Click for Main Weblog

   
The Weblog at The View from the Core - Friday, September 17, 2004
   
   

Johnny Dollar's Place

Vide.

Lege.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/17/04 09:27:40 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff.


   
   

Caddell on CBS & DNC

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCLXXIX

Pat Caddell has been on FNC talking about CBSgate and the Democrats — who won't be heeding him, I'm sure.

First, from Fox News Live. (Brackets in original.)

+ + + + +

GREGG JARRETT [FOX NEWS]: Joining us now to talk about the controversy, former Congressman Rick Lazio, Republican, who represented New York's 2nd District, Pat Caddell, Democratic strategist and former Presidential pollster. Welcome to both of you. Pat, are you troubled by the way CBS and Dan Rather handled their story both initially when it aired and then subsequently in its defense?

PAT CADDELL [DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST]: Absolutely. In fact, I'm really stunned, I mean, you would think this was the government during Watergate trying to coverup stuff. I mean, I am amazed because, you know, there are very very serious problems here, and the Republicans, this isn't a partisan thing. I think the press is sometimes amazingly irresponsible. For them to go out and say this story and these documents — and you know the person they quoted yesterday, for instance, I was on the internet looking this stuff, Marley, who said Oh no, the signatures are fine, this is a man who wrote an essay explaining you should never take a Xerox document. The signature, the ability to be able to commit fraud on the signatures is overwhelming.

JARRETT: Was that Marcel Matley you were referring to?

CADDELL: Yes, yes, and there's an essay he wrote on it. But the other problem is, they will not say, and there's no reason for this — these documents did not, this man has been dead for 16 years. His family says they didn't do it. They don't believe it's him. Now you've got contradictions, where some of these documents are signed, where the person is supposed to have been "forcing" the sugar coating had been out of the, had been retired for a year and a half. And other things like that. But they will not do, they will not tell us who these other sources are. And most importantly they won't say where they got this. They didn't get it from the Pentagon, and they didn't get these from the family. And I'm afraid what that's leaving there is that I'm afraid as a Democrat, I have a very very bad feeling where they got this. And it's going to come out in the end I'm afraid, and it's going to come something disastrous....

JARRETT: Continuing now with Pat Caddell and Rep Rick Lazio on the story that was broken by 60 Minutes on Wednesday about President Bush's National Guard service, and there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents they used. Pat Caddell — and Rick Lazio, I'll get to you in just a second — but Pat Caddell, you said something that did not escape our view just a moment ago. And that is that you have a feeling where these documents came from. Can you elaborate?

CADDELL: Well, I'm just very bothered by the fact, there's no reason they should not be a news organization, saying, at least indicate where they got these documents. And they don't have the originals. And I know how this political thing works. And I think it's time for somebody to ask them directly, and get a direct answer, and I mean the other members of the news media, particularly the great prestigious, you know, Columbia Journalism Review, and the other people are supposed to be protecting the public from the journalists. And find out whether these were delivered by political operatives. And if it is, I'm really worried because if it's what I'm afraid of, it could be disastrous for my party. Because they got themselves in this so deep it's unbelievable.

JARRETT: Yeah, let me remind our viewers, you're a Democratic strategist, former Presidential pollster —

CADDELL: I think on 9/11, you know, some of us ought to think about being Americans first. And I, it would be nice to see our political process and the other people in it show just half the kind of honor the people who gave their lives here, giving their lives in the Middle East....

JARRETT: Pat, you said this to our producers and I have to ask you about it, and you're a Democrat. "There are idiots in the Democratic Party that do things that do not hurt Bush and continue to hurt Kerry." What do you mean?

CADDELL: Well, getting into this issue, watching, having Terry McAuliffe for instance go out and call the President of the United States a liar. Having a certain Senator, whom I happen to like very much, who was almost got knocked out of a Presidential race because that particular Senator had exaggerated saying he was a combat pilot in VietNam, when he was flying mail runs to Tokyo, and is out there calling the President a liar. All they're going to do is they're helping the President. Because every time this issue is on the table so is all the swift boat stuff. And these people, it's like World War I, it's like the Battle of the Somme, they just can't get it out of their system. That's what worries me about the connections.

JARRETT: Gentlemen, I wish we had all day to talk about this, it's not going to go away. Pat Caddell, Rep Rick Lazio, gentlemen, thanks so much for being here.

