# Johm Kerry: Evil sez Drudge **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 4, 2004, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249 "2004-08-04T04:55:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/101 "2004-08-05T15:33:31Z")
> [@SimonX](#): > > …I suspect that I loathe Kerry. Perhaps this seemingly bald statement requires a bit more in the way of explication… Or, as Cyril Connally once remarked “What the fuck?” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/102 "2004-08-05T15:36:44Z")
I \*am \* becoming easily confused in my old age, aren’t I? Well, Mr. “Stone” is welcome to come get Bush _anyhow_. So there. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/103 "2004-08-05T15:44:32Z")
I rise to protest in no uncertain terms **Elvis** remarks encouraging the decimation of the Tasmanian iguana, an entirely befeficient species of great value to…huh?..what?!..no, I don’t need any damn medicine, whippersnapper, gets your hands off of me… ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/104 "2004-08-05T16:04:03Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Perhaps this seemingly bald statement requires a bit more in the way of explication… Or, as Cyril Connally once remarked “What the fuck?” Well, as a general rule this the default position that I take toward national polticians. It’s only a suspicion as of yet. It’s not because of much that I care to elaborate on now. I’m foucusing my resentment on him. I don’t have a choice for president that I feel comfortable with. Yes, I know that it’s _always_ a choice of evils. I’m just getting geared up in case he wins. After he’s sworn in, he’ll end up on my official shit list I’m sure. Hopefully, I’m wrong. But for now, I’m still holding my nose. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/105 "2004-08-05T16:45:30Z")
> [@](#): > > _by GaWd_ > > No, he’s wrong for **YOUR** nation. He’s right for mine. So along with the litany of similarities to Mr Bush, your guy is a divider as well? Fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![GaWd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f08c70/32.png) [@GaWd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaWd)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/106 "2004-08-05T17:39:26Z")
> [@El Cid Viscoso](#): > > So along with the litany of similarities to Mr Bush, your guy is a divider as well? Fascinating. How in the fuck did you distill this gem from my statement? Is now my world to be considered exactly the same as yours, lest my favored candidate be seen as a “divider”? Fucking outrageous! Look, simpleton. Your world and your America must be substantially different if you consider Bush right for “your nation”. It doesn’t make Kerry divisive quite simply because the statement had NOTHING to do with Kerry and everything to do with how you and I see our versions of America. Sam ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/107 "2004-08-05T18:23:01Z")
> [@](#): > > _by GaWd_ > > How in the fuck did you distill this gem from my statement? No distilling necessary. Your partisan statement was 200 proof. > [@](#): > > Your world and your America must be substantially different if you consider Bush right for “your nation”. Well then, you simply haven’t been keeping up on your reading. Do you need me to explain some of what I’ve already written? > [@](#): > > It doesn’t make Kerry divisive quite simply because the statement had NOTHING to do with Kerry and everything to do with how you and I see our versions of America. No, you made Mr Kerry divisive. Don’t you see? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/108 "2004-08-05T19:41:11Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I’ve always thought that if I had to enlist today I’d be in the Navy. Let’s compare- in the Army and Marines you sweat your butt off and get shot at by the locals. In the Navy you stay in the shade on the ship in your own bunk and don’t contend with the locals. Does anyone have data on which service fills its ranks the easiest? **Chefguy** handled this already, but I’d like to ad my two cents. My old ship was the USS Monterey, a guided missile cruiser. Back last winter, a young sailor aboard the ship named George Schultz was walking back to the ship along an icy pier. He slipped and fell into a concrete trench filled with superheated condensate left by a leaky steam line. Third degree scalds were left over eighty percent of his body. It took him two days to die. George Schultz was twenty years old. Not convinced yet? Check out some of the threads I wrote about Navy Cross winners. Certainly not all of them were Marines. Some of them were sailors, and damn fine ones. You might also be interested to learn that Lloyds of London classifies the landing deck of an aircraft carrier as the most dangerous working environment on earth. The people working there are generally in their early twenties, handling multibillion-dollar equipment and explosive ordinance on a daily basis. If you had to enlist today, **BobLibDem** , the Navy probably wouldn’t want your cowardly ass. ---
**Author:** ![GaWd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f08c70/32.png) [@GaWd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaWd)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/109 "2004-08-05T19:50:10Z")
> [@El Cid Viscoso](#): > > No distilling necessary. Your partisan statement was 200 proof. Right, my saying that Bush wasn’t right for me is partisan. :rolleyes: If Bush didn’t have a very pronounced anti-gay and anti-woman, pro-Judeo-Christian, pro big-business, pro war stance, and the Democratic nominee was instead more Bush-like, I’d probably vote for him. I said nothing partisan. Your distiller was working overtime and the fumes got to you. > [@](#): > > No, you made Mr Kerry divisive. Don’t you see? The scary thing is that I’m sure you believe the crap you’re spewing. Hell, you probably say it with a huge shit-eating grin. Sam ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/110 "2004-08-05T21:49:31Z")
