Junior Attack Dogs Growling at Shadows

This undocumented piece of psychotic drivel was forwarded to me with the subject line, 'Breaking News..Has America really faced the fact that we have an alcoholic as our president?' The scribbler behind this bitter rant, Susan Estrich, considers herself an intellectual and a feminist, yet writes books with titles like Making the Case for Yourself: A Diet Book for Smart Women. You go girl! But onto the nonsense (and I reprint this because it shows the lunacy of the left -- Kerry's core is melting):

RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2004, AND THEREAFTER

My Democratic friends are mad as hell, and they aren't going to take it any more.

They are worried, having watched as another August smear campaign, full of lies and half-truths, takes its toll in the polls.

They are frustrated, mostly at the Kerry campaign, for naively believing that just because all the newspapers and news organizations that investigated the charges of the Swift Boat assassins found them to be full of lies and half-truths, they wouldn't take their toll. The word on the street is that Kerry himself was ready to fire back the day the story broke, but that his campaign, believing the charges would blow over if they ignored them, counseled restraint.

But most of all, activists Democrats are angry. As one who lived through an August like this, 16 years ago -- replete with rumors that were lies, which the Bush campaign claimed they had nothing to do with and later admitted they had planted -- I'm angry, too. I've been to this movie. I know how it works. Lies move numbers.

Remember the one about Dukakis suffering from depression after he lost the governorship? (Dukakis not crazy, more at 11.) We lost six points over that lie, planted by George W.'s close friend and colleague in the 1988 campaign, Lee Atwater. Or how about the one about Kitty Dukakis burning a flag at an antiwar demonstration, another out-and-out lie, which the Bush campaign denied having anything to do with, except that it turned out to have come from a United States senator via the Republican National Committee? Lee Atwater later apologized to me for that, too, on his deathbed. Did I mention that Lee's wife is connected to the woman running the Swift Boat campaign?

Never again, we said then.

Not again, Democrats are saying now.

What do you do, Democrats keep asking each other.

The answer is not pretty, but everyone knows what it is.

In 1988, in the days before the so-called independent groups, the candidate called the shots. To Michael Dukakis' credit, depending on how you look at it, he absolutely refused to get into the gutter, even to answer the charges. His theory, like that of some on the Kerry staff, was that answering such charges would only elevate them, give them more attention than they deserved. He thought the American people wanted to hear about issues, not watch a mud-wrestling match. In theory, he was right. In practice, the sad truth is that smears work -- that if you throw enough mud, some of it is bound to stick.

You can't just answer the charges. You can't just say it ain't so.

You have to fight fire with fire, mud with mud, dirt with dirt.

The trouble with Democrats, traditionally, is that we're not mean enough. Dukakis wasn't. I wasn't. I don't particularly like destroying people. I got into politics because of issues, not anger. But too much is at stake to play by Dukakis rules, and lose again.

That is the conclusion Democrats have reached. So watch out. Millions of dollars will be on the table. And there are plenty of choices for what to spend it on.

I'm not promising pretty.

What will it be?

Will it be the three, or is it four or five, drunken driving arrests that Bush and Cheney, the two most powerful men in the world, managed to rack up? (Bush's Texas record has been sealed. Now why would that be? Who seals a perfect driving record?)

After Vietnam, nothing is ancient history, and Cheney is still drinking. What their records suggest is not only a serious problem with alcoholism, which Bush but not Cheney has acknowledged, but also an even more serious problem of judgment. Could Dick Cheney get a license to drive a school bus with his record of drunken driving? (I can see the ad now.) A job at a nuclear power plant? Is any alcoholic ever really cured? So why put him in the most stressful job in the world, with a war going south, a thousand Americans already dead and control of weapons capable of destroying the world at his fingertips.

It has been said that in the worst of times, Kissinger gave orders to the military not to obey Nixon if he ordered a first strike. What if Bush were to fall off the wagon? Then what? Has America really faced the fact that we have an alcoholic as our president?

Or how about Dead Texans for Truth, highlighting those who served in Vietnam instead of the privileged draft-dodging president, and ended up as names on the wall instead of members of the Air National Guard. I'm sure there are some mothers out there who are still mourning their sons, and never made that connection. It wouldn't be so hard to find them.

Or maybe it will be Texas National Guardsmen for Truth, who can explain exactly what George W. Bush was doing while John Kerry was putting his life on the line. So far, all W. can do is come up with dental records to prove that he met his obligations. Perhaps with money on the table, or investigators on their trail, we will learn just what kind of wild and crazy things the president was doing while Kerry was saving a man's life, facing enemy fire and serving his country.

Or could it be George Bush's Former Female Friends for Truth. A forthcoming book by Kitty Kelly raises questions about whether the president has practiced what he preaches on the issue of abortion. As Larry Flynt discovered, a million dollars loosens lips. Are there others to be loosened?

Are you shocked? Not fair? Who said anything about fair? Remember President Dukakis? He was very fair. Now he teaches at Northeastern University. John Kerry has been very fair in dealing with the Swift Boat charges. That's why so many of my Democrat friends have decided to stop talking to the campaign, and start putting money together independently.

