Saturday, September 18, 2004
Failure to tell the truth and those secret call-up plans: Hub Blog was all set yesterday to blog on Kerry’s big speech about untruths in Iraq. I was impressed with the speech, perhaps Kerry’s wisest, boldest rhetoric of the campaign. But then I thought: Whoa, Nellie. Let’s give it a day and see if Kerry has hit some sort of intelligent stride. Here’s the next-day Kerry story: The president has secret plans to call up reservists after the election! ... Now, there’s little doubt, at least in my mind, that the administration is making major war decisions with an eye on November. Things are definitely going to heat up in Iraq after the election, if only because of Iraq’s own scheduled January elections. No big surprise. More troops and/or rotations will be required. Kerry himself has also said we need more troops in Iraq. So why make a big deal about something we already cynically know is going to happen -- under either post-election administration? Isn’t that kind of stretching the truth to score cheap points? Of all the untrue assumptions about Iraq (WMD, flowers on the streets, Occupation Lite, etc.), Kerry reaches out to pick something that hasn’t happened yet. ...
Ah, the polls. Two polls show Kerry narrowing the gap. But a third poll shows blowout and another survey also shows blowout. Times like this require bold guesses by rank amateurs. Here’s Hub Blog’s: The two close polls show events as they roughly stand today, the two blowouts show how the final election may probably turn out. ...
Mickey Kaus is making an interesting argument about possible blowback over the RatherGate forgery issue, noting Gallop’s latest Bush-is-winning-big poll went through Wednesday, full height of the RatherGate frenzy, and therefore Kerry might be suffering from suspicions his camp planted a bogus story. Possible. But highly unlikely. Gallop’s latest poll merely reflects the trend of its recent findings: Bush is widening the gap. ... This Rasmussen data seems to make the most sense to me.
Update - 11 a.m. --- A new very interesting NYT/CBS poll, showing Bush’s lead at about 8 percent. It’s all there: SwiftieGate and GuardGate (they seem to cancel each other out; both are viewed as 'Nam fibbers), the unease about Iraq and economy, Kerry’s failure to make a connection due to his backward-looking strategy. Bottom line: Bush vulnerable, Kerry vacuous.
... David Brooks has a fun Kerry column. Hmmm. Is the column’s cadence Kiplingish? But there's also a little Longfellow. Can’t quite put my finger on it. It’ll bug me all day if I don’t figure it out. ...
‘He wants to be President from the early 1960 TV archival footage’: Love that phrase. It’s from a Reader No. 1 email I didn’t have time to post. Had to fit it in somewhere. ... If I see one more Camelot black-and-white shot from the Kerry Compound on Nantucket, I’m going to ...
Hub Blog was browsing in a bookstore in Maine the other week. Found and flipped through a new photo book about Kerry’s life. Some eerie resemblances to the John-John Playing Under the Desk photos. All black-and-white photos, FYI, even the contemporary shots ... To be fair, all recent presidents have used the old black-and-white photo-op schtick to convey the historic gravity and importance of tense behind-the-scenes deliberations. I call them Important History Shots. The media plays right into it. But Kerry, well, he LIVES for those Pleasantville-like moments.
‘Let me give you an Out of the Box idea’: Hub Blog and Reader No. 1 have been trading emails the past week about RatherGate and the war and the relative importance of the two. We’ve kind of groped toward a mutual consensus. I’ve belatedly recognized that the irrelevant GuardGate morphed into a more relevant RatherGate, while Reader No. 1 realized that, well, RatherGate is ultimately a mere relevant sideshow to what’s happening in Iraq. I think that pretty much summarizes the course of our discussions. Anyway, in the spirit of ‘thinking out of the box,’ Reader No. 1 has come up with a wild idea sure to infuriate many:
“Bush should ask Bill Clinton to be his point man on a global Democracy push, a Jimmy Carter with charm, and real teeth. The international diplomatic community loved/loves Clinton. He is a good listener and sensitive to culture issues. He could use an opportunity to fight the charge that he was asleep at the switch on Bin Laden. He wants to go down in history, and if he was a little successful, he just might (along with Bush).
“The Republican Party would hate this for obvious reasons. And having the Clinton nose under the GOP tent has real risks. But what's at stake isn't the next election; it's our future in a free world.”
I like it. Won’t happen. But I like it.
Ah, the polls. Two polls show Kerry narrowing the gap. But a third poll shows blowout and another survey also shows blowout. Times like this require bold guesses by rank amateurs. Here’s Hub Blog’s: The two close polls show events as they roughly stand today, the two blowouts show how the final election may probably turn out. ...
Mickey Kaus is making an interesting argument about possible blowback over the RatherGate forgery issue, noting Gallop’s latest Bush-is-winning-big poll went through Wednesday, full height of the RatherGate frenzy, and therefore Kerry might be suffering from suspicions his camp planted a bogus story. Possible. But highly unlikely. Gallop’s latest poll merely reflects the trend of its recent findings: Bush is widening the gap. ... This Rasmussen data seems to make the most sense to me.
Update - 11 a.m. --- A new very interesting NYT/CBS poll, showing Bush’s lead at about 8 percent. It’s all there: SwiftieGate and GuardGate (they seem to cancel each other out; both are viewed as 'Nam fibbers), the unease about Iraq and economy, Kerry’s failure to make a connection due to his backward-looking strategy. Bottom line: Bush vulnerable, Kerry vacuous.
... David Brooks has a fun Kerry column. Hmmm. Is the column’s cadence Kiplingish? But there's also a little Longfellow. Can’t quite put my finger on it. It’ll bug me all day if I don’t figure it out. ...
‘He wants to be President from the early 1960 TV archival footage’: Love that phrase. It’s from a Reader No. 1 email I didn’t have time to post. Had to fit it in somewhere. ... If I see one more Camelot black-and-white shot from the Kerry Compound on Nantucket, I’m going to ...
Hub Blog was browsing in a bookstore in Maine the other week. Found and flipped through a new photo book about Kerry’s life. Some eerie resemblances to the John-John Playing Under the Desk photos. All black-and-white photos, FYI, even the contemporary shots ... To be fair, all recent presidents have used the old black-and-white photo-op schtick to convey the historic gravity and importance of tense behind-the-scenes deliberations. I call them Important History Shots. The media plays right into it. But Kerry, well, he LIVES for those Pleasantville-like moments.
‘Let me give you an Out of the Box idea’: Hub Blog and Reader No. 1 have been trading emails the past week about RatherGate and the war and the relative importance of the two. We’ve kind of groped toward a mutual consensus. I’ve belatedly recognized that the irrelevant GuardGate morphed into a more relevant RatherGate, while Reader No. 1 realized that, well, RatherGate is ultimately a mere relevant sideshow to what’s happening in Iraq. I think that pretty much summarizes the course of our discussions. Anyway, in the spirit of ‘thinking out of the box,’ Reader No. 1 has come up with a wild idea sure to infuriate many:
“Bush should ask Bill Clinton to be his point man on a global Democracy push, a Jimmy Carter with charm, and real teeth. The international diplomatic community loved/loves Clinton. He is a good listener and sensitive to culture issues. He could use an opportunity to fight the charge that he was asleep at the switch on Bin Laden. He wants to go down in history, and if he was a little successful, he just might (along with Bush).
“The Republican Party would hate this for obvious reasons. And having the Clinton nose under the GOP tent has real risks. But what's at stake isn't the next election; it's our future in a free world.”
I like it. Won’t happen. But I like it.