We could work on being less divisive. Like, we could just go around talking about how much we love GeeDubya (Praise the Leader!) and what a great job he’s doing, and all that. But somebody is already doing that, so that’s kinda pointless. On top of that, I don’t really want GeeDubya back for another term. No, really. I like the other guy a whole lot better. So, gee, I guess I’ll just have to go on being partisan and divisive. Nothing personal, **Cid**. As this story develops, it also rots. Bits and pieces dribbling out. Like how many of the people in the ad never actually knew John Kerry, or have any information to offer. The ad tucks their comments in with the rest, and allows you to get the impression that the men speaking about thier distaste for John Kerry are _also_ crewmates and participants in the events under discussion. Now, of course, this is a “not lie”: you are permitted, even encouraged, to accept a falsehood at face value, but no lie is actually stated. A lot of these guys, it turns out, are pissed at Kerry for his anti-war testimony, especially the “Winter Soldiers” hearings. When the blurb says “…you can’t trust John Kerry…” it has nothing whatever to do with the actual _events_ in Viet Nam, of which they know nothing more than you or I. This campaign is a masterpiece of political thugee. They can’t be accused of anything directly, there are no facts here to contend, the testimony is all one witness to another. Proof is impossible, but they aren’t interested in proof. They can fold up their tents now and silently creep away, the damage is done. Wherever Lee Atwater is (I have _my_ suspicions), he is smiling. This is an homage to his life’s work. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/111 "2004-08-05T21:59:54Z")
For the record, **Gawd** , **El Cid Viscoso** explicitly stated that he was going to write in a vote of no confidence in November, apparently due to the fact that he lives in a state where the electoral votes are going to go to Charlie McCarthy no matter who he casts his vote for. Were he in a swing state, such a pessimistic attitude would surely be less forgiveable, and you would be far more justified in exhorting him to vote FOR regime chamge, even though it meant voting for Kerry. Still, the fact that he considers Kerry to be the wrong leader does not automatically mean that he considers Charlie McCarthy to be the right one. I must join **El Cid Viscoso** in reprimanding your sloppy reading comprehension habits, at least in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/112 "2004-08-05T22:19:14Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Wherever Lee Atwater is (I have _my_ suspicions), he is smiling. This is an homage to his life’s work. Don’t be so sure. Atwater literally repented and asked forgiveness on his deathbed. That doesn’t happen only in sappy movies. If only others would follow his example, even without the deathbed. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/113 "2004-08-05T22:22:36Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > This campaign is a masterpiece of political thugee. They can’t be accused of anything directly, there are no facts here to contend, the testimony is all one witness to another. Proof is impossible, but they aren’t interested in proof. They can fold up their tents now and silently creep away, the damage is done. > > Wherever Lee Atwater is (I have _my_ suspicions), he is smiling. This is an homage to his life’s work. Absolutely right. Unfortunately, I’m sure we’ll see a lot more ads of this type before November. Anyway, wherever Lee Atwater is, I’m sure Richard Nixon is close by saying, “Now _that’s_ the way we should’ve done it! If we had run things like the people behind Georgie’s idiot son did, the word ‘Watergate’ would still only be the name of an ugly hotel building in Foggy Bottom.” ---
**Author:** ![GaWd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f08c70/32.png) [@GaWd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaWd)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/114 "2004-08-05T22:25:40Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > For the record, **Gawd** , **El Cid Viscoso** explicitly stated that he was going to write in a vote of no confidence in November, apparently due to the fact that he lives in a state where the electoral votes are going to go to Charlie McCarthy no matter who he casts his vote for. Were he in a swing state, such a pessimistic attitude would surely be less forgiveable, and you would be far more justified in exhorting him to vote FOR regime chamge, even though it meant voting for Kerry. > > Still, the fact that he considers Kerry to be the wrong leader does not automatically mean that he considers Charlie McCarthy to be the right one. > > I must join **El Cid Viscoso** in reprimanding your sloppy reading comprehension habits, at least in this thread. I will concede that El Skid mentioned that he wasn’t voting for Bush and I’ll take that back. I didn’t see the need to rehash his posts to clarify that one point. But the rest of my posts aren’t incorrect: I don’t care about anything he had to say except for the last line. He said Kerry wasn’t right for **His** nation and I simply replied that he **was** right for mine(or that Bush was wrong for mine no matter who the candidate; depends on how you look at it). It wasn’t partisan, it was just an opinion and I was attempting to make the point that our worlds were very different indeed. It’s not a question of division as El Skid implies, or whether our candidates are so similar to be considered analogous(they aren’t), in his reply. Sam ---
**Author:** ![cmason32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@cmason32](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmason32)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/115 "2004-08-05T22:29:34Z")
[http://www.moveon.org/images/bushkerry.gif](http://www.moveon.org/images/bushkerry.gif) Just thought this was interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/116 "2004-08-05T23:26:07Z")
