September 15, 2004
THE CHRONICLES OF RIDICULE (via Fred Jacobsen):
Kerry Drops Ball With Packers Fans (Jim VandeHei, September 15, 2004, Washington Post)
"I got some advice for him," Bush told Wisconsinites a few days after the Lambert gaffe. "If someone offers you a cheesehead, don't say you want some wine, just put it on your head and take a seat at Lambeau Field." Vice President Cheney made the obligatory pilgrimage to Green Bay last week to pile on. "I thought after John Kerry's visit here I'd visit Lambert Field," Cheney told a crowd at a Republican fundraising dinner Thursday night. Then he went in for the kill. "The next thing is he'll be convinced Vince Lombardi is a foreign leader."Perhaps Lombardi, the Hall of Fame coach who put Titletown on the map in the 1960s, is working from the beyond the grave to trip up the Massachusetts senator. After all, Richard M. Nixon considered Lombardi as his running mate in 1968. There's one problem with this: Lombardi was a Kennedy Democrat. In fact, the Kennedys' connection to the Green and Gold runs even deeper. In 1955, Packers Coach Lisle Blackbourn flirted with a talented young pro prospect in Massachusetts: Ted Kennedy, who now plays offensive line for the Kerry campaign. [...]
This strategy is not confined to Cheeseland either. Republicans poked fun of Kerry for talking about the Buckeyes (of Ohio State University) while visiting arch rival Michigan (home of the Wolverines). These seemingly innocuous digs fit into a larger Bush-Cheney plan of fashioning the president as a common man and Kerry as a pandering patrician.
Kerry's slip is rookie stuff compared with Bush's verbal blunders, including his famous creation of the word "misunderestimated."
And David Wade, a Kerry spokesman, said Packers fans will see the failed "playbook" of the Republicans. "Any Packers fan knows . . . Bush has fumbled on Iraq, did a double reverse on the assault weapons ban and dropped the ball on health care." Then Wade went personal. "I don't think we need any lectures in sports from a former cheerleader," referring to one of Bush's activities while at prep school.
Mr. Wade can't seriously be using Mr. Kerry's support for gun control to try and lure Red voters can he? These guys are grotesquely incompetent. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 15, 2004 1:57 PM
"Packers Coach Lisle Blackbourn flirted with a talented young pro prospect in Massachusetts: Ted Kennedy"
flirted? Huh..Obviously there are areas that even Karl Rove won't go to. Though Newt Gingwich would.
Posted by: h-man at September 15, 2004 2:25 PMI'm just trying to picture Vince Lombardi trying to locate his star lineman during pre-game warm-ups only to discover he's working on blocking assignments next to the beer keg at some tailgate party outside Lambeau Field.
Posted by: John at September 15, 2004 3:10 PMMangling words and syntax makes people laugh at you, but it doesn't alienate...
Talking about the wrong sports team to their arch-rival, or bungling a nationally famous local landmark, does make people feel as though the speaker doesn't consider them worth the effort of a few minutes' study.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 15, 2004 5:12 PMNext he'll be coming to my home state of Nebraska to excitedly announce his endorsement by Barry Switzer.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at September 15, 2004 7:37 PMDoes Kerry have a secret plan to save the hockey season?
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at September 15, 2004 8:49 PMIn Field and Stream magazine, Kerry said that his favorite firearm is a Chinese Communist assault rifle he picked up in Vietnam.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 18, 2004 7:00 AM