Posted on 09/02/2004 11:31:04 AM PDT by freestyle
NEW YORK, Sept. 1 -- Vice President Cheney reached back decades into John F. Kerry's life Wednesday night, arguing in taunting language that the Democratic presidential nominee has demonstrated through his public statements and votes that he is unfit to be commander in chief in an age of terrorism.
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And it is not just this news story... I counted at least four that directly say that Cheney called Kerry unfit.
...why even bother with this press?
http://news.google.com/news?q=Cheney+Unfit&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&sa=N&tab=nn
I heard it on TV last night too.
The YAHOO AP story also calls Zell Miller a "Classic southern conservative" without noting he's a democrat.
You keep hearing how "angry" the repbulican retoric was last night... And they're talking about a DEMOCRAT!! The only one angry last night was angry Zel...
Cheney was docile as usual.
no kidding. ...
"Kerry talks about two Americas... Well, it's mutual... America sees two John Kerry's..."
"Unfit" is being used as a sublimal tie to the Swift boat veterans, in hopes that people will make the connection to the two.
Lying is not an alternative by the alphabet networks.
It's quid pro quo.
Cheney was docile as usual.""
Cheney has a pacemaker. Zell doesn't- yet.
Cheney is VERY effective without ranting. While others are calling Republicans "angry white men", Cheney just stares at them, and says: deal the cards and ante up, my boy.
Cheney was perfect. 'Specially his line about: 2 Americas/2 John Kerrys.
It's almost certainly true that Kerry is unfit -- whether or not Cheney said it.
But I do wonder about something strategic. I remember Reagan's re-election campaign -- which wiped the challenger Mondale clean. Reagan hardly ever said anything disparaging about Mondale's character, never questioned his dedication to country or his long years of service. He cleaned Mondale's clock because he demonstrated that his political agenda was far superior to Mondale's. (with a little help from Mondale's silly pledge to raise taxes and his choice of a lightweight congresswoman with a corrupt husband for VP.)
Think also of Clintoon and Dole. The toon basically cleaned Dole's clock. And though there was some tough stuff in that campaign, basically Clinton too acknowledged Dole's basic dignity, his long record of service, etc.
What am I getting at here? I'm tempted to the generalization that winning incumbents often are able to take a more "gracious" path to re-election because they start with a resevoir of trust and good will that gives the challenger an extremely steep hill to climb to overtake him.
But contrast that with the two most recent losing incumbents -- Carter and Bush 1. Carter was pretty much toast with the American people going into the fall. But he made something of a fight of it for awhile. He did so not by being upbeat optimistic, future orientedd. He tried very hard -- not just his surrogates but he himself -- to scare people out of voting for Reaga. His strategy was to make people think Reagan was simply an unacceptable alternative. Didn't work, obviusly.
Bush I tried something like the same thing with Clinton and ended up getting trounced.
He did succeed with Dukakai of course, but Dukakai was about as inept a candidate the Rats have had since McGovern. (I still laugh when the image of him in the tank and snoopy hat comes along and when I think of his debate response to the question about the rape of his wife.)
What's my point? Nothing super deep except that it sure feels like Bush's team so sees themselves as more positioned like Carter or Bush I than like Reagan or Clinton.
But really when is the last time an "endangered" incumbent won by so directly going after the fitness of the challenger?
I sure hope Bush gives an upbeat, optimistic speech tonight that treats Kerry more as a bothersome gnat than as a challenge that needs to be swatted back.
Outside the media, the intelligent person knows that ketchupman is UNFIT for command.
What you say is true. But the fact remains, Cheney did not say that in his speech last night. How can it be the headline?
By the way, the above IS the correct answer.
Here's the thing... It seems that you are falling directly victim to the type of reporting I started this thread about.
Bush has NOT been "going after" the fitness of John Kerry... Like Reagan, he may have an occasional quip, but Bush himself doesn't say anymore about his challenger than did the others you mention.
All this talk of tone is so frustrating to me. What type of "tone" is it when Kerry (at his convention states "I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to." or "I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a Vice President who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a Secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States."?
Why was there no uproar to his questioning the morality of the adminstration?
Even worse: What about when Kerry says "Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whispered in my ear, 'America is under attack,' I would have told those kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States had something that he needed to attend to, and I would have attended to it,"? ... a direct attack on the "fittness" of Bush as a leader (right out of a Michael Moore movie)
And finally, as I stated above, Cheney was docile (i.e. even and measured)... there is no justification for presenting these "CHENEY CALLS KERRY UNFIT" headlines... those are directly misleading and intenionally evokes a "tone" for the reader.
The guy whose "tone" was so offensive to these liberals was the ONLY democrat on the stage last night... Zel Miller. And the only reason that what he said about Kerry was so damaging, is because it is true. Not because it is "harsh".
The best part about Cheney's speech was when he quoted Kerry speaking to the Harvard Crimson in 1971 about our troops being ordered only at the directive of the UN.
Obviously, Kerry is unfit to be Commander in Chief however, both the President and the Vice President may have the responsibility to the People to NOT hand over power to the Unfit Kerry if he were to win the Election.
Whether he said it or not, doesn't change the fact that it's true.
Don't mistake calm and collected for docile. Cheney is hardly docile. Remember, he recently used the "F Word" to some particularly obnoxious 'Rat, IIRC on the floor of the Senate.
Let's just win the election and not have to even think about going there. It's an ugly place. Only in the case of massive voting fraud, not remedied in the Courts, would such an action be acceptable. Even then it would be ugly, very very ugly.
That said, keep your powder dry.
I didn't mean docile as a negative. I've always admired his composure.
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