Posted on 03/21/2004 3:46:37 AM PST by NYpeanut
I wonder if John Kerry has perhaps launched his descent into caricature a couple of months too early. Usually, the successful losing candidate waits till late spring/early summer before shifting gears and beginning each day with the campaign trying to explain some rhetorical triviality from the previous week that's stuck to his shoe and he can't seem to shake off.
Ever since last summer, I've been mocking Sen. Kerry's tortured explanations as to why his vote in favor of such-and-such in fact demonstrates his staunch opposition to it. As I wrote a couple of months back:
''His vote against the first Gulf War was, he says, a sign of his support for the first Gulf War. Whereas his vote in favor of the Iraq war was a sign of his opposition to the Iraq war. And his vote against funding America's troops in Iraq is a sign of his support for America's men and women in uniform. On the same principle, I think the best way voters this November can demonstrate their support for John Kerry is by voting against him.''
Even I, though, would have balked at so crude and obvious a parody as this line, which some Kerry impersonator did on the radio the other day:
''I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.''
Oh, hang on. That's apparently the real senator, explaining to an audience of veterans why he voted against funding the Iraqi reconstruction:
''I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.''
Got that?
Q: How many John Kerrys does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: At least four. One to unscrew the old lightbulb. One to simultaneously announce his courageous commitment to replacing the old bulb. One to vote against funding the new light bulb. And one to denounce George W. Bush and America's Benedict Arnold CEOs for leaving everyone in the dark.
Q: Why did John Kerry cross the road?
A: He didn't cross the road. He crossed to the middle to demonstrate his grasp of the nuances and subtleties involved in crossing the road, and was still explaining them to the New York Times reporter when the logging truck hit him.
Then there was the senator's clumsy attempt to declare himself America's ''second black president.'' Bill Clinton was at least canny enough to get himself anointed as the first black president by an actual black person, the novelist Toni Morrison, who declared that he displayed ''every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.'' It's harder to pull that off when you're a Swiss finishing school boy from Massachusetts. Many's the night John and the other boys in his dorm would lie awake dreaming of their freedom as they murmured one of the traditional spirituals of their people: ''Swing by, sweet limousine, comin' for to carry me home.''
Of course, like many African Americans, he understands what it's like when people are prejudiced against you because of your skin. In Sen. Kerry's case, his skin is extremely thin. So it was inevitable that, when a voter named Cedric Brown, in Bethlehem, Pa., needled the candidate to name one of the world leaders who were supposedly desperate for him to beat Bush, within moments the senator would be snarling that it's ''none of your business.''
It's never a good idea in vernacular politics to leave the impression you're more comfortable with the global elite than with American citizens. Instead of the second black president, Kerry sounded awfully like America's first French president.
Also none of our business is the senator's go-ahead-punk bluster about foreign policy. For months he's been droning in his stump speech that, if George W. Bush wants to fight this election on national security, Kerry has three words for him: ''Bring it on!'' So Bush brought it on -- with a 30-second ad arguing that the senator is weak on defense. And suddenly the campaign's curled up on the floor in a fetal position whimpering that it's just totally unfair making such a horrible personal attack. Watching him in New Hampshire, I always thought, when Kerry dares you to ''bring it on,'' he couldn't quite bring it off. As all military strategists say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. And so it proved.
What else? For over a year, there've been jokes about the ponderous way the senator brings Vietnam up at every opportunity. Ask him about John Edwards' pretty boy bangs, and Kerry says solemnly, ''I know something about bangs for real.'' But he's beyond satire now. The Humane Society sends him a questionnaire asking ''Do you have any pets that have made an impact on you personally?'' Instead of citing any of the ginger toms, gerbils and cockatoos that have passed through the Kerry household in the last four decades, he goes back to those four months in Vietnam and recalls a pooch named VC who accompanied him on his swift boat missions.
Is it normal to take a yappy mutt on a swift boat patrol through enemy territory? Especially a mutt named after the enemy. Calling out ''Over here, VC'' in the middle of the jungle seems a good way to get taken out by friendly fire. Come to that, how many folks name their dogs after the enemy? Did British Tommies stumble across stray French poodles on the beach at Normandy and think, ''Aw, cute li'l feller. I'll call him SS''?
Weird. And, just to round out a weird week, John Kerry, accompanied by the press, went into a sporting goods store and bought a jock strap. Even for a campaign marked by a strangely insecure macho exhibitionism, this was a little too self-parodic. Next time he shouts ''Bring it on!'' I want to see that VC puppy trot out with the jock strap between his teeth so Jacques Chirac can ceremonially drape it round the senator's neck.
Reminds me of Good Morning Vietnam:
"Seeing as how the VP is such a VIP, shouldn't we keep the PC on the QT, 'cuz if it leaks to the VC he could end up an MIA, and then we'd all be put on KP."
Love Steyn. Wish the U.S. was overrun with people that have sense like Steyn and Medved.
Notice that he uses this line twice, since it actually does tell you everything you need to know about the esteemed Senator from Vichy.
I have noticed over the past several months that there are a number of posters who believe that there will be a deus ex machina that will wrest the nomination away from Kerry and give it to someone else. This is nonsense. Kerry will be the nominee because he has the delegates needed to win it. The Dems won't change the primary rules. The only caveat, and it is a remote one, is for Kerry to withdraw. That just won't happen.
< snicker >
Rules mean nothing to a 'Rat!
A teacher in a small Vermont town asks her class how many of
them are John Kerry fans. Not really knowing what a John Kerry fan is, but
wanting to be liked by the teacher, all the kids raise their hands except
one boy.
The teacher asks Johnny why he has decided to be different. Johnny says, "I'm not a John Kerry fan.
"The teacher says, "Why aren't you a John Kerry fan?"
Johnny says, "I'm a George Bush fan."The teacher asks why he's a George Bush fan.
The boy says, "Well, my mom's a George Bush fan and my dad's a George Bush fan, so I'm a George Bush fan!"
The teacher is kind of angry, because this is Vermont, so she
asks, "What if your mom was a moron and your dad was an idiot, what
would that make you?" Johnny says, "That would make me a John Kerry fan."
I don't know who Kerry will be cast aside for, but it will be for someone perceived to be electable--if Kerry's performance continues to demonstrate, as he did last week, that he is unelectable. If Kerry continues along this line, Bush will be assured an easy 300+ electoral votes. If the 'Rats can't win, they surely want Bush to win only slightly (and preferably to lose the popular vote) so they can continue to refuse working with him and continue to claim he is somehow illegitimate.
How will Kerry be tossed aside? If it's done it'll be a coup led by the 'Rat superdelegates, who are not pledged. The inferior delegates (don't you just love the class system inside the 'Rat Party?) will be swayed by the elites' feelings and decide to vote their consciences, regardless of whether they are bound to Kerry or not. 'Rats have already set the precedent of being able to ignore their own primaries and party selection rules in, for example, NJ and MN, and they have the state supreme courts on their side (include FL, too) to provide them with whatever legislation is needed to ensure an equitable election in November (i.e., an election where the 'Rats have their best chance of winning).
Rules mean absolutely nothing to 'Rats. Power is their religion.
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