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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (67441)	9/6/2004 10:07:49 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793755

Didja notice the vast silence across the "fertile crescent?" I saw immediate articles detailing official statements of sympathy and disapproval. Haven't seen anything else. Perhaps it takes a while to get their heads around the cognitive dissonance and shift gears. If nothing good comes of this, the "kill all Muslims" line may become less abhorrent.

To: LindyBill who wrote (67441)	9/6/2004 10:08:19 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793755

Bush's real advantage is Kerry September 6, 2004 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST NEW YORK -- The soaring confidence that George W. Bush's political team takes into the final weeks of the campaign stems from more than belief its candidate is vastly underestimated. President Bush's advisers cannot believe their good fortune of how badly John Kerry and his campaign have performed the last month. What's more, that assessment is shared by many Democrats outside the Kerry campaign. The Republican National Convention here did everything intended, climaxed by Bush's competent though overly long acceptance speech. But Bush's real advantage has been Kerry. At the Labor Day traditional campaign start, the Democratic nominee still seems undefined. In his latest about-face, he has gone into an attack mode, however blunted. On the convention's last day, word spread about Kerry's newest tactic: going to Springfield, Ohio, for a midnight rally targeting both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for missing combat in Vietnam. His late-night audience seemed anesthetized. There never has been any doubt about Bush's tactics. Karl Rove and the rest of his campaign team believe in the efficacy of negative politics. Attacking the opponent early and often is actually recognized, however privately, by operatives of both parties as the way to win elections. That is why Kerry's recent behavior is puzzling, especially when compared with Bush's plan. That plan was for Republican convention speakers preceding Bush to hit Kerry hard. As intended, the president himself applied some licks to Kerry. Bush advisers were delighted by the tough anti-Kerry text that defecting Democratic Sen. Zell Miller prepared for his keynote address. Republican criticism of Miller was stylistic, not substantive. But when the usually amiable Georgian was told by friendly critics that he could have smiled a little more, he replied that he regarded the menace to his family posed by today's Democratic Party as no laughing matter. With Miller's former Democratic allies assailing him as ''angry'' and ''harsh,'' Republicans did not join the criticism as they did when Pat Buchanan was demonized for his 1992 convention speech. Bush aides do not want Miller to be Buchananized. This contrasts with rigid censorship of anti-Bush rhetoric by Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill at the Democratic National Convention a month earlier (not excluding even Bill Clinton's speech). Kerry's passivity, enforced by Cahill, enraged former Clinton strategist James Carville. Kerry aides then blamed their nominee's troubles on public criticism by Carville, a television personality who holds no party position. Kerry's strategists seemed uncertain whether he should follow custom and stay out of sight during the other party's national convention, but finally decided he could not. After windsurfing at Nantucket, Kerry addressed the American Legion convention in what had been billed as an attack on his swift boat veteran detractors. Instead, he delivered a quiet critique of Iraq war policy, which was unenthusiastically received. That was followed by Thursday night's speech in which Kerry attacked his opponents ''who refused to serve'' in Vietnam -- that is, Bush and Cheney. A midnight rally in Springfield, Ohio, is nothing like an acceptance speech at Madison Square Garden, but the unfair comparison was not flattering to Kerry. Bush delivered a conservative speech to a conservative party, but also as a war president. After shocking his supporters earlier by saying he would still vote for Bush's war resolution, Kerry in Ohio on Thursday night declared the president ''misled America into Iraq.'' The Democratic nominee continues to define himself. *** In response to queries: My son, Alex Novak, is director of marketing for Regnery Publishing Inc., publisher of Unfit for Command. He is 36 and has been employed at Regnery for six years, since receiving his MBA from the University of Maryland. He has had no connection with my reporting about Unfit for Command, a best-selling book dealing with Kerry's war record whose news value is obvious. I plan to continue to pursue this story as developments warrant.