[QUOTE=Loopydude]
Jeez, Howard Dean had fire out the wahzoo, and half the Dem.
Sadly, it’s starting to look like the average American is a little on the thick side, and would rather have a version of themselves in the Oval Office than someone they should rightly look up to. It seems strange that it’s bad for a candidate to appear too thoughtful, too cautious, too intellectual, and so on.Well fuck the voter then, I say.
[QUOTE]
Where have you gone,
Adlai Stevenson,
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you
Coo coo choo…
A very persuasive argument may be made that there has been deliberate campaign to destroy public educaton over the last 25 years or so, in the interests of dumbing down the electorate.
Whether intentional or not, the result has been achieved…
Reading this I get the distinct impression that the biggest knock on Senator Kerry is that is not likely to be elected as homecoming king at Generation X High School. We have had homecoming king types before. Former Senator Quail is one that springs to mind, as does the present incumbent in the White House.
Right now the campaign ads I am seeing are determinedly asserting that President Bush is a John Wayne type – firm jaw, tall in the saddle, intent on battling terrorism where ever he can imagine it might be found – while claiming that a vote by Senator Kerry against some multi-billion Department of Defense appropriation bill at an unspecified time was a vote against flack vests and Bradley Vehicles (the tallest APC in the known universe). I can only hope that sometime before November the sleeping portion of the electorate that has not irrevocably aligned with Senator Kerry or the President and his merry band of want-to-be robber barons will wake up and start to sort out the deceptions and maybe ask some questions. Questions like why did our divisions go into Iraq without their full TO&E of armored vehicles, why are civilian contractors running detention facilities and doing prisoner interrogation without military supervision, and how does letting a coal fired electric plant up wind from me buy pollution credits from God knows where protect my grandchildren from mercury poisoning, and what does the present administration plan to do about the 130 people in my little town who are out of work because the luggage plant decided to produce their stuff in China.
It may well be that the American people prefer flash and a big hat to thoughtful and responsible, but I sure hope we are smarter than that. I trust that we are smarter than that. Right now I’d take any amount of tedious as long as it comes with a fair serving of competence and candor.
Spavined
What you said about the Bush Campaign Ads hits the proverbial nail on the head - they are trying to portary him as a John Wayne type. I would agree with that 150% - just as Mr Wayne totally avoided military service, Dubya Bush did serve in an extremely safe, non-combatant Texas National Guard unit. At the time wasn’t there a war going on ??? Sure talk tough, look tough but let someone else fight your nation’s wars for you. And slightly off-topic, Charlie Daniels also fits this profile perfectly - conservative - 150% American - heck he’s “Still In Saigon” - a conservative telling off those “awful” war protestors - and military service ? NOTHING
Good points! It’s really up to everyone on Kerry’s side to work to help get him into office and Bush out. Truth is, the political junkies here (and I include myself) have mainly made up their minds. We’re part of the often quoted 40% on either side. What we need to do is get the message out to the fence-sitters and people who generally don’t vote that live in the real world outside of the SDMB.
Bush’s side has little positive in the way of meaningful accomplishments to work with other than to try to claim that he is a “leader”, that we shouldn’t change horses in mid-stream during a war (that he started) and that there hasn’t been a terrorist attack in the USA since 9-11. Barring some unlikely successes in Iraq or capturing OBL one month before the election, it seems that GWB is swimming up-river and the current is getting stronger. So given that the Bush team has little else to talk about in the way of real accomplishments that mean something to the average voter, his people will clearly be working hard to beat-up on Kerry and do their best to distract everyone from GWB’s real record.
OTOH, Kerry’s side has a lot more to work with (both positive vision and negative ammunition against Bush - see my post #40 in this thread). We need to make sure that Bush’s overall record stays in the public eye (write to newspapers, write to the news shows on TV and radio, work for his campaign if you have the time, etc.). Lastly, I’m also buoyed by the number of veteran groups that are not supporting Bush and by the occasional stories I see of staunch republicans who come out against Bush or say they won’t be voting at all.
