How must Kerry feel ?

[kimmerspixelated]

I know some of ya'll will boo-hoo me, but for those of you who love Kerry, do you wonder how he must feel with all those candidates that cancelled his appearances with them? I'm sure he loves campaigning more than anything else, and to be nipped in the bud, so close to the race, wouldn't it hurt? On the other hand, if he thinks it helped in a roundabout way , which I believe it did...would he feel relieved? Then what if we lose? Would he feel responsible?..

[NYCGirl]

1. Kerry said HE cancelled the appearances, not the candidates. He didn't want

to become a distraction. So I think he feels just fine about it.

[LSK]

2. Kerry? Joke? this is now OLD NEWS

:D

[Mend]

12. there is a picture on the home page of AOL of

morans holding a sign making fun of Kerry....they aren't going to let this be over.
www.aol.com

[LSK]

14. people still use AOL?

:shrug:

[wisteria]

32. No, because it is all they have. But, it won't work.

Payback will be Tuesday, when we win. Then they will pay for doing this cheap trick to Kerry.

[bdamomma]

3. this has been so blown up. let's move on.

we have an election coming up on Tuesday, it is all UP TO US.

[seabeyond]

4. people arent so stupid to fall for the rove game but the dems on this

board that seem to have the real nasty dislike of kerry so i doubt that kerry needs to reflect on "losing" it for the dems.... and to all the rest of your questions, personally they dont seem very sincere but a bit snotty

[kimmerspixelated]

15. Snotty... really??

I will have to look it over, because that is the last thing on my mind-to be insincere.

[LittleClarkie]

22. I think you are sincere, but the "campaigning more than anything else"

might have given the wrong impression. I actually don't think he likes it all that much. He was just trying to help.

But I do appreciate that you were sort of trying to empathize with the guy.

[AndyA]

5. And perhaps this was just Kerry's "October surprise" for Rove...

All coordinated and timed perfectly. Perhaps the Dems learned a few things from dealing with the Repugs the past six years.

[Cetacea]

26. agreed

:evilgrin:

[Bucky]

6. Remorse, self-disdain, swoozing nausia, dystemper, heebie-jeebies, inward loathing, maybe suicidal.

Probably not tho. I think he knows he fumbled a really small play and that it won't hurt us on Tuesday.

[stop the bleeding]

7. who?? n/t

[blm]

8. I think Kerry feels just fine. I think Hillary is the one who's feeling heat

about now. She sided with BushInc for something she knew damn well was a....lie.

Kerry ATTACKING Bush and demanding an apology from him for Iraq was VERY ENERGIZING for REAL Democrats and fired up many in the base.

This episode showed Hillary and McCain to be two peas in a pod - both siding with Bush over Kerry for a.......LIE.

[jobycom]

13. No she didn't

She said the comment was inappropriate and a distraction, and that Kerry had already apologized, so she wanted to focus on Bush's Iraq failure. Funny how only part of that got reported.

[blm]

17. Kerry's comment wasn't inappropriate. She knew Bush was lying.

And she could have added that she knew Kerry had led this country on military and veterans's issues for his entire career - but she didn't.

[jobycom]

24. She could have added that Red Robin makes a mean veggie burger, too

There are millions of things she could have said. I'm more concerned about the distortions of what she did say.

She said that she had heard that Kerry had apologized, and that his comments were "inappropriate." So, should she have defended Kerry's statements when her understanding was that Kerry had not defended them? How would that have looked for her or Kerry? She did the best she could--she said they were inappropriate, that Kerry had apologized, and that the Republicans were trying to divert attention away from their failures. Pretty damn good response. Head off discussion, get back on track. It's what got her husband elected.

The fact that she had misunderstood Kerry's "apology" is another matter. She should have had more detail before she spoke, and she probably should have thought a little more about how the media (and worse, the Swiftboaters in both parties) would use her words. But she is kind of busy now, running a campaign and stuff, and her job isn't to run PR for John Kerry--who isn't even running. So, she handled it the way she did. Acknowledge apology, agree with what she thought Kerry himself had basically admitted, get back to attacking the Republicans. End of story. Except for the Swiftboaters.

[blm]

29. She KNEW his words weren't inappropriate, and Red Robin has nothing to do with the "troops"

however, Kerry's 30+ years supporting military and veterans' issues of wellbeing IS wellknown to Democrats and IS significant to the issue being discussed.

You want to venture that Hillary was tired on the campaign trail and made a gaffe when she MISTAKENLY asserted Kerry's remarks were inappropriate which put her in the position of MISTAKENLY siding with Bush's lies?

