Posted on 03/21/2004 3:46:37 AM PST by NYpeanut
I wonder if John Kerry has perhaps launched his descent into caricature a couple of months too early. Usually, the successful losing candidate waits till late spring/early summer before shifting gears and beginning each day with the campaign trying to explain some rhetorical triviality from the previous week that's stuck to his shoe and he can't seem to shake off.
Ever since last summer, I've been mocking Sen. Kerry's tortured explanations as to why his vote in favor of such-and-such in fact demonstrates his staunch opposition to it. As I wrote a couple of months back:
''His vote against the first Gulf War was, he says, a sign of his support for the first Gulf War. Whereas his vote in favor of the Iraq war was a sign of his opposition to the Iraq war. And his vote against funding America's troops in Iraq is a sign of his support for America's men and women in uniform. On the same principle, I think the best way voters this November can demonstrate their support for John Kerry is by voting against him.''
Even I, though, would have balked at so crude and obvious a parody as this line, which some Kerry impersonator did on the radio the other day:
''I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.''
Oh, hang on. That's apparently the real senator, explaining to an audience of veterans why he voted against funding the Iraqi reconstruction:
''I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.''
Got that?
Q: How many John Kerrys does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: At least four. One to unscrew the old lightbulb. One to simultaneously announce his courageous commitment to replacing the old bulb. One to vote against funding the new light bulb. And one to denounce George W. Bush and America's Benedict Arnold CEOs for leaving everyone in the dark.
Q: Why did John Kerry cross the road?
A: He didn't cross the road. He crossed to the middle to demonstrate his grasp of the nuances and subtleties involved in crossing the road, and was still explaining them to the New York Times reporter when the logging truck hit him.
Then there was the senator's clumsy attempt to declare himself America's ''second black president.'' Bill Clinton was at least canny enough to get himself anointed as the first black president by an actual black person, the novelist Toni Morrison, who declared that he displayed ''every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.'' It's harder to pull that off when you're a Swiss finishing school boy from Massachusetts. Many's the night John and the other boys in his dorm would lie awake dreaming of their freedom as they murmured one of the traditional spirituals of their people: ''Swing by, sweet limousine, comin' for to carry me home.''
Of course, like many African Americans, he understands what it's like when people are prejudiced against you because of your skin. In Sen. Kerry's case, his skin is extremely thin. So it was inevitable that, when a voter named Cedric Brown, in Bethlehem, Pa., needled the candidate to name one of the world leaders who were supposedly desperate for him to beat Bush, within moments the senator would be snarling that it's ''none of your business.''
It's never a good idea in vernacular politics to leave the impression you're more comfortable with the global elite than with American citizens. Instead of the second black president, Kerry sounded awfully like America's first French president.
Also none of our business is the senator's go-ahead-punk bluster about foreign policy. For months he's been droning in his stump speech that, if George W. Bush wants to fight this election on national security, Kerry has three words for him: ''Bring it on!'' So Bush brought it on -- with a 30-second ad arguing that the senator is weak on defense. And suddenly the campaign's curled up on the floor in a fetal position whimpering that it's just totally unfair making such a horrible personal attack. Watching him in New Hampshire, I always thought, when Kerry dares you to ''bring it on,'' he couldn't quite bring it off. As all military strategists say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. And so it proved.
What else? For over a year, there've been jokes about the ponderous way the senator brings Vietnam up at every opportunity. Ask him about John Edwards' pretty boy bangs, and Kerry says solemnly, ''I know something about bangs for real.'' But he's beyond satire now. The Humane Society sends him a questionnaire asking ''Do you have any pets that have made an impact on you personally?'' Instead of citing any of the ginger toms, gerbils and cockatoos that have passed through the Kerry household in the last four decades, he goes back to those four months in Vietnam and recalls a pooch named VC who accompanied him on his swift boat missions.
