Kerry Haters: We're Not Fonda John

 
Gregory Kane has some good advice for Kerry on race issues.

A not-so-minor correction is in order here. Conservatives support affirmative action, the kind that President Johnson's Executive Order 11246 said should be done without regard to race, color, creed or ethnic origin. What liberals support - and have been misnaming affirmative action for years - are blatantly discriminatory racial preferences.

However, I'm somewhat baffled by this:

Kerry seemed genuinely surprised when I told him what several black folks in Columbia, S.C., had told me just before their state's primary: that a Kerry/John Edwards ticket could beat Bush/Cheney or Bush/Whoever in November.

I'm not sure if he's talking about the national election or South Carolina. If it's the latter, I doubt it very strongly; if it's the former, why is he bringing folks in Columbia into the discussion? Kerry has little chance of winning South Carolina, a Republican stronghold which Bush carried by almost 16 percentage points in 2000.

 
He's Tired

Hard to figure out what else Kerry means with this quote:

"I'm tired of talking about valuing families and not valuing families," Kerry said.

 
Rats Deserting a Sinking Ship?

The New York Times can't help wondering about the rapid departure of Kerry communications consultant Howard Wolfson, who was hired on Monday and left on Friday.

Mr. Wolfson did not have a disparaging word about his 72 hours in Kerry’s orbit, and expressed regret that it had not worked out. Asked to describe what it was like working there, Mr. Wolfson responded with one word: "Short."

No kidding.

Oddly this story does not show in the New York Times archive; I found it in Yahoo news, but as you can see, it's a New York Times link.

 
Comments Added!

A warning. Abusive comments towards other posters will be deleted (as soon as I figure out how). Moderate abuse of me is acceptable. Comments using racist language will also be deleted and the IP of the offending party blocked from making further comments (ditto). Particularly stupid comments (Bush is a Nazi, etc.) will either be deleted or changed to reflect even more poorly on the poster if that is possible.

Intelligent comments from fellow Kerry haters and Kerry fans are welcome. I particularly encourage the latter to correct me on any statements of fact in this blog that can be disproven. Links to stories in support of your comments are encouraged; just be aware that I may be less impressed with stories from sites like the World Socialist Website or The Militant than the American Prospect or the New York Times, and less impressed with stories from those sites than the National Review or The New Republic.

Try to keep the comments on-topic. I will try to remember to put up open topics occasionally where you can meander. Try to keep the comments related to John Kerry, although of course, if there is a news item about a Bush response to a Kerry proposal, that would be an acceptable diversion.

 
More Blog Thoughts--And An Announcement!

I try to keep track of where my visitors are coming from. Is it a link from a comment I made, a link from a fellow blogger, a web search, or "unknown". The purpose of checking was to make sure that if somebody had linked to me, I put up a reciprocal link, plus of course getting to know the other blogs that found my work interesting. Airborne Combat Engineer (ACE) for example is now one of my regular stops while blog-surfing, and I doubt I would ever have found him had he not linked to me. Ditto with Rambling's Journal, a site I recommend highly.

Early on, the "unknowns" were mostly from me, checking to see how the blog looked (ugly, I know!), and to make sure that my links still worked, or that a change I had made did not send the whole site crashing. But lately I have noticed a change--fewer referring links and more "unknowns". Because I was used to discounting the unknowns, at first I was disappointed at this. Then I realized that it probably means more and more people either have me in their history or on their favorites list. Another good sign was that quite a few of the referrals were from Yahoo and Google searchs for "Kerryhaters" and "Kerry Haters", showing that people were looking for me in particular or in general.

So far I have resisted putting up a comments page, mostly because I expect a fair amount of abuse from Democrat partisans. However, I also want to foster a sense of community about this page, and give room for others to express themselves and link to their blogs. So, with a bit of trepidation, I am going to add comments to this blog.

 
More Bad Poll Numbers for Kerry

CBS News did a poll last week (scroll down a bit) asking voters about how the two candidates were running their campaigns; whether they were explaining what they'd do as president or attacking the other candidate. For President Bush the responses were 41% explaining, 43% attacking. For Kerry, the responses were 31% explaining, 53% attacking. When asked whether either candidate had attacked the other unfairly, most felt that both had either been fair or equally unfair, but 21% felt that Kerry alone had attacked unfairly, while only 12% felt that Bush alone had attacked unfairly.

