September 12, 2004
WAS SHE PAYING ANY ATTENTION?:
Westerns and Easterns (MAUREEN DOWD, 9/12/04, NY Times)
It's a remarkable feat, but teeter-tottering John Kerry is even managing to land on both sides of the ambition issue.For his entire life, he was seen as so ambitious to be president, as so eager to consort with heiresses, that it was off-putting; his St. Paul's classmates played "Hail to the Chief" on kazoos when he walked by, and in the Senate, Bob Dole mocked the Massachusetts senator's love of cameras by nicknaming him Live Shot.
But this summer, when that lust for power should have been coursing through his veins, Mr. Kerry grew timid and logy. He let the Bush crowd and Swift boat character assassins stomp all over him and, for the longest time, didn't fight back. He stumbled into every trap Bush Inc. set.
Finally, the only Democrat who has fended off the WASP Corleones reminded the nominee of the prep-school mantra: punch the bully in the face, and do it in the same news cycle.
When he hasn't been busy with his quadruple-bypass operation, Bill Clinton has been chatting with John Kerry on the phone from the hospital, urging him to juice it up.
Does she really think this was a a good week for the Kerry campaign, that fighting dirty helped? Posted by Orrin Judd at September 12, 2004 1:36 PM
Well, nobody talks about the Swiftboat Vets anymore. It's all about Bush's TANG service now, even though the documents are forged. It remains to be seen whether this helps Kerry, but it got him off the hook on Vietnam. The Clintonistas have scored their first victory. More are probably on their way.
Posted by: Peter at September 12, 2004 2:05 PMNo, it didn't get him off the Vietnam hook. All it's done is to give a pause for the hook to set deeper. What's the most natural outcome now, with respect to the Swiftvets? I'd say it's that people will begin to say, "Let's look at the Swiftboat papers/claims and see how many of them are fraudulent."
And, IMHO, most of the Swiftboat vets claims are NOT bogus, everybody's attention will be on True Facts that are very bad for Kerry.
Yep. I expect that the Swifties have all sorts of documents of their own and will be glad to present them for analysis. Besides, whether the Swifties are in the background or not, the effect of this whole flap over the last few days has been to shove whatever else Kerry and Edwards had to say into the background - _not_ a consummation they could reasonably be expected to have wished.
Posted by: Joe at September 12, 2004 2:46 PM1. As my brother once said, "What you've got to remember about Kerry is that he was considered aloof and elitist at prep school."
2. Any day spend on Vietnam is a bad day for John Kerry.
3. The Swifties haven't even gotten to Paris or Kansas City yet.
Posted by: David Cohen at September 12, 2004 3:01 PMDoes Maureen Dowd really believe that Clinton wants Kerry to win@
Posted by: George at September 12, 2004 3:09 PMDoes Maureen Dowd really think that Clinton wants Kerry to win?
Posted by: George at September 12, 2004 3:10 PMPeter, I see your point, but I don't think it helps Kerry in the long run to get into fight about document authenticity, given that 1) he hasn't released all his military records and 2) there's currently a Pentagon investigation into the oddities of the paperwork for his medals.
Posted by: PapayaSF at September 12, 2004 4:10 PMWhat do JFK and Trent Lott have in common?
Great hair and running off cliffs without a parachute.
Posted by: genecis at September 12, 2004 9:54 PMWe need to start calling him "John Forged Kerry."
Posted by: Mike Morley at September 12, 2004 10:51 PMMike:
"Fabricated" or "Falsified" is better - forged sounds too much like a Marine.
Posted by: jim hamlen at September 13, 2004 11:05 AMPutting "Maureen Dowd" and "think" in the same sentence assaults basic logic.
Posted by: Mikey at September 13, 2004 2:36 PM