Why are we talking about John Kerry?
Because Karl Rove wants us to.
Only six days until the Republicans steal the election that the Democrats are going to win in a landslide, and suddenly the news is full of the GOP spin on how John Kerry insulted the troops. Kerry isn’t running for re-election, he’s not a contender for 2008 (though he thinks he is), and his statement was one of a series of quips about Bush being a know-nothing idiot. No matter. Karl Rove got on the phone and the talking points went out: Kerry Insults Troops!
And the mainstream media is eating it up. It’s the lead story on CBS News, ABC News, CNN, the Washington Post, and just about every other major outlet. And notice how the headlines present the GOP angle exclusively: “Kerry Insults Troops, says White House.” “Bush Insists Kerry Apologize.”
Just a few days ago the Michael J. Fox imbroglio was dominating the news, and while that story surely hurt the GOP, those headlines also echoed the Republican point of view. Remember? “Limbaugh says Fox was faking.” “Was Fox acting during ads?” And then after the Katie Couric interview, “Fox was overmedicated during ads.” Strange. It’s almost as if there’s a pattern there.
So again: why are we talking about John Kerry? Because Karl Rove wants to help the Republicans and hurt the Democrats, of course. And so do Viacom, Time Warner, Disney, and all the other multi-millionaires who run the media in this country, right down to the blow-dried hairdos reading the news on TV.
17 Responses to “Why are we talking about John Kerry?”
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love2all says:
To be fair, I can see how people can misinterpret his statement: “You know education, if you make the most of it, and you study hard, and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
He was intending for the Bush Administration to look like the not so smart ones but just said it wrong. He admitted he said it wrong too.
On the flip side, it can be partly true. Recruiters actually do prey on recruiting young people with no money, or those that might not have as much of a chance to go to college or the grades to get into college.
Onto the mud-slinging thing.. the thing is, from my point of view as a Democrat, is that I don’t think Democrats WANT to mud-sling. We are guilty of it too, of course. But it’s like being defenseless in a fight.. they punch first, are we not supposed to punch back?
With all the money these mud-slinging ads waste, I would love for a Dem candidate to donate the money they could have used for an ad to a charity instead and hope for lots of press coverage on it, send out massive press releases, etc - you know, kind of set an example. I don’t know, that’s kind of risky too. If you did that, you’d have to just hope that the media covered it thoroughly.
November 1st, 2006 at 11:47 am EST -
love2all says:
Just wanted to add, I found this today:
Kerry’s office said the senator had misread his prepared remarks. They said he had intended to say, “Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.”
Speaking of intellectually lazy, check out this delusional man’s blog: http://fixd.com (don’t mention me if you comment to him, please - I have had QUITE enough banter with him)
To quote one of the commenters on his blog, I’m almost convinced it’s all a joke. But if he is joking, the joke isn’t funny. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that his right-wing blog makes even the staunchest conservative embarrassed.
The problem is, guys like him are corn-fed on Fox news and Rush Limbaugh. The hatred and the lies that come out of the mouths of people like Rush are taken completely to heart by people like him.
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Paul Tergeist says:
right down to the blow-dried hairdos reading the news on TV.
-VMaybe you haven’t seen Keith Olbermann. Watch him tonight. 8PM Eastern.
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richard cherry says:
In Britain there is a word for those with an education and money who end up trapped in the army - we call thenm officers. They are the ones in charge of the young working class men without qualifications or prospects. They sometimes get killed as well and I’m sure they are no less brave, but when they leave the army, they go to decent jobs in the city (management skills always in demand) and their wives usually called Emma. They have a choice.
As I understnd it Bush didn’t do National Service (or whatever toy soldier crap you do in the States) because he had money and therefore a choice. It’s all pretty much the same thing.
You just have to hope those guys with their fast boats can’t catch Kerry.
And anyway the police love Hilary.
I’m not saying she shouldn’t be Presiident but she smells like a crook to dwarf the illegalities of this (awful satanic) president…come back in five years and tell me I’m wrong - and hey she might repeal Habeas Corpus (George read that, but his latin was a tad flawed with awful consequences - he really did let us have the bodies). Hard for anyone but a crook to get through the system in either of our countries; harder still for a woman, so we should at least give her that…
Hmm this was really about Her - right??? -
richard cherry says:
…I think REINSTATE Habeas Corpus was what I meant…
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JC says:
You’ll be ecstatic to know that this story also hit the news in Australia. See http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1779416.htm for a transcript or go to http://www.abc.net.au/am/ and look for today’s AM program (that’s Thursday 2 Oct) if you want to listen rather than read.
