These two hypocrites need to be exposed for what they are
++++++++++ I've been thinking about all of this flap since it began. By me this has been a carefully orchestrated campaign by the Democratic party to lessen the impact of Kerry's checkered military background on the public.
Hear me out.
First it has all of the earmarks of Carville and Ickes on it but maybe that's just me. So First and a half I must point out that this national guard hoo-hah has been around since the last election. Thus it's been available since the beginning of the Dem primaries. So how comes it only hits the radar when it began to look seriously like Kerry might be the nominee?
I think Carville, Ickes, Kennedy and Clinton, or some combination or permutation thereof, had themselves a little confab. The basis of the confab was damage control for Kerry.
Sure, Kerry was a war hero so he does, at least in name, meet the Dem desire to get some sort of military guy on the ticket. But there's that problem with his protest activities. Which, frankly, during that controversial time was not all that odd. I'd certainly never hold it against a candidate for avoiding that dirty little war. I'd argue the American public didn't care either, witness Bill Clinton. Hey, they were challenging times, I remember it well.
At any rate, the only way to protect their candidate from his cloudy and confusing war record is to cast aspersions on the opponent. The hope being that with all the debate over Bush's service in the national guard hogging the air waves, comes the time when Kerry's cloudy past gets scrutiny, the public will have adapted a "been there, heard that" attitude.
And I hate to mention this for risk of wrath but I lived through the Vietnam era, a pretty little liberal girl in love with a man who wanted to move to Canada that he not die at the hands of politicians who valued power more than actually effectively resolving that conflict. Membership in the national guard was considered very much a way to avoid a trip to Vietnam. Guys lined up to join the guard and it was a heavy rumor of the era that the only way to get in the guard was to have a congressional sponsor. I hear the pundits tell us that the national guard was also subject to shipment to Vietnam but that was not the perception of that era and I'm sorry but that is how it was.
It's damn good manipulation of public opinion on the part of the Dems. They have every intention of letting it die down after their desired effect. Which is, I assert, to cover Kerry's military record and waffling with a cloud of ennui. Ideally, as Ickes and Carville see it, the public will demand that the candidates move on.
I can't stand Carville with a passion but that man is the most excellant administrator of public opinion that there is.
The Repubbies are awful at it.