BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for
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For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit
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For information on Dan Kennedy's book, Little People: Learning to
See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Attacking Kerry's war
record. You'd think it would be impossible for the Republicans to
turn John Kerry's military experience against him. Indeed, Kerry and
his supporters hope that his status as a Vietnam veteran and a war
hero will offset his reputation as a Massachusetts liberal. But
Jed
Babbin, a Defense
Department official for Bush I, gives it a try this morning on the
right-wing American Prowler website. (I found the link at
Real
Clear Politics.) Babbin's
is a crude and ugly attack, fascinating mainly because it may serve
as a rough draft for what's coming should Kerry succeed in winning
the Democratic nomination.
According to Babbin's screed,
Kerry's service in Vietnam so damaged him that he wound up a
dangerous bleeding heart who can't be trusted as commander-in-chief.
Here's the nastiest passage, attributed, naturally, to anonymous
sources:
One senior Army officer, a
warrior from Gulf War 1, told me that Kerry suffers from the
Vietnam syndrome. In his judgment, Kerry is, "too traumatized by
the lost war to cope with any other war under any circumstances."
A former Navy SEAL told me he thinks Kerry is an opportunist. That
same judgment of Kerry came independently from a Marine whose
Vietnam service was as tough or tougher than Kerry's. He told me,
"I do not trust people like [Kerry] -- scratch that
individual and watch an opportunist bleed."
So the right, after eight years of
distrusting Bill Clinton because he never served, now distrusts Kerry
because he did serve. Apparently the only proper course for a
future commander-in-chief is that of George W. Bush, who safely
maneuvered planes over Texas skies, thus giving him the military
record that Clinton lacked while sparing him of the terrible
knowledge that Kerry paid such a high price to obtain.
posted at 11:00 AM |
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Monday, December 23, 2002
Nyhan's column lives. Walter
Brooks, who compiles the invaluable News
Junkies Weekly Fix, sent me
an e-mail explaining where Salem
News content disappears
to after that day's issue expires. So without further ado, here's the
link to David
Nyhan's column of last Thursday.
But hurry! Once this Thursday's paper comes out, it will be
gone for good.
Sophisticated kidvid.
The
Wild Thornberrys Movie
is wonderful, a story aimed at adults and kids alike. I took my
daughter to see it on Saturday, and felt like I'd been rewarded for
all the times I'd been forced to sit through such loathsome fare as
the
Pokemon movies and
Jimmy
Neutron, Boy Genius.
There are lots of children's movies that try to lure in the adults
with double entendres that fly over the kids' heads, but The Wild
Thornberrys doesn't stoop to such cheap tricks. It's
sophisticated enough for the grown-ups, and it never panders to the
kids.
Happy holidays. Media Log is
going on semi-hiatus until after New Year's Day. I may feel the urge
to spew a couple of times, but between Christmas, travel, and some
serious computer problems that I haven't been able to diagose, it
seems like it would be a good idea to hibernate for a few weeks. I
won't be sending out e-mails, but you might want to check the website
from time to time.
posted at 10:40 AM |
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Sunday, December 22, 2002
The real Trent Lott. There's
a school of thought -- a blessedly small one, to be sure -- that poor
Trent Lott was forced to resign just as he was finally starting to
get it.
According to this thinking, the
real reason that Senate Republicans finally rose up and overthrew him
was not that they were offended by his decades-long record of racist
statements and actions, but that they feared he was morphing into a
pro-affirmative-action moderate. That might what Globe
columnist Tom Oliphant was
trying to say this morning, although I'm reserving judgment until I
see the English translation.
With such woolly-headedness on the
loose, it's great to see the post-resignation Lott cutting loose and
putting all doubts to rest. According to this
dispatch from the Associated Press,
Lott drops the pretense of being sorry and makes it clear that he
thinks his only mistake was to fall into a "trap" set by his
political enemies.
Lott acknowleges having made an
"inappropriate remark," thus slithering away from his two
endorsements of Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign
-- spoken 22 years apart -- as well as his association with the
white-supremacist Council
of Conservative Citizens,
his opposition to the Martin Luther King holiday, and the like.
Incredibly, he adds:
There are some people in
Washington who have been trying to nail me for a long time. When
you're from Mississippi and you're a conservative and you're a
Christian, there are a lot of people that don't like that. I fell
into their trap and so I have only myself to blame.
So now you have the Gospel
according to Trent. It's not that he's a racist, or that he made
racist remarks, or that he has sought friendship and support from
racists for his entire sorry career. It's that he's ... a
Christian. God help us.
posted at 5:25 PM |
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MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
