Kerry: stick a fork in him, I’m afraid he’s done
John Kerry just can’t get no respect these days. Even Michael Crowley of the New Republic tells him–and none-too-gently, either, that his time is up.
Not surprisingly, the peculiar offness, narcissism, and tone-deafness that Kerry exhibited during his Presidential campaign have followed him into his post-campaign campaign. He doesn’t seem to understand that, according to polls quoted in the Crowley article, his popularity has dived precipitously.
As Crowley writes:
…while the political world hangs on every word from Hillary Clinton’s mouth, and Joe Biden seems to be getting more airtime than Anderson Cooper, no one appears terribly interested in what John Kerry has to say anymore.
Anymore? Who ever was terribly interested in what John Kerry had to say? Yes, in the 2004 election campaign people were paying attention to his words in order to see whether he would succeed in countering their arch-enemy, Bush. But, listening to him for its own sake? I don’t think so.
If, at the time, Kerry hadn’t been the only game in town in a position to defeat Bush, he would have stirred up about as much interest as he has for most of his political life since the its high point, the 1971 Senate hearings on Vietnam–which is to say, none to speak of.
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RickJ
I fear you may be right, Neo, at least about Kerry’s chances for Presidential glory. I am one of that small minority of pro-war libs who voted for Kerry. He wasn’t my first choice. Besides domestic policy issues, I mianly picked him because I felt at the time that Bush was not being serious about the reality of the situation on the ground in Iraq. Maybe I felt Kerry really could get the Europeans on our side. Who knows what I was thinking. It’s moot anyway.
The fact is, even the most militant Kerry backers couldn’t ignore his glaring problems. His campaign was a disaster. The guy is devoid of personality. Kerry’s a legit war hero, but that’s not enough to beat a wartime President, even of it’s Bush.
The people have spoken, Kerry’s not ehat they’re looking for.
You say liberals just ‘hate Bush’ and have no reasoning besides that for voting the way we did in the last election, yet approach the matter of paning Kerry in the exact same way.
What is there to hate about Kerry, there is no Kerry. Or at least, the Kerry of today is different from the Kerry of yesterday and tomorrow.
With Bush, you at least know what you get, and what you may vote for/against. With Kerry, there is nothing to vote against, cause he doesn’t have anything and isn’t anything of substance.
It’s impossible to vote for Bush as a way to vote against Kerry, there’s no Kerry to vote against. Kerry reflects whatever he sees around him, or whatever he sees in a mirror.
John Kerry has never inspired me and I think Kerry had qome questionable dealings with the Left back in the day. Mediocore would aptly describe John Kerry I should think. John McCain is an inspiration to me .
Chris Austin –
I don’t know how old you are, obviously, but I’m old enough to remember the tenor of the times in 1971, when Kerry testified.
Aside from thre substance of what he said – whether he overstated the criminal behavior of the soldiers or not – there is one facet of the situation that is a personal peeve of my mine: the idea that his testimony was somehow outstandingly courageous.
By 1971, it took absolutely no courage to publicly diss the war. Believe me, I’m sure there were any number of radical leaders seething wtih envy at the glamorous stage Kerry was granted. It was moral preening on a grand scale, and that’s true even if everything he said was accurate.
There’s a parallel with today’s situation, of course, where the anti-war left is gripped by the same delusion, that opposition to the war is a manifestation of great courage. This fantasy is buttressed by the bizarre fiction that their opinions are somehow “censored.”
And by the way, just a slight amendment to what Richard Aubrey said about Kerry’s volunteering. My reading of the situation is that he worked hard to volunteer in a way that would put him “in Viet Nam” (perhaps with an eye toward a political career) but out of danger. That’s where the detail that the Swift Boats’ mission was changed from offshore patrols to inland waterways after he volunteered becomes interesting. And where another fact becomes interesting: he was the only guy ever, in the history of the Swift Boats, to go home because of 3 Purple Hearts.
I’m not condemning the guy for trying this tactic. If I’d been three years older and eyeing a political career I might have done the same thing. But as a wag (me) quipped one time, you can’t serve as Yossarian and come home to run as General Dreedle.
I’ve always marveled at how politicians moving from local to national office so successfully leave behind their local misdeeds.
My ex-Bostonian neighbors (liberal Democrats) had nary a good word to say about Kerry, and were honestly anguished that he of all people was the only alternative available to Bush.
My ancestors are German. It made sense during WWII to be slightly suspicious of those Americans who might be more loyal to Hitler than the United States. Is that fair? Whoever said that life was fair? We are sometimes compelled to use common sense. We are not being attacked today by Lutheran Scandinavians! No, this honor almost exclusively belongs to the Muslims.
Kerry didn’t volunteer to fight in Viet Nam.
He tried several ways to get out of it, but was not as succesful as Clinton was. Once there, he served honorably, or not, depending on whether you believe the Swiftboat vets.
Bush, on the other hand, did. He wasn’t succesful in his effort, either.
Kerry’s Winter Soldier testimony was lies and slander.
And since then, he’s done nothing of note.
Either the dems have an awfully shallow bench, or their mechanism for picking an electable candidate is broken.
