Monday, February 23, 2004
The Great GOP Mystery
201k is starting to see some incredibly offensive and stupid smears regarding John Kerry's war record.
The details are too insipid to repeat; what's of interest is that of course they are coming in the form of anonymous emails. Anonymous--like the doctored photo of Kerry that purported to show him on stage with Jane Fonda, and like the rumor of his "affair".
We suppose it was only a matter of time. But these smears served to remind us of the Great GOP Mystery, which is: why in the world does George Bush have any support among rank and file Republicans?
We remember the vicious smears that were slipped like a knife into another war hero, John McCain, after his upset victory over George Bush in the 2000 N.H. Republican primary.
Smears always rise out of the mist whenever something threatens a Bush. But that's a different GOP mystery.
McCain, who unlike George Bush is a real conservative, isn't the sort of guy who's willing to sell the country out wholesale to corporate interests He'd at least get retail for it. So immediately after his N.H. win, reprehensible--and anonymous--rumors began to spread about him in S. Carolina.
Push polls, flyers, gossip. Sure he was a war hero and had been a POW, but...what did it do to his mind to have been in the Hanoi Hilton for five years? Wasn't he just a little edgy? He sure got angry quickly. Was it true he had an illegitimate "ethnic" child? Someone said that someone said he'd had another wife in Vietnam...and so on.
Dirty, nasty, vicious stuff. Anonymous smears that impugned the character and even the sanity of a man who'd made everything short of the ultimate sacrifice for his country while George Bush was occasionally dropping in for his National Guard service.
The smears did the job--McCain stumbled in S.C. and never recovered.
And now the same sort of smears are springing up again. No surprise. The anonymous slimers don't care if they smear a conservative war hero or a liberal war hero--as long as George Bush benefits.
But the mystery is, what good does it do rank and file Republicans to smear bona fide war heroes of both parties just to elect George Bush?
We at 201k hold the controversial opinion that John McCain would have mopped the floor with Al Gore in 2000, and would very likely be coasting to easy reelection by now.
But McCain didn't get the nomination. Somehow he got derailed by a guy who lost the popular vote to Al Gore, and almost lost the state his brother is governor of--and yet many Republicans think he's their man.
Why? Why is George Bush better for ordinary, everyday Republicans than John McCain?
The details are too insipid to repeat; what's of interest is that of course they are coming in the form of anonymous emails. Anonymous--like the doctored photo of Kerry that purported to show him on stage with Jane Fonda, and like the rumor of his "affair".
We suppose it was only a matter of time. But these smears served to remind us of the Great GOP Mystery, which is: why in the world does George Bush have any support among rank and file Republicans?
We remember the vicious smears that were slipped like a knife into another war hero, John McCain, after his upset victory over George Bush in the 2000 N.H. Republican primary.
Smears always rise out of the mist whenever something threatens a Bush. But that's a different GOP mystery.
McCain, who unlike George Bush is a real conservative, isn't the sort of guy who's willing to sell the country out wholesale to corporate interests He'd at least get retail for it. So immediately after his N.H. win, reprehensible--and anonymous--rumors began to spread about him in S. Carolina.
Push polls, flyers, gossip. Sure he was a war hero and had been a POW, but...what did it do to his mind to have been in the Hanoi Hilton for five years? Wasn't he just a little edgy? He sure got angry quickly. Was it true he had an illegitimate "ethnic" child? Someone said that someone said he'd had another wife in Vietnam...and so on.
Dirty, nasty, vicious stuff. Anonymous smears that impugned the character and even the sanity of a man who'd made everything short of the ultimate sacrifice for his country while George Bush was occasionally dropping in for his National Guard service.
The smears did the job--McCain stumbled in S.C. and never recovered.
And now the same sort of smears are springing up again. No surprise. The anonymous slimers don't care if they smear a conservative war hero or a liberal war hero--as long as George Bush benefits.
But the mystery is, what good does it do rank and file Republicans to smear bona fide war heroes of both parties just to elect George Bush?
We at 201k hold the controversial opinion that John McCain would have mopped the floor with Al Gore in 2000, and would very likely be coasting to easy reelection by now.
But McCain didn't get the nomination. Somehow he got derailed by a guy who lost the popular vote to Al Gore, and almost lost the state his brother is governor of--and yet many Republicans think he's their man.
Why? Why is George Bush better for ordinary, everyday Republicans than John McCain?
