Everybody knows President Bush is a bass fisherman. But the president has spent most of August reeling in a more exotic specimen: the Giant New England Slack-Jaw.
Years from now, when tales of the catch are told around GOP campfires, small boys will marvel at how the supposedly intelligent Kerryfish swallowed Bush's bait, hook, line and sinker.
Slack-jaw season started in January, when John Kerry won the Iowa caucuses with help from a band of Vietnam character witnesses. At the time, Bush realized three simple truths:
1) Kerry would be his Democratic opponent. 2) The theme of Kerry's campaign would be his heroic military service. 3) Kerry would fund his campaign largely with so-called 527 soft money put up by anti-Bush billionaires who had been flirting with Howard Dean.
On May 4, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth held a press conference in Washington, denouncing Kerry. It is possible Bush was taken by surprise by this. It is also possible the moon's made of blue cheese.
Still, it is highly doubtful that Bush put the Swifties up to their attack. He didn't need to. They obviously hate Kerry's guts. All the president had to do was sit and watch. Patience is the fisherman's friend.
Some Swiftie charges against Kerry's war record are highly debatable. Others - that Kerry invented a "life-changing" experience in Cambodia or that he slandered U.S. troops when he came home from the war - are matters of public record.
One thing is indisputable: The allegations have done Kerry a great deal of harm.
It took him a surprisingly long time to realize that. When he did, he tried to get off the hook in awkward ways - dispatching lawyers to scare TV stations into censoring Swiftie ads, pressuring bookstores to ban the Swiftie bible, "Unfit to Command," even appealing to the toothless Federal Election Commission to make his erstwhile comrades-in-arms shut up. But to no avail.
Finally Kerry demanded that Bush himself step in and silence the Swifties. It was a moment Bush had been waiting for.
On Monday, down in Crawford, Texas, Dubya hitched up his jeans, sauntered out to a press conference and allowed as to how he'd be glad to help his worthy opponent. But, just to be fair, he said, let's shut down the negative campaigning by all 527 groups. Goodbye, Swifties. So long, MoveOn. Just say the word, Kerry, and we'll take all the nasty dollars out of politics.
But Kerry hasn't said that word. He probably can't. His campaign finance structure is predicated on 527 money. Of the top 10 soft donors, nine are Kerry supporters.
So, the president comes off as the champion of upright McCain-Feingold reform, while Kerry is stuck with George Soros & Co. If the senator cuts off his billionaire backers, he suffocates. If he sticks with Soros, et al., he's stuck with the Swifties, too. That's a hook Kerry can wriggle on until Nov. 2. Then Bush will throw him back.
The 43rd president is often said by his critics to be a dunce. Maybe. But in politics, as in fishing, you don't have to be a genius. You just have to be smarter than the fish.
Karl Rove is indeed the master of spin and strategy.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
It hasn't worked as well as republicans would have liked, and the author of this article obviously hasn't realized that the claims have pretty much been completely discredited.
Natorgator wrote:It hasn't worked as well as republicans would have liked, and the author of this article obviously hasn't realized that the claims have pretty much been completely discredited.
Ummm..
Some Swiftie charges against Kerry's war record are highly debatable. Others - that Kerry invented a "life-changing" experience in Cambodia or that he slandered U.S. troops when he came home from the war - are matters of public record.
Even the Kerry campaign no longer claims he spent Christmas in Cambodia. Something was discredited, but it was Kerry's claims.
He also claimed that he was in Vietnam when MLK was shot during April 1968. The problem was that he didn't arrive until November 1968.
As far as the 'slander' charges go, they're starting to gain traction with the testimony of former POW's who claim that their captors used Kerry's words to call them murderers and war criminals.
Don't get me wrong, GWB is a sleazeball but so is Kerry despite his attempts to paint himself as principled and courageous.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Glocksman wrote:As far as the 'slander' charges go, they're starting to gain traction with the testimony of former POW's who claim that their captors used Kerry's words to call them murderers and war criminals.
How is that Kerry's fault? Just because the commies took his own words out of context and applied to people who were definitely not there to testify at WSI (his testimony to Congress being 1971), that's nothing to do with him.
Glocksman wrote:As far as the 'slander' charges go, they're starting to gain traction with the testimony of former POW's who claim that their captors used Kerry's words to call them murderers and war criminals.
How is that Kerry's fault? Just because the commies took his own words out of context and applied to people who were definitely not there to testify at WSI (his testimony to Congress being 1971), that's nothing to do with him.
I'm not saying it is his fault.
I'm saying that the prisoners' testimony is helping the charge to gain traction.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Vympel wrote:MoveOn.org is not a 527. You'd think they'd look this stuff up.
What is it then? From everything I hear from ABC-CBS-NBC to CNN and FOXNews say that they are.
MoveOn.org isn't a 527.
However they did estabish the MoveOn.org Voter Fund, which is a 527.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
