Rimmer of Red Dwarf! Same exact character. Soon people will catch on. Don't worry.
Posted on 07/31/2004 8:42:00 PM PDT by jwalburg
'The embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world," declared Ted Kennedy, in a moment of Revolutionary War nostalgia. Or he would have done, if he'd managed to stick to his text. But, in a strikingly erratic performance even by his standards, what actually emerged from the senator's lips was: They "fired the shirt round the world.''
That sums up better than anything what the Democratic Party's been trying to do this last week for its presidential candidate: fire the stuffed shirt round the world, put a rocket up a guy who seems weighed down by his own self-importance and project him into the stratosphere. All the star speakers through the week were the equivalents of those bits of the rocket that boost you up into space and then fall away, leaving just the little capsule up there. And, who knows, if they boosted him up high enough, maybe nobody would notice just how little there is to John Kerry's little capsule.
Well, that was the theory. "I'm John Kerry," began the candidate on Thursday night, "and I'm reporting for duty!"
Democratic Party partisans appreciate this stuff -- a stageful of Swifties, the war-wounded Max Cleland, "we band of brothers, a little older, a little grayer" -- but they appreciate it mainly as a post-modern jest, a way of sticking it to the GOP. To anybody else, including those sought-after "swing voters" in "battleground states," it's starting to sound a little weird. John Kerry says he's running on his record, but, of his four decades of adult life, he's running on his four months in Vietnam. Of the other 39 years and eight months, there's nary a word.
Take any one of the showbiz luminaries at the Dem convention -- Glenn Close, say. Imagine if she's up for a big role in a new movie and the producers say, "Well, what have you done?" And she says, "I've got a great resume. I did summer stock in Vermont in 1969. Third Indian maiden in Rose-Marie." And no, I'm not comparing Vietnam to summer stock: What I'm saying is that, whatever you were doing in 1969, it's simply unnatural to emphasize that at the expense of the subsequent 35 years. Certainly, no previous veteran -- Dole, Bush Sr., Carter, McGovern -- ever thought to do it.
Vietnam's paying diminishing returns for Kerry. The more he harps on it the more hollow seems the post-Vietnam Kerry -- i.e., Senator Kerry -- and the more he sounds like a man whose world view was frozen in the '60s. "We believed we could change the world," he said of those times. "And you know what? We did. But we're not finished."
Just what we need: more boomer self-congratulation. Amid the variously labored song titles selected for the Convention -- "We Are Family," "You've Got A Friend" -- the one that struck me as most pertinent to the Kerry campaign was "Blowin' In The Wind.'' The archetypal weathervane pol thinks he's got it figured out: The voters want tough talk -- "strong," "stronger," "strengthen" evidently all poll-test well -- but rather less action when they switch on the evening news. So Kerry's position on the war is this:
"Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response."
Got that? If the Empire State Building's taken out, he'll certainly respond to it. Next time 'round, there won't be any mistakes about where the WMD are because they'll be in the middle of a big crater in Chicago.
For me that one line encapsulates the stale, dozy complacency of the supposedly complex Kerry. Others evidently feel differently. But it seems to me emblematic of the Democratic Party's problem intellectually: It's almost wholly reactionary: on national security, on Social Security. What are the Democrats for? Well, they're for getting rid of George W. Bush, but what else?
Floundering for a cause with which to rally the citizenry, the party eventually found one: itself. "Our greatness is also measured by our goodness," declared Howard Dean.
"I've seen it in the people I've met and their desire to take our country back for the American people. I saw it in a college student in Pennsylvania who sold her bicycle and sent us a check for $100 with a note that said, 'I sold my bicycle for democracy.' "
Really? John F. Kerry's bicycle cost $8,000. Why doesn't he sell his for democracy? If you throw in the designer French T-shirt and buttock-hugging lemon-hued lycra shorts, you'd probably be up around an even ten grand. When Howard Dean and John Kerry and John Edwards talk about "change," what they mean is you send these bazillionaire grandees the hundred-dollar bill and they'll keep the change.
What did that co-ed cutie get for her hundred bucks? Presumably she sent it to Governor Dean because he was anti-war. He lost to Senator Kerry, who at that time was for-and-against the war, in the same way that he's for-and-against abortion and for-and-against gay marriage. But he seems to have come down, Iraq-wise, on the "for" side of the ledger. He'll be spending a little more time ineffectually chit-chatting with Kofi and Jacques and Gerhard, but other than that his Iraq policy is sounding more like Bush's every day. That college kid ponied up her $100 and isn't getting a lot of "change." I wonder if she's missing her bicycle this summer.
There's a narcissism about the tone of this convention that cuts to the heart of the Democratic Party's difficulties: They don't believe in anything except their monopoly of goodness. That's why John Edwards' supposedly "appealing biography" is appealing only when put next to John Kerry's. Instead of marrying his money, he sued his way into it. But his message doesn't resonate with most Americans because it boils down to: If I can do it, you can't. But here's some government programs instead. On the other hand, Edwards' very condescension to the downtrodden masses confirms middle-class liberals in their sense of their own virtue.
