Posted on 09/03/2004 10:48:47 AM PDT by Roscoe Karns
My Democratic friends are mad as hell, and they aren't going to take it any more.
They are worried, having watched as another August smear campaign, full of lies and half-truths, takes its toll in the polls.
They are frustrated, mostly at the Kerry campaign, for naively believing that just because all the newspapers and news organizations that investigated the charges of the Swift Boat assassins found them to be full of lies and half-truths, they wouldn't take their toll. The word on the street is that Kerry himself was ready to fire back the day the story broke, but that his campaign, believing the charges would blow over if they ignored them, counseled restraint.
But most of all, activists Democrats are angry. As one who lived through an August like this, 16 years ago -- replete with rumors that were lies, which the Bush campaign claimed they had nothing to do with and later admitted they had planted -- I'm angry, too. I've been to this movie. I know how it works. Lies move numbers.
Remember the one about Dukakis suffering from depression after he lost the governorship? (Dukakis not crazy, more at 11.) We lost six points over that lie, planted by George W.'s close friend and colleague in the 1988 campaign, Lee Atwater. Or how about the one about Kitty Dukakis burning a flag at an antiwar demonstration, another out-and-out lie, which the Bush campaign denied having anything to do with, except that it turned out to have come from a United States senator via the Republican National Committee? Lee Atwater later apologized to me for that, too, on his deathbed. Did I mention that Lee's wife is connected to the woman running the Swift Boat campaign?
Never again, we said then.
Not again, Democrats are saying now.
What do you do, Democrats keep asking each other.
The answer is not pretty, but everyone knows what it is.
In 1988, in the days before the so-called independent groups, the candidate called the shots. To Michael Dukakis' credit, depending on how you look at it, he absolutely refused to get into the gutter, even to answer the charges. His theory, like that of some on the Kerry staff, was that answering such charges would only elevate them, give them more attention than they deserved. He thought the American people wanted to hear about issues, not watch a mud-wrestling match. In theory, he was right. In practice, the sad truth is that smears work -- that if you throw enough mud, some of it is bound to stick.
You can't just answer the charges. You can't just say it ain't so.
You have to fight fire with fire, mud with mud, dirt with dirt.
The trouble with Democrats, traditionally, is that we're not mean enough. Dukakis wasn't. I wasn't. I don't particularly like destroying people. I got into politics because of issues, not anger. But too much is at stake to play by Dukakis rules, and lose again.
That is the conclusion Democrats have reached. So watch out. Millions of dollars will be on the table. And there are plenty of choices for what to spend it on.
I'm not promising pretty.
What will it be?
Will it be the three, or is it four or five, drunken driving arrests that Bush and Cheney, the two most powerful men in the world, managed to rack up? (Bush's Texas record has been sealed. Now why would that be? Who seals a perfect driving record?)
After Vietnam, nothing is ancient history, and Cheney is still drinking. What their records suggest is not only a serious problem with alcoholism, which Bush but not Cheney has acknowledged, but also an even more serious problem of judgment. Could Dick Cheney get a license to drive a school bus with his record of drunken driving? (I can see the ad now.) A job at a nuclear power plant? Is any alcoholic ever really cured? So why put him in the most stressful job in the world, with a war going south, a thousand Americans already dead and control of weapons capable of destroying the world at his fingertips.
It has been said that in the worst of times, Kissinger gave orders to the military not to obey Nixon if he ordered a first strike. What if Bush were to fall off the wagon? Then what? Has America really faced the fact that we have an alcoholic as our president?
Or how about Dead Texans for Truth, highlighting those who served in Vietnam instead of the privileged draft-dodging president, and ended up as names on the wall instead of members of the Air National Guard. I'm sure there are some mothers out there who are still mourning their sons, and never made that connection. It wouldn't be so hard to find them.
