Posted on 10/14/2004 12:34:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The oddly missing element from this year's presidential campaign is any discussion of the most important two decades of John Kerry's public life — those he served in the U.S. Senate.
His record is undistinguished liberalism, so unremarkable or productive that he found only 70 words out of 5,161 in the convention speech he used to define himself to address almost 20 years in the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. In his career there, he has sponsored only eight bills that passed Congress, an Associated Press study found. Five were ceremonial, two concerned fishing and marine research and one gave grants to small businesses owned by women.
Senators, like lawyers and editorial writers, can be critics unburdened by the responsibility to make anything work, grow, move or produce. On Iraq and the war on terror or the economy, both Kerry and running mate John Edwards are unburdened critics, free to carp that whatever the Bush administration does or did, they would have done better, smarter and wiser.
Yet their careers suggest otherwise. A New York Times account of Kerry's decision-making style reveals a man who can spend four weeks mulling the design of a campaign logo. "Even his aides conceded that Kerry can be slow in taking action, bogged down in the very details he is so intent on collecting," the newspaper reports. The most influential adviser is the last one who has his ear.
More troubling about the pair than their public record, and Kerry's decision-making style, are the underpinnings of their campaign. It is a reflection of the prejudices that grew out of the '60s counter-culture assault on American institutions, including capitalism, organized religion, the military and the family, prejudices that hardened into cynicism — and now are distilled in the dominating wing of the national Democratic Party. Radicals of the era could challenge without any sense of personal responsibility for workable alternatives.
I don't ascribe the left's prejudices sweepingly to Kerry or Edwards. Two areas do concern, however: their views on corporations and Kerry's anti-war history. Edwards, in fact, is a cheerful optimist whose Southern populism coincidentally aligns with the visceral contempt the left has for corporate America. When he spits out, as he did in last week's debate, accusations about Halliburton's corrupting influence on government, it's spoken for campaign advantage, sure.
On Halliburton, there's not a shred of evidence that Vice President Dick Cheney, its former CEO, has uttered a syllable that benefited the corporation. The distortions by Kerry and Edwards are so pronounced that it most certainly springs from a fundamental loathing of Big Oil, insurance, pharmaceutical and other corporate entities. It reflects a blending of populistic envy and liberal disdain.
Corporations, as seen by the left, are inherently evil: greedy, discriminatory, exploitative and morally and ethically corrupt. Companies, such as Coke, Waffle House and Cracker Barrel, are shaken down as alleged discriminators, a fate they can avoid only if they are willing to endure a relentless barrage of bad press. The utilities seek to despoil the very air their executives and their families breathe to add a few pennies to the profit margin. Wal-Mart freeloads and destroys. Enron, no matter how isolated, becomes the evidence of capitalism's malevolence.
Just as they by their rhetoric undermine confidence in business, Kerry and Edwards discuss the war on terrorism in Iraq as though there's no responsibility for tomorrow. Their criticism of America's motives, our conduct of the war, our allies, Iraqi leaders and our "occupation" is, like that of the well-fed protesters of their youth, destructive without a sense of consequence. Next January, if he is successful, Kerry will have to lead and inspire those he trashes so carelessly now.
The question with Kerry has always been whether he has the character and ability to lead a nation at war. Neither his Senate record, nor his betrayal of those with whom he served in a time of war, offers reassurance that the man who criticizes can do that.
I wonder if Wooten has to run the gauntlet past bloodthirsty liberals on the way to his desk every day, or does the AJC give him a private office with a direct elevator?
Bump for reading when I wake up
Just like Jacoby at the Boston Globe, I bet he walks in with his head held high.
Maybe so... but I bet the reception at the water cooler is chilly (no pun intended).
The telling point of sKerry's decision making style (mulling over a logo for four weeks) is just another indication, along with his pontificating tone, obsession with personal appearance, and tendency to speak in carefully rehearsed blurbs, of advanced megalomania.
This man is not just an opportunistic demagogue, he is a bona fide head case, in need of serious psychiatric help. That's OK, though, after last night's gaffe, he's probably getting a serious therapy session from his handlers and "wife". (What WERE you THINKING?!?!?)
BTTT
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