Posted on 07/30/2004 7:55:13 AM PDT by Choose Ye This Day
The Heat is On
(Boston, MA) From the hallways of the Fleet Center to the bar stools of Loch Ober, the Democrats here are giddy at the prospect that their long national nightmare--their time in the wilderness--is almost over. Boston is their spiritual home. They are doing their best to keep the primal anti-Bush outbursts to a minimum. They even managed to keep Howard Dean on a relatively short leash. (Remember, for Teresa Heinz Kerry, telling someone to "shove it" actually is good behavior!) The Dems have a token Southerner on the ticket - always a sign that they are serious about winning. They got prime-time speeches from their two favorite persons in the world, who gave us yet another chapter in the saga of Bill and Hill. Most of all, after waiting for almost four years, they finally have their chance to smash the hated George W. Bush and his crowd of Bible-thumping, tee totaling, gas-guzzling, gun-shooting, warmongering rednecks.
The Kerry campaign urged everyone who took to the podium to keep things positive, and anyone sufficiently prominent to speak in prime-time will carefully follow that script. But they can't muzzle everyone, and they can't script D-friendly events that occur outside of the convention. I had the misfortune of staying at the hotel where a group called "Take Back America" hosted a whoop-it-up Bush Bash honoring Michael Moore. A standing room-only crowd of Moore fanatics at the Royal Sonesta Hotel were entranced. He is their Elvis only he doesn't toss scarves into the audience, he tosses out verbal tongue lashings against all the familiar targets—the Bush Administration, Fox News, corporate "war profiteers" (Halliburton, GE), and flag-lapel wearing "mainstream" journalists who are "afraid to ask real questions." Of course he also sung the praises of his favorite subject-himself. For him, Bush is the "obvious villain," while countries that defy the Administration, like Canada, are wonderful. "Canada is just like the America," he said,"but better." This is the "blame America" rhetoric that doesn't usually make the evening news. This is the verbal bile that makes the Kerry-Edwards sunshine team very nervous.
But you don’t have to go to a Michael Moore speech to feel that the hatred -- raw, sheer, unmitigated hatred -- is palpable throughout the convention. You sense it in the bumper stickers that say "Re-Defeat Bush." You see it in the volcanic rage provoked by any reference to the current President. Most powerfully, you feel it in the raw, crackling energy that pervades the Fleet Center. Believe me, they're not this excited just because they want to raise taxes. This time it's personal.
In fact, it represents a sort of family feud. The divisions that roil American politics grow out of the fight that split FDR's New Deal Coalition. The last time the Democrats nominated a Massachusetts Senator for President - in 1960 - they were clearly the majority party, their ranks swelled by socially conservative Protestants and Catholics, many of whom had supported the party since the days of William Jennings Bryan. But the liberals chose to break up this coalition, to attack and ridicule the social conservatives on every possible occasion, to accuse them of racism, sexism, homophobia, and any other sins that liberals could imagine.
The social conservatives took the hint, and by 1980, the New Deal Coalition was at an end. The Democrats haven't put together a winning combination ever since. Oh, sure, they had - and have - the Clintons, but two people (no matter how talented) are no substitute for a majority of voters. And so even though President Clinton presided over eight years of prosperity and (a sort of) peace, he also saw his party lose the House, the Senate, and the White House. And despite all the editorials from the New York Times and the Washington Post, despite all the influence of Hollywood, despite near-uniform support from every single university in America, despite the flood of Bush-bashing tomes filling up the tables at your local bookstore, the Republicans still control our government. And so Democratic hatred grows.
Now we don't normally think of the Democrats as haters. After all, they don't hate the terrorists who bombed us on 9/11, and who threaten us around the world. They don’t hate the French. They don’t hate Fidel Castro. They don't hate pornographers, or doctors who abort unborn children, or murderers sentenced to die. They didn't even hate the Soviet Union - in fact, they were outraged when President Reagan dared to say that the USSR was "evil." Apparently, they've been saving all that hatred for George W. Bush and all those folks in the flyover states who keep pulling the Republican lever.
And that hatred - which gives this convention so much of its energy - means that for the next few months, John Kerry will be living in a pressure-cooker such as few American politicians have ever experienced. Since they ran off the social conservatives, the Democrats have lost too many elections. More and more, they talk as though they were prisoners trapped in a hostile land - a place where elections are stolen, where multinational corporations create wars, where Hollywood stars live in fear of Baptist ministers. The Democrats increasingly welcome nutty filmmakers like Michael Moore. and America-bashing celebrities like Susan Sarandon. They are ashamed of our history, of our prosperity, of our flag-waving patriotism, and of our insistence on remaining free and sovereign despite pressure from the EU and the UN. In short, the Democrats are simply no longer recognizable as the party that gave us FDR, and Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy. Instead, they increasingly resemble an angry seminar of conspiracy-minded grad students.