Or maybe it will be Texas National Guardsmen for Truth, who can explain exactly what George W. Bush was doing while John Kerry was putting his life on the line. So far, all W. can do is come up with dental records to prove that he met his obligations. Perhaps with money on the table, or investigators on their trail, we will learn just what kind of wild and crazy things the president was doing while Kerry was saving a man's life, facing enemy fire and serving his country.
Or could it be George Bush's Former Female Friends for Truth. A forthcoming book by Kitty Kelly raises questions about whether the president has practiced what he preaches on the issue of abortion. As Larry Flynt discovered, a million dollars loosens lips. Are there others to be loosened?
Are you shocked? Not fair? Who said anything about fair? Remember President Dukakis? He was very fair. Now he teaches at Northeastern University. John Kerry has been very fair in dealing with the Swift Boat charges. That's why so many of my Democrat friends have decided to stop talking to the campaign, and start putting money together independently.
The arrogant little Republican boys who have been strutting around New York this week, claiming that they have this one won, would do well to take a step back. It could be a long and ugly road to November.
To find out more about Susan Estrich, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
The Dems won't give up without a fight. Things will get much more ugly than that Estrich creature. The Left will get desperate and fiercely angry. What you see now is nothing by comparison.
Before it is over there will be war.
The only ones the morons have to blame is themselves, the anyone but Bush thinking landed them with a fake war hero who never had a chance from the beginning of winning the election during wartimes.
Yeah, right, you hag. You are confusing raw incompetence with not being mean enough. Because you have demonstrated in this article that you are plenty vicious - you have called the honorable service of Bush in the National Guard "draft dodging" - you have called the Swift Boat vets liars with no proof - and you have borne false witness. You're plenty mean. But this year, the New Media has pulled all your fangs, leaving you and your ilk to try and gum George W. Bush to death.
Pass the popcorn!
Those poor noble, restrained democrats. It is truly incredible that they have been so chivalrous. Just too good for this world.
"You can't just answer the charges."
Not if the charges are true!
"Cheney is still drinking"
I'll bet Cheney is more likeable and more competent stone drunk than kerry is stone sober.
Listening to her is like fingers scratching a blackboard.
I immediately turn off FOX when she's on!!
Let's see, the biggest mouth in history is writing that she doesn't like destroying people or is not mean enough.
So she is mean .... just not enough.
What B.S.
You left out the third reason - the New Media isn't going to let the Old Media get away with ignoring the truth and reporting the lies. And that, more than anything else, has neutered the Democrats this year.
Well, she's almost right. The smear campign full of lies has been going on at least for 6 months. She and the other dems just need to look in the mirror. Their tendancy to 'project' never ceases amaze me.
Republicans should feel confident, but it's way too early to feel complacent about the election.
A wounded animal is a dangerous animal, we must fighter harder than ever.
And if anyone would know how to be ugly, it's Susan Ostrich =shudder=
This article is insane, but I agree with you...Though I am tending to think this may well be be a good ass wooping on the Dems come Nov. Gonna be hard to argue with a good majority of votes and 5-7 more senate seats.
In fact, none of these paper have investigated a thing, except for investigating ways to smear the Swift Boat vets. The reason Kerry is tanking is because he hs been allowed to get away with this for 3 decades because of a sycophantic press and he was never vetted. Furtheremore, the Swift Ads are ringing true, and that is also killign Kerry.
The "chatter" is they are putting great hopes in the 60 Minutes interview about the Nat'l Guard on Sunday.
They know the Swifties are right, they realize now Kerry will not answer one question about Vietnam. They no longer ask for Kerry to talk to the press about it. All they can do is pretend Bush is behind the Swiftees.
Susan Estrich of all people should know this. She almost always finds a way to bring up the sob story about being a victim of rape. She should have been the first to go out there and talk to Juanita Broaddrick and get the straight scoop about her President. Instead, she played the party line like a good Stalinist ("Juanita who?").
Kerry was drunk as a skunk last night during his campaign rally, so much for THAT line of attack.
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