December 29, 2003
MUDDLE-SLINGING:
Kerry disputes Dean's resolve: Senator still No. 2 with key primary only a month away (David M. Halbfinger, December 28, 2003, New York Times)
"We need more than simple answers and the slip of the tongue," Kerry said. "Our world is complicated, and the challenges we face demand a president who knows what he's saying and knows where America needs to go."He reminded an avid crowd in Manchester that Dean had commended the capture of Saddam Hussein one day, then on the next asserted that it did not make America any safer. "It raises serious doubts about both his realism and resolve," Kerry said.
"When he spreads unfounded rumors about the administration having prior warnings of Sept. 11 and then passes it off because someone had posted it on the Internet, it leaves Americans questioning judgment and sense of responsibility," Kerry added. [...]
"What kind of muddled thinking is it if you can't instantly say that in your heart you know Osama bin Laden is guilty, should be tried in the U.S. and given the maximum punishment?" Kerry said.
"I tell you, you don't have to listen too carefully to hear the sound of Champagne corks popping in Karl Rove's office."
You can't hear the popping over the laughter. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 29, 2003 6:24 PM
People like Kerry sewed this foul crop three years ago, with their continued sniping about George Bush being "selected, not elected." Now that they've stirred up such anamosity in the core Democratic Party voters, they're shocked to find what they've reaped is not support for "mainstream" Democratic hopefuls in the 2004 primaries, but for the candidate who seems the most recklessly hostile towards everything Bush does.
If you tell your base voters a president is illegitimate and then you vote with him on the war on terror and the authorization for war in Iraq, that makes you a little illigitmate too in the eyes of the base. It's a squeeze Kerry and the others put themselves into, and their only way out now is for Dean to act so outrageous in the next 30 days even the core voters will question his sanity and/or electability.
Posted by: John at December 29, 2003 8:12 PMJohn:
Spot on. They cultivated this insane anger and it's coming back to haunt them.
Posted by: oj at December 29, 2003 8:59 PMThe Democratic Party is absurd. If this doesn't say it nothing will. A comedy of....?
Posted by: at December 29, 2003 9:46 PMone watches this comedy of erros with glee, and to think the most extreme clown of them all is who they've got in the pole position. It just all goes to show how completely irrational the democratic party is, in comparison to our party. One just hopes, as Harry mentioned some weeks ago, that our party does not get so cocky to let someone like Ashcroft go totally wild.
Posted by: at December 30, 2003 2:37 AMIf Kerry felt the hard left was still up for grabs, he would be saying the same things as Dean. But to try to be statesmanlike now is just a little too much from the would-be President of France.
Posted by: jim hamlen at December 30, 2003 8:42 AM