John Kerry is someone that deserves respect for the simple fact that he volunteered to serve in Vietnam. His testimony in 71 was heroic, and I challenge anyone to watch that hearing when CSPAN replays it sometime and not walk away inspired.
He’s a politician, and played his hand poorly when his moment to shine presented itself. Not the first, and certainly not the last.
Let’s get real here…the right-wing went after Paul Hackett and John McCain when it was convenient. When it comes to the concept of ‘respecting military service’, their record of taking care of veterans and respecting when one becomes a Democrat is horrible.
Chickenhawks rule the day in DC. Sure, Kerry is rich – he doesn’t have a second home where he chops wood for the press – but if going to Vietnam and then talking about it in front of Congress, at his age…if that’s not ‘self-made’ to you, then you’re blinded by the team jerseys.
There’s something to be said for having volunteered to fight one of these wars. Anyone who denigrates someone’s service better seriously think about what ‘support the troops’ actually means. The troops are black, white, asian, hispanic, christian, agnostic, hindu, muslim, democrat, republican…
The right-wing needs to start remembering that. Just like this post here, doesn’t mention policies he favors, what he said in the debates that they disagreed with.
You say liberals just ‘hate Bush’ and have no reasoning besides that for voting the way we did in the last election, yet approach the matter of paning Kerry in the exact same way.
If Kerry is a food, ready to eat, then he is probably equivalent to goat’s head, something they serve as a delicacy in Western rural Iraq if I recall.
Don’t think I’d stick a fork, mechanical or steel, into Kerry, whether he’s done or not.
There are two reasons: President Bush is the leader of our country, and the general public is now suspicious of its Muslim neighbors. Does the latter sound prejudicial? Oh well, that’s just the way it is.
I came up with my own reason for that actually, when I was reading Ali’s Iraqi blog when he was writing about Al-Qaeda’s behavior.
And he said that Al-Qaeda needed the support of nations like Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran to continue to function as an insurgency in Iraq. It makes sense, no guerrila insurgency can sustain itself as anything other than a criminal problem, without a safe haven to plan, to train, and to organize.
Obviously Iran/Syria is in on the bargain, setting up VBIED and IED factories where they think we can’t touch them.
A safe haven is one of the guerrila/insurgency critical requirements.
But back to the point, which is that Al-Qaeda has not attacked the US and has also allowed us to dig their sleeper cells from under their rocks, is because Al-Qaeda is so… distracted by Iraq that if they attacked America, that would seriously make afraid Syria and Iran.
Syria and Iran wants to wait it out until America goes back to sleep, and that won’t happen if you keep prodding us with pitchfoks. So Al-Qaeda has not decided to attack America, because they are so distracted by Iraq and fighting there, that they have agreed to be detered by American retaliation.
It does make sense, after all. Would Syria truly assist Al-Qaeda, and risk being blamed when America goes looking to make another example out of a nation? Obviously they have made sure that Syria cannot be blamed for attacks on AMerican soil, even though they act in Iraq because Iraqi freedom is as much a danger to the regime in Syria as American wrath.
Guess the ME is stuck between a rock and nuke.
If Kerry had been elected, we would have been hit, because everyone would have known and assumed that Kerry would not have the guts to retaliate with force.
Those sleeper cells in California, would have been activated, and boom boom. People would have died, if only police.
During the campaign I asked some Kerry supporters what Kerry had done to recommend him for president. They got snippy and said that I could just look it up. But I wasn’t interested in researching Kerry’s record–I wanted to hear it from a Kerry supporter why they wanted him for president.
So I pressed further and all they could do was to mumble vaguely that Kerry had worked on behalf of veterans. Then I mentioned all the veterans who seemed to be very unhappy with Kerry, the supporters then went into their anti-Swift Boat tirade and I gave up.
I never found anyone who voted for Kerry, just people who voted against Bush.
I still find it difficult to think kindly of Mickey Kaus, Daniel Drezner, Jeff Jarvis, and others who supported John Kerry’s campaign for president. It is so obvious that he is a second rate mediocrity. More importantly, one did not need to be the most brilliant human being on the planet to reach this rational conclusion. I literally do not remember Kerry ever saying something insightful.
A Kerry presidency would have made us more vulnerable to our enemies. They would have been emboldened by his mealy mouth wishy-washiness. I accurately predicted soon after 9/11 that the United States would not be victimized again by a major act of terrorism. Why was I so sure of this? There are two reasons: President Bush is the leader of our country, and the general public is now suspicious of its Muslim neighbors. Does the latter sound prejudicial? Oh well, that’s just the way it is.
If the Left hadn’t been controlled by the rich billionares and guilt ridden freaks, then they probably would have nominated the other John. With John Kerry as the VP.
Everyone (on the left) was saying how Kerry was “Presidential” or something like that. Showed you how much they knew about a person’s propaganda value.
Not wise… to believe in your own propaganda.
Cause he keeps on barking. (If you read the Crowley article–subscription only, unfortunately–you’ll see Kerry has been very active lately and still appears to think he is a contender).
But I agree–it’s probably time to stop even discussing him.
– why flog a dead dog?