August 8, 2004
WE NOMINATED A WHAT?:
Please Don't Call Him 'Senator' (JODI WILGOREN, 8/08/04, NY Times)
SENATOR JOHN KERRY's wife likes to say he'd be a president who "loves history," but here's one historical fact he cannot be fond of: Just two of the scores of sitting senators who have ever sought the Oval Office actually got there, Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy. [...]"It is almost impossible to go through a 20-year record in the Senate and not be able to find things that might embarrass a candidate," observed the presidential historian Michael Beschloss. "If you're a great Senate leader and you're running, people might think you're a hack. And then if you're a senator and you weren't a great leader, people might wonder why weren't you?"
Which may be why Mr. Kerry's campaign aides rarely use the honorific he has earned in nearly 20 years on Capitol Hill, instead referring to the candidate only as "John Kerry'' in news releases, travel schedules and when talking about him.
A little late to figure this out, no? Posted by Orrin Judd at August 8, 2004 9:16 AM
If they could get away with it, I think the Kerry campaign would put out a statement saying that, like Austin Powers, the Senator was cryongenically frozen at the end of the 1960s after returning from Vietnam (after being kidnapped out of a senate office building elevator by Halderman and Liddy after his testimony against the war), and then thawed out in present times in order to save the world from Dr. Evil (George W. Bush). That would explain the lack of any mention of his public record by the campaign from 1970 to 2002.
But since that wasn't the case, I hope someone during the debates will ask Kerry to list the Top 10 pieces of legilation he authored (as opposed to just supported) during his two decades in the Senate. The answer would be enlightning, even if it sounded like one of Ralph Kramden's old "Hummina, hummina, hummina" lines.
Posted by: John at August 8, 2004 10:23 AMIt's not merely a matter of having been a Senator. Kerry's record as a Senator dramatically contradicts his claims to stand for a strong American military, independence of American initiative in international matters, fiscal discipline, or "conservative values." He simply can't afford to allow it to be probed; it would be just as deadly to him as the emergent facts about his four months in Vietnam are proving to be.
There's a great irony here. Usually, it's the incumbent who has to defend his record. But one can tell from the shrill yet insubstantial, multifarious yet rapidly dissolving accusations hurled at Dubya, and from the frantic counterthrusts by which the Kerry campaign has sought to shield its candidate's history from serious scrutiny, that the reverse is true this time around.
And somewhere, Bill and Hillary Clinton are laughing up their sleeves as they contemplate 2008.
Kerry's aides don't hesitate to refer to him as "the Senator" when they want you to move out of his way.
Posted by: jim hamlen at August 8, 2004 7:50 PMKerry, the Second Gracchi?
Posted by: narciso at August 8, 2004 10:18 PMMore like Incitatus.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at August 8, 2004 11:09 PMBoth Harding and Kennedy died during their first terms too. That can't make Kerry real happy either. Not that he seems that alive mentally anyway.
Posted by: Steve at August 8, 2004 11:51 PMBoth Harding and Kennedy died during their first terms too. That can't make Kerry real happy either. Not that he seems that alive mentally anyway.
Posted by: Steve at August 8, 2004 11:52 PM