 
Nuancy Boy Slipping in Pennsylvania

(Via Crush Kerry) Pennsylvania is known as the Keystone State, and in 2004 it is certainly a keystone for John Kerry. In 2000, Al Gore won PA by about four percentage points. However, a new poll shows Kerry losing, 46%-40%. Kerry was winning there 47%-46% last month. This indicates that the negative advertising the Bush campaign has been running is having an effect. Kerry's negatives jumped to 33% from 26%, while his positives only climbed from 36% to 37%.

There are some negatives in the poll for Bush. Only 45% of the respondents felt he deserved re-election. And surprisingly, Bush is leading handily among Catholics and Protestants, but losing badly among Jewish respondents, 18%-73%. Perhaps the swing to Bush among Jewish voters has not been as pronounced as many have claimed.

 
New Caption Contest at Captain's Quarters

I love the picture, it's a classic of the "I'm not an athlete, but I pretend to be one for the cameras," genre.

 
Be of Good Cheer; These Polls are Temporary Phenomena

Perhaps a little anecdote will illustrate things. As I may have mentioned before, I grew up in a leftist household. Not quite as leftist as David Horowitz, perhaps, but still pretty leftist. My grandfather on my mother's side ran for Alderman in Syracuse on the socialist ticket during one of the years Eugene Debs was running. My parents subscribed to Commonweal and were active in the anti-Vietnam War movement, and were county coordinators for Eugene McCarthy in 1968. I worked as a (very-low level) volunteer for both McCarthy and McGovern, mostly stuffing envelopes and delivering flyers from door-to-door. I also worked as part of the "bucket brigade" at two McGovern speeches, wandering among the crowd with a KFC-style bucket, soliciting contributions. I went conservative in the 1980s, but the rest of my family has stayed fairly liberal. My dad did vote for Bush in 2000, but all my siblings remained Democrats.

At Christmas this year, my younger brother surprised me. One of our uncles (who is still a liberal) said something nasty about Bush. Mark said with amazement something along the lines of, "Well, isn't everybody glad that Bush was president on 9-11? I sure was!" My older sister (actually she's the older of the two; I'm the eldest) looked daggers at him, as well as two of the uncles, but I managed to steer the conversation away from the subject. Christmas is a time for family harmony, not for acrimony.

Both of my sisters are in town for Easter and last night we went out for dinner. Typically I'm the one who brings up politics, but this time, my younger sister brought up the subject, asking my older sister whom she was planning on voting for. Not surprisingly, the answer was Kerry. So my younger sister went onto this tirade about how could you vote for Kerry, he's going to undermine the war on terror, I'm voting for Bush because he's the one whose going to keep my kids safe. I managed to cool things down a bit by pointing out that my older sister's state (Kansas) is solid Bush, and that if he needs her vote to win the state, he'd be losing so badly that it wouldn't matter. But my younger sister wouldn't let it die there. She begged my older sister, that if there is another terrorist attack just prior to the election (as happened in Spain) that she would consider voting for Bush to send the terrorists a message that they can't intimidate us.

I was so proud of her! Oh, and she voted for Gore in 2000!

We're going to win this thing. (Crossposted to Brainster's Blog)

 
Om Mani Kerry Om?

David Limbaugh suggests that Kerry needs a new mantra.

John Kerry reminds me of a wind-up doll who just keeps repeating the same criticisms about President Bush's policy in Iraq over and over, regardless of how irrelevant they are to the current situation there.

As I have pointed out several times before (see Kerry on the Issues), this appears to be because Kerry himself has no policy on Iraq other than to magically get more international support.

 
Mr Fixit

The WaPo's Lois Romano has an article about how Kerry's going to repair our damaged international relationships, by getting them to shoulder more of the burden in Iraq.

"Why is that the United States of America is almost alone in carrying this burden and the risks ... (when) the world has so much at stake," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee asked a packed town hall gathering here.

Now think about this for a second. However much we deplore US casualties, does anybody really believe that making them, oh, say, French casualties, is going to make the French like us more?

 
Will the Left Support Kerry?

