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| photo: joshua lott/Reuters |
Everyone I know who knew Adlai Stevenson loved him — but also said that
he wasn’t savage enough to win the presidency — or even if he did, to “be”
president. – Steve
Clemons
Phone calls galore yesterday, ranging over all different types of subjects.
But one conversation out of the blue stunned me.
“Kerry endorsed Barack because he’s going to teach him to fight
back.”
Oh God. This had to be a
joke. You’re kidding, I assumed. No. It’s for real. Even worse is that the
person to whom I was speaking gave me the impression that John Kerry didn’t
get the irony, or rather, the lunacy in his statement. I got a good cackle out
of it. I also hadn’t intended to write one word about it. Then Kerry let fly
on Clinton, through a cold-call no less, to Nevada reporter Jon Ralston. Via
the Las Vegas Sun, which I posted yesterday, Kerry spoke about Obama: “He
produced one of the most significant ethics reform bills we passed. He has been
a legislator longer than Hillary Clinton.” And then this zinger: “Health
care didn’t pass in 1994 if I recall.”
Now this is where this gets ugly for me. John Kerry is a bona fide war hero,
someone who I have supported, admired, met and… but this just tears it. To hear
him talk about a failure of someone else’s considering his football
field of flaws from the 2004 election stuns me into abject disbelief.
Adlai’s ghost is going to teach the next generation’s Adlai, Mr. Hope, how to
fight?
Excuse me while I pick myself off the floor, dust myself off, then try to immediately
rip from my mind the flashing memories of the disaster that became the 2004
campaign, which ended with Kerry losing a presidential election that was the
easiest gimme in political history. No, in world history. Nah, in the history
of universes, galaxies and beyond. That John Kerry could actually hand George
W. Bush a win in 2004 defies all political competency when you look at the ammunition
we had to run on. Kerry faced the most incurious, stubborn, ill-informed, misdirected,
incompetent man to ever live in the White House. A war so mismanaged that the
entire country was about to explode. A film by Michael Moore that made the case
against George W. Bush for us. Money-Money-Money. And a Texan who half of America detested and who originally
rode into Washington backwards on a lame mule with the help of the Supreme Court. But Kerry allowed himself, the Democratic party
and the American people to be taken to the cleaners, because John Kerry served
up one political gaffe gift after another.
“I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”
— John Kerry, March 16, 2004
When this beauty was unleashed with a straight face I and no doubt millions
of others said If we lose this election, this is the reason. Too bad
Mr. Kerry wasn’t content with that monumental screw up. Instead, this quote
became the model for stumble after stumble. He became the political nightmare
that kept on giving and giving until many activists working on his behalf watched
him on television with a bottle of booze and one eye half closed waiting for
another whopper to drop from his privileged puss. Sadly, it always did.
But in a peak of amnesia that rivals any case in the most vaunted medical journals,
John Forbes Kerry has the audacity to cold-call a reporter in an upcoming caucus
state to talk about Clinton’s 1994 health care failure. Mr. Kerry is fortunate
I have a heart, because if I went back and listed all of his failures
during the 2004 election (not to mention his 2006 beauties) we’d be here until
after Super Tuesday and he’s back in Massachusetts fighting for his political
life because he opened his mouth once too often.
This is the same guy who sat on his privileged posterior while Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth took him to the cleaners in the press, creating free media
across the landscape of the United States, right after the Democratic convention
that was a love fest of nauseating proportions without one iota of contrast
drawn between Democrats and Republicans, because somebody had the bright idea
that going negative would be a no-no. So right after he accepted the nomination,
what happened? The swiftboaters went straight into Kerry’s bona fide war hero
status, while he sat back and… … … and… … … did absolutely
nothing because he actually believed the American people would never buy their
bull because after all he was John Kerry Democratic Nominee For President, while
the rest of us twisted in the wind waiting for this guy to do something.
Instead, Kerry let weeks and weeks go by until the narrative was sewn into
the fabric of the traditional media, while people like me, before I went to
blogging, busted my butt in abject obscurity but with the passion of a well
paid pol, putting out the real story of his amazing heroism, of which to this
day I stand in awe, which is why this latest event from Mr. Oh God What Will
He Say Next has me in such a fury.
And now John Kerry wants to teach another Democratic presidential nominee how to fight?
Watch out if he asks you to go wind surfing.
And no Democrat I know has ever gotten over Ohio. The sight of all those voters
waiting in line for all those hours still haunts me. But to Mr. Kerry it couldn’t
have been won. What about fighting because the fight needed to be waged? What
about standing up for the voters whether you win or not? I guess saving your
own prestige and presidential hopes was more important. Fighting for Ohio to
some of us was as elemental as fighting in 2000. It was the same issue, different
year, same opponents, a message still needing to be delivered. Ask John Edwards. But instead Kerry
folded, leaving all of those voters, the Democratic party and the American people
hung out to dry in the Ohio cold. How fitting that Kerry’s
new protégé agreed with him.
In Washington, Obama signaled almost immediately that his career would not
be defined by his race. One of the first acts of the new Congress
was to certify the results of the Electoral College. Some members of the Congressional
Black Caucus moved to contest the certification of the Ohio votes. Obama did
not join them. In a hastily arranged maiden speech, he said he was convinced
that President George W. Bush had won but he also urged Congress
to address the need for voting reform. … .. read
more
Two political peewees in a kumbaya pod.
Now the ghost of Adlai of one generation has endorsed the Adlai of another.
How perfect.
I’ve got one word for Mr. Obama: run.
God save us from Adlai’s ghosts. The world can’t afford another Republican.
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