In happier news I’m delighted to be able to report that my fellow countrypersons are not as stupid as I had hitherto thought. Apparently 75% of them think our arse-licking PM should sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change. And a full 90% think that government is not doing enough about climate change (duh!). See this story from (Australian) ABC news’ AM program for details (including weasel words from government ministers blaming the media for not publicising what they actually do - not much). http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1779351.htm
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Violet says:
I’m not saying she shouldn’t be Presiident but she smells like a crook to dwarf the illegalities of this (awful satanic) president
What? You’ve got to be kidding.
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Dlunch says:
Richard Cherry
Did you read the New York Review of books piece by Joann Didion on Dick Cheney? He was at while Hillary was barely out of nappies. Not that I am a Hillary fan… supporting that war without apology is enough illegality for me.
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richard cherry says:
she’s brighter than him - she must at least be a better crook.
maybe ‘dwarf’ was overstating my case just a smidgin… -
CoolAunt says:
I think better questions are:
Why would John Kerry say something so stupid and insulting just days before the elections? Does he want to make his party look bad? Or is he just good at it?
Then, when called on it, instead of trying to make those who heard what he said believe that that’s not what he said, why didn’t he just admit that, in his eagerness to get another one in on Bush, he fucked up and implied that every US service person is stupid? It probably would have blown over by now if he had.
Republican, Democrat, Independent…it makes no difference. Politicians are liars. Kerry, Bush, Clinton, all of them. They’ll even try to convince us that what we heard isn’t what we heard and what we saw isn’t what we saw.
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love2all says:
CoolAunt: But the truth is, Kerry did not intend to say what came out of his mouth. He phrased his words wrong. Why would ANY politician, Republican or Democrat say anything as dumb as “our troops are stupid” or anything to that degree? Especially someone who is a veteran? Because it was never his intention.
I don’t think he tried to make people believe that he said it right. He admitted it came out wrong. I also think he wanted to choose his words carefully the day after the big to-do about it because he didn’t want any sort of apology to come out wrong and make it sound like he was apologizing to Bush or the war, two things he is vehemently against.
No one really demanded that Bush apologize for joking about not finding weapons of mass destruction or cracking in appropriate jokes to the people of New Orleans. I don’t even think his mother apologized when she said the following (and she ACTUALLY meant what she said!):
What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.
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Dlunch says:
Hello Violet,
Did you see Steve Bell’s take on this, in the Guardian? I laughed until I cried.
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Infidel says:
Why would ANY politician, Republican or Democrat say anything as dumb as “our troops are stupid” or anything to that degree?
“This is Pearl Harbor Day. 47 years ago to this very day, we were hit and hit hard at Pearl Harbor.”
On September 25, the press corps sent him Christmas cards and serenaded him with carols.as I recall.
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Paul Tergeist says:
Forget about Kerry, he’s yesterday’s news. Today’s news is that a frequent and top-level White House adviser, a Pastor no less, the head of the National Association of Evangelicals no less, Ted Haggard no less had been pading a male prostitute to fuck him in the ass about once a month for the last three years. He bailed out of his job faster than Mark Foley ran out of congress.
The difference between what christers say and what they do just cracks me up. The Repugnican party is disintegrating, but Hitlery Klingon won’t be able to pick up the pieces. She is a crook too. I’m voting for Keith Olbermann.
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Victoria says:
Ah, Paul… A fine recommendation, this Olbermann fellow. Olby alone has restored my faith that “TV Journalism” need not be an oxymoron. (That is, when he’s not running all the celebrity fluff that his producers are allegedly forcing him to cover. Whatever. A little Tomkat stupidity every now and then seems a small price to pay in return for Actual Fucking News in the first 45 minutes.)
Re: Kerry - When I first heard his comments, stripped as they were of all context, I had an actual sinking “oh no he DIDN’T” feeling in my stomach, paired with a desire to live trap (as humanely as possible) the doofus and set him free in some wilderness area where he could harm neither himself, nor anyone else with half a prayer of redeeming us all from the daily onslaughts of protofascism (or, arguably: actual fascism) to which we are all increasingly subjected. Now I get it (the original context, etc.) but, still.
I humbly submit that Kerry should spend his remaining political capital on writing, not (please not) speaking. He can write well, on relevant topics (I seem to remember some good stuff on HuffPo), in ways that make the inevitable Rovesque deliberate excisions and distortions harder to pull off than when the dude’s in front of that most dangerous appliance, the microphone.
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Violet says:
Dlunch, thanks for the heads up on the latest Steve Bell cartoon!
Victoria, I agree that Kerry needs to shut the fuck up. Actually it looks to me like he’s being a good soldier about this; I’ve no doubt the Democratic leadership told him to apologize toute suite and then lie low so as not to keep feeding the story.
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ginmar says:
Kerry’s getting fucked, and I don’t blame him for sticking to his guns. They fucked him over and now they’re doing it again. This sticks in my craw. A decorated vet and they treat him like he’s a fucking nutjob? No way. God, I can hardly wait to toss these bastards out on Tuesday.
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