That is the party that John Kerry is supposed to take to victory. If the Democrats lose again - if they have to watch those stupid, ill-bred Republicans celebrating on election night - they will turn on Kerry (and each other) with merciless rage. So the Democrats better enjoy this week. Because if Kerry doesn’t get the bounce he needs from this convention--and early polls are showing he’s not-- it could be the last happy week for the Democrats for a long, long time.
This is so true. This is how the dems view us.
Laura Bump
"This time it's personal. In fact, it represents a sort of family feud."
If you consider the Civil War of 1861 - 1865 a "family feud" I would agree.
Folks, this is in fact a Civil War right now. The only thing that keeps it from going violent is the fact those ATTACKING US have foresworn firearms as a matter of policy.
The hatred of the far left for those of us that dare to differ is palatable. Does anyone doubt if given the opportunity, they'd cheer at an attempt to harm this President, like the Palestinians cheered on September 11th, 2001?
The most important election of my lifetime was in 1980.
This is the second most important in my opinion, given the threat we face can't kill us all in the blink of an eye as the old Soviet Union theoretically could have.
If the "Right" wins this election cycle, its my belief Liberalism will finally become discredited as a viable political position.
And that, folks, is second to our country's existence to only the death of Communism in my opinion.
bump
We're listening to here right now here in Panama. A caller was complaining that listeners on the left coast have to get up at 6am to hear her, but most of the Americas do just fine --thanks to internet streaming.
Modern reenactment of those two old cities, Sodom & Gomorrah, and they lost big time!!!!
they will turn on Kerry (and each other) with merciless rage.
I also expect they will attack anything they see as conservative American, including small businesses, SUVs, homes, private property in general and any symbols celebrating America.
Great article, and yet another reason why Laura should be my wife. :-)
Seriously though, the one thing I wonder is that Kerry has basically gone centrist based on his speech, how will this play with the left wing of the party? Will they revolt? Bite their tongues?
I still think the fix is in for him to lose so Hitlery can run in 2008.
She sez that like itsuh bad thing...
Being a member in the Senate he knows full well that President Bush did not lie to the American people about the Weapons of Mass Destruction before the war. He knows the classified and unclassified details of both the Senate Intelligence Report and the 9/11 Commission. Both of these Commissions were very heavily staffed by partisan Democrats who had an agenda to damage the President. People like Ben Venista, Gorelick and Bob Kerry who were definitely looking to make the President and his administration into liars. Both Commissions not only did not find any lying by the President or his administration, but could not find any pressure put on the CIA or the FBI by any Administration member. They found the Bush Administration made sure that the CIA worked in complete objectivity to the facts as they were known. The Commissions both found that the President was completely innocent of misconduct in this very serious matter. There was no lying from the President George W Bush’ Administration.
What this means is either the two Senate Commissions are lying or John Kerry is lying. Since John Kerry knows everything the Commission knows and his staff has briefed him before putting in his acceptance speech that the President misled the Country, then the Commissions must be lying in their reports. For John Kerry to be telling the truth when he calls the President a liar is that he knows something that substantiates that statement. Perhaps he can give proof that the President of the United States lied to the American People. Absence that, John Kerry can give proof that the two Senate Commissions wrote false reports to the American People. If not then John Kerry is lying to the American people. According to the facts that have been found on a bi-partisan basis the Truth is, John Kerry is the liar.
Do we need another President that is willing to lie to get elected? If he can lie about a President of The United States telling a monstrous lie, then he can easily lie about cutting your taxes or staying the course in the War on Terror. In a World were the enemy is doing every thing it can to kill a million Americans, we cannot afford to play dangerous games with our country’s security. We cannot afford politicians who will say or do anything to get elected only to find out they were not telling the Truth. This is a time when words mean something and the Truth is all that matters. This is a dangerous World right now and we need a President of principle and integrity and that is what we have in the White House right now. Vote Bush!
Laura Ingraham Rox!!
Pray for W and Our Troops
The Democrat party of traitors needs to be roundly defeated and destroyed at the ballot box this November.
I love Laura Ingraham. I listen every day.. And I WANT her so bad.
My least favorite Democrat of recent memory is Art Torres, head of the California Democratic Party. While he was attending a celebration of the gay marriages going on in San Francisco, he was asked what he thought of the referendum that the people of California had voted for in an overwhelming majority that declared marriage to be the union of a man and woman. He replied that that was only a "poll" and that polls change. I was floored. The press let it pass.
DemonRATS HATE, but they are the ones who are LOATHESOME...MUD
Laura Ingraham SCHWING!
Their mewlings and actions are as maggots crawling on a decaying carcass.
Yep.
Listening to Laura now. She just played a clip of Ten Kennedy singing "Sweet Rosie O'Grady" - with added belches. Too funny!
Heyheyheyhey! That's enough! Better put some ice on that.
You call that "singing"?
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