It's beginning to look like Kerry will find it difficult to follow Richard Nixon's dictum and run towards the center after having sewn up the nomination. William Greider has a piece in The Nation attacking Kerry from the port side.

The Kerry team, according to the Times, includes four other investment bankers. That's no doubt comforting to Wall Street donors, not so comforting to less-powerful constituencies. Sperling has already proclaimed in various articles "a new consensus on free trade" (this will be news to Kerry's labor supporters). In an "open memo" to the Democratic nominee on "How to Be a Free Trade Democrat" (published in Foreign Policy before Kerry locked up the nomination), Sperling sounded a lot like the DLC or even the Business Roundtable.

 
Loads O' Links

Came across some more anti-Kerry sites.

Crush Kerry is one of those rare weblogs that is both visually pleasing and content rich. And the guy who runs it is named Patrick! How can you go wrong? By not clicking on the link and visiting there today.

Dirty Kerry has plenty of links to news stories and a very attractive logo. Minimal original content, but definitely worth a daily visit.

John Kerry, Two-Faced Gold-Digger looks to be a newer site, but there is obviously some thought behind it. Like all the sites mentioned, it's much more attractive than mine. (Sigh!)

John F Kerry Sucks has lots of good news links and a cute little pop quiz on the opening page.

John F'n Kerry, aka Kerry Core, has lots of cool content and a great look. Be sure to check out the MetroSpy John Kerry ads. And click on the link that asks if you're still sick enough to contribute to Kerry--what a gas! Don't contribute, though, of course!

John Kerry, Liberal Asshat has some interesting content although it looks like it hasn't been updated lately.

 
John Kerry on the Issues--II

(Via Best of the Web Today) The New York Times had an article dated yesterday about how the upsurge in attacks in Iraq posed problems for both the President and the Botoxicated Brahmin.

As reported below, Kerry has been so focused on the issue that his last website update on Iraq is from before the Iowa Caucuses. TheTimes, however, gives us this update:

"Right now, what I would do differently is, I mean, look, I'm not the president, and I didn't create this mess so I don't want to acknowledge a mistake that I haven't made," Mr. Kerry said on Wednesday on CNN.

Uh, John, you just made a mistake.

 
Who Is Zach Exley?

(Via No John Kerry) Frontpage Mag has a good profile of Zach Exley, the MoveOn staffer who left to join ol' Horseface's campaign. Top observation:

It will be interesting to see how Exley’s well-documented hate-America attitude jives with the Kerry campaigns desperate rush for the center and the crucial independent voters. In a commentary on MoveOn.org last year, Exley urged his fellow Democrats to "reject false, jingoistic patriotism."

 
John Kerry, Fiscal What?

On the heels of the WaPo's ridiculous editorial (see prior comment) comes the NY Times, with an editorial entitled "John Kerry, Fiscal Conservative".

Yesterday at Georgetown University, Senator John Kerry delivered a forceful speech on the virtues of responsible budgeting. On top of his recent nuanced proposals on corporate taxes, Mr. Kerry's performance suggested he is starting to hit his stride in thinking and talking about the economy.

Of course, not even the Times can pull this off with a straight face:

For all his promises about making the numbers balance, it's hard to imagine how he could combat the deficit, expand health care benefits, increase spending on education and grant middle-class Americans more tax breaks simply by rescinding the Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $200,000.

Hard to imagine, indeed.

 
Deficiency Judgment

I debated not linking to this editorial in the Washington Post. It's entitled "Mr. Kerry's Deficiency", which would make it sound like a natural. But it's full of crap in several places.

The thrust of the article is that Kerry's budget plans don't add up. But the details are handled shoddily, and the editorial, while nominally criticizing Kerry, ends up slamming Bush more. For example:

The Kerry plan would be fairer and a wiser use of the money. It's better to take away tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and spend it on health care for the uninsured.

This may seem apparent to the WaPo, but it is not apparent to me.

Here's an example of the shoddy reasoning, and how they temper their criticism of Kerry by slamming Bush at the same time:

The four-year window is misleadingly narrow, because -- as with the president's -- the costs of Mr. Kerry's tax plan explode after that. Mr. Kerry's proposed changes in the current tax law would save about $25 billion through 2009 but would cost more than $640 billion over the full 10 years.

