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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (70340)	6/25/2006 1:58:05 PM
From: miraje	Respond to of 173976

John Kerry is a 100% ethical politician who's never told a lie, has never taken a dirty dollar, has never sold out Brummett has it right about Kerry, a self aggrandizing loser who thinks the world revolves around him. Only a brainless ditz like you could continue to go gaga over that flip flopping phony.. reviewjournal.com JOHN BRUMMETT: Kerry proving to be loser of the worst kind No handbook exists for appropriate behavior after being vanquished in a presidential election. One size surely cannot fit all. Michael Dukakis trudged to Harvard to teach. He shows himself in public only when someone seeks him out and then only to call his candidacy the best example of how not to run for president. Good. Jimmy Carter became a world humanitarian and won the Nobel Peace Prize. Very good. The first George Bush keeps a low public profile except to raise money for humanitarian aid with Bill Clinton and become the father Bill never had. Good. Al Gore, who didn't altogether lose, performed creditable comedy on "Saturday Night Live" and, after a few public moments that reflected understandable bitterness, seems now to be settling into a role as something of a statesman aiming to be on the right side of history on environmental integrity. Good. Jerry Ford plays golf. That's fine, at least to the extent that it's in keeping with the man's utter absence of airs. Bob Dole has made Viagra commercials and cracked jokes. Not so good. The best path seems to entail putting aside electoral pursuits for something either of a lower profile or nobler humanitarian purpose. The worst, then, is John Kerry, now in the process of creating a self-caricature. He seems hell-bent to run for president again, all logic to the contrary. His obsession seems to be using his Senate position to try to correct his blunders as a candidate. Those were a wishy-washiness on the war in Iraq and a general political tone deafness, the latter of which he clearly has not overcome. Three times that we know of, Kerry's allegiance to self has left Democratic colleagues shaking their heads or raising their eyebrows. Last year, when Social Security privatization was still an issue, Kerry was said by The Washington Post to have presumed at a caucus to lecture his minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada. He said the Democrats needed to learn how to run a "perpetual campaign" to keep President Bush from sliding back as usual to a moderate stance on Social Security. Reid called him up short, the Post reported, and said he was handling that, thank you. Then Kerry insisted that Democrats filibuster the nomination of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, an exercise that would not have succeeded except to render the Senate dysfunctional. It was Dick Durbin, the thoroughly liberal senator from Illinois, who said this of Kerry's pointless pursuit of a 60-vote threshold that was quite beyond reach: "One of the first responsibilities of a member of Congress is to learn how to count." Last week, Kerry was insisting that Democrats vote on his proposal to set a date certain for withdrawal from the war in Iraq, the conflict he was famously for and against. This was a transparent attempt to flank Hillary Clinton on the left for tactical purposes of the Democratic presidential primary. His proposal was widely opposed by more reasonable Democrats who knew that setting a withdrawal date would make them susceptible to charges of cutting and running. They were hard at work on a more practical and palatable proposal to find the fine line by which they'd urge the White House to outline an exit strategy, but not appear weak or defeatist or cynical. Asked by a reporter for The New York Times if he'd been pressured in private Democratic conferences to give up his date-certain initiative, Kerry said no. But, or so reported the Times, a Democratic colleague standing behind him, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, raised his eyebrows and winked. Alas, it may be time for Kerry to go windsurfing or woodchuck-hunting permanently. John Brummett is an award-winning columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and author of "High Wire," a book about Bill Clinton's first year as president. His e-mail address is jbrummett@ arkansasnews.com.