Lip-Flap? You Gotta Love It

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXXVIII

Microphone Picks Up Kerry Lip-Flap.

It pays to keep the microphone open after interviewing Sen. John F. Kerry. "God, they're doing the work of the Republican National Committee," Kerry said about ABC News on Monday morning, as he removed a microphone from his clothing at the end of his interview with ABC's "Good Morning America." Kerry had just defended his conduct at a 1971 anti-war protest in Washington. Last month in an unguarded moment, Kerry — his back to the camera — was overheard bashing Republicans after giving a speech in Chicago. "Let me tell you, we've just begun to fight. We're going to keep pounding. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen," Kerry said. A microphone picked up his remarks, and Kerry later refused a Republican request for an apology.

Wow. ABC is now part of the VRWC. Who'da-ever-thunk-it?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 04/27/04 07:20:57 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & John Kerry.

"War Records, Taxes and the Kerrys"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXXVII

It's not so much the content of the letters that NYT ran on Friday, but the fact that all six are pro-Kerry.

To the Editor:

Re "Navy Records Show Positive Marks for Kerry" (news article, April 22):

So John Kerry works on a swift boat in Vietnam. He is wounded three times. He wins multiple medals. Then, decades later, somebody tries to trivialize his wounds, and that has credibility?

Working a swift boat was one of the most dangerous jobs going back then. We used to think guys deserved Silver Stars simply for getting on board. And Mr. Kerry did it repeatedly, and took hits that, if a few inches higher, could have blinded him or taken out his chest.

The Navy decides, on three occasions, to award Mr. Kerry a Purple Heart. And now it is discussed as if he had the audacity to accept them?

Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars and Silver Stars were not something we applied for in Vietnam. They were something somebody else gave to us. We had no voice in the matter. And when we received them, it was with a sense of relief — and often remorse — that we, unlike our brothers, were still alive.

To the Bush campaign: Pick a better fight.

BOB SICHTA
Miami, April 22, 2004

•

To the Editor:

The release of Senator John Kerry's military records (news article, April 22) brings an object lesson for President Bush's supporters: Be careful what you wish for. The nastiness and innuendo of the right-wing talk shows have resulted in a comparison that does not make Mr. Bush look good.

SARAH MEDVITZ
Orlando, Fla., April 22, 2004

•

To the Editor:

Now that both President Bush and Senator John Kerry have released their military service records, let us finish the job and carefully compare the records of these two veterans: battle to battle, injury to injury, medal to medal, duty location to duty location, and days reported for duty to days reported for duty (news article, April 22).

DORIAN DE WIND
Austin, Tex., April 22, 2004
The writer was a major in the Air Force.

•

To the Editor:

One of the great pastimes of American politics is the call for disclosures of one kind or another. They have become an obsession with us ("Disclosure by the Kerrys," editorial, April 22). Yet disclosures tell us very little and likely keep a lot of good people from running for office.

Senator John Kerry and every other candidate should abide by the law, but should not be required to go beyond it. Most Americans will not pore over the tax returns, medical records, school records and whatever else the disclosure-mongers want disclosed. In fact, the exercise is typically a distraction from the issues of the day.

Such disclosures rarely bring to light the real conflicts that a candidate may have or, more important, those that a candidate once in office will seek to exploit.

Mr. Kerry realizes what every candidate realizes: the call for disclosure is an invitation for the call for further disclosure and an opportunity for an opponent to distort what is disclosed. It is politics cloaked in a false ethical cloth.

BRUCE NEUMAN
East Hampton, N.Y., April 22, 2004

•

To the Editor:

You are wrong to insist that Teresa Heinz Kerry release her personal tax information (editorial, April 22). Mrs. Heinz Kerry has the right to her privacy because she is not a candidate. It has been decades since the feminist movement first brought forth the idea that husbands and wives are separate entities and entitled to rights and privileges of their own.

