This is parked outside the DNC. The Dims are on suicide watch.....again
Posted on 05/01/2004 8:53:13 PM PDT by AUsome Joy
Atlanta radio legend Ludlow Porch used to host an annual flip-flop parade for the fun-seekers who listened to his daily program. If memory serves me correctly — and more and more frequently it does not — the parade was held on the Fourth of July, but it might have been Memorial Day. I think it originated from downtown Tucker.
I’m not sure if Ludlow still has his annual flip-flop parade, or even if he is still on the air, but if he is and if he does, I have the perfect person to serve as this year’s grand marshal. That’s right. I nominate none other than Massachusetts Sen. and Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry.
I have never written anything negative about John Kerry. In fact, I’ve never written anything about John Kerry. My mama taught me a long time ago that if you can’t say something good about someone you shouldn’t say anything at all. If my mama, who was a yellow dog FDR Democrat, had lived long enough to see John Kerry run for president, she might have cast a Republican ballot.
The man looks like Herman Munster and votes like Ted Kennedy, but neither is reason enough to break my long avowed silence concerning him and his candidacy. After hearing him being interviewed by Charles Gibson on “Good Morning America” this week, however, I just gotta have my say. And let’s face it, Charles Gibson is not exactly a bastion of conservatism. If Kerry looks bad talking to Charlie, imagine how he might fare in a discussion with an impartial commentator.
I already knew about Kerry’s reputation for dangling in the breeze on important issues and blowing whichever way the wind happened to be blowing. In fact, I heard President Bush say of his Democratic challengers, “They’re for tax cuts and against them. They’re for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They’re for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They’re in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that’s just one senator from Massachusetts.”
I have read many accounts of Kerry’s voting record in the Senate. In 1988, for example, he is on record as stating that he found the idea of making welfare recipients work for their benefits “troubling.” In 1996, in response to being called soft on welfare reform, he voted for the welfare reform law that President Clinton signed into law. First he flipped and then he flopped.
In 1992, Kerry came against affirmative-action programs. He said that they “kept America thinking in racial terms” and helped promote a “culture of dependency.” Now, with millions of minority votes at stake, he has vowed to preserve affirmative-action. First he flipped and then he flopped. There are dozens of other documented examples of Kerry flipping and then flopping on subjects ranging from the death penalty to education reform to eating grits for breakfast.
OK. I made up the part about grits. But the rest is there. As Casey Stengle used to say, “You can look it up."
Flip-flop. Flip-flop. Flip-flop. To tell the truth, I didn’t put that much credence into what I heard about Kerry’s position switching. But this week I saw him in action and honesty compels me to admit that I had never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen a lot in my 52 years on this earth.
Gibson was questioning Kerry about whether he had or hadn’t thrown away the medals he earned in Vietnam. Gibson knew that Kerry had thrown something away because he was present when the incident happened and saw the whole thing. He was just trying to determine what Kerry had thrown away and why, because he had film footage of Kerry saying, “I threw my medals away,” and he had footage of Kerry saying, “I did not throw my medals away.” He also had footage of Kerry saying, “I would have thrown my medals away if I had had them with me,” and footage of Kerry saying, “I would never have thrown my medals away.”
At one point Kerry told Gibson that he threw his ribbons away but not his medals and that ribbons and medals were not the same thing. Another time he told Gibson that ribbons and medals were interchangeable — that one was the same as the other. And all of this was in a five-minute interview. When Gibson tried to pin Kerry down, he just ignored the questions and started talking about George Bush.
I don’t really have an opinion about Kerry’s service in Vietnam or his activism against the war after he got home. The four months he served were four more than I served. I don’t fault him for protesting the war when he got home because that is his right as an American. I do fault him for not having the courage to take a stand on an issue and for not facing the American people and telling the truth. I think that in November, a majority of Americans will have a problem with these issues as well.
And one other thing. Ludlow’s flip- flop parades were phony. They never really took place. Just one more reason John Kerry would make a perfect grand marshal.
Darrell Huckaby is a Newton County native and the author of six books. He lives in Rockdale County where he teaches high school history.
Jay Leno got it right. If Kerry becomes President he can give the State of the Union address and the rebuttal.
That is one Republican campaign commercial where a Democrat can do all of the talking except for the "I, George Bush, have approved this message".
This is parked outside the DNC. The Dims are on suicide watch.....again
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