+ + + + +

Now, from Dayside. (Brackets in original.)

+ + + + +

LINDA VESTER [FOX NEWS]: It's all over the newspapers and tv. Democratic candidate John Kerry is behind in the polls, with persistent rumors that there's no one really in charge of his campaign. News reports, even the so-called liberal media, say Kerry is floundering and has missed his chance to fight back. When respected Democrats take to the airwaves to talk about this, you know it's got to be bad. Pat Caddell is pretty mad. As a long-time Democratic strategist and former Presidential pollster, he's got a list of all the screw-ups he has seen. Hi, Pat, it's nice to see you.

PAT CADDELL [DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST]: Hi, how are you Linda?

VESTER: So I have a little piece of John Kerry in an interview that is just out in Time magazine talking about what's going on in his campaign. The question is: People's views of the strength of your leadership have declined in the past few weeks. Is this in part because you were slow responding to the swift boat ads? Do you think you should have been more aggressive? Kerry says:

No I think we did absolutely fine, and I think we are doing absolutely fine.
What do you say?

CADDELL: Well he went on, Linda, in that interview to also say that he didn't know what they were talking about when they were talking about a Bush bounce. You know, you ought to ask your audience, people in your audience, people in America are not stupid. They know he's had a bad month. What is it about politicians that they can't simply be honest with the people and say, it's a tough process, we've made some mistakes. But I'm going to be fighting every day, and the big day that matters is election day, and I'm going to prove myself. No, to say something honest is somehow contaminated, apparently, in whatever in the world that Washington has become.

VESTER: So what do you think is the problem, really the problem?

CADDELL: I think the problem is, first of all, I don't think the campaign has a definition. It didn't have one in Boston. The reason we had the problem with the swift boats is not because George Bush rounded up the swift boat veterans. It's because the Democrat campaigners decided they would make John Kerry's campaign about VietNam. And when you take that scab off, the natural result was going to be to bring people out who have very strong feelings. Nobody in history has ever run for President as a hero. You become a hero because people know you're a hero. You don't run and say you're a hero. [applause]

VESTER: Well, you've clearly got a lot of agreement from the audience on that.

CADDELL: Well, it's just true.

VESTER: Something else that's interesting is that right now, you know how he travels with the national news media, and they trail him and record everything he does. He hasn't talked to them, he has not talked to them, given them an interview in 34 days.

CADDELL: You're kidding. I wasn't aware of that.

VESTER: And we're this close to the elction. Why is that?

CADDELL: Linda, because there's an arrogance. First of all, we have some what I would call, as a Democrat, we have some what I would call political crypto-gangsters who have taken over the heart and soul of the Democratic party in Washington. And their job is to hold on to power and hold on to money. And these are the people advising a good man like John Kerry. And I've known John Kerry for many years. For him not to talk to the press is a mistake. He isn't the President, he's the challenger. But you know what, I'll tell you what they're counting on, which I find ridiculous. They're counting on things like what's going on at CBS this morning, with those documents, which are just unbelieveable. Why does the Democratic party want to get into the issue of National Guard? National Guard leads to swift boats, and that is the last issue in the world John Kerry needs to be into right now. [applause]

VESTER: OK Pat, then explain to me why the DNC is launching this campaign that they call Operation Fortunate Son starting today.

CADDELL: Because they are--

VESTER: And it's all about basically releasing people out in all the swing states saying that George Bush sought favoritism to serve in the National Guard.

CADDELL: Let me tell you, when you have National Chairman, Terry McAuliffe, who put in $100,000 into Global Crossing and walked off with $18,000,000 as your National Chairman, it tells you the moral and integrity level my party has been reduced to at the DNC. You're going to have Terry McAuliffe going out as he did the other day calling the President of the United States a liar? What is wrong with these people? [applause] I don't care if people agree or disagree with the President; they don't like political hacks going around calling the President of the United States a liar, whether he's a Democrat or a Republican. We should be talking about vision, we should be arguing about what we're going to do to change the country. And I'm fearful, I've been saying this for months, and I'm afraid the same people who have taken this party down to defeat in 2002 and 2000 are taking it right down to defeat again, hand in hand with some of the national media. Look at NBC today. They put on Kitty Kelley? Why don't they just put on the National Enquirer? [laughter] For three straight days. Do you know, I went back and checked because I read and couldn't believe this too, you know that O'Neill and the swift boat people has never been on The Today Show?