Of course, Kerry's tax plan "saves" $25 billion by not giving it back to the people. And it "costs" $640 billion because it does not take it away from the people. But the bigger problem is the notion that the Post (or Kerry) has any idea what tax plans will "save" or "cost" the government. During the runup to the vote on the first Bush tax cuts we heard endlessly from the Democrats that it would "cost" X billion dollars over the first ten years, but (they told us) even that was misleading, because the costs "exploded in the out years".

The problem with looking at the out years is not obvious to people who don't do projections all the time. I do, and I have for about 25 years. The simple fact of the matter is that projections tend to be fairly accurate for about a year or two out. After that, they typically diverge dramatically in one direction or another because intervening events are more important than the assumptions underlying the projection.

And changing the assumptions even slightly can have a dramatic effect on the projections. Suppose we have tax collections of $1 trillion, and we assume that tax collections will grow by 3%. By the tenth year, collections will have grown to $1.304 trillion. Now suppose instead that we assume instead that tax collections will grow by 4%. In that case, collections will grow to $1.423 trillion, a difference of $119 billion. The additional $119 billion is about 28% of the increase in the collections. But the effect increases over time, so that in the second ten years the difference amounts to 56% of the growth in years 11-20.

This shows that it's the assumptions that drive the "out" years, and that even a minor change in the assumptions can result in a major change in the results. So whenever you hear anybody talking about what happens with a tax law change years into the future, you know that they are feeding you a line of bull.

 
Kerry On the Issues Part I

Just thought I'd check and see what Nuancy Boy is saying on the hot issues of our time. It is clear that Kerry is focusing like a laser on the subject of Iraq, which is after all, something of a major issue:

Plan for Winning the Peace in Post-Saddam Iraq

Saddam’s Capture Represents Opportunity to Rebuild Alliances and Iraq

Speaking in Iowa, John Kerry outlined a plan for winning the peace in Post-Saddam Iraq, trying the former Iraqi leader, and building a lasting coalition to support our operations.

Yep. That's right, John Kerry is so focused on Iraq that his website's last update on it is apparently from before the Iowa Caucuses--maybe even before New Year's Day!

 
Second Runner Up in the Captain's Caption Contest!

If you haven't checked out Captain's Quarters, I highly recommend it. He's been scooping the lamestream media like crazy, plus his guest judges have impeccable taste in humor. BTW, I'm making progress; last week I was the third runner-up!

 
It's a French Thing Part Deux

Roger Cohen notes that things are getting nasty. Those mean old Republicans are accusing Kerry of looking French!

However, his argument is surely undercut by this:

That the French hope that Mr. Kerry will replace Mr. Bush in the White House is no secret. Jean-Marie Colombani, the editor of Le Monde, recently told New Yorkers that Mr. Kerry "even looks French." This time, the tone was one of approval.

Even the French say he looks French!

 
Poor Little Rich Boy, Part Deux

Franklin Foer writes of Kerry's 40th high school reunion:

Toward the meal's end, the class president, a Boston lawyer named Lloyd Macdonald, rose to give a toast. He wanted to celebrate his classmates who had devoted their careers to public service. As he ticked off the names - FBI Director Robert Mueller; the State Department's top lawyer, Will Taft; federal Judge Alvin A. Schall - the sexagenarians bathed the room in loud applause. But, when Macdonald uttered the name of the junior senator from Massachusetts, the response was somewhat different. According to witnesses, only scattered boos broke the silence.

Foer mostly comes off as sympathetic towards Kerry, implying that the dislike his high school classmates felt towards him was motivated by snobbery and that Kerry represented the coming meritocracy. However, he also throws in some weird stuff:

But there were obvious ways in which he could not keep up. While his classmates summered in Europe (or even took private jets to the Continent for long weekends), Kerry spent his breaks working as a Teamster in Somerville, Massachusetts, for the First National Stores, loading food onto trucks.

Of course, other accounts have Kerry spending his summers in France at a family estate.

 
No Coordination Going On Here!

Last week President Bush's campaign filed a complaint that the Kerry campaign was coordinating activities with MoveOn and other leftist organizations. Now comes the news that a MoveOn staffer is leaving to work with Kerry's campaign.

Now, a cynic might ask how the Kerry campaign got to know Zack Exley, the staffer, if there was no coordination between the groups.

