You're forgetting who his VP was, aren't you...? :)
Posted on 08/14/2004 12:15:49 PM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
The genie is out of the bottle. The best efforts of the mainstream media to blockade the story of Kerry’s lies about Cambodia, and the charges by the vast majority of men who served with him in the Swift Boat operations, have failed. Glenn Reynolds prints a telling letter from a reader who requests anonymity. Read the entire entry, but here are the key sentences:
...last night I was talking to a friend who is a hardcore liberal Democrat and is, in fact, a first cousin of a very well-known Democratic Senator. He was very upset about the Kerry-Swift Vet-Cambodia controversy. He blamed Kerry for the whole thing, saying he had set himself up for this problem by making Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign. Two things struck me about this. First, this is a guy who gets all of his news from the biggies - the NYT, NPR, and CNN - and yet he knew all about the story. That means the Big Media filter isn't preventing the story from reaching people. Second, he had concluded that Kerry deserves the criticism and is lacking in credibility. This is a guy who, if there were any yes-but talking points in defense of Kerry, surely would have stuck to them. This says to me that if Big Media is in the tank for Kerry, they may actually have hurt him by not covering this story. They've abdicated coverage of a story that is negative to Kerry to the Blogosphere, thus resulting in more damage to their favored candidate than if they'd reported on the story, but with an eye toward knocking it down. They can pretend the story isn't there, but they can't make blogs go away.
Glenn adds:
...they're damaging themselves as more and more people notice that they're ignoring it.Just so. Credibility, once lost, is difficult to re-establish. Ask Bill Clinton.
In April, I used the metaphor of a driver stuck in snow, who presses the accelerator, and finds the spinning wheels only melting more snow, making traction all the more difficult. The current efforts of the press to define Kerry’s lies as a non-event are destroying their own traction. The media eruption over far less serious charges about Bush’s National Guard service is too fresh in the recesses of most peoples’ minds. And, of course, Bush didn’t choose to run for re-election on the basis of his honorable, even brave service as a jet jockey, a highly dangerous occupation.
But it is summer now. So let me switch metaphors. The establishment press is facing its Gottedamerung – the twilight of the gods. For decades, god-like figures handed down their version of the truth from corporate Valhallas like the New York Times and CBS News. The public credulously accepted their writ on what is important and what is not important.
But god-like pretensions are dangerous, indeed, often fatal. Especially when combined with mono-maniacal convictions on the need for their point of view to prevail. Post-modernity, a concept beloved of the bien pensants, cuts two ways. The public is skeptical of anyone who pretends to be an authoritative gatekeeper of knowledge. Kerry, who has never cut much of a figure as a genuine, warm, empathetic human being, is an ideal target for citizen skepticism.
The establishment press is coming across as every bit as pompous and conniving as the man who married two centi-millionaire heiresses.
They are, in fact, destroying themselves. Their industry is in serious trouble. Circulation scandals have hit major newspaper publishers, while the scandal-free press can take little comfort in their declining readership. Network TV news is a shadow of its former self, and its future is very limited. CNN’s monopoly is shattered, and it boasts a poor fraction of the viewership of Fox News, the only cable news outlet fully covering Kerrygate with the same seriousness accorded Bush’s National Guard service questions.
The blogosphere is the camel whose nose, and now a good part of its neck, is under the tent. Leadership in coverage of the self-destruction of the Kerry Campaign is in the hands of Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt (guru to many of us), Powerline, Captain’s Quarters, Just One Minute, and many other bloggers.
Nobody had ever heard of Bob Woodward until Watergate. Afterward, he became a powerful brand name, and his and Bernstein's work inspired generations of new journalists. The same phenomenon is taking place today, and journalism will never be the same again. The big difference is that this time around, there is a technological revolution compounding the destructive force operating on the old media. Hurricane Charley has nothing on the winds of change now blowing away the old media practices and economics.
Future historians are going to find this election deeply significant for not just War on Terror policy reasons. This is a transformative election for the structure of political information.
what an excellent piece
Pray for W and Our Troops
How are they going to make Kerry go away? Like Al Gore, Kerry has been plotting and dreaming of becoming President since he was thisssssTall. He's so close now he can taste it. They would have to Arkancide the guy to rid of him — there is no way an arrogant sociopath like Kerry can be convinced of anything. In his mind, he is always right. And whatever he does is correct. He is a type that will not step down for the good of anyone... because he doesn't care about anyone except himself.