I hate to get back into the “chicken hawk” thing on this. There were way too many people who found a way to avoid Vietnam to get too excited about it – Hell, I would have too if I had the chance. What offends me, and this is a very minor gripe, is the pretense that somehow the President did something during that awful time that he should be proud of and we should admire. What offends more is the attempt to diminish Senator Kerry’s service on active duty, in the anti-war movement and in Congress by a barrage of half truths that sound plausible in 15 second sound bites but simply don’t hold water when examined. What offends me still more is the pretense that Senator Kerry is unworthy because he chooses to give a subject that is worth more than 15 seconds the time and thought it is worth.
I suppose the problem is a tendency to confuse impulsiveness and pig-headedness with decisiveness and resolution.
I also fear that the President and his boys have already screwed up the American position in the Middle East so badly that the reincarnation of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and both Roosevelts could not redeem it, let alone a boring liberal New England Senator who speaks French. The question then is whether we reward the very people who put us in this fiasco by awarding them another four years in office in the forlorn hope that they will find a way to muddle their way out of it in another four years.
I can’t help but wonder what good soldier Collin thinks of all this – there may come a time when he figures out that a simple salute and about face is not the answer for him or for the country.
Spavined
Oh but the “chickenhawk” issue is something that is well worth reviving. If anything, it would be something that Kerry could plaster Bush with in a debate - such as “How and Why did my opponent get into the National Guard when at the time 1) the Guard was VERY difficult to enter and 2) Joining the Guard (at that time) was your way of assuring yourself that you would be minimizing your chances of ever being sent to Vietnam.”
Heck, never mind the fact that Bush may not have served his full 6 years of Guard Duty. The fact is, he made the choice to join the Guard. I am an American that would like to hear him answer why. Sure, it’s fun to avoid fighting in a war and then later play “pretend” soldier (Bush on the deck of the aircraft carrier, John Wayne in any war film and Charlie “Still In Saigon” Daniels). But the fact is 1) you had a chance to fight for your country in a war and 2) you did NOT take it. Bush could invent some bullshit excuse to spew by saying “On second thought it might have been appropriate to have gone to Vietanm, etc”. Well too late. Second thoughts about past actions can only be heeded and corrected in the past. People have asked me why do I dredge up an issue that is over 30 years old. Well, to me Bush and Kerry made their decisions when they were adults and as such this reflects their adult attitudes regarding personal responsibility.
Nah, it was merely a recent example. I have better things to do on my lunch hour than to document every time someone tosses out a limp-wristed excuse for Bush’s lack of articulation.
Y’know, I’m extremely skeptical of people in their twenties who appear to be positioning themselves for a presidential run in the future.
John Kerry, Al Gore and Bill Clinton all seem to fit this mold. George Bush, to his great credit, does not.
I will not, and can not, defend every action George Bush has taken in his life. But it is admirable, in a way, to have lived a dissolute life as a young man and to have cleaned up your act later. George Bush stopped drinking, and rediscovered public service. He served as governor of Texas, and now President.
That simple story resonates well with many people.
In contrast, with Kerry, I see courage squandered. The man who once was so brave as to beach his boat to rescue his men would now go, hat in hand, to other nations and the U.N., begging them to assist us with our own defense.
The courage of the war hero and the principled protester has deteriorated. John Kerry now doesn’t have the moral courage to take principled stands on one side or the other on major issues, and fight for them. Equivocation can be a sign of weakness and moral laxity, and John Kerry equivocates all the time.
Mr Moto
You were joking in that response about Dubya Bush right?
I think you just left out the [sarcasm] brackets.
Sure, Mr Bush is now much more willing to face responsibility and public service. Maybe he’s cleaned up his act but 1) There’s no more draft 2) Even if it were re-instated he’d be too old 3) Even if they did deem him physically fit to be drafted in some future war, he’d find some way to weasel out of it.
