Image Credit: kerry.gov
They Eat Their Own When the GOP Attacks
BBSNews Politics 2006-11-01 -- Democrats have once again let Republicans dictate the agenda and swift-boat one of their own in the run-up to the 2006 mid-term election. A clearly tired John Kerry in a speech at Pasadena City College botched a speech where he was being highly critical of President Bush and the mess in Iraq. Kerry answered the charge in Seattle according to the New York Times:
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John Kerry in Iraq.
Image Credit: kerry.gov |
"My statement yesterday -- and the White House knows this full well -- was a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops. The White House's attempt to distort my true statement is a remarkable testament to their abject failure in making America safe. It's a stunning statement about their willingness to reduce anything America, the raw politics. It's their willingness to distort, their willingness to mislead Americans, their willingness to exploit the troops as they have so many times at backdrops, at so many speeches in which they have not told the American people the truth."
And Kerry further released a strong statement where he again notes that Republicans are grasping at anything to turn attention away from Iraq:
"If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have."
What do the Democrats do?
They cut and run from Kerry and validate the Republican charges. One wonders if they even looked at the video? Kerry comes off during the speech looking like a sleepless Senator campaigning hard for a fellow Democrat and who haltingly flubbed up an applause line. At least four Democrats have cancelled appearances with Kerry and Harold Ford, who is himself a victim of vicious race-baiting ads in his own race fell in line with the GOP Karl Rove agenda and now the Democrats are going to let this election slip through their fingers. All because instead of taking Kerry's lead and hitting back hard at the smear and fear that are Republican staples, they simply slink away worried about their own skin.
Where is the Democrats Karl Rove?
If only the Democrats could whip together a concerted flurry of partisan talking points and make them stick. If only they had a Democrat Karl Rove who could encourage them to stick together, to rally to the defense of one of their own, to stand up for context and what is right. Instead the Democrats appear to be cutting and running from the fight, looking for political cover for fear of the dreaded GOP attack machine.
The Democrats who have abandoned John Kerry should have instead been counseled to answer back with topical and timely examples of real gaffes made on the part of Republicans. A few choice ones could have been:
Democrats should grow a spine and fight back against these negative attacks for the most trivial of things and instead keep the focus on the spiraling violence in Iraq, the demand that troops be pulled from Sadr City, and the 655,000 dead Iraqi civilians who have families that won't be throwing any flowers towards our soldiers, they are instead fashioning IED's to kill and maim thousands of United States soldiers sent to fight in a war of choice by President Bush.
But Democrats instead have turned on one of their own and will now lose both in the House and the Senate. Because of the same old lack of focus on the real issues that get people elected, they have chosen to let Republicans rule the agenda once again, and win.
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