Ted Rall is a Creep

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXXXVIII

Well, we already knew that.

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

If you're looking for an example of contemporary anti-American, Communistic agitprop, this would be it.

P.S. I see that MSNBC yanked the cartoon and replaced it with another. Good on them. But Ted Rall is still a creep. And that's the absolute best I can think to say of him.

On the other hand, his apopleptic reaction to the November 2004 election will be mighty satisfying. :-)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 05/03/04 06:15:05 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Media.

Band of Brothers?

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXXXVII

At CNS today:

Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday [May 4].

"What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com. The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said....

It will be fascinating to see (1) how mainstream media (ABC/CBS/NBC, NYT/WaPo/AP, et al.) ignore this and/or (2) how mainstream media spins this away.

Oh, if you're wondering why the dark forces of evil Republicans don't wait until after the summer nominating convention to do this, realize that veterans are doing this, and many veterans are Democrats, and many Democrats don't want Kerry to be the nominee.

(Thanks, Charles.)

[Follow-up: "Loose Canon" Kerry "Unfit for Office".]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 05/03/04 05:38:50 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & John Kerry.

Media Matters for America

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXXXVI

Vide.

Confer Tim Graham:

Is there anything funnier on Earth than factually challenged David Brock starting a web site to fight "erroneous assertions" by the conservative media? What kind of pitch is this? When I was a conservative journalist, I lied through my face. Now count on me to be your guardian of media ethics?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 05/03/04 05:33:23 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Media.

Struggling Kerry Unlikable

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXXXV

First, at the New York Times, Saturday.

Two months after Senator John Kerry effectively captured the Democratic presidential nomination, party officials say his campaign is being regularly outmaneuvered by the White House as it struggles to find a focus and to make the transition from the primaries to the fight with President Bush.

Even while expressing confidence about Mr. Kerry's prospects, Democratic Party officials said they were concerned about what they described as his trouble in settling on a defining theme for his candidacy, the pace of his advertising and his progress in setting up field organizations in battleground states.

"George Bush has had three of the worst months of his presidency, but they are stuck and they've got to move past this moment," said Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign.

While Ms. Brazile said she thought Mr. Kerry had the time, the political skill and the money to defeat what many Democrats described as a highly vulnerable president, she said, "This is a very crucial moment in the campaign."

Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, one of Mr. Kerry's rivals for the nomination and a potential running mate, has told aides over the past two weeks that he is concerned by signs of trouble in Mr. Kerry's campaign, advisers said. Mr. Edwards disputed that characterization of his views in an interview on Saturday, saying he thought Mr. Kerry was running a "strong campaign."

In Ohio, the state that strategists for Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush view as perhaps the most critical battleground, Mr. Kerry has yet to hire a state director or open a campaign office. His operation is relying so far on the work of committees working independent of the Kerry campaign.

By contrast, Mr. Bush appointed an Ohio state director on Jan. 1, and opened a headquarters in Columbus, staffed by 13 people, three months ago, his aides said.

The Kerry campaign has yet to open its own full-fledged campaign "war room" — staffed with researchers, tacticians and press aides — to deal with Republican attacks and systematically marshal surrogates to make Mr. Kerry's case.

In one example of how this has hindered the operation, Mr. Kerry's aides fielded complaints from donors and party leaders this week when the candidate went on television to respond, in a contentious interview, to questions about his anti-Vietnam activities 30 years ago.

Mr. Bush's campaign opened its war room in early March, and it has pumped out a steady barrage of attacks and information about Mr. Kerry's record that Democrats said had blocked Mr. Kerry's attempt to make the election a referendum on Mr. Bush.

Mr. Kerry has yet to unveil a long-promised biographical advertisement highlighting his war record that Democrats urged him to broadcast as soon as possible as a rebuttal to Mr. Bush's $50 million crush of advertisements. Democrats outside the campaign blamed the ouster of a senior media adviser in March for the delay.

Mr. Kerry's advisers denied that and said the biography advertisement would start next week, saying that had always been their plan.

For many Democrats, Mr. Kerry's single biggest difficulty was what they described as his continuing search for a defining theme for his candidacy — typically one of the most urgent tasks of any presidential candidate.

Last week, after completing the most in-depth poll of his campaign, Mr. Kerry unveiled yet another theme for his candidacy: "Together, we can build a stronger America." It was, by the count of one aide, the sixth message Mr. Kerry has rolled out since he announced his candidacy nearly 18 months ago.

"We need to be honest with ourselves: Our candidate is not one who's good with a 30-second sound bite," said Representative Harold E. Ford Jr. of Tennessee, co-chairman of Mr. Kerry's campaign. "He is very thoughtful and it takes him a while to say things."