We know Mrs. Heinz Kerry is very, very rich — a lot of us use ketchup — so what would the actual figures concerning her wealth tell us about the candidacy of either Mr. Kerry or President Bush?

STEPHANIE NICHOLAS ACQUADRO
Westfield, N.J., April 22, 2004

•

To the Editor:

Although I believe that it was right that Senator John Kerry disclosed his exemplary military record to the public, I believe that Teresa Heinz Kerry is entitled to the same degree of confidentiality as other Americans, subject to certain legal disclosure requirements (editorial, April 22).

Mr. Kerry should insist that his wife's rights be protected. His opposition wants to use the details of Mrs. Heinz Kerry's wealth in its television attack ads, diverting the public's attention from bona fide issues. The senator is not obligated to assist the Republican attack machine at the expense of his wife's privacy rights.

ASHER FRIED
Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., April 22, 2004

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Okay. It's the content, too. Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars and Silver Stars were not something we applied for in Vietnam. They were something somebody else gave to us. We had no voice in the matter. Actually, LTJG John Kerry did request his first Purple Heart.

This may be as good a time as any to call to mind Core's Law of Old Media: We see the Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode partly because America's liberals believe their own lying propaganda.

(Thanks, Dave.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 04/27/04 06:52:08 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Media.

"Working It Out"

A new weblog by Dan Jasmin — whose description is likely to freeze the blood of any Protestant who doesn't know his Bible. :-)

(Thanks, Christopher.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 04/27/04 05:28:15 PM
Categorized as Other.

More on Arafat's Pedigree

"Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev believed that newly elected US president Jimmy Carter would swallow the bait."

Ion Mihai Pacepa was interviewed by Jamie Glazov at FrontPage Magazine, Mar. 1:

.... FP: Why has the American and Israeli leadership been deceived so long about Arafat’s criminal and terrorist activities?

Pacepa: Because Arafat is a master of deceit—and I unfortunately contributed to that. In March 1978, for instance, I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest to involve him in a long-planned Soviet/Romanian disinformation plot. Its goal was to get the United States to establish diplomatic relations with him, by having him pretend to transform the terrorist PLO into a government-in-exile that was willing to renounce terrorism. Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev believed that newly elected US president Jimmy Carter would swallow the bait. Therefore, he told the Romanian dictator that conditions were ripe for introducing Arafat into the White House. Moscow gave Ceausescu the job because by 1978 my boss had become Washington’s most favored tyrant. “The only thing people in the West care about is our leaders,” the KGB chairman said, when he enrolled me in the effort of making Arafat popular in Washington. “The more they come to love them, the better they will like us.”

“But we are a revolution,” Arafat exploded, after Ceausescu explained what the Kremlin wanted from him. “We were born as a revolution, and we should remain an unfettered revolution.” Arafat expostulated that the Palestinians lacked the tradition, unity, and discipline to become a formal state. That statehood was only something for a future generation. That all governments, even Communist ones, were limited by laws and international agreements, and he was not willing to put any laws or other obstacles in the way of the Palestinian struggle to eradicate the state of Israel.

My former boss was able to persuade Arafat into tricking President Carter only by resorting to dialectical materialism, for both were fanatical Stalinists who knew their Marxism by heart. Ceausescu sympathetically agreed that “a war of terror is your only realistic weapon,” but he also told his guest that, if he would transform the PLO into a government-in-exile and would pretend to break with terrorism, the West would shower him with money and glory. “But you have to keep on pretending, over and over,” my boss emphasized.

Ceausescu pointed out that political influence, like dialectical materialism, was built upon the same basic tenet that quantitative accumulation generates qualitative transformation. Both work like cocaine, let’s say. If you sniff it once or twice, it may not change your life. If you use it day after day, though, it will make you into an addict, a different man. That’s the qualitative transformation. And in the shadow of your government-in-exile you can keep as many terrorist groups as you want, as long as they are not publicly connected with your name.