VESTER: Really?

CADDELL: Now what are the voters, ask your audience, what do they think about the media?

VESTER: You're not surprised?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: No surprise there. I wouldn't have expected to see them on any of the major networks.

VESTER: Well, so do you think that the so-called liberal media are part of the problem?

CADDELL: No I don't think that they're part of the problem politically. I think they're a threat to our liberties right now. The reason the founding fathers gave us the 1st Amendment was not because they liked the press. Just read Thomas Jefferson. They did it to protect the American people. When the press decides that its job is to decide who should be President and who should be not, what truth you should know, what truth you should not, they destroy the very premise for a 1st Amendment, and that threatens our freedom. [applause]

VESTER: See, I told you Pat Caddell was fierce.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: He should be a Republican.

VESTER: Are you saying he should be a Republican?

CADDELL: I'm not a Republican, I'm a Democrat.

VESTER: You're a Democrat, but Zell Miller might be calling next.

CADDELL: Look, there's some values that are more important than your party registration card. We've got people out there giving their lives in the service. I served on the West Point board; I'll tell you one thing I've learned. I would never, ever put partisanship above being a citizen. Young men and women put their lives on the line every day for our citizenship. We owe them at least the right to stand up for truth as we see it. [applause]

VESTER: Pat Caddell, thank you very much; we'll probably be talking to you again soon. Thanks Pat.

CADDELL: OK, good to talk to you Linda, thank you.

+ + + + +

Caddell is also here and here.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/17/04 09:10:54 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.


   
   

"Election Ecumenical Jihad and Voting Principles for Restoring Our Society"

By Shawn McElhinney at Rerum Novarum.

Lege.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/17/04 09:00:13 PM
Categorized as Religious.


   
   

Jacoby & Chait

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCLXXVIII

"I don't care if John Kerry is a sack of cement.... We're going to carry him to victory."

One from the East Coast this week, another from the West.

First, Jeff Jacoby. (Italics in original.)

+ + + + +

Just for laughs, you want to hear a little joke about shooting the president?

Presidential assassination — now there's a funny topic. Just ask John Kerry. When the head of the United Mine Workers presented him with a semiautomatic shotgun during a Labor Day campaign stop in West Virginia, Kerry chortled, "I thank you for the gift, but I can't take it to the debate with me." High-larious!

How can you not love a candidate with such a robust sense of humor? The Massachusetts senator brings so much wit to the presidential race. Remember his wisecrack last spring about a bicycle accident that left President Bush with bruises on his face, hands, and knees? "Did the training wheels fall off?" he asked. Or his line in January about the man who is now his running mate? "When I came back from Vietnam in 1969," he said in Iowa, "I don't know if John Edwards was out of diapers then." Oh, that Kerry — what a stitch!

For some reason people are forever commenting on how dour and stiff Kerry is. But it's a bum rap. As anyone who has followed his career knows, the guy's a regular Jackie Mason.

Take his great quip about Saddam Hussein's military back in 1997, when he was advocating an expansion of the NATO no-fly zone. "The Iraqi Army is in such bad shape now," Kerry said, "even the Italians could kick their butts." Everyone split their sides, they were laughing so hard. Well, almost everyone. For some reason the Massachusetts state auditor, Joseph DeNucci, accused Kerry of a "degrading, disgusting" ethnic slur. And a spokesman for the National Italian American Foundation said, "It was a totally inappropriate comment. What could he have been thinking?" Talk about killjoys. There's no pleasing some people.

A year earlier, when Kerry was running for reelection, he uncorked a priceless rib-tickler about his opponent, Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. "This guy," he said on Don Imus's radio show, "takes more vacations than the people on welfare." Is that a hoot? And yet, believe it or not, some people didn't think it was funny. "I'm very insulted, very insulted," one welfare recipient told The Boston Globe. She obviously has no appreciation for sophisticated comedy.

Speaking of sophisticated comedy, have you heard the one about the camel and the ass? This must be Kerry's favorite joke, to judge from the frequency with which he told it during last year's primary campaign. Here it is, taken verbatim from his remarks to the Florida Democratic party convention in December:

"A little more than 5,000 years ago, Moses said, `Hitch up your camel, lift up your shovel, mount your ass. I will lead you to the promised land.' Five thousand years later, Franklin Roosevelt said, `Light up a Camel, lay down your shovel, sit on your ass. This is the promised land.' Today, George Bush will outsource your camel, tax your shovel, kick your ass, and tell you there is no promised land."