Mr. Kerry's aides and some Democrats outside the campaign described the concerns as overstated, and said that any drift that might be taking place now would have little meaning next fall. They said Mr. Kerry had used the spring to raise money and that a war room and offices in Ohio and other battleground states would open shortly. And they noted that independent organizations had picked up a lot of the slack so far with big expenditures on television advertising and get-out-the-vote operations.

"This campaign has got six months to go," said Steve Elmendorf, a deputy campaign manager. "He goes out daily and talks about his vision for the country and his vision for the future. You have to take the long view here. You're not going to win every day, and you're not going to win every week."

Mr. Elmendorf added, "I know people are feeling anxious timing-wise, but you have to build a national campaign."

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said Mr. Kerry was "doing better than he's perceived to be doing," adding, "He's starting to get his sea legs."

"I'm not worried — I really am not," Mr. Biden said. "Democrats are so, so, so hungry to defeat Bush that they get so up when things look up and get so down when things look down."

But other Democrats, even while cheered by polls showing that Mr. Bush appeared vulnerable, noted that Mr. Bush was moving aggressively to discredit Mr. Kerry now so that he would be diminished as a candidate by the fall campaign. They said that Mr. Kerry needed to fight that.

"What is the message today — where is the message discipline today?" said one senior Democratic official, who refused to speak by name about the campaign. "Why don't we have people in these 18 states?"

Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a former Democratic chairman, said that Mr. Kerry could defeat Mr. Bush if he began laying out a serious case now. He said Mr. Kerry could not wait until the fall.

"If he hasn't established himself as a plausible alternative, people will have tuned out," Mr. Rendell said.

The growing pains reflect in part an organization that, aside from the two senior media consultants — Bob Shrum and Mike Donilon — has little experience in running presidential campaigns. Mr. Kerry's campaign has been hindered, some aides said, by a turnover in staff members and internal bickering, albeit nowhere near the level that occurred in the campaign last fall.

At a recent meeting of senior staff members, Democrats said, Mr. Kerry's aides became entangled in a lengthy debate over what might seem to be a less than urgent issue: whether they should send a Democratic operative to Bush rallies dressed as Pinocchio, a chicken or a mule, to illustrate various lines of attacks Democrats want to use against Mr. Bush. (They say they want to portray him as a liar, a draft avoider and stubborn.)

But more fundamentally, it underlines what many Democrats have long said has been Mr. Kerry's continuing difficulty this year to present a unifying theme for his candidacy.

In the primaries, Mr. Kerry's biography was his message, as he argued that his experience as a Vietnam veteran made him the strongest opponent to Mr. Bush. That argument for his election evaporated the moment the race ended, Democrats said, and Mr. Kerry has yet to adjust to the new electoral terrain.

Mr. Kerry's advisers disputed that, saying that Mr. Kerry was laying out a clear case for his candidacy as he traveled across the country.

"Anybody who thinks that John Kerry doesn't have a message needs to get out of Washington, D.C.," said Stephanie Cutter, a senior aide, adding, "America is fully open and receptive to the message of putting jobs first and getting America back on track."

Mr. Bush began talking about himself as a "compassionate conservative" in his announcement of his candidacy 18 months before Election Day 2000. This time, Democrats said, Mr. Bush appears to have settled again on an early theme.

"Bush's message is clear," said Carter Eskew, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Gore. "His message is a steady leader and Kerry's a flip-flopper."

Mr. Kerry's predicament has been complicated by the fact that there was no lull after the primary battle. Instead, he faced the twin tasks of building a general election campaign apparatus and dealing with a White House that had spent a year raising money, investigating Mr. Kerry's record and hiring staff members to prepare for this moment.

The result, some Democrats said, has often been a mismatch. In an episode this week that distressed some of Mr. Kerry's strongest supporters, Mr. Kerry was put in a position where he appeared to be defending his Vietnam War record, in a dispute over whether he had thrown away medals in an antiwar protest.

"This Vietnam thing — I'm lost at how you can lose that," said one Democratic member of Congress, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "You go to Vietnam, you're carrying around shrapnel, and you're seen as somehow not telling the truth. I am scratching my head in bewilderment."

Ms. Cutter, though, scoffed at the suggestion that the Kerry campaign was being outmaneuvered by the White House.

"Haven't we run around them too?" Ms. Cutter said. "For every story that George Bush is in, John Kerry is in it, too. When you're running against the power of the White House and all that money, where we are is a pretty impressive feat.

"And we're just starting."

Katharine Q. Seelye contributed reporting for this article.

Second, at the Washington Times today.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry has a serious likability problem, with many voters seeing him as cold, aloof and distant, according to focus groups, recent polls and election analysts.

The complaint has dogged the Massachusetts senator throughout his political career, but it has gotten more attention in recent weeks as he undergoes deeper scrutiny in the press and from political pundits. Pollsters say when compared with President Bush on a likability scale, the president leads, often by large margins.