 
Kerry To Put Parodists Out of Business

(Via Anti-John Kerry) Kerry continues to have it both ways.

Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry said Monday the White House should not have scrapped steep tariffs on foreign-made steel last year -- but would not put them back in place if he is elected.

How do you parodize that?

 
Kerry Defends Terrorist as Legitimate Voice?

(Via Captain's Quarters) Kerry needs another vacation, or perhaps elective tongue-removal surgery. Deciding instead to continue to sabotage his own campaign, Kerry termed terrorist Moqtada al-Sadr as "a legitimate voice in Iraq."

"They shut a newspaper that belongs to a legitimate voice in Iraq."

Kerry immediately attempted to kerry his statement by saying that , "Let me ... change the term 'legitimate.' It belongs to a voice — because he has clearly taken on a far more radical tone in recent days and aligned himself with both Hamas and Hezbollah, which is a sort of terrorist alignment."

Sort of?

(Later Addition: Having listened to Kerry on NPR's website, I can't help concluding that somebody in the room with Kerry was frantically signalling him to rewind the tape on that comment. He also coughs right at that point, which reminded me of the rumors of health problems.)

 
Why I'm Staying Away from the Kerry-Catholicism Story

I was raised Catholic myself, and although I am not very religious myself, I'm a little disturbed by the anti-Catholic bias that I see (mostly from the left, on the abortion issue). It seems to me that by publicly rebuking Kerry for his support of abortion, the church is risking a backlash against Catholic politicians. Only 44 years ago, the first JFK had to battle accusations that he would take orders from Rome; now it seems that the church wants it known that RC politicians will do just that.

 
Euthenasia for this Blog?

Tom Lifson at the American Thinker reminds us that this blog could die prior to election day. I've pooh-poohed this notion in the past and he does make one gaffe:

Recall for a moment that the only reason he became the front-runner was the Democrats’ desperation in the wake of the Howard Dean public meltdown. Prior to that moment, Kerry’s campaign had gone nowhere.

In fact, Dean's scream came after his campaign had foundered in Iowa. As I predicted only two months ago on my other blog, people are already beginning to believe that the scream caused the downfall, rather than the other way around. Events that are memorable morph over time into events that are significant.

However, I am beginning to wonder if Lifson might not be right on his larger point. The Republicans have spent a great deal of money since the nominee became obvious on tearing down John Kerry. Almost all of that money would be wasted if the Democrats pull the old switcheroo. The best argument against it is the 1980 precedent. Lifson writes:

Even if he doesn't voluntarily withdraw, he could still be rejected by the convention. The Super-delegates are under no compulsion to vote for his nomination. And if delegates selected by primary voters to vote for Kerry do not do so, who exactly is going to stop them? The New Jersey Supreme Court?

In 1980 as the Democratic National Convention neared, Jimmy Carter was obviously commanding a sinking ship. Ted Kennedy entered the race late and started winning primaries. There was a movement within the party to free up the delegates from their obligation to vote for Carter. I was working in NYC at the time and remember signs sprouting up all over with a robot covered by the circle and slash (i.e., no robots). However, the Democrats determined that their rules required that the delegates vote for Carter in the first round, and that was all Jimmuh needed.

Of course, the 1980 example may convince them of the need to be more flexible, as it resulted in the election of Ronald Reagan, starting a 12-year hold on power for the Republicans.

 
Links Update

Removed an apparently dead link from the Anti-Kerry sites shown at the side. KerryQuotes doesn't seem to be active anymore; sorry to see them go.

 
Kerry Blog Watch

As was probably predictable, Nuancy Boy has been pretty boring of late, so I thought I'd take a look at some of his followers. Here are some comments from his campaign's supporters on their blog regarding the Kos controversy:

Will you be removing links to all Democrat activists you find unacceptable? Is this the campaign for "cafeteria style" democrats (the food sucks, but everybody hates it the same)? Why didn't Kerry find Bush unacceptable when he voted for the war, for No Child Left Behind, and for the Patriot Act. Go home and wash the piss out of your trousers while you praise the "Right to Life" hawk John McCain.

Howard Dean helped you get a spine. So quickly you relinquish it. We have no chance in hell.
Posted by Meyer in St. Pete at April 3, 2004 09:17 PM

These guys were there for money and only money. They may be dead and that is sad, and I feel for their families, but they are not martyrs or war heroes.