That's the essence of this convention: a condescending media congratulating a condescending leadership for effectively communicating to their condescending activists their plans for everyone else. John F. Kerry should enjoy it while he can. It's downhill from here.
I especially like the comparison between Kerry's $8000 bike and the poor student's sacrifice bike.
That goes DOUBLE for his alleged "4 point bounce."
But the undecided, the swingers, will come a-shopping in late October. Saying what have we got here like they were shopping for a sweater. They might like what they see in the Democrats' shop window. By then the illusion will be complete.
"That college kid ponied up her $100 and isn't getting a lot of "change."
Steyn's pithiness and rapier wit never ceased to AMAZE me. This column is especially good. The cracks about Kerry's bike and bike shorts are well deserved. I hope Kerry reads this piece and if he does, I hope the truth hurts.
You posted - "I especially like the comparison between Kerry's $8000 bike and the poor student's sacrifice bike."
That part really struck me,too. It shows the kind of man Kerry is. I watched as much of the dem convention that I could stomach, which wasn't much, and saw what a pompous a@@ the man really is! We're supposed to believe that his four months in Vietnam "defendng (?)" our country qualifies him to be president! Uh-huh....
I am a staunch supporter of President Bush, but people have to see through this deception (I hope)
Personally, I figure it's gotta be soon.
FRegards..
It's a case of future shock. He still thinks the date is 1970. I think the Democrats are afraid to tell him for fear of how he may react. He may pull out a shot gun and start shooting at "the enemy" trying to destroy his fantacy.
'The embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world," declared Ted Kennedy, in a moment of Revolutionary War nostalgia. Or he would have done, if he'd managed to stick to his text. But, in a strikingly erratic performance even by his standards, what actually emerged from the senator's lips was: They "fired the shirt round the world.''
I heard that too and loled.
Rimmer of Red Dwarf! Same exact character. Soon people will catch on. Don't worry.
Absolute brilliance. This may be his best column ever.
>>but people have to see through this deception <<
Don't hold your breath. That's what I kept saying throughout eight long years of Zipperboy and he STILL has drooling sycophants who'd don the knee pads in a nanosecond!
Got that? If the Empire State Building's taken out, he'll certainly respond to it. Next time 'round, there won't be any mistakes about where the WMD are because they'll be in the middle of a big crater in Chicago.
Exactly what Kerry said! So don't be afraid. If you and your family get killed in a bomb attack, remember - Kerry's help is on the way!
I totally agree with you on "Zipperboy", and don't understand the drooling sycophants kneepad brigade, but I don't see Kerry getting that reaction. I believe that many of his voters will be the "I hate George Bush" crowd. Don't thimk Kerry has the same "charisma" as Clinton supposedly has.
I just want those who are undecided, or not totally committed Kerry voters to see the light.
ping
Lord knows I hate the Liberal Establishment and by extension, the Democratic Party and the Lamestream Media.
That said, what's wrong with buying an $8,000 bike?
If I earn an income high enough for me to buy the hottest BMW on the market, why should I be embarrassed about it?
This guy has a multi-million dollar private jet and numerous mansions. What would he be doing buying a Schwinn Roadmaster?
Steyn, whom I love to read, shows a little class envy here, IMO.
Kerry is indeed a POS, but I would expect him to ride an $8K bike in his income bracket.
Nah. Steyn was just comparing the college student selling his/her bike to raise $100 to donate to the Kerry campaign.
It doesn't show class envy on Steyn's part, or anybody's part, it just illustrates that a man (Kerry) who is trying to connect to the average Joe or Josephine who can afford such a bike has no real connection.
IOW, "what's wrong with buying an $8,000 bike?" nothing, if you can afford it, plenty if you're trying to base your campaign on how you're just an "average" American.
Love it!!
My girlfriend and her married sister and her brother-in-law are liberals. THey absolutely hate Bush and no facts will cleanse their clouded thinking.
Yesterday, I finally responded to her email that "Bush lied about WMD...yada, yada, yada".
I lost it. I called her a KKD (Kerry Koolade Drinker) and said I was incensed that so-called intelligent people such as herself wouldn't accept facts such as the multiple quotes of Mr. Kerry over the past half dozen or so years regarding his statments of Iraq and WMD that supported the President's decision.
She tore into me this morning with a caustic email daring never to respond to her in that tone....that has given me a REAL pain in the pit of my stomach which I have right now still at 1AM.
I just can't believe how dense and stupid people are about politics....probably myself included.
Maybe it really doesn't matter who in the hell wins.
I love President Bush. Everybody else can go a F themselves.
Did you have your sense of humor surgically removed?
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