"It is a problem for Kerry. When you are talking about selecting a leader, barring an unforeseen circumstance, you have to like that leader. Whether it is an insurmountable problem remains to be seen," independent pollster John Zogby said.

"Clearly, that is bolstering Bush at the moment, his likability. A majority of Americans like him, though it's not as wide as it was," Mr. Zogby said.

When a CBS News/New York Times poll asked 1,042 adults last week to rate the "likability" of the two candidates, Mr. Bush was rated as likable by 57 percent, as compared with Mr. Kerry's 48 percent.

Mr. Kerry's public persona also appears to be a problem for him among some of his party's base constituencies, particularly rank-and-file labor union members.

Late last month, the AFL-CIO conducted focus group interviews with undecided union members in St. Louis and Philadelphia who said that Mr. Kerry "doesn't warm anybody up" and that Mr. Bush was viewed as a more likable and stronger leader.

The focus group interviews suggested that Mr. Kerry's perceived aloofness was an obstacle in appealing to union voters. Mr. Bush won 35 percent of union voters in 2000, despite union leaders' near-uniform endorsements of Democrat Al Gore.

Mr. Kerry's personality also might be a problem for him in the months to come with Hispanic voters, many of whom like the president on a personal and visceral level, even if they don't support all of his policies.

"Bush is actually liked in the Hispanic community. He comes across as someone who understands the community. For Democrats, that comes across as a challenge," said Maria Cardona, director of the Hispanic Project at the New Democrat Network.

"But it is still very early in the campaign, and Kerry is just now introducing himself to the Latino community. The more they get to know him and what he stands for and his values, his likability quotient will go up in the community," Ms. Cardona said.

"I am sure Kerry understands this very well, that he is going to have to make an effort to communicate on a personal level with Hispanics," she added.

Pollster Frank Luntz said he raised the issue when he conducted focus group surveys of voters for MSNBC in six states earlier this year during the Democratic primaries.

The groups, made up of "swing voters," described Mr. Kerry as "distant" and as someone who looks "sad" and who rarely smiled or laughed. Mr. Luntz said he has received similar responses in subsequent focus groups.

"Part of what they want to see in a president is someone who they would invite into their living rooms at night, someone who is likable," he said. "If you are not likable, you will not pass the living-room test."

One story that has been told about Mr. Kerry's emotionless personality occurred during the Iowa caucuses campaign when Jim Rasmussen, a former Army Green Beret, told a crowd in Waterloo how the senator saved his life in the Vietnam War.

As political analyst Charlie Cook told the story in a recent article in the National Journal, "Given the power of that rescue story and the fact that the Iowa auditorium was electric with energy, Kerry's performance after Rasmussen took the stage can only be described as mediocre. He didn't bomb, but he failed to take advantage of the moment. He seemed too cool, too aloof, too distant for his own good."

Pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center thinks that "likability is an issue, but the bigger issue is performance, whether the president has done a good job and whether the challenger is an acceptable alternative."

"Personality plays more of a role in an election where we are not dealing with an incumbent or we are not dealing with big issues, when the country is not confronted with big problems," he said.

Mr. Luntz agrees with that assessment. "Likability mattered more in 2000 than it does now because times were not as serious as they are today. The mood of America is much more serious."

Even so, he adds, "likability matters. It's not the most important factor, or in the top five, but in an election this close, it could be the difference."

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

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 05/03/04 06:54:21 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.

USA Disgraced by Some Soldiers in Iraq?

At today's New York Times:

An internal Army investigation has found a virtual collapse of the command structure in a prison outside Baghdad where American enlisted personnel are accused of committing acts of abuse and humiliation against Iraqi detainees.

A report on the investigation said midlevel military intelligence officers were allowed to skirt the normal chain of command to issue questionable orders to enlisted personnel from the reserve military police unit handling guard duty there.

The Army has already begun one investigation into the abuse allegations. Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, the incoming deputy commander of Army intelligence, is examining the interrogation practices of military intelligence officers at all American-run prisons in Iraq and not just the Abu Ghraib prison.

A second review was ordered Saturday by Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, head of the Army Reserve, to assess the training of all reservists, especially military police and intelligence officers, the soldiers most likely to handle prisoners. Six members of an Army Reserve military police unit assigned to Abu Ghraib face charges of assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees....

This is disgraceful and inexcusable. Anybody guilty of "assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees" should be punished appropriately. And I trust that they will be.

And tell me something. "Assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of" women, children, and non-Muslims is a daily affair all over the Muslim world — because it's the Muslim world. If you know of any media in, say, Arab countries that bring such inhumanities to light in order to condemn them and stop them, or of any agencies in, say, Muslim countries that investigate such inhumanities and punish the perpetrators, please let me know.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 05/03/04 06:39:27 AM
Categorized as International.