Guess Kerry should have used that excuse since he had been campaigning nonstop for the past month for so many candidates all over the country.

[jobycom]

35. Guess this is pointless, you won't read this any more than the last post

but, as I said there, Hillary didn't side with Bush, she tried to brush the issue aside to get back to condemning Bush. I don't think you know what she said, what the context was, or anything substantive. You just want to attack Clinton. That's been our party's problem since 2000. The media spins a story one way, too many Dems are too damn lazy to look into what really happened, and the party gets split between people who know what's going on and people who just think they do because they heard part of something on the media. That's why people voted for Nader, that's why Dems whined about Kerry until he lost, then whined after he lost, that's why they are falling into the Republican trap over Hillary now. We are the problem with America more than the Republicans, not because we are as bad as them, but because we let them manipulate us to the point of constant bickering and fighting over petty nonsense while they stay focused on raping the world.

Grow up. Pay attention. Get your facts straight. Look beyond the media's spin. And stop bashing Democrats. Or go someplace where that's what you are supposed to do.

[blm]

36. I heard what she said, joby. And I was always a staunch defender of the

Clintons whenever they were lied about.


I led a few media onslaughts against the lies against the Clintons myself, even though I have been mad at them for serious matters where I am in COMPLETE DISAGREEMENT with them.

Bottom line is that Kerry never said anything inappropriate to deserve that comment from her.

[LittleClarkie]

18. A Republican friend and I have had a discussion in which

we talked about our worst case scenario, Clinton vs McCain 2008. Neither one of us is sure we'd vote.

[wisteria]

33. She is a real piece of work. isn't she. She disgusts me. n/t

[Mass]

9. He understands the rules of the game and did what was necessary.

Whether he agreed or not with what needed to be done, he was not ready to start a internal battle at one week of the election.

We are not going to lose the House and winning the Senate is still not a sure thing, but it was not last week either and we are closer rather than further to win this.

[izzie]

10. I guess one has to have a thick skin to play their game.

--

[jobycom]

11. Somehow I suspect Kerry has faced worse in his life.

Crawling onto the deck of a swiftboat under heavy fire to pull a crewmate to safety probably gives him a more mature perspective on the media and it's vicissitudes.

[H2O Man]

19. Good answer.

Kerry is a seasoned politician. He understands the deal. I don't think that this is of much significance to anyone to the left of Bill O'Reilly. Not only does it pale in comparison to combat duty, but it is hardly of real significance politically.

[jobycom]

25. No one will remember it after Tuesday. nt

[LittleClarkie]

16. I love him too. I'd like to think the others are correct

and that he's faced worse. I think he's angry at the Republicans more than he's upset with his fellow Dems.

What depresses me is that the Republicans have made him so toxic. I'd still like to see him in some higher office, be it prez or cabinet or something. Sometimes I wonder if I'll get that wish though.

I just think it must be upsetting for him to have worked so hard to help the party only to inadvertently become a liability at the end, fairly or unfairly, for wont of a pronoun. How desperate the Republicans must be.

He'll bounce back, I'm sure. But I did send him an email of support via his Senate website. I don't know if he'll get it.

I do hope others are correct, however, in saying that this incident may have just energized us at the right time.

[Joe for Clark]

20. I like Kerry - maybe not the best candidate for president -

But clearly he is a good man. And he really did help us - intentionally or not. And he will probably have to pay for it politically - maybe -but his Karma went up a 1000%.

Personally, I don't think he is a very good campaigner - but he would be a good president.

Anyway - he sucked the wind out of the news cycle for better than 48 hours - time that the gop needed desperately. SO I do think he took one for the team here - And I think highly of him as a person.

Joe for Clark

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. He's been a politician since '72. Thick skin is a requirement.

I'm no longer an admirer of Kerry, but I think that he can handle the tempest from a bungled joke.

[Lexingtonian]

23. well....

Look, Kerry is your quintessential Good Soldier. If walking off the field makes Republicans shoot the one bit of emotional ammunition they have left into mere air, he'll do it.

No, he doesn't like campaigning that much. He likes giving speeches, sure, and dealing with people individually, but there's something about it the process of cajoling and bamboozling large groups of people that he doesn't seem to like. (In contrast, Bush has contempt for the speeches and the average folks as people, but he loves the effect on compliant audiences like nothing else.)