It’s nice to say forget the past, see what Dubya has done now but as I’ve said choices made in the past can only be changed in the past. He made his choice and to and is stuck with it. He easily could have served in Vietnam and he didn’t. To me, that speaks volumes.
Tell me honestly, wolf-meister did you vote for Bill Clinton? Or, if you didn’t, would you have given him fair consideration, despite his history on this same issue?
Fair is fair, after all. And Clinton did put service members in harm’s way during his presidency. I served in the Navy from 1993 to 1998, so this is very fresh in my mind.
It seems to me that only the most partisan observer would consider a young adulthood of, most charitably, general aimlessness as laudable preparation for the President of the United States. I’m all for nominating him as most improved, but to compare this favorably to anyone else’s youth seems, well, entirely unreasonable.
It also seems to me that in nearly every way, Bush personally benefits from the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” He certainly came off well in the debates with Gore simply because he did not shit himself. Here you would have the fact that he spent his time snorting cocaine, driving while intoxicated, and causing his father to consider violent intervention as somehow superior to and more admirable than serving with marked distinction in harm’s way, returning home to lead the fight to stop an unjust and ill-guided war, serving as a prosecutor and becoming a multiple term senator. In your book it appears that it is better to be a fuckup and turn your life around than never to have been a fuckup at all. I would argue that by avoiding being put in harms way by jumping to the head of the line for the Air National Guard, he was being preened for future political office in the worst possible way. He neither needed to put himself on the line, nor did he need to come out against the war or justify avoiding service. Pretty cowardly, if you ask me.
Equivocates, bullshit. Bush is extraordinarily cowardly when it is his ass that is in the sling. Didn’t he, with great flourish, promise to go back to the UNSC for a straight up or down vote? Why didn’t he do so? Doesn’t this show a lack of fortitude and principle? Isn’t it exceptionally cowardly to out someone’s wife to get back at them, as his administration has done in the Plame case? Isn’t it a matter of cowardice to present a less than factual argument for going to war in the first place? Was he afraid that people would disagree if he told the truth? Doesn’t it show a great lack of integrity to be unable to honestly discuss any mistakes you might have made? Isn’t it cowardice to be unable to appear before the 9/11 commission on your own, but rather require your VP to hold your hand? His entire history is one of avoidance and obsequiousness. The man is false bravado and gutlessness incarnate. An asterisk with a centurion’s helmet is completely apropos for Bush II.
Your whole post drips of “moral laxity,” equivocation and spinning. Would you argue that he is less “morally lax” if he had spent a chunk of his time snorting and drinking and wasting his life? Seems exceptionally hypocritical to me. I know that, if I were in the water and under fire, I would prefer knowing that Kerry was in command of the boat rather than Bush.
By the way, out of curiosity, just exactly where and how did Clinton put you in harm’s way? How and why do you differ with the decisions he made?
I didn’t say me, specifically. But the duties of Commander-in Chief include sending people into combat. Sometimes these people die.
The chickenhawk label could have easily been pasted on Clinton. I think that’s overly simplistic, but there you go. And anybody who criticizes Bush, an honorably discharged veteran, with this slander after voting for Bill Clinton is a hypocrite of the highest order.
This would, incidentally, include John Kerry himself:
Now, what’s changed in the twelve years since John Kerry made this speech on the Senate floor? Other than his presidential candidacy, and the need to milk as much as he can out of his Vietnam status?
For the record, I served in direct support of Operations Sharp Guard and Deny Flight against the former Yugoslavia, while stationed in Sigonella, Sicily from 1994 to 1996. So, yes, I am a veteran of a Bill Clinton war.
Mr Moto
Yes, I did vote for Bill Clinton (I looked unsuccessfully for a previous posting of mine proving my bipartisan position by stating “Did Bush or Clinton want to go to Vietnam? No. They easily could have gone there if they wanted to do so - but they didn’t.”) Darned - you’ll just have to take my word for that posting (I MUST have made that more than once - maybe it was another message board.)