Is it normal to take a yappy mutt on a swift boat patrol through enemy territory? Especially a mutt named after the enemy. Calling out ''Over here, VC'' in the middle of the jungle seems a good way to get taken out by friendly fire. Come to that, how many folks name their dogs after the enemy? Did British Tommies stumble across stray French poodles on the beach at Normandy and think, ''Aw, cute li'l feller. I'll call him SS''?
Weird. And, just to round out a weird week, John Kerry, accompanied by the press, went into a sporting goods store and bought a jock strap. Even for a campaign marked by a strangely insecure macho exhibitionism, this was a little too self-parodic. Next time he shouts ''Bring it on!'' I want to see that VC puppy trot out with the jock strap between his teeth so Jacques Chirac can ceremonially drape it round the senator's neck.
Gee this is odd?!? As I recall from being a kid, a male doesn't need a 'jock' until you have 'something' to protect!
(maybe he's going to use it as a combination nose guard/sweat band??)
And what could be next? Him buying a 'cup' to use as an ear protector?!!?
BTW, I bet 'the press' who accompanied him have NO idea of what a jock strap is!
He bought it for his wife.
I dunno what soldiers under fire tend to name their mascots, but I DO know that Adolf, Tojo, and Mussolini were popular pet names during WWII, among civilians . Dachshunds are still commonly saddled with "Adolf".
Hope the media informs us if he visits a veterinarian.
Might be purchasing some nuticles. He could use them.
I guess that would make it a "Jacques strappe".
Pardon my French, so to speak, but I get the impression Chirac would just love to trade places with JFK's jock.
More Jean Effin' anecdotes from today's NY Post:
JUST hours before Sen. John Kerry boldly announced, "I don't fall down," on a Sun Valley ski slope, he fell down. Kerry made headlines last week when, on his first snowboard run down Idaho's Mount Baldy, a skiing Secret Service agent collided with the Democratic presidential candidate, sending him tumbling into the powder. After getting to his feet - and being assured that news cameras hadn't caught the crash - Kerry told reporters: "I don't fall down. That son of a bitch knocked me over."
Not quite. Upon his arrival in Idaho the previous evening, Kerry showed he's as vulnerable to gravity as the rest of us. As his dozen-car motorcade made the 90-minute trek from a Twin Falls airport to the slopes of Ketchum, they stopped off at a Texaco mini-mart in Shoshone, where Kerry promptly lost his footing.
"Out jumps candidate Kerry to buy a bottle of water, but the lady at the mini-mart had just mopped the floor," a spy tells PAGE SIX. "Kerry slips and falls on the wet floor!"
"It was a quick slip and an immediate recovery," says Kerry rep David Wade. "He was up in a second."
The overwhelmingly Republican enclave might prove a bit slippery for Kerry. Ketchum elders were concerned when Secret Service agent Robert Harrell advised them a Kerry presidency would have "some noticeable impacts" on their lives. Kerry and wife Teresa Heinz Kerry live on the Big Wood River across Highway 75 in the Adams Gulch section of town. The agent warned that heightened security could entail occasional "frozen zones" where freedom of movement is restricted should Kerry win the 2004 election.
Many locals didn't seem too upset by the idea - they tolerate Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's five California state troopers in nearby Lake Creek. But they are horrified at the thought that legendary Pioneer Saloon could soon be in a "security bubble," says our Ketchum sources.
Kerry got a taste of local hostility when he lunched with his wife Thursday at the Warm Springs ski area. An octogenarian at a nearby table loudly told his date, "I see the idiot is here."
A young waitress scolded the senior citizen, "It's guys like you who got this country where it is!"
"Don't get personal about this, young lady," he replied.
al-Franken-stein monster--I love this.
It's never a good idea in vernacular politics to leave the impression you're more comfortable with the global elite than with American citizens. Instead of the second black president, Kerry sounded awfully like America's first French president.
America's first French president--Let's not let this happen!!
This paragraph deserves it's own post!!!!!
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