What is it with Kerry and Edwards and personal attacks

[911pcars]

Wasn't it in John McCain's presidential primary campaign in 2000 in S. Carolina when McCain was rumored to be gay? When gay didn't work, he was labeled a womanizer who cheated on his wife (hey something's gotta stick). Then it was his wife who was a drug addict (Rush Limbaugh aflliction) and that McCain himself was mentally ill because of time spent as a POW in VN.

On top of that, a picture of McCain's adopted daughter from Bangladesh was purportedly sent to redneck Confederates in the rural areas. Guess who won the primaries in S. Carolina? Bush's idea? No. Credit Karl Rove, Bush's main strategist. I wonder how Rove would have characterized Mother Teresa?

I too felt a little uncomfortable when Kerry mentioned Cheney's daughter in those terms. Not sure what his motivation was. I don't think that fazed GW in the least. As mentioned above, GW approves the strategy that Rove employs and once again, McCain is buddy-buddy w/GW. Makes you kinda wonder about the state of political campