You are right Kabar, this was a stump speech masquerading as an interview. No doubt, Kaplan or others told Imus to do this. He is too smart not to have asked the killer questions. Probably, Kaplan or his designates discussed the format with the Kerry Campaign.
The whole idea is to come up with a way Kerry can begin to have interactions, if not press conferences, with the press. Ever since the arrival of the Swifties Kerry has been unable to take questions. Now he can.
How so, you ask? Easy. Sometime soon he will begin deflecting the Swifties by saying they are proven liars and he has discussed this before. The technique he will use is a weak one, but one frequently used by politicians. He will assume the conclusion and change the argument to your having to prove him wrong. Since no one can disprove a negative, you can't do it; hence, it looks like he won the argument.
Assuming the conclusion is being done with at least the following: (1)We lost the Iraq war; (2)There were no weapons of mass destruction; (3)The Swifties (all 250 of them) are liars; (4)And, President Bush is a coward, a liar and a failure. You can probably come up with better and more examples, but these will suffice.
The reason assuming the conclusion thesis is right on is that Imus has done this before. Remember, President Clinton came to Imus after the Miss Arkansas imbroglio and longterm affair surfaced. Shortly, after the Imus interview Clinton was able to say that this was old news, he answered it and,yes, he had had problems in his marriage. Some years after the election he admitted one transgression with the lady: now, the long term affair is the subject of bad jokes and President Clinton has even achieved a certain wicked fascination with his sex life that is never really condemned nor condoned. Such is how a good PR person can do.
Senator Kerry will be a wickedly effective debater. He uses words like levers to get him where he wants to go rather than expressing beliefs, policies or positions. The President will by necessity have to face this. My suggestion is keep everything simple, factual and easily defended and don't focus on his "assumptions of conclusions" but as to the actual facts he believes and trusts.
I thought the "flipflop" approach was good because it took political positions and transferred them to character problems. It is even worse than I thought. Senator Kerry believes little or nothing of his current positions. What positions and beliefs he has are hidden. As according to the wise savant, Marilyn Monroe, he faces the certainty that, "...if you tell more than one lie you become confused.." Marilyn surely is describing Senator Kerry.
PS: If you think Imus is not being directed, remember at the National Press Conference where Imus ridiculed President Clinton's morals. This speech was vetted by Kaplan who later denied vetting it: it took Kaplan returning to MSNBC to alleviate the quarrel.
I agree with you. Kerry uses key words and phrases vetted through internal polls and focus groups. He will use that same tactic in the debates. He will also throw in a personal zinger and an outrageous statement to distract Bush. I suspect the MSM debate moderators will leak the questions to the Kerry camp. They are no longer biased, but partisan.