Victor Ashe, US Ambassador to Poland
Posted on 09/04/2004 9:33:49 AM PDT by harrycarey
A Kitty Surprise? ROGER SIMON COLUMN SEPTEMBER 1, 2004
NEW YORK - - Republican insiders have been huddling in small groups at the Republican Convention this week and talking about what worries them most. It is not John Kerry. It is not the unemployment numbers. It is not Iraq.
It is Kitty Kelley.
Kelley has a new book coming out in a few weeks titled "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty” and it is rumored to be explosive.
One source tells me there are “at least five bombshells” contained in it and another source says there is allegedly new material on President Bush’s service in the Air National Guard.
Democrats have long been worried about a Republican “October Surprise” such as the capture of Osama bin Laden. But now some Republicans are worried that Kelley’s book will be the equivalent of an October surprise and harmful to President Bush’s re-election hopes.
Why are GOP operatives taking such a book seriously? After all, some critics have dismissed Kelley’s previous books as the equivalent of tabloid journalism. But in November 2000, the Bush campaign’s internal polling showed that revelations about Bush’s 1976 arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol damaged him badly with religious conservatives and some analysts believe it cost him a popular vote victory.
So this time, Bush operatives don’t want any more big surprises, revelations, rumors or gossip to make a media splash just weeks before the election.
Which is why they are so nervous. According to the Associated Press, the Kelley opus - - it is supposed to be around 700 pages long - - is being billed as "the book the Bushes don't want you to read,” it has a first printing of 600,000 and “a virtual guarantee to annoy, if not embarrass, Bush supporters.”
In the past, Kelley has written books about Nancy Reagan, Frank Sinatra and the British Royal Family among others and her books have often contained explosive material. Kelley’s facts are sometimes challenged, but her books tend to make a big splash nonetheless.
Kelley’s 1991 book on Nancy Reagan, for example, which contained scandalous accusations, was the subject of a front page story in the New York Times by Maureen Dowd.
“Ms. Kelley has developed a reputation as a giant killer for her sensational books about the rich and famous,” Dowd wrote. “She wrote that Jacqueline Kennedy had shock treatments; that President John F. Kennedy's retarded sister, Rosemary, had a lobotomy, and that Frank Sinatra's mother was a New Jersey abortionist.”
Dowd went on: “Ms. Kelley asserts that Mrs. Reagan will go down in history as the cold and glittering icon for a morally vacuous era. The author says the former First Lady reinvented herself with a tissue of fabrications about her background, age and family, just as her free-spirited mother did before her; that she had her nose fixed and her eyes lifted; that both the Reagans had extramarital affairs, and that Mrs. Reagan had a long-term affair with Frank Sinatra.”
The article quoted Sheila Tate, Nancy Reagan's former press secretary, as saying that "no friend of Nancy Reagan's is going to read that scummy book."
Perhaps, but plenty of other people did read it and many more read about it. And this, remember, was in an era before 24-hour cable TV and media with an insatiable appetite for news, gossip, rumor, innuendo or whatever they can get.
It may turn out, of course, that Kelley’s new book contains nothing damaging to President Bush.
But with their convention going so well, Republicans have to find something to worry about this week.
So Bush is gay. Which is why he came out in defense of marriage on national television Thursday night.
There's one problem with all of this, as I see it. It doesn't jive with any of the labels the liberals throw at the President. Of course, the fact that one can't be anti-gay and homosexual, or conservative Christian and into the occult, at the same time shouldn't be something to hold the kook leftists back.
I can't see how anyone who isn't already in the kook Democrat base already would take this sort of tripe seriously.
Rites of Onan.. http://www.geocities.com/northstarzone/BK.html
Kelly is a "fly on the wall" in a boozy tavern along the deep caverns of her mind.
They are becoming so outrageous with their lies, that nobody, except the most ardent Bush haters are going to believe them.
I think, if the Republicans could obtain an advance copy and bring out the news, pointing out how untrue and slimey the accusations are, that would neutralize the sting.
This is such crap, its even worse than Fahrenheit 911.
Vacuity works quite nicely.
Roger Clinton? Billy Carter?
"...Are they saying Bush spanked the monkey? Wow, stop the presses!"
GWB and millions of other adolescent boys and grown men! What a shocker! NOT!!!!!
Yes it does; it suggests the missionary position which is both painful and humiliating to today's emancipated woman.
READ post #58
When I meet her in the soupline at my local Mission, I'll accept your evaluation of the inefficiency of her methodology.
Probably true, but all it amounts to is preaching to the chior.
Sounds pretty kooky to me. And it's a stupid argument -- if Bush is somehow satanically influenced due to being in Skull and Bones, then so is Kerry.
Reading this makes me think of the episode where Opie sets the still on fire.
Even a sensible (!) DU member pointed out that that info is from an indymedia blog in Colombia, and that it's not exactly the most reputable source.
Ms Kelly's entire career is based on writing unauthorized biographies full of sensationalism and lies. I think she has written too many books using the same tired format to be taken seriously by anyone with half a brain. It is indeed a mystery why anyone would actually pay money to read anything she writes. MrsPD
If throwing out every insane accusation they can think of is all the Democrats have left, then they're more desperate than they appear. If even 1/100th of this was true, it would have been dug up in 2000 or by the scandal loving media well before now.
I know they did try the "Skull & Bones" crap a lot in 2000. A&E, TLC, and the History Channel had show after show about Skull & Bones as did CNN and even Fox News.
These type of attacks only work against candidates the voters are unfamiliar with. With candidates the voters already have formed an opinion on, it doesn't really work at all.
The DUI worked against Bush in 2000 because voters didn't know him yet. That's why the Lewisnky/Whitewater stuff didn't affect Clinton, and that's why the fondling charges didn't affect Arnold, even though a normal non-incumbent like Arnold would have been killed by such type of charger (see Ryan in Chicago), but Arnold was already so familiar to the voters, they already decided they like him.
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