I share the anger that Daily Kos expressed.
Posted by wild_salmon at April 3, 2004 09:30 PM

Why is an American mercenary a victim, and an Iraqi fighting to kick us out of his country an insurgent? Why is it okay to kill Saddam Hussein's sons and spread the photos of their dead bodies all over the news, but it is not okay for Iraqis to give mercenaries the same treatment?

You are all about posturing. But without a backbone, your posture stinks.
Posted by Meyer in St. Pete at April 3, 2004 09:53 PM

As a Democrat who supports John Kerry for President, I hereby DEMAND that you replace this link and quit acting like cowards. Such timidity only waters down your support. This campaign SHOULD be against mercenaries making almost ten times what our troops make!

Come correct.
Posted by Patton Zarate at April 3, 2004 10:08 PM

Can't you see this kind of reaction is JUST what the right-wing freeper nutjobs wanted? The fact that the Kerry campaign is acting like puppets pulled by right-wing strings does NOT bode well for the ability of this campaign to withstand what the right wing is going to sling here in the coming months.

I'm deeply disappointed.
Posted by Maura in VA at April 3, 2004 10:16 PM

So, the true colors begin to show. I guess the spine transplant didn't take as well as we thought. Put Kos link back up; freedom of speech is a right protected by the Constitution, or is that too much bother for you?
Posted by Lois in VT at April 3, 2004 11:00 PM

Don't fall for this right-wing trap! This is just a ploy to divide Democrats. Put the DailyKOS link back up or no support from Portland, Oregon.
Posted by Oregon Bear at April 3, 2004 11:58 PM

 
The Scarf of Doom!

A week or so ago I did a Google search for satirical pages on the reality show "The Apprentice" and came across one blogger who purported to know who was going to be fired next. They noted that the previous two contestants voted off, Omarosa and Katrina had been wearing oddball items of clothing--Omarosa a scarf, and Katrina a hairy, off-the-shoulder sweater, "the hairy off-the-shoulder sweater of doom."

Now we hear that John Kerry's wife, Teh-ray-za, has come up with the fashion accessory of the season: a "scarf [that] is covered with little flags and her husband's initials and says "John Kerry for President 2004" in script at the bottom."

 
Paul Crespo has a good column on the Democrats' potential buyer's remorse over selecting Kerry. He notes that many people mindlessly cite his Vietnam war service as teflon-coating him against charges that he is soft on defense.

[Someone Crespo was debating on the radio] seemed genuinely taken aback when I quickly challenged that assertion by noting Kerry's extensive involvement in the leftist anti-war movement.

Somebody else, I forget who now, commented that the Democrats picked Kerry because he was perceived to be electable. He compared that to a guy marrying a woman because he thought (but had no evidence) that she was a good cook. Exactly! The fact that Kerry was able to get Democrats to vote for him says nothing about his ability to get swing voters to do the same. In fact, most polls taken during the campaign showed that Kerry did very well among self-identified liberal Democrats, less well against moderate Democrats, and downright poorly among conservative Democrats.

 
More Google Fun

I thought I'd check on what websites are currently coming up with waffles. Here's one good one, here's another.

 
Would You Like Syrup on Those?

(Via Anti-John Kerry)

Esoteric Diatribe has suggested that we Google-bomb John Kerry with the word "waffles". Google-bombing means to link to someone's website using a word or phrase that is derogatory. This results in Google matching that word or phrase to that person's website. For example, waffles. Or miserable failure, which when Googled links to, in order, President Bush, Jimmy Carter, Michael Moore, and Hillary Clinton.

 
This One Fooled Me

(Via Just One Minute) A Google search comes up empty.

 
The Great Pretender

Mark Steyn takes on Kerry's newfound affection for rap and hip-hop. As usual, read it all, but here's a taste:

So, when John Kerry says he supports the Kyoto Treaty even though he voted for a bill that declared the United States would never ever ratify it, that doesn't mean he's a ''liar,'' it just means that, well, to be honest, I haven't a clue what it means, you better to take it up with him, now he's out of the hospital after his elective surgery. ''Elective surgery" means you vote to have the operation, and then spend the next year insisting you've always been strongly opposed to the operation.