Monday, September 20, 2004
CBS News: I stand agog.
Tonight the new communications man for the Kerry campaign admitted that, on the advice of a CBS News employee, he had spoken with Bill Burkett. Bill Burkett is the man who produced, or was a distribution channel for the producer of, a set of forged memos that ostensibly “proved” the President Bush was AWOL! charge that was popular among the moonbat crowd a few months back. These documents also somehow ended up in the hands of CBS News, where that old crustacean Dan Rather used them as the basis for a renewed journalistic assault against the administration on this issue.
And this all somehow happened at exactly the same moment that the Democratic National Committee had been preparing a new political assault that prominently featured the old Creedence song “Fortunate Son”. And Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the DNC, is out there saying things like this:
“We know that George Bush was a fortunate son, a child of privilege, who refuses to admit that he used his connections to avoid fulfilling his requirements,”
And that’s all just a great big coincidence?
Since those documents have been revealed as forgeries this thing has been difficult to get a grip on. The outline of it is just too big to be believed. Even the people who have been most ardently pursuing this story (and enjoying Dan Rather’s obvious squirming discomfort) have been reluctant to believe what it seems to me is becoming less and less plausible to deny. It very much appears that CBS news and the Kerry Campaign colluded in a political hit job designed to do… What?
That happens to be the only question I still have on this matter. If this is all designed just to try to counter the damage done to the Kerry campaign by the Swift Vet charges, at a time when the entire country seems to be screaming “Can we please talk about this decade a little? Can we at least fast-forward the conversation into the f**king Nineteen Nineties, for the love of God?!” Then maybe it proves that John Kerry, and his campaign, simply cannot get past the Vietnam issue. Several possible reasons for this seem plausible: Either they’ve got too much invested in the Vietnam reminiscence thing and with six weeks to go they just cannot craft an alternate storyline for the Kerry candidacy in time, or they still genuinely believe in their hearts that it’s a winning formula, and they’re sticking with it. Either way it looks like we could be stuck with all-Vietnam all-the-time now till election day.
Unless it’s all one giant head fake. I heard John Kerry make some sounds that apparently concerned something other than Vietnam whilst speaking before what would have to have been a highly sympathetic audience at New York University today. He might even have been talking about Iraq. If he keeps it up tomorrow then I think what we’ve seen in the last several days is the Kerry Campaign bolting for the finish line, hoping to outrun disaster.
Because let’s face it: for a significant portion of Kerry’s base, the authenticity of the documents is of no concern whatsoever. They’re so completely willing to believe anything bad about Bush that they’ll swallow the “Fake, but accurate” line without blinking. In their minds, Bush can be anything, so long as it’s bad. Deserter? Satan-worshipper? Puppy-strangler? Sure! I don’t need no stinking documents to tell me that!
I think CBS and the Kerry campaign were just trying to scoop up anyone who can be made to believe the “accurate” and simultaneously miss the fake and place them in the Kerry column. If this is all true, then Dan Rather truly did “Fall on his sword” today. Maybe he figures this is as good a way as any to go out. For the cause. Maybe he’s a moonbat, too.
There’s a lot of triumphalism floating around the right-leaning blogosphere for having caught this thing in its early stages, but it may not yet be justified. With the DNC apparently still going ahead with their “Fortunate Son” thing with a straight face, the operation doesn’t seem to me to be over yet. This whole issue is like a political grenade rolling around. Who will it be under when it goes off?
Karl Rove, call your office. I hope you’ve been watching, because it’s time to start campaigning again.
And this all somehow happened at exactly the same moment that the Democratic National Committee had been preparing a new political assault that prominently featured the old Creedence song “Fortunate Son”. And Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the DNC, is out there saying things like this:
“We know that George Bush was a fortunate son, a child of privilege, who refuses to admit that he used his connections to avoid fulfilling his requirements,”
And that’s all just a great big coincidence?
Since those documents have been revealed as forgeries this thing has been difficult to get a grip on. The outline of it is just too big to be believed. Even the people who have been most ardently pursuing this story (and enjoying Dan Rather’s obvious squirming discomfort) have been reluctant to believe what it seems to me is becoming less and less plausible to deny. It very much appears that CBS news and the Kerry Campaign colluded in a political hit job designed to do… What?
That happens to be the only question I still have on this matter. If this is all designed just to try to counter the damage done to the Kerry campaign by the Swift Vet charges, at a time when the entire country seems to be screaming “Can we please talk about this decade a little? Can we at least fast-forward the conversation into the f**king Nineteen Nineties, for the love of God?!” Then maybe it proves that John Kerry, and his campaign, simply cannot get past the Vietnam issue. Several possible reasons for this seem plausible: Either they’ve got too much invested in the Vietnam reminiscence thing and with six weeks to go they just cannot craft an alternate storyline for the Kerry candidacy in time, or they still genuinely believe in their hearts that it’s a winning formula, and they’re sticking with it. Either way it looks like we could be stuck with all-Vietnam all-the-time now till election day.
Unless it’s all one giant head fake. I heard John Kerry make some sounds that apparently concerned something other than Vietnam whilst speaking before what would have to have been a highly sympathetic audience at New York University today. He might even have been talking about Iraq. If he keeps it up tomorrow then I think what we’ve seen in the last several days is the Kerry Campaign bolting for the finish line, hoping to outrun disaster.
Because let’s face it: for a significant portion of Kerry’s base, the authenticity of the documents is of no concern whatsoever. They’re so completely willing to believe anything bad about Bush that they’ll swallow the “Fake, but accurate” line without blinking. In their minds, Bush can be anything, so long as it’s bad. Deserter? Satan-worshipper? Puppy-strangler? Sure! I don’t need no stinking documents to tell me that!
I think CBS and the Kerry campaign were just trying to scoop up anyone who can be made to believe the “accurate” and simultaneously miss the fake and place them in the Kerry column. If this is all true, then Dan Rather truly did “Fall on his sword” today. Maybe he figures this is as good a way as any to go out. For the cause. Maybe he’s a moonbat, too.
There’s a lot of triumphalism floating around the right-leaning blogosphere for having caught this thing in its early stages, but it may not yet be justified. With the DNC apparently still going ahead with their “Fortunate Son” thing with a straight face, the operation doesn’t seem to me to be over yet. This whole issue is like a political grenade rolling around. Who will it be under when it goes off?
Karl Rove, call your office. I hope you’ve been watching, because it’s time to start campaigning again.
