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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (629055)	9/20/2004 7:53:46 PM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The Vast Left-Wing Excuse Machine For some reason or another Tucker Carlson has earned the distrust of many conservatives in America. Not sure why. We’ve always liked him. And the other night we happened to catch his show on PBS, Tucker Carlson Unfiltered. We found it insightful, fair, conservative and straightforward. (And we’re not just saying this because he wrote the forward to Patrick Hynes’ book.) Anywho, last Friday night Tucker's guests included David Frum and a particularly obnoxious and overbearing British woman from The Economist (and really, is there any sound more excruciation to the human ear that the cackle of a British accent on television?) We don’t recall her name. But she was in full excuse-making mode for John Kerry and the Dems. The problem, as she saw it, was that Republicans were just so much better at dirty politics than those naive and innocent Democrats. Why, just look at how "swiftly" the Republicans defused the CBS National Guard scoop and Kitty Kelly’s big book revelation. Meanwhile, Kerry and the Democrats hemmed and hawed for weeks on end, trying to figure out how best to respond to the Swift Boat Vets. This old British crow wasn’t the only liberal in Big Media out to declare defeat and blame it all on Bush’s dirty tricks. The Washington Post ran a commentary on Sunday by NBC News Political Director Elizabeth Wilner that made largely the same point. But with more detail. And less credibility. “I have concluded that today’s crop of Democrats are right to worry that they lack the laser focus and ruthless efficiency of the current GOP – or even the Clinton campaign,” Wilner writes. “The events of the past few weeks, combined with Bush’s recent rise in the polls, have revived a longtime Democratic phobia … Could it be that they are not hard-nosed enough -- some would say mean enough – for today’s politics?” “Republicans know that campaigns are about character. Democrats try to beat their foes into submission with sheaves of policy papers.” Um … yeah, that’s it. For the record we are thrilled to see so many in Big Media appear willing to give up so easily. But we are not going to allow them to craft a preemptive excuse that says Bush won re-election because he and the Republicans were meaner, nastier and dirtier. For two reasons. First, this election ain’t over yet. Not by a long shot. And second, it’s not true. We’re not sure which “policy papers” Wilner is referring to. Perhaps it was Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Or Worse than Watergate. Or The Politics of Truth. No, those were partisan attack entries in the Bush-Haters Book of the Months Club. (Most of which, in must be pointed out, have been discredited.) Maybe Wilner was talking instead about Fahrenheit 911, the cinematic soapbox ramble of obese, low-budget filmmaker Michael Moore. Or maybe she’s talking about those important public policy bullet points “No war for oil” and “Bush is the real terrorist!” I guess our point is it is absurd to say the Democrats just haven’t been mean enough this year. Moreover, we can’t believe anyone’s definition of “dirty politics” is so … ahem … liberal as to include unmasking fraudulent memoranda designed to bring down a president or false, unsubstantiated charges that he coked up at Camp David? There is nothing untoward or inappropriate about successfully deflecting false attacks. Here’s another beauty from Wilner. “And throughout August, the Democrats roughest month to date, Kerry advisers insisted that taking the high road amid attacks on Kerry’s Vietnam service by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was the way to go.” Puh-lease. Here Wilner must be joking. She has to be engaged in some kind of inside joke with the fellows in the newsroom. We know she’s not serious because we broke the story about the Democrat National Committee’s “Brown Book” smear campaign, which was later confirmed by Big Media (albeit several weeks after we blew the lid.) One can hardly call an orchestrated effort to dishonor the personal lives of Vietnam Veterans taking the “high road.” But that is, evidently, where Big Media is headed with their election analysis: the better, smarter man was brought down by nasty street fighters who hold no regard for the facts. But let us offer an alternate viewpoint for the cackling cockney on Tucker’s show and Elizabeth Wilner. Let’s just assume the Democrats nominated a fatally flawed candidate who thirty-some years ago said some controversial and even disgusting things about his country and his fellow veterans. Let’s also assume this candidate is a terribly condescending Francophile in an era when the French are bitterly and vocally anti-American. Let’s assume further this fellow hails from the worst cesspool of all fifty states. Let’s assume yet even further that this guy has been named The Most Liberal Senator in America by the non-partisan National Journal. Okay. Now let’s assume the sitting president is not nearly as stupid and evil as the newsrooms across America have portrayed him to be. Let’s assume that he’s actually quite bright and goodhearted. And let’s just say – for the sake of argument – that when he was allowed to speak directly to the American people at the Republican National Convention – unfiltered by Big Media – more than a few folks said to themselves, hey … this guy isn’t Hitler at all. He’s kind of warm. Loving. Goodhearted. Jeez, maybe that fat guy and that anger little jerk from Vermont were wrong. And lastly, let’s just say that yes, the economy during this sitting president’s early years hit a rough patch, but is now steady as she goes and growing quite nicely. And let’s just say that while most Americans cringe at the thought of war, they know sometimes the good guys just have to do the tough jobs to make this a better world and are therefore far more resilient than the nabobs in the cushiony newsrooms across America. Seems a lot more plausible, don’t it? As we stated earlier, this election is far from over, despite what the defeatist liberals in the Big Media say. We still have the debates to muddle through as well as about $200 million in advertising and those pesky Get-Out-The-Vote drives that yield turnouts as high as 110% in predominantly Democrat precincts. Conservatives cannot become as cocky as the enemy is deflated. But it’s fun to watch them conjure excuses five weeks out, isn’t it? crushkerry.com