September 17, 2004
WHO DID HE THINK JOHN KERRY WAS?:
Kerry's aim is off-target (Mort Zuckerman, 9/17/04, NY Daily News)
Who would have thought that this year's presidential campaign might turn out to be more of a referendum on John Kerry than on President Bush?Who would have thought the campaign would be focusing more on the Vietnam War than on the Iraq war? Who would have thought Kerry would base so much of his convention appeal on four months of service in Vietnam and still be unable to respond to questions raised by Swift boat vets known for years to have been angered by his criticisms of the war they fought together?
Who would have thought that Kerry, vulnerable to the charge of flip-flopping, would suggest that he would have supported the war even if he knew then what he knows now about weapons of mass destruction and then reverse himself by echoing Howard Dean, saying that the war in Iraq is "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time"?
Who would have thought that Kerry would fail to develop the obvious signature grand theme that might have been an election winner: the economic squeeze on the middle class?
Only everyone who knew anything about politics. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 17, 2004 10:31 AM
A referendum on contemporary liberalism and all of its contradictions and muddle-headedness.
Posted by: Tom C, Stamford,Ct. at September 17, 2004 10:44 AMIt still amazes me that Zuckerman, when he is on the McLaughlin Group, fills in the "conservative businessman" seat. His political analysis is usually pretty poor (which makes sense given him sitting next to Eleanor Clift) and this article reenforces that.
Posted by: AWW at September 17, 2004 10:44 AMKerry is simply a bad candidate, but then again this year's class of presidential contenders were extremely poor for the most part.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at September 17, 2004 11:15 AMUmmm...what economic squeeze on the middle class?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at September 17, 2004 11:22 AMWell, of course it's about Kerry, he's the competitor. He wants the job, what does he have to offer?
Why should we hire him?
Posted by: Sandy P at September 17, 2004 12:03 PMChris: And so was Al Gore, and so was Michael Dukakis, and so was Fritz Mondale, and so was Jimmy Carter, and so was everyone else running for the nomination this year. In fact, this year's candidates were so bad they lost to John Kerry.
Hey, every candidate nominated by the Democratic party since 1968 has been a terrible candidate, excepting only Bill Clinton -- who ran to the right in the brief period between wars. There may be a lesson for the Democrats there, though I'm not at all worred that they'll learn it.
Posted by: David Cohen at September 17, 2004 12:28 PMAWW :
ditto on Zuckerman -- how does someone who has never expressed an interesting political idea get to be a pundit?
Posted by: at September 17, 2004 1:05 PMDavid:
I reminded of something I read once about Jimmy Walker's first campaign for Mayor of New York. A cub reporter asked a Tammany pol if he thought Walker would make a good mayor. The pol allegedly answered, "Hell no, he'll make a terrible mayor. But what a candidate." Clinton in a nutshell.
Posted by: Jeff at September 17, 2004 1:07 PMMort underlines the rule of the power of the press -- he who owns the press has the power, and in this case it was Zuckerman's real estate holdings that allowed him to get into the publishing business. That said, his post-9/11 political views have changed from the 1990s, when he was a major support of Clinton in the business community.
And on the subject of Kerry's aim being off-target, Kimberly Strassel had this little all-too-typical item in today's Opinion Journal piece on the senator's position on gun control:
The October edition of Outdoor Life will feature interviews with both presidential candidates. When asked about their favorite guns, President Bush responds: "My favorite gun is a Weatherby Athena 20 gauge." Mr. Kerry says (reminding us yet again where he was 35 years ago): "My favorite gun is the M-16 that saved my life and that of my crew in Vietnam. I don't own one of those now, but one of my reminders of my service is a Communist Chinese assault rifle." So Mr. Kerry's favorite gun is an "assault" rifle designed for war. Funny talk coming from a guy who just went ballistic over the end of the "assault" weapons ban.
I think if you asked Kerry about his favorite brand of toilet tissue, he'd still manage to work Vietnam into the reply and somehow shoot himself in the foot.
Posted by: John at September 17, 2004 1:56 PMJerry Bowyer, who does BuzzCharts over at NationalReviewOnline, writes that the number of business bankruptcy filings has been declining for two years, and that personal bankruptcy filings have been steeply declining throughout '04.
There may have been a "middle-class squeeze", but if so, it's over now.
The invaluable Robert Samuelson disposed of the squeeze bit:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/014392.html
Posted by: oj at September 17, 2004 7:57 PM