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.
Carville, Begala, Kennedy, Dean(H), Dean(J), Palladino, Pelligrino, Kucinich, Moore, Clinton(H), Clinton(W.J.) Gephardt, Daschle, Leahy,etc., etc., etc.
This will make Susan goes up to 5 packs a day!
Puhlease Susan, you think rehashing drunk driving incidents or National Guard records are going to do the trick? That is a walk in the park compared with what you have spent the last 12 months comparing Bush to.
Give me a break.
What? Where is that BIG smile she always has on? :-)
Yes, Susan, I'm drunk...
However; in the morning - I shall be sober, but you will still be a hopeless leftist whore -- and your pimp, John F'ing Kerry, will still be a lying, traitorous bastard..
Semper Fi
KESG!!!! So YOU'RE the one who stole "The Scream"!!!!
We, in the GOP, need more democrats like you, Bill, Hill, and Terry!!!!!
As John Kerry recently stated, "Bring it on!!!!"
Bump! :) Good One!
What REALLY pisses off Dem "spokesmen/strategist" types
like Estrich and other agents of spin and talking points is the very obvious fact that the Bush Administration has resolutely refused to play the hardball/dirty tricks angle like Atwater did for Bush 41 and Nixon's team(s) did for him throughout his political career ---this has left them at such a loss what to do that they plow straight ahead and blame the Administration for all kinds of stuff ANYWAY. More than anything, they hate Bush & Co. for depriving them of this . They know full well that the Bush Administration did not engineer the Swift Boat Vets , but they have no choice but PRETEND to be OUTRAGED by it and DEMAND that Bush call off his attack dogs. Really, I thought I'd seen everything with 8 years of Clintonism, but it just gets uglier and more transparently pathetic with every passing day of the Kerry campaign.
They *have* gone there. Barnes "confession" went there. Expect it to be the story after his interview on 60 Minutes.
LOL
ROTFLMAO!
Two words puts the lie to this smarmy tale of Republicans being the ones whom invented gutterball tactics: Robert Bork.
We've just gotten smart enough over the years to start fighting back.
Go screw yourselves. I'm mad too. You don't want it to be at you. Not today.
Wow, what a nasty, fugly, old bitch. Bush and Cheney are alcoholics, but we RATs aren't mean enough? Jeeze! And where is all this proof that the Swifties are a bunch of dirty Republican liars? How about a libel suit against this nasty skank??
I'm so glad I actually took the time to read some of the responses before I replied.
Thanks for calming me down, my fellow FReepers. I was near to bouncing off the walls after reading the article.
My skin isn't as thick as I thought. I think I'll sign up for a yoga class this week. LOL
One thing we know: Dukakis didn't get down in the gutter and admit that it's an evil thing to let a convicted murderer out for the weekend who then rapes a woman and beats a man senseless...
A good victory, 5-7 Senate seats, and the defeat of Kerry, might delay the war for ten, maybe (oh how I hope) twenty years, maybe longer.
The President is working to fend off this war, doing an amazing job. Thank God.
I am an old man of war(Viet Nam, 7-66 to 2-68). Ready to go when it is time. Tired of dead bodies, tired of dead friends, tired of the need to be ready for war. Anyone want peace, wants some hope, vote for the President.
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