Month: August 2004

More impostor than real?

Psychiatrist Stephen Marmer weighs in on the crucial question of John Kerry’s character: John Kerry is not Frank Sinatra. Sinatra knew who he was and was always himself — which was both a strength and a weakness in his acting career. John Kerry appears not to know who he is or who he wants to … Continue reading “More impostor than real?”

Psychiatrist Stephen Marmer weighs in on the crucial question of John Kerry’s character:

John Kerry is not Frank Sinatra. Sinatra knew who he was and was always himself — which was both a strength and a weakness in his acting career. John Kerry appears not to know who he is or who he wants to be. I have written about his chameleon qualities, how he impersonates a “man of the people” but so often comes across as faux. He cannot take personal responsibility for his actions. “I didn’t fall down, that SOB ran into me.” And “I don’t own an SUV, my family does.” He floats with the prevailing winds, as in “I voted for the $87 Billion before I voted against it.” His so-called Intelligence Committee expertise is faux. His Cambodia Christmas is faux. Perhaps one of his Purple Hearts is faux. His medal tossing caper is faux. His “outrage” at the SBVT 527 Committee is faux. His pledge not to attack President Bush for Bush’s Air National Guard service is faux… have been watching Senator Kerry I have begun to wonder whether deep down he is more imposter than real.

I’m still trying to find out what, if any, core values this character has, by the way.

Question of the week

Duncan “Atrios” Black raised a very interesting question on his blog Sunday: If they’re “the same,” why are the swift boat liars on every news show and Move On people are not? Why indeed? Moveon.org is a partisan organization funded largely by a shadowy billionaire using his influence to elect a president more sympathetic to … Continue reading “Question of the week”

Duncan “Atrios” Black raised a very interesting question on his blog Sunday:

If they’re “the same,” why are the swift boat liars on every news show and Move On people are not?

Why indeed? Moveon.org is a partisan organization funded largely by a shadowy billionaire using his influence to elect a president more sympathetic to his interests and values by running misleading ads, while SwiftVets is a partisan organization funded largely by a millionaire using his influence to re-elect a president sympathetic to his interests and values by running ads some find misleading. The SwiftVets ads are the more above-board since they rely on actual people who are willing to go on record with their complaints against Kerry, and suffer the consequences. The Moveon ads are like the Atrios blog, pseudonymous and unsupported by any verifiable claims.

But the SwiftVets ads are finally getting media attention after the “ignore it and it will go away” strategy didn’t work. It’s also interesting to note just how the MSM broke their silence on the SwiftVet charges: with long, drawn-out “investigative” pieces tracing the web of connections between the Republican Party and the SwiftVets people, as if merely voting Republican were tantamount to committing a crime.

Look, folks, it’s not a surprise that Kerry’s harshest critics are Republicans any more than it’s a surprise that the President’s are French, socialist, and anti-American; we choose sides and that’s where the sides stand right now.

In the evolution of Kerry’s Vietnam Crisis, we’re now at stage two: first they ignore you, then they attack you, then you win. The media’s reaction to the SwiftVets has cost them credibility, as has Kerry’s.

Not only was the man no hero in Vietnam, he hasn’t done anything since Vietnam that was in any way remarkable, so there’s no reason to switch horses at this point in the stream.

The Sopranos

The McGreevey story is starting to sound like an episode from The Sopranos: McGreevey’s new pose as a gutsy, brutally honest politician seems absurd. He was named repeatedly last month in a 47-page federal indictment charging one of the governor’s pals with extorting $40,000 in bribes and campaign contributions from a dairy farmer in Middlesex … Continue reading “The Sopranos”

The McGreevey story is starting to sound like an episode from The Sopranos:

McGreevey’s new pose as a gutsy, brutally honest politician seems absurd. He was named repeatedly last month in a 47-page federal indictment charging one of the governor’s pals with extorting $40,000 in bribes and campaign contributions from a dairy farmer in Middlesex County, McGreevey’s home turf.

Charles Kushner, McGreevey’s largest contributor, was indicted last month on federal charges of fund-raising violations, as well as conspiracy and obstruction. William Watley, McGreevey’s commerce secretary, quit last month when it came to light that he steered state money to a company in which he had a stake.

Two of McGreevey’s top aides – his counsel, Paul Levinsohn, and his chief of staff, Gary Taffet – resigned last year under a cloud.

McGreevey’s undoing appears to have sprung from a sex-and-patronage deal gone bad: Apparently, a secret gay lover on the public payroll decided to sue and/or blackmail the governor.