How about Howard Dean? He had a medical draft deferment (back problem) yet he was still found to be skiing after getting the deferment. As you probably know Mr Moto, a LOT of people did NOT want to go to Vietnam.
Yes, it might seem hypocritical that I judge Dubya Bush much harsher than Clinton. And it is not for any political reason - just personal. To me it seems, Dubya Bush has had Mom and Dad take care of him all his life. Grades aren’t good enough for Yale? Need to get into the Guard ahead of everyone? Need help with those minor scrapes with the law for alcohol and drugs? Need political support from the “right” people? Mom and Dad will take care of it. As I’ve said I feel that Dubya Bush is like the spoiled neighborhood kid everyone knows, who has had Mom and Dad do all the right things for him so he gets ahead in this world in spite of himself. Maybe it’s just my petty hatred or jealousy but people make voting decisions on less than that.
Putting aside all that political stuff, Mr Moto, you are a veteran (a war veteran perhaps) ? That is something of which to be proud.
By all rights, given what we know from his published records, Bush should not have received an honorable discharge. Hell, he didn’t sign in and couldn’t be found much of the time! And not only did he manage to jump the line to get into the Guard, he pulled enough strings (through mommy and daddy, as Wolf_meister mentioned) to get out early to attend graduate school. Bottom line is that Bush did not not EARN his “honorable discharge”, it was handed to him on a silver platter. Frankly, they were probably glad to get rid of someone like him with his political connections. Tagging Bush as “an honorably discharged veteran” is the same as saying an embezzler who gets off on a technicality is innocent. While they may be innocent in the eyes of the law, if you knew the details up front, you probably wouldn’t hire him as your CFO, regardless of what the law says. You would be judging his true character, not what a piece of paper said.
He is, nonetheless, an honorably discharged veteran, same as me. Incidentally, his service is classified, in legal terms, just as honorably as John Kerry’s. The same veteran’s benefits would accrue to both men.
Bill Clinton is not an honorably discharged veteran.
As I said, it’s not that big a deal, thirty years on. John Kerry said as much on the Senate floor, and I’m inclined to agree with him. But anybody who judges Bush more harshly than Clinton on military service is a damn hypocrite, in my book. And I’ll say so up front.
Lastly, I am proud of being a veteran. But I’m disturbed at this trend toward giving some sort of veteran’s status “affirmative action” in politics. I’ve noted in many threads that many of our greatest wartime presidents didn’t have significant military service - Lincoln comes to mind. And we’ve elected some veterans that turned out to be losers, like Carter and Grant.
I’ve made my judgements on the character of Bush and Kerry. I’ve weighed their political positions as well, in relation to mine. On both, I’m going with the guardsman over the war hero. There are a lot of veterans, including veterans of wars, who feel the same way I do.
I think Kerry has problems among veterans in general though, ones he’d be wise to address.
The medals flap was a big issue, not so much the fact that he threw them than the fact that his various explanations were inconsistent. It didn’t help his image as a decisive leader.
Kerry also royally pissed off Guard and Reserve veterans when he made this statement:
Source: L.A. Times, 2/4/04
Guard veterans see this as equating their honorable service with jail time or draft dodging. And they’re not happy about it.
Add to this quite legitimate concerns about Kerry’s defense priorities as a Senator. Kerry called for the Tomahawk system to be sliced in half in his 1984 senate run. The Tomahawk continues to be our premier naval strike weapon, flying hundreds of miles to strike targets with incredible precision. Without this weapon, the job would have to be done with carrier based strike aircraft, and more American pilots would likely die.
I think this reflects a skewed sense of priorities on the part of John Kerry.
(Disclaimer: I work for a defense contractor. Even if I didn’t, though, my views on this subject would be largely unchanged.)