No doubt there are some grouches who would regard this as excruciatingly unfunny, not to mention an insult to FDR. ("Lay down your shovel, sit on your ass" was not exactly the motto of the Works Progress Administration.) But as any connoisseur of good humor will attest, you can't hear jokes like this even in the best comedy clubs.

Not only is Kerry a very funny fellow, he is a critic of other people's material. He certainly let Bush have it for some dubious gags at the Radio and Television Correspondent's Dinner about the lack of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. As Bush showed photographs of himself looking under furniture and behind the drapes in the Oval Office, he made comments like "Those weapons of mass destruction have to be somewhere" and "Nope, no weapons over there."

Apparently Bush never learned that some topics are not appropriate fodder for jokes, particularly from someone of national political stature. Kerry firmly set him straight.

"That's supposed to be funny?" Kerry asked. "If George Bush thinks his deceptive rationale for going to war is a laughing matter, then he's even more out of touch than we thought. Unfortunately for the President, this is not a joke." Thank Heaven at least one of the candidates for president knows that certain subjects are too grim to make light of.

Anyway, to get back to Kerry's jest about shooting the president: This isn't a new theme for him. Shortly after the November 1988 presidential election, he made headlines with a similar knee-slapper about incoming Vice President Dan Quayle.

"The Secret Service is under orders," Kerry told a business audience in Lynn, "that if Bush is shot, to shoot Quayle."

And to think that some people don't find him funny.

+ + + + +

Now, Jonathan Chait.

+ + + + +

If John Kerry loses the election, and quite possibly even if he wins, the main thing people will remember about his campaign is how utterly bizarre it was that a major party nomination could have been captured by a man so staggeringly devoid of political talent.

The first job of a candidate is to win the election, a task to which Kerry seems spectacularly ill suited. This is not to say he won't beat President Bush, only that Kerry's contribution to a potential Kerry victory would be similar to the anchor's contribution to an America's Cup championship. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, some of Kerry's strongest supporters have explicitly likened him to ballast.

"I don't care if John Kerry is a sack of cement," former Texas Agricultural Commissioner Jim Hightower said in June. "We're going to carry him to victory."

At his very best, Kerry is capable of adequately delivering a prepared speech. But when speaking off the cuff, he has an inexplicable penchant to play into his opponents' hands. Bush implies (outrageously) that Kerry wants to go soft on terrorists? Kerry responds that he wants a "more sensitive war on terror." Bush portrays Kerry as an out-of-touch, Francophile elitist? Kerry tells GQ, "I love sports. French skiers." Bush paints Kerry as indecisive? Kerry volunteers that at restaurants, "You know when they give you the menu, I'm always struggling, what do you want?" It's as if he has somehow internalized his opponents' attacks upon him.

Nor can Kerry articulate his policies. Earlier this summer I listened as a friendly questioner at a Missouri event asked Kerry to describe his healthcare plan — not a trick question. He proceeded to blather on for some 10 minutes, in increasingly abstract terms, to the point where I had no idea what he was talking about. And I've written about healthcare and understand his plan, or at least I thought I did before he started explaining it.

If Kerry does not stage a comeback (and he well might — I lend great credence to the cement sack strategy), the natural next step is for people to rationalize his failure. If he can't run a campaign, the argument goes, he would never have been able to run the White House.

That sounds reasonable enough unless you consider the fact that George W. Bush is a highly competent campaigner but a flaming disaster of a president. And it is exactly those things that make him so ruthlessly effective on the stump — centralized authority, Comintern-like party discipline, total disregard for the truth — that have created a hermetically sealed petri dish in which bad policies come to life and are carried out unchallenged.

Bush's staffers, unlike Kerry's, don't leak despairing quotes to the press when their candidate drops in the polls. But they don't seem to raise questions behind closed doors either. When Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill suggested in late 2003 that maybe this deficit thing was sort of, you know, a problem, he was fired.

The apotheosis of the administration's rewarding of loyalty over competence came when it essentially turned Iraq over to the College Republicans. (No, seriously. The White House solicited staff for the Coalition Provisional Authority from a list of entry-level applicants at the Heritage Foundation.)