All his life, he has been able to bully and lie his way past anything... to the point that he is now a United States Senator. If he takes a dive in the polls, and the Dems send "the guys in the grey suits" to go have a talk with him, he is not going to listen to one word of it. His life experience is that making up one more good lie will get him past this; it always has.
They nominated him. They are stuck with him.
Does anybody think Bill Clinton could have gotten elected if the internet was as powerful a force in 1992 as it is today ?
You're forgetting who his VP was, aren't you...? :)
"With the exceptions of Reagan's first term and W's foreign policy, that 32 years of Republican presidents has been RINO all the way. Big deal."
Yeah! I noticed that too. When I was born FDR was still president, and I said, "it would be a good thing if the New Deal could just continue." Of course my IQ was that of a child. I think you know where I am going with this.
"Does anybody think Bill Clinton could have gotten elected if the internet was as powerful a force in 1992 as it is today ?"
Very good point, J.L. Does anyone think that John F. Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson would've got elected if the Internet had existed back then?
I really think we will get better leaders from now on because the lamestream media can no longer the hide the truth about people.
Nobody can "force him out." This is a fallacy. He was nominated to be the Democrat Presidential candidate. Period. There is no mechanism for removing him from the ticket. The only way to do that would be to have 50 states re-write their election laws, the democrat party suspend their rules, and hold another convention. It is not going to happen.
I really wish that people would quit dragging out this utterly ridiculous idea of Hillary being the candidate in 2004. She isn't. Kerry is. Period.
Oh, wait, there is another way: If the clintons assasinate Kerry and Edwards, then the dem party would have to put somebody else in the position. That is, of course, equally ridiculous.
He seems more upset that Kerry allowed himself to be exposed than he he is about the lies and deceit.
C'mon; how stupid do you have to be to have any confidence in the media even at THIS point.
Yes, they are pretty well stuck with him, but *technically* he can still be replaced.
It might be worth remembering that he's made more vacation trips than votes in the Senate. Is he really capable of *working* for an entire national campaign?! He's got a billionairess colonialist for a wife; is she really going to endure an entire national campaign, too?!
OK, he can probably handle it...and he probably really wants the brass ring...but I can't say 100% that he's in for the long run as were Dole and Clinton back in 1996, or Bush and Gore back in 2000. He's simply never demonstrated that he could handle *anything* (e.g. marriage, job, etc.) for any great length of time through any great struggle.
It's simply something to keep in mind. The Torricelli cutoff date hasn't passed yet.
5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires
He simply misremembered that part. < /sarcasm >
Also that he was attacked by the Khymer Rouge...which wasn't formed until 1972. HAAAA!
News to me. Thanks!
Cboldt - FYI
I must have missed it, what law is it that says he can not quit?
Substitution is allowed. It's still early.
The internet is a real monkey wrench in the political machinations of the media. The don't have a way to plug up the leaks on the net other than with their defamation techniques.
Remembering Kerry and Edwards on the covers of the major "news" magazines, the same ones that put Moore's oily countenance on the front and made honest folk taste bile, I decided that I might try something.
I am going to make a bunch of small paper signs that I am going to start putting everywhere, bookstores, grocery stores, newsstands, Walmart, you name it. Even in the mags like the blown in subscription cards.
They will simply say "Why is the media afraid to report about the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth?" or "Why won't John Kerry fact the Swiftboat veterans?" "Why is John Kerry so afaid of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth?" "Find out why John Kerry is "unfit for command"" etc. etc.
All will have (www.swiftvets.com) on them. Eventually, it has to make some people wake up, and if I can open just a few people's eyes to the truth, and more importantly, the way that the media is lying to them through the deliberate omission of this story, I will have done my part.
We have to be proactive. The media is.
If (when) the polls show he is sure to lose, Kerry can either resign from the race and stay on as Senator (for the good of the people, donchaknow); or the DEM party will utterly ruin him -- he'll lose the presidential election, and he'll be raked over the coals so bad that he will be forced out of his Senate office in disgrace. "It's your choice John. Call us in the morning."
If he does (not that I think he will), it will provide hours of amusement.
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