Yes, the whole 'flap' is no winner for Republicans. But they got to revel in their hatred of the class Kerry reflects (it's safe to do that against a Democrat, but not a Republican, at this point) and fired up the anti-snob bigotry among a lot of less-than-liberal Democrats. But it gained them nothing with voters (polls show that now, but it was obvious) and the offense against the hard cultural and class line between the educated and the uneducated is going to backfire on them. Middle class moderate Republicans created this hard line and they're not going to let their Party demolish it.

What decides this election is not Democratic 'strength', it's Republican disintegration while trying to drag Democrats down with them. Democrats need to keep at least consistency; integrity is still too much to ask for (see under "Lieberman, Joe") for much of the Party, but keeping up the struggle for it buys some credibility.

++++

About the real meaning of this 'kerfuffle'- it's about control of the Iraq decision process after the elections. Bush, by overreaching and totally usurping Senate powers in matters of war, has lost/ruined the line between executive and legislative branch powers. The next Senate will have a majority- Democrats plus some Republicans- out to take as much power from the Administration and make the decisions about Iraq that override Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld. With the Administration about to take the dive into resignation levels of public support after the election, an organized Senate majority will be able to take back all Senate powers and even grab a lot of executive branch power.

The Cheney doctrine of executive branch overreach and blurring legal divisions of power while having massive public support goes into backfire when the massive public support shifts to the Senate.

Kerry is and would be the public face of the coming Senate power grab-back, and whatever the Senate decides to do about Iraq. And with the Bush Presidency so completely identified with the Iraq venture, that's destruction of the Bush Presidency (there is no other use The People has left for it) and any claim to a Legacy.

So, as a matter of political survival, Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld have to "push back" John Kerry and whoever else emerges as their Iraq bete noir in the Senate. (Notice how John Warner is being completely invisible lately?) And they have to do so while they still have the power to. That means, before the election result hits.

On edit: As historical context, the corruption of the war powers divisions between the Branches is the major Constitutional issue that is a remnant of the Cold War and needs dealing with. There are lots of lesser issues that spin off from this, i.e. the "executive privilege" and general secrecy privileges the Executive Branch expanded, at a price in oversight and accountability, under the excuse of a running set of overt and undeclared wars against Communism between 1945 and (at least) 1992. The Bush/Cheney Presidency is an attempt to regain or exceed this level of power, as Nixon tried to do.

[Zambero]

27. Hannity is still beating that dead horse

He promises to do so with no letup until the election. Meanwhile, Fox News is giving minimal coverage to the Haggard flap, and hasn't even raised the question of whether it'll affect the election or not. O'Reilly touched on Haggard this evening, but also did not speculate on voter impacts. Here's a guy who is the leader of some 30,000,000 evangelical Christians who also does frequent photo ops with Bush, and it turns out he's a closeted gay basher just days before a national election. This sure throws new fat on the Foley Fire. On the other hand, Scarborough and Carlson went into much discussion on just HOW demoralized the conservative evangelical voters would be on account of this latest GOP meltdown. For starters, I'm hoping this incident finshes off Musgrave once and for all.

On the subject of Kerry, I feel a lot of compassion for him. He's been swift boated yet again, and he found himself in a very conflicting position, initially telling the slanderous wingnuts to go f*ck off this time around, but he ultimately withdrew himself from campaigning for the good of the party. What possibly pains him the most is the realization that any hopes for his being nominated for President in 2008 just evaporated. There's way too much baggage, even if there's nothing in the suitcases.

[wisteria]

34. Because it is all they have. n/t

[RoyGBiv]

28. I think he feels pretty damn good ...

He kept the debate focused. I think he left a little bait for the right-wing to pick up and chew, and I think they bit hard.

I imagine he will sleep very soundly on November 8th.

[JeffR]

30. Kerry took bullets in a conflict he volunteered for

which he later realized was based on lies. He can take this feeble mock-outrage from the fRepublicans and from the quislings of his own party. Voted for him once and will do so again if his name is on my '08 ballet. I'm not worried about him.

[wisteria]

31. I would bet Kerry is disappointed right now that his party didn't back

him,but backed the Republican lies. Kerry has worked his tail off for the party this election year and has raised and given more than 12 million dollars to help get everyone elected. If we lose some races, it is not his fault. I understand his flubbed line is having no impact what so ever. And, it really shouldn't. The issue is the Iraq war and he knew that all along. The DC insiders are trying to blame him because they failed to figure out that the best strategy was to support him. He will be right back after the election, attacking this administration and demanding change.

[GalleryGod]

37. I Marched with John Kerry, 35 years ago last April...

We've been friends ever since. I went to Mass and campaigned for him for
Congress. I'm sure he feels badly. I'm also sure Teresa and the girls are there for him,too.