Dirty politicians, sex, bribery, and blackmail: just another day in the life of the New Jersey Democratic Party machine.

John Kerry’s ever-changing memory

Kerry’s Cambodia Story is Changing Again: “On Christmas Eve he was near Cambodia; he was around 50 miles from the Cambodian border. There’s no indictment of Kerry to be made, but he was mistaken about Christmas in Cambodia,” said Douglas Brinkley, who has unique access to the candidate’s wartime journals. Indeed.

Kerry’s Cambodia Story is Changing Again:

“On Christmas Eve he was near Cambodia; he was around 50 miles from the Cambodian border. There’s no indictment of Kerry to be made, but he was mistaken about Christmas in Cambodia,” said Douglas Brinkley, who has unique access to the candidate’s wartime journals.

Indeed.

Fine example of delusional reasoning

The generally vitriolic anti-Bush blog Notes in Samsara (“samsara” is Sanskrit for “delusion”) cites an interesting lefty blog as a definitive source debunking the Swift Boat Vets charges against Senator Kerry. To check out its reliability, take a look at its treatment of the Cambodia charges here. You’ll find supporting evidence confined to generalities about … Continue reading “Fine example of delusional reasoning”

The generally vitriolic anti-Bush blog Notes in Samsara (“samsara” is Sanskrit for “delusion”) cites an interesting lefty blog as a definitive source debunking the Swift Boat Vets charges against Senator Kerry. To check out its reliability, take a look at its treatment of the Cambodia charges here. You’ll find supporting evidence confined to generalities about American presence in Cambodia, and no mention of the back-tracking the Kerry campaign is doing on the story, trying to re-write history to the effect that Kerry only said he was “close” to Cambodia, not that he was there:

The Kerry campaign first asserted that the Massachusetts senator never said that he was in Cambodia, only that he was near the country. But when presented with a copy of the Congressional Record and asked about Kerry’s letter in the Boston Herald, the campaign said it would come up with an explanation. After repeated phone calls, there was still no clarification.

It’s now becoming evident that Kerry made up his Cambodia story after seeing the movie Apocalypse Now, which makes Kerry look a little Reaganesque. I wonder how many of the Reagan Democrats he can win over with this strategy?

Who blew Khan’s cover?

Remember the Al Qaeda computer dude whose name was allegedly leaked by the Bush Administration to take the heat off Howard Dean’s clams that the recent terror alerts were cooled? Well it turns out that his name was most likely leaked by the Pakistani intelligence service: The American officials would say only that the Qaeda … Continue reading “Who blew Khan’s cover?”

Remember the Al Qaeda computer dude whose name was allegedly leaked by the Bush Administration to take the heat off Howard Dean’s clams that the recent terror alerts were cooled? Well it turns out that his name was most likely leaked by the Pakistani intelligence service:

The American officials would say only that the Qaeda figure whose capture had led to the discovery of the documentary evidence had been captured with the help of the C.I.A. Though Pakistan announced the arrest last week of a Qaeda member, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in connection with the bombings of American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the American officials suggested that he had not been the source of the new threat information.

An account provided by a Pakistani intelligence official made clear that the crucial capture in recent weeks had been that of Mr. Khan, who is also known as Abu Talha. The intelligence official provided information describing Mr. Khan as having assisted in evaluating potential American and Western targets for terrorist attacks, and as being representative of a ”new Al Qaeda.” [Emphasis added]

It’s all pretty speculative still, but it does appear that Reuters jumped the gun in blaming Bush for this fiasco.

Things are getting better in Iraq

Some folks will tell you that things aren’t getting better in Iraq, based on the Brookings survey. You can find this opinion on Kevin Drum’s lefty blog, and in a story he cites in the New York Times. The essence of the claim is that things are actually getting worse because the Army has revised … Continue reading “Things are getting better in Iraq”

Some folks will tell you that things aren’t getting better in Iraq, based on the Brookings survey. You can find this opinion on Kevin Drum’s lefty blog, and in a story he cites in the New York Times. The essence of the claim is that things are actually getting worse because the Army has revised its estimate of enemy combatants to 20,000 from 5,000. This doesn’t actually mean, of course, that 15,000 new combatants have entered the fray, just that the estimate (which was pulled out of somebody’s ass to begin with) has been adjusted. But rather than trying to wade through Kevin’s spin, why not just go to the Brookings web site and see the actual report? It’s not that hard to understand. Here’s one of the graphs that should be of some interest:

Injuries

Now I’m not nearly as clever as Kevin Drum, but to me it does appear that things are getting better for our boys, and frankly that’s the only metric of much interest to me at this point.