> [@](#): > > WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry’s military service “dishonest and dishonorable” and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well. > > The White House declined. > > “It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me,” McCain said in an interview with The Associated Press, comparing the anti-Kerry ad to tactics in his bitter Republican primary fight with President Bush. [http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040805/D84991NG0.html](http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040805/D84991NG0.html) Anyone surprised Bushco declined to denounce it? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/117 "2004-08-05T23:30:12Z")
And this just in… CNN had two guys on talking about this whole _mishigas_, one, a Jim Rassman, the guy whom Kerry _allegedly_ dragged out of the water. The other guy, a fellow named Thurlow, is a front guy for this “Swift Boat” team. Contradicting Rassman, Thurlow claims that there was no enemy fire at the time, no injuries, etc., thus Kerry’s award of the Bronze Star was bogus. However, it turns out the story was also written up, this past April, in _American History_ magazine, with the following quote: “…Kerry and the other wounded men received medical attention aboard a Coast Guard cutter, which was the closest ship capable of treating them. Along with a third Purple Heart for the injury to his right arm, Kerry was also awarded a Bronze Star for his bravery, as was _Larry Thurlow_…” (emphasis gleefully added) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/118 "2004-08-05T23:31:11Z")
> [@El Cid Viscoso](#): > > But you know what? When then-Governor Clinton gave his tremendous speech, that magnificent show of force at the Democratic Convention, I knew he would win. I just knew it. > > And then as the first wafts of Clinton’s victory drifted around the jamb, I was fetal on the floor, full of whiskey and howling into my new cordless phone, as my fiancée struggled to hear me on the other end of the line. The raw force of Bill Clinton in 1992 was a tempest, a tide of words and personality. When the storm receded, the land had reluctant fecundity, prosperity, crapulence…listlessness. Emptiness. Well, I gotta say that’s an interesting analysis, in no way rebuttable since it’s totally about personal perception. Others, of course, perceive Clinton’s administration differently. Especially now that we’ve got three and a half years of a new yardstick to measure it by. Instead of debating what ‘is’ is, we can debate what ‘WMDs’ are, and what a ‘relationship’ is. We can total up the astounding number of times Bush has lied to us, we can gape at the wreck Bush has made, in just a few short years, of our nation’s so recently sound finances, what a wreck he’s made of Iraq, and what a wreck he’s making of our military. He’s been pretty nasty to the environment, too. Looking back at Clinton through the muddy prism of the Bushies, it’s still possible to recall and discern a time when grownups were running the country, rather than half-baked ideologues willing to use Americans, Iraqis, and anyone else within reach as guinea pigs for their idiotic theories. Ideologues who couldn’t even get employment in academia, but fortunately for them, during the Clinton years they could publish their crackpot articles from right-wing think tanks, without having to pass the muster of peer review - even that of like-minded peers. > [@](#): > > The men and women who serve our country deserve respect, but they’re not beyond question. I came up next to some real bulletproof rat-bastards. They’d cut out your guts with a bayonet, eat your shit and sneak out at night just to hump back and crap into your cold, dead mouth. Colonels, majors, generals, fathers and husbands. I agree with you there: persons who’ve served can be as good or bad as the rest of us. My point was that the right-wing noise machine did an excellent job in 1992 and 1996 of establishing military service as a matter that should count above almost all else – and we’re gonna make sure those rules are kept in play, now that the party they favor has changed, no matter how much they try to weasel. > [@](#): > > I wanted to be behind him. I have a Colorado farm to support, so I _desperately_ wanted to be behind him, but I can’t. He’s wrong for our nation. If it’s all about thumbs-up or thumbs-down on Kerry, without anyone else involved (like, should you go to the dance with this guy, or just stay home?) that would be one thing. But given that one of these two guys, Kerry or Bush, will be sworn in as President next January 20, it’s hard for me to see how whatever sort of gut feeling you have about Kerry can stack up against the astoundingly negative record of achievement Bush has piled up in such a short time. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/119 "2004-08-05T23:42:09Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Thurlow claims that there was no enemy fire at the time, no injuries, etc., thus Kerry’s award of the Bronze Star was bogus.\Kerry was also awarded a Bronze Star for his bravery, as was _Larry Thurlow_…" Holy cow, that is a good one. These guys are thick. Did they think nobody would check into their claims? ---
**Author:** ![cmason32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@cmason32](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmason32)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249/120 "2004-08-05T23:43:55Z")
I just realized you spelled John wrong, you commie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/johm-kerry-evil-sez-drudge/258249.md?page=7)