Weighin in on Swift boats
Alright. Despite my efforts to avoid it (hence the lack of posts recently) I've not choice but to comment on the Swift Boat issue, if only because the Media refuses to focus on anything else. Finally having broken down and actually looked at their website, something to me becomes immediately apparent.
These guys don't like Kerry, and it ain't political. It's personal. And, what's more I think they felt misused by Kerry, (they cite numerous times the inappropriate use of their photographs, which apparently seems to have "set them off".) But their real issue is this second Ad. (which most of us who are not in Battleground States have not seen except on the news.)
Now, it maybe true that group shares some donors with the RNC and the Bush Campaign, but this is hardly suprising. The fact is, that the race today is a bitterly contested ideological contest between the left and right wing. And the money men on both sides are spreading the dough evenly around to make sure that no body stays clean in this mess. Its truly appalling, to say the least. But its a fact of American politics, and we shouldn't let it bother us too much. America is full of dirty campaigns for president, all the way back to Jefferson-Adams.
That being said what makes me truly disturbed is why this campaign needs to be about Vietnam. That war ended thirty years ago. The fact is that a lot of people from that era, my father's generation, are looking to fight the conflict over again. On the left they want to use words like "quagmire" and "bogged down." While on the right they see evidence of a campaign conducted like we should have conducted Vietnam. (creating and then backing a strong political leadership in the country and then supporting it.)
I'm sure there are quite a few people out there who are excited about the prospect of turning the Republican Convention into Chicago '69 too. Too many people in my generation are excited about the idea of being the next Abbie Hoffman.
The fact is... THIS IS NOT ABOUT VIETNAM. period. Iraq is a different place at a different time, for a different reason.
We need to focus on today. Today we are in Iraq, not Vietnam, and we have a job to do, and alot of men and women over there who need our support while they do it. Now for me, I look at the swift boat ads, and I make the determination that John Kerry is not an individual who can be trusted to support our troops through thick and thin. But we can't know for sure, like i said its a different war.
As I said in an earlier post, this is a personal campaign, it won't be an issues campaign. And secondly, you can see that both campaigns are heavily invested in insuring that their opponent is drawn as the arch-typical Liberal or Conservative. Kerry is getting out the word now that Bush is a heartless Smear-meister, while the Swiftboat make the case that Kerry is an untrustworthy hypocrite.
Right now I think Bush is getting the better of it, because he's trying to appear relatively compassionate, condemning all 527s, in general. I'm not sure his message is getting out though, but I think it does show that he knows what he has to do image wise to get reelected.
These guys don't like Kerry, and it ain't political. It's personal. And, what's more I think they felt misused by Kerry, (they cite numerous times the inappropriate use of their photographs, which apparently seems to have "set them off".) But their real issue is this second Ad. (which most of us who are not in Battleground States have not seen except on the news.)
Now, it maybe true that group shares some donors with the RNC and the Bush Campaign, but this is hardly suprising. The fact is, that the race today is a bitterly contested ideological contest between the left and right wing. And the money men on both sides are spreading the dough evenly around to make sure that no body stays clean in this mess. Its truly appalling, to say the least. But its a fact of American politics, and we shouldn't let it bother us too much. America is full of dirty campaigns for president, all the way back to Jefferson-Adams.
That being said what makes me truly disturbed is why this campaign needs to be about Vietnam. That war ended thirty years ago. The fact is that a lot of people from that era, my father's generation, are looking to fight the conflict over again. On the left they want to use words like "quagmire" and "bogged down." While on the right they see evidence of a campaign conducted like we should have conducted Vietnam. (creating and then backing a strong political leadership in the country and then supporting it.)
I'm sure there are quite a few people out there who are excited about the prospect of turning the Republican Convention into Chicago '69 too. Too many people in my generation are excited about the idea of being the next Abbie Hoffman.
The fact is... THIS IS NOT ABOUT VIETNAM. period. Iraq is a different place at a different time, for a different reason.
We need to focus on today. Today we are in Iraq, not Vietnam, and we have a job to do, and alot of men and women over there who need our support while they do it. Now for me, I look at the swift boat ads, and I make the determination that John Kerry is not an individual who can be trusted to support our troops through thick and thin. But we can't know for sure, like i said its a different war.
As I said in an earlier post, this is a personal campaign, it won't be an issues campaign. And secondly, you can see that both campaigns are heavily invested in insuring that their opponent is drawn as the arch-typical Liberal or Conservative. Kerry is getting out the word now that Bush is a heartless Smear-meister, while the Swiftboat make the case that Kerry is an untrustworthy hypocrite.
Right now I think Bush is getting the better of it, because he's trying to appear relatively compassionate, condemning all 527s, in general. I'm not sure his message is getting out though, but I think it does show that he knows what he has to do image wise to get reelected.
1 Comments:
hi cutie
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