’m in! You got me Hollywood. I’ve been waiting for that one little thing that would turn me toward The Light.
I saw Morris and O’Reilly last night to.
Notice they didn’t talk at all about whether or not the accusations are true. Just like the rest of the main stream media. Didn’t get a chance to watch the debate on Hannity, but he’s not disputing the charges, and has had a few of the vets in this group on.
If the accusations prove true, then it should give pause to many of the undecided voters. The charges show a young Lt. who disobeyed orders, grandstanded, and took calculated actions for the benefit of a future political career.
In other words it shows in yet another way that John Kerry is a career politician who can’t be trusted to say what he means, or even what he believes. He’s a self-serving politician who wants his name in the history books. Not the kind of person I want in charge of the War on Terrorists.
Subsequent events have shown us that the “retraction” Hollywood links to is written by a reporter who is essentially a Kerry campaign worker and is denied by Elliot.
Catherine and I both have noticed that GWB’s speech impediment appears to be tied to level of anxiety. When he is comfortable, he is reasonably fluent.
His father also speaks in a funny manner, but it appears to be unrelated to the situation.
I watched Morris and O’Reilly also. O’Reilly was the normal snap-judgement ignoramus that has somehow made him the top TV guy around.
I was a little surprised at Morris’ reaction. I wonder if he hasn’t yet adapted to the post-McCain-Feingold world. This group is grass roots. They have their own opinions as individuals. That they were able to tap into some serious money when they ultimately needed it doesn’t surprise me – O’Neil is a prominent Houston attorney.
The Democrats are currently trying three tactics:
1) These people weren’t on Kerry’s boat – true but irrelevant – they fought in groups of boats, very close to each other (a few yards).
2) They have sent out lawyer letters to lots of stations. I don’t know what effect that will cause.
3) They are trying to label the group as republican shills. That may work for their base (except for veterans) but not otherwise.
As to the allegations. I think they are true. These guys have no reason to make anything up.
But the real show comes when the discussion gets to Kerry’s VVAW activities. Not the sideshow of throwing medals away, but the lying statements from his speeches. How will Americans react to the knowledge that Kerry wanted to give Vietnam away? How will they react to the fact that Kerry painted all Vietnam Veterans as war criminals, committers of atrocities, and psychologically damaged. We don’t like that, and I’m going to fly to DC for a Sept 12 rally against those lies.
John:
Hello.
I don’t think that Kerry ever understood how much he pissed these guys off years ago. I guess they just were not important enough to him to notice back then. I remember the times and I remember Kerry and his silly accent. A lot of people hated him. They called him the same thing alot of the Viet Nam veterans I know today call him: Jane Fonda without tits. I think that would make a nice bumper sticker myself.
I believe them too and I think that after Moore gets to show his outrageous movie all over the planet it looks kinda cowardly to threaten to sue these guys.
Terrye,
Each side is going to continue to try and manipulate the voters until the election is decided. Here’s a critique of the recent terror alerts. Were they necessary/credible/conveniently timed? http://news.ft.com/cms/s/1322a65e-e7db-11d8-bae0-00000e2511c8.html
Terrye,
See what I mean. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040808/D84AMUSG0.html
Good plan, Hollywood – go for another thread hijacking.