About Middle Initials...

Earlier this week, John "Wannabe" Kerry amused himself by playing on possible meanings for the "W" in George W. Bush's name. Sure, it was childish, irrelevant to the election, and spoke to none of the pressing issues of the moment, but then, egotistical petulance is the one constant in the Kerry campaign.

Trying to find a way, somehow, to stop the free-fall of his support, Senator Kerry sent out his attack dogs this week, as well. Since McCain-Feingold went into effect on September 4, he could not attack directly, nor has direct attention been John's style anyway, but no matter, John has plenty of '527' groups at hand, to work to his advantage and the President's misery. There is George Soros, a mega-rich foreigner who has donated $15.5 million dollars to Kerry in hopes of defeating President Bush (and that's only the 'official' amount), there is Michael Moore, whose hit piece so redolent of bile and propaganda has gained the love of psychotic malcontents and students of character assassination, and of course, there are legions of willing syncophants, if your politics are sufficiently left-of-center... and reality.

But there is a point, at which, as the British like to say, someone gets a case of "the clevers". Like the classic cartoons of 'Spy vs. Spy' in Mad Magazine, intricate and devilish plans can come back and blow up in your face. It looks like not one, but three of them, have exploded this week in the vicinity of the DNC character terrorists' hideouts.

First, the obvious one: CBS used forged documents to attack President Bush in Wednesday's edition of "60 Minutes II". The proportional spacing, the curved quotation marks, and the superscript 'th' in "187th" are hard evidence that the document was prepared by a word processor at least 20 years after the alleged date.

What's more, the man who supposedly wrote the memos, Lt. Col. Killian, died in 1984 and so cannot speak to this issue, but his wife and son say the writing is not his style, that personal memos were not his habit, and his son, Gary, went on to note that his father did not like to type, and was far more likely to write longhand, but in any case did not keep any sort of private files, or make the sort of comments the documents purport.

CBS continues to insist the documents are genuine, in much the same way O.J. Simpson reminds us he is searching for his wife's "real" killers.

Next, we turn to Kitty Kelley, whose new book attack on the President is based largely on a claim supported only by an interview with Sharon Bush. Unfortunately for Kitty, Sharon denies Kitty's claims, and notes that Kelley is writing about comments from 2003, when a messy divorce led to a lot of ill-chosen words and false accusations.

Then, there is the claim from Sunday's edition of "60 Minutes" by Ben Barnes, who claimed he helped young George W. Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard, and gee, he feels badly about that now. Problem is, a little look shows a lot more problems for Mr. Barnes, than for Mr. Bush. First, Barnes is a Kerry supporter. Big-time. Like, he has given more than a half-million dollars to the Kerry campaign, and is identified by CBS News as a Kerry "lobbyist". It's also interesting that he claims "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the National Guard when I was lieutenant governor of Texas". Problem is, George W. Bush entered the TANG in mid-1968, and Barnes did not become Lt. Governor until 1969. So, that's not even a smart lie, it's just an obvious one. Also, Barnes' daughter, Amy, says she overheard her dad promise Democrats he was willing to fabricate his story, in order to hurt the President. Amy said "he's doing it for purely political, opportunistic reasons". I guess Barnes never figured he might have an honest kid.

So, what we have here are three false charges against the President. And what's funny is, they're stupid, they don't address any of the known issues the voters say they care about, and they look desperate. Really desperate. The 'F' might stand for 'Foolish'.

Add to this the "Adventures of Lieutenant John", such as his 'Christmas in Cambodia', which has been disproved, his claims to have participated in officially-sanctioned War Crimes, his rice-inflicted Purple Heart, his 'valor' in returning after running away from a firefight where there was no enemy fire, and his in-field film-making farcical exploits , and we have an image for John Kerry, though not the one he would choose. Maybe that 'F' stands for 'Fraud'.

Consider that John Kerry has been in the U.S. Senate for twenty years, and has never sponsored even one signature piece of legislation. Could be, that 'F' means 'Failure'.

Consider that John Kerry attacks President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, but also admits that in the same situation, he too would have invaded, although he still insists he would have done better. Perhaps the 'F' means 'Flummoxed'.

Consider that John Kerry has promised that he, personally, would somehow make sure 10 million new jobs were created in four years if he were elected, although he has not, ever, explained how he would make this happen, or shown any history of raising employment in Masschusetts. Maybe the 'F' stands for 'Fabrication'.

John Kerry compared President Bush yesterday, to the man in the 'Good Samaritan' parable who just walked on by the man who was beaten and robbed, although a comparison between the two leading candidates' personal acts, shows that for the tax years 1991 through 1993 (the only time when tax data and charitable contributions are on record for both men), Kerry gave 0.3% of his income to Charity, while Dubya gave 9.1% of his income to help others. Ahhh, maybe the 'F' is phoentic, and really stands for 'Pharisee'.

Well, on the one hand (of course) I agree. But I fear that people will miss an obvious Democrat tactic:

If the false charges stuck, then the Dems have "evidence" that Bush is a liar and a fraud. This speaks to the Dem talking point that he misled us into war, and that he promised millions of jobs and failed to deliver.

If the false charges fail to stick, the hope would be -- "Why are we wasting time on these? Let's move on! Shouldn't we deal with the known issues that voters say they care about?"

Dems have skated this way for a long time, by being able to handle both positive and negative outcomes from their smear attempts. But this time is different.

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