The arrogant little Republican boys who have been strutting around New York this week, claiming that they have this one won, would do well to take a step back. It could be a long and ugly road to November.

To find out more about Susan Estrich, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2004 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Originally Published on Wednesday September 1, 2004

Anyone care to critique this mess? It's hard to believe anyone is this rabid and ... well, dumb.

posted by Dennis on 09.06.04 at 12:32 AM





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Comments

That's all their quadrant is reduced to now, it seems: just all this stupid, petty crap. No ideas, no ideology, no philosophy.

i think it must be a joke--i mean, the idea that the Left never plays dirty HAS to be said tongue-in-cheek, right? and come on--i've seen lots of people in the kerry camp concerned with 'issues'...i just can't think of any right now.

oh, wait. i was thinking of another camp.

cub scout camp.

E   ·  September 6, 2004 01:31 AM

Ah, the "wild threats of dirty tricks." Link here (along with wonderful picture!)

Eric Scheie   ·  September 6, 2004 10:13 AM

I'm not sujre what your point is? Why do you consider this "rabid" or "dumb"? I understand that you don't agree with it, but what's rabid or dumb about her essential contention that the Kerry campaign has been too weak in their counterattack?

Just looking for rational discourse here.

Anonymous   ·  September 6, 2004 08:48 PM

There isn't much to explain. This was a piece by a bitter partisan filled with (as I noted earlier) undocumented statements.

For example, she pounds away at the lie that the press has proven the Swift Boat Vets to be liars.

That Tad Devine says it in the press does not mean that it's true, nor does it mean that the 'press' has proven anything.

This is in fact part of blustery rhetorical game. In crying out about alleged lies on the part of the opposition, she creates the illusion that she is the champion of truth, and so her lies are to be read as truth.

But honestly if you can't see her foaming at the mouth in this piece I'm afraid you may be just as rabid.

Of course, if you were an independent voice interested in rational *discourse* you'd have had no reason to conceal your name or e-mail address.

Dennis   ·  September 6, 2004 09:28 PM

"But honestly if you can't see her foaming at the mouth in this piece I'm afraid you may be just as rabid."

This is really a rude response.

I note that your "name" is "Dennis" and that your contact information is "http://classicalvalues.com/" and you claim that, somehow it proves that i don't want rational discourse?

I guess this is not the welcoming, rational forum for liberty and justice that i was looking for. I apologize to all for not knowing how to use your system.

I suppose i'll have to vote for Bush now to prove i'm rational? What a disappointment this has been.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

xyz-abc   ·  September 7, 2004 12:17 AM

My critique was a rude noise. That's about all that Estrich rates.

Umm... xyz-abc? You actually have been awake and watching the news and reading the blogosphere for the past four years, right? If so, the answers to your question have already been picked over for four years, in detail.

Suffice it to say: if "BUSH = HITLER!", posters of Bush eating a baby, almost a year of media and leftist blogosphere digging into Bush's national guard records, BUSH = AWOL!, Halliburton smears, media columnists suggesting that conservatives be exterminated, Michael Moore's films, several dozen major celebrities staging "Regieme Change at Home!" concerts and events, "SELECTED NOT ELECTED", "stolen election" when multiple recounts that the Dems asked for have confirmed that Gore lost, election rigging that was predominately done by Democrats, and umpteen hundreds of other attacks of more or less viciousness doesn't qualify for Estrich as "Nasty", then she has a sense of what nasty and vicious are comprised of that would make a hardened mercenary puke.

It's already been a long and ugly road to November, one that started in 2000, and Estrich is trying to pretend that it's only goten so because Republicans have had the temerity to question Kerry's actual senate history and voting record recently.

Estrich is basically engaging in the time honored schoolyard bully tactic of crying "Foul!" when the kid they're trying to shake down for lunch money bloodies their nose.

If you've been asleep for the past four years and missed all of that, then well, yeah, I guess this is *not* the welcoming, rational forum for liberty and justice that you were looking for. It is rational in the sense that it doesn't coddle nor condone the deliberate cognitive dissonance that Estrich is trying to foist off on her readership.

Ironbear   ·  September 7, 2004 02:07 AM

"I suppose i'll have to vote for Bush now to prove i'm rational?"

If I can change just one person, it's all been worth it.

But seriously, I'm not ashamed of myself, nor should I be. You glossed over the whole piece and tried to whittle it down to an "essential contention" which most people would not find in the piece. The essential contention was that the Republicans are evil slime balls, and the good guys have to get their hands dirty and play foul for the good of the country.

And guess what?

I'm still going to be mean to you, so nyah!

PS: I'm the resident bastard, and am technically a guest here. Had you replied to one of Eric's posts he would have been as civil as John Kerry ... strike that. He would have been very civil and fair, and would have taken the time to respond in detail.

Dennis   ·  September 7, 2004 02:42 AM

Is there anywhere I can fact check her lee atwater comments?
I thought a demeocrat in the presidential primary bought up the willie horton ad against dukakis?

John K   ·  September 9, 2004 09:22 PM


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