Having everybody do what Karl Rove says or they'll never work in this town again works a lot more smoothly than having a bunch of smart people with different points of view try to hash things out over pizza at 3 a.m., but it doesn't necessarily lead to the wisest policy decisions.

If you drew a schematic map of Kerry's campaign staff, it would resemble Afghanistan, with chieftains warring over patches of turf and little central authority to rein them in.

Could a president function this way? Actually, yes. In 1993, the Clinton White House was riven by internal strife as it tried to put together an economic program. When Bob Woodward luridly chronicled the backbiting, pundits tut-tutted about the disarray. But the policies they came up with worked pretty well.

The difference between Kerry and Bill Clinton is that the latter could easily explain his policies to the public. But a president who struggles to enact decent policies is surely better than one who easily enacts awful policies. And though Kerry's ineptitude makes a victory less likely, it also would make it all the sweeter for those itching to see the current administration convincingly repudiated. I could tell Republicans: You know how bad Bush's record was? He lost his reelection campaign to that guy.

+ + + + +

I guess Jon Chait's (as in "chaitred") new LAT column provides a clue what kind of direction their new editorial-page editor Michael Kinsley is taking.

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

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/17/04 08:44:14 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.


   
   

Gotcha?

Maybe. Maybe not.

See here and here.

Confer.

But see here and here And here.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/17/04 06:34:42 PM
Categorized as Political.


   
   

David's Blog

Horowitz, that is.

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/17/04 06:12:32 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff.


   
   

The Latest on CBSgate V

The saga of Daniel Milhous Rather continues.

Okay. Not necessarily the latest. Just the latest I've found.

The Chicago Tribune editorial is especially noteworthy (brackets in original).

+ + + + +

Every day in this country, thousands of journalists try hard to earn and keep the trust of their readers, listeners and viewers. Now, with what looks like shoddy reporting on George W. Bush's career in the Texas Air National Guard, anchorman Dan Rather and his colleagues at CBS News have made it harder for all those other journalists to earn and keep trust.

Last week, CBS claimed it had obtained four memos from the early 1970s that raised new questions about Bush's service in the Guard. Internet bloggers cited clues in the typography of the memos suggesting they are forgeries. CBS retorted that each document "was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity." In his Friday newscast, Rather huffily blamed part of the challenge to CBS on "partisan political operatives." He insisted CBS had obtained the memos from "unimpeachable sources." But ABC News, The Washington Post and others have since reported that:

- Emily Will, a document expert retained by CBS, said Tuesday she had e-mailed to CBS her five concerns about the memos three days before the network aired its story. In a call to a CBS producer, Will said, "I repeated all my objections as strongly as I could." Will says she warned: "If you air the program on Wednesday, on Thursday you're going to have hundreds of document examiners raising the same questions."

- Another expert consulted by CBS, Linda James, said Tuesday she told CBS the documents "had problems," and she questioned "whether they were produced on a computer." Asked whether CBS took her authenticity concerns seriously, James responded: "Evidently not."

- A former Texas Guard commander whom CBS prominently cited in defending its authentication process said he was misled by CBS and now thinks the memos are fakes.

- Marcel Matley, the lead expert cited by CBS, said Monday: "There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate [the memos]." Matley said he examined only the signature of the late officer who purportedly wrote the memos — and he couldn't rule out the possibility that the officer's signature had been lifted from other documents and placed on phony memos.

That officer's former secretary says she thinks the memos are fakes, but that they reflect the officer's thinking. On Wednesday, Rather finally acknowledged questions about the memos' authenticity — but insisted the sentiment they conveyed was correct. As if to say: This just in! We think George W. Bush got special treatment!

Nice try, but that charge is old news. The new news was CBS' "Gotcha!" memos. The fact that Adolf Hitler allegedly had thoughts similar to some in those long discredited "Hitler's diaries" doesn't make them more than sleazy frauds.

The president of CBS News now says the network will "redouble its efforts" to investigate the documents. The time to do that was before the story aired. And some journalists wonder why many Americans think we're biased, arrogant and inaccurate. The burden of proof here was on Rather and Co. If they did ignore warnings from experts, they hurt a lot of honest reporters.

News organizations that relied in part on CBS' story — the Tribune included — put some faith in CBS News' credibility. Only to learn that the network may have had its trademark eye wide shut.

