BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Friday, September 03, 2004
FEAR FACTOR. It was visible
while it was unfolding, but now that the Republican National
Convention is over, it's even more obvious: this was a convention
built on fear of the most visceral sort - fear of terrorism,
transmogrified into fear of John Kerry, the indecisive flip-flopper
who lacks the resolve to deal with terrorists.
After all the build-up, all the
tension, it finally exploded last night in an orgasm of release when
the Great Protector, George W. Bush, took the stage. You can analyze
the
president's actual speech
all you want. I thought it was an extremely effective address that
laid out a strong case for the sort of moderate conservatism (with a
few feints to the hard right) that would probably command a majority
of the electorate.
Of course, he hasn't governed that
way up until now, and there's no reason to think he would govern that
way in the future. But, like all convention speeches, this was a
political tool, not an effort to win some sort of debate. What's
important is that Bush came across as in command and at ease,
sincere, with just the right mix of humility and arrogance. When he
welled up toward the end, talking about the sacrifices of the
soldiers who've died or been injured on his watch, it was a genuine,
heartfelt moment. Regardless of what you think of Bush's war
policies, it's clear that the human consequences of his actions weigh
on his mind. That's good.
Much has been made of Bush's
negative attacks on John Kerry. I think that's overblown. Bush's
rather mild remarks were well within the bounds of political decency.
What was indecent, of course, was that the president let his fellow
Republicans (and one nominal Democrat) soften Kerry up before he ever
took the podium. Never mind the past week - the past month has
been marked by some of the most mind-boggling attacks in modern
political history, thanks to the lying Swifties and their enablers in
such media quarters as Fox News and talk radio. And if the Swifties
aren't formally tied to the Bush-Cheney campaign, they certainly
enjoy many informal ties in terms of money and Texas political
connections.
That's why analyzing Bush's speech
is essentially beside the point. It was the last move in a game that
began shortly after the Democratic National Convention ended: impugn
Kerry's patriotism; scare the hell out of the public by talking
ceaselessly about the terrorist threat; lie about and
distort Kerry's record; build up Bush as the Good Daddy who will
deliver us from evil; and then trot Bush out on stage for some
hands-on reassurance. Not to play down the skillfulness in how Bush
performed; Kerry supporters can only dream of their man's coming
across and connecting as naturally and easily as Bush does. But Bush
really had the easy part.
Although the convention may be
largely remembered for the unhinged Zell Miller's accusing Kerry for
near-treason because he chose to run for president in a time of war,
one of the most loathsome performances of the week was delivered just
before Bush's appearance, by New York governor George Pataki. I
recommend Chris Suellentrop's piece on 9/11 porn (he calls it
"nostalgia") here.
What Pataki did was make absolutely explicit the overall theme of the
last week, and the last month: that not only will Bush protect you
from the terrorists, the Democrats won't. Kerry can only hope
that any voter who believes he wouldn't have retaliated against Al
Qaeda is a voter who was already lost to him.
Overall, I think the Republicans
got what they needed out of their convention, unless Miller's crazed
rant comes back to haunt them (it should). It was ugly. But it
worked.
KERRY ON THE OFFENSIVE. Is
this smart? No doubt it comes after much debate among his campaign
staff. But I'm not sure it's a good idea for Kerry to be the
messenger for this
harsh a message:
For the past week, they
attacked my patriotism and even my fitness to serve as
commander-in-chief. Well, here is my answer to them: I will not
have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those
who refused to serve when they could have and who misled the
nation into Iraq.
If nothing else, it will make it
difficult for the Democrats to argue that the Republicans were too
negative at their convention. It's also intellectually dishonest,
since Kerry seems to be suggesting that you can't criticize his
proposals to deal with terrorism unless you served in the
military.
On the other hand, since the media
haven't been paying much attention to Kerry's surrogates - including
his running mate, John Edwards - I guess they figured the time had
come for the candidate to do it himself. It's a gamble.
posted at 8:36 AM |
6 comments
|
link
6 Comments:
Regarding the Swiftie Liars and the media attention they've commanded - it's not Fox and the right-wing talk shows I fault, it's the cluelessly credulous treatment accorded them by the *mainstream* media, especially TV news. Print media did a pretty good job of exposing their lies (albeit a couple of weeks late), but the television "on the one hand"-edness was completely incompetant. Somerby and the Howler has been all over this one (as usual!).
I disagree that it is intellectually dishonest. I take that statement as saying:
"don't criticize my defense of this country (meaning vietnam as well as conviction now) when you didn't serve when you had the chance and you lied to get us to war in Iraq."
I think he should have done this 2 weeks ago. Instead, he allowed Bush an escape clause with the public by asking him to condemn the ads. Bush did, so then the same people who rely on soundbites for news are left to think "Wow, W had nothing to do with those swift boat ads" and perhaps that even legitimizes those ads more ("if bush denounced them, they must have been done independently so, hmmm they must have some truth to them....")to the attention-span challenged.
So because of Kerry's decision to play nice and NOT come out and criticize his critics, and by simply asking Bush to denounce them, he allowed this story to be played over and over in the press AND let the President look like a nice guy by simply denouncing them as Kerry requested.
I think Kerry's recent bold statement is a risk only in that it has come (possibly) too late to truly remedy the damage done/questions posed by the lying swifties.
-N-Lo
With respect to Kerry's remarks, I think you're reading more than he actually said.
He didn't say you have to have served in Vietnam to criticize his proposals! I think it's perfectly clear that he's referring the the insuniations that he won't defend America, that he'll "ask for permission" from the world, and he's responding to the insinuation that simply by running for President "during a time of war" he's unpatriotic.
He's drawing a line in the sand, and attempting to rebut the Republican distortions of his character, not his policies. God knows how the nuances of this response will make it through the news reports in a 10 second clip, but here's hoping.
Here is what Susan Estrich thinks: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/9/1/90434.shtml
I imagine you're correct that Kerry had to defend himself in order to get media coverage. Judging by what I saw in the Boston Globe, on TV, and on Salon.com this morning, the strategy paid off at least in that respect. (I was surprised to see that the Bush acceptance speech wasn't the sole focus of the morning's headlines.)
I'm less convinced of the harshness of Kerry's message, and I think the reason is semantic. I didn't read the sentence about ducking service and misleading the nation into Iraq as a dual condemnation but as two pieces of evidence that result in a single condemnation, and I think the next bit of Kerry's speech supports my view. Doubtless the semantic difference is one for the punditry (might want to start with: what's Kerry's public position on other public servants of his age who failed to sign up for Vietnam?), but the message I thought I saw in the sentence was "chicken + hawk = chickenhawk." Might be a catchier label than, say, "hubris" for the undecided voter, but we'll see.
Pataki's slander is a case study of how the Republican Right maintains a continuous culture of smear on any and every issue.
His remark was only possible because the Right has spent the past 3 years making such a slander acceptable discourse. Immediately after 9/11, the Right-Wing propagandists in the GOP and corporate media launched an aggressive campaign to blame the attacks on Clinton while at the same time concealing any public scrutiny of what they knew and did before 9/11.
Few Democrats responded in kind, and the corrupt press corps said nothing; it was months and years before several Bush admin whistleblowers came forward and the 9/11 Commission got underway.
Incredibly, no TV analyst I saw even noticed Pataki's remark.
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
