Can Kerry Match The Comeback Kid?

Washington Post ^ | September 7, 2004 | By E. J. Dionne Jr.

[Former Military Chick]

If John Kerry loses this election, August will be seen as the time when he did. But if Kerry wins, it will be because the last month set up the circumstances for his triumph. And as Bill Clinton probably told the Democratic nominee in that pep talk from his hospital room over the weekend, the way the story turns out is, in significant measure, under John Kerry's control. Democrats outside the Kerry campaign have been in a grumpy, jumpy mood since the oxymoronically named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth pushed the media into a frenzy over what Kerry did and didn't do in Vietnam. The month of August was miserable for Kerry and Bush's post-convention bounce has left members of Kerry's party even more depressed.

It's always a bad sign for a campaign when the media run stories about impending campaign shakeups, usually in accounts full of disparaging quotations from (often anonymous) party leaders.

***

In fact, the anti-Kerry ads fit so neatly with the Republican Convention's goal of painting Kerry as soft on defense and not tough enough to deal with terrorism that it becomes ever harder to believe the Bush campaign's denials of any involvement with the Swift boat group.

***

So how could such a terrible month be a setup for a Kerry victory?

The answer lies in the word "overkill." If there is one thing that came through from last week's convention, it is that Republicans knew that Bush could not win on his own record alone. They had to frighten the country about Kerry and were willing to say anything -- to distort Kerry's record and to lie about it if necessary -- to further that end.

[Paul_B]

> the oxymoronically named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

The most idiotic statement imaginable. I join others in asking how this shill keeps his job. What a disgrace.

letters@washpost.com

[uncbob]

Kerry's views were easily parodied by Republicans in New York because voters are still not clear on what Kerry stands for and what he would do for them.

Maybe that's cause Kerry doesn't know himself

[Smokin' Joe]

I read the article and noticed that most of the Kerry data was not from official documents, but, instead, had been sanitized through the appropriate Kerry Camp filters.

Even the sidebar fails to note that the M-79 shrapnel? wound was treated by picking the splinter out and applying a band-aid.

Where in the official documents does it note that Kerry's boat could (theoretically) make it to Cambodia in 2-3 hours? ALthough the time/ distance assumption is like assuming you could make it through a mile of Washington D.C. in 2 minutes (30 mph).

The point of the piece is to subtly diminish the impact of the SwiftVets statements and take the heat off of Kerry. I will give the writer credit for being less blatantly biased, but the bias is still there.

It seems pretty obvious to me that Kerry was just another ticket-puncher, he didn't make the full ride, just made sure he had the t-shirt.