+ + + + +

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

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/17/04 05:57:45 PM
Categorized as Media.


   
   

"Is Kerry Moving Left?"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCLXXVII

Apparently not a rhetorical question. (Ellipses in original.)

+ + + + +

To the astonishment and dismay of Democratic politicians, John Kerry over the last weekend appeared to have forgotten his opponent for president. He did not seem to realize that he was running against George W. Bush, not Howard Dean. That was an understandable conclusion to be drawn from the Democratic nominee's course over four days.

Last Friday, Sen. Kerry abruptly returned to the safely buried gun control issue by decrying President Bush for permitting the assault weapons ban to end. On Saturday, he addressed the Congressional Black Caucus with a liberal harangue. On Sunday, Kerry rested. On Monday, Kerry was back boosting gun control, scolding Bush for letting the assault weapons ban expire at midnight.

Only two explanations are possible, and neither is reassuring to worried Democrats. Kerry could be making a conscious, though counterproductive, decision to reassure his liberal base. Or, he could be trapped by the calendar of events — talking gun control because a deadline had been reached and talking civil rights because the Black Caucus invited him. Democratic strategists are particularly concerned by the latter explanation, suggesting a mindless campaign.

The anxiety created by Kerry's return to gun control is concealed by the facade of serenity among Democrats. Their actual concern was exposed by Democratic activist Paul Begala, who has been assailed for advising the Kerry campaign while appearing as my co-host on CNN's "Crossfire." He said on Monday's program: "Anyone who's worried that I'm secretly running the Kerry campaign can rest easy... As an avid hunter and gun owner myself, I think Kerry's move is a political mistake, because Republicans are now going to try to scare hunters."

Kerry's emphasis on gun control contradicted not only Begala but also Begala's former boss, Bill Clinton. In his memoir, President Clinton names gun control as a principal cause of the 1994 Democratic election debacle. He asserts that "the Brady Bill (for screening of gun purchasers) and the assault weapons ban inflamed the Republican base voters and increased their turnout."

A consensus of Democratic leaders believes that in 2000, gun control delivered West Virginia — and with it, the presidency — to George W. Bush. That view is not limited to Clintonite self-styled centrists but extends to champions of the Democratic left. Last December, when former Vermont Gov. Dean was riding high for the presidential nomination, he declared: "I am tired of coming to the South and fighting elections on guns, God and gays."

Kerry advisers have recognized what Clinton and Dean were saying. That's why the aloof New England aristocrat emerged this year as a gun-toting outdoorsman. Anybody dedicated to keeping guns from their fellow Americans is not going to vote for Bush. Some officials of the National Rifle Association have told me that their membership is not entirely happy with the Bush administration, raising the prospect of defections to Kerry.

Beyond the gun issue, nobody thinks Kerry's problem is lack of support from the left. Yet, his Black Caucus speech touched all the liberal bases and then played the race card. He quoted W.E.B. DuBois, the black leader who ended his career by joining the Communist Party and going into exile, calling African-Americans "a nation within a nation." Reinforcing DuBois, Kerry pledged "to end the division between the fortunate America and the forgotten America."

One well-placed Democratic partisan telephoned Kerry campaign headquarters to ask why in the world the campaign was moving left at this critical point. He was told that they were not taking such an illogical step and that he should wait and see as the campaign unfolds.

That appraisal seems honest, but it is not reassuring to sophisticated Democrats. If John Kerry's course last weekend was determined by events that happened to be on the calendar, he has no victory plan. George W. Bush's potential weakness seems to be starting a conflict in Iraq that has cost the lives of over 1,000 U.S. troops and shows no sign of abating. It is not easy for a Democrat to exploit that issue, but raising the peril of terrorists buying assault weapons at gun shows in rural America is not a good start.

+ + + + +

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

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/17/04 08:04:02 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.


   
   

Comparing Mormonism

A remarkable collection.

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/17/04 07:45:46 AM
Categorized as Religious.


   
   

Re: Litany of Humility

A reader writes:

Thanks for posting this, it's always useful for me to read. I also took the time to send it along to Dan Rather on the 60 Minutes feedback page under the heading of "Suggestion".... ;^)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/17/04 07:21:56 AM
Categorized as Media.


   

The Blog from the Core © 2002-2008 E. L. Core. All rights reserved.