In April 1978 I accompanied Ceausescu to Washington, where he convinced President Jimmy Carter that he could persuade Arafat to transform his PLO into a law-abiding government-in-exile, if the United States would establish official relations with him. Thereupon, President Carter publicly hailed Ceausescu as a “great national and international leader” who had “taken on a role of leadership in the entire international community.”

Three months later I was granted political asylum by the United States, and Romania’s tyrant lost his dream of getting the Nobel Peace Prize. A quarter of a century later, however, Arafat remains in place as the PLO chairman and seems to still be on track with the Kremlin’s game of deception. In 1994, Arafat was granted the Nobel Peace Prize because he agreed to transform his terrorist organization into a kind of government-in-exile (the Palestinian Authority) and pretended, over and over, that he would abolish the articles in the 1964 PLO Covenant that call for the destruction of the state of Israel and would eradicate Palestinian terrorism. At the end of the 1998-99 Palestinian school year, however, all one hundred and fifty new schoolbooks used by Arafat’s Palestinian Authority described Israel as the “Zionist enemy” and equated Zionism with Nazism. Two years after the Oslo Accords were signed, the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists rose by 73% compared to the two year period preceding the agreement....

See also John Kerry's Rhetoric Communist? and Arafat Needs to Go.

(Thanks, Bryan.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 04/27/04 05:23:33 PM
Categorized as International.

C.I.N.O.

John Kerry at the Abortion Rally in Washington, DC, Sunday, April 25, 2004.

Could you dare to imagine what he would do if he were not, supposedly, "personally opposed" to abortion?

It obviously doesn't matter to his supporters that he's "personally opposed" to abortion. Why not? Because they know the claim is a subterfuge. It shouldn't matter to us, either. Why? Because we ought to know, too, that it's a subterfuge.

See also Kill-'Em-Young Rally Embraces Kerry: Throws Down Gauntlet to Church and The real story.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 04/27/04 07:47:32 AM
Categorized as John Kerry & Political & Religious.

Mainstream Media Is Most Definitely Not Mainstream America

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXXVI

Scrappleface couldn't have done it better.

I think you have to see this to believe it — advice from "The Ethicist" at NYT Magazine, Sunday (italics in original):

.... My partner and I have discussed marriage — one of us wants to marry; the other has issues with the institution, specifically the fight over homosexual marriage (we are heterosexual). We believe that gays and lesbians should have the same rights as heterosexuals. Why should we be privileged with the rights and protections of marriage when others are being denied?

Is it ethical for us to walk down the aisle? C.K. and D.C., New York

I share your opinion of the marriage laws but not your conclusion that you must defer your wedding until utopia arrives. Many who sincerely denounce the inequities of our society inevitably profit from them. If you're a man who works at a job where the lack of flex time or on-site day care disadvantages women who do the bulk of child care, you benefit from sexism. If you're a middle-class white person who attended a decent high school and then applied to college, you had a huge advantage over a poor kid or an African-American from an inferior high school. It is impossible to lead an immaculate life in an imperfect world. The task is not merely to insulate yourself from being a beneficiary of injustice — even if that were possible — but to combat injustice.

Were there an organized boycott of marriage as a way to reform the law, you should observe it. But without that, I see no point in your becoming refuseniks. Doing so would not influence the marriage laws. You would do better to lobby your state and federal representatives and contribute money to freedomtomarry.org or similar organizations. You should seek ways to bring about change, not just to make self-comforting gestures.

There are many reasons not to get liquored up in Vegas and marry Britney Spears, or not to marry at all, but yours isn't one of them.

Allow me to emphasize: that's for real. It's not a parody. It. is. for. real.

I can hardly wait to see how these far-out left-wing snobs are going to react come their Great Debacle of November 2004. It's going to be such a treat!

(Thanks, Hindrocket.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 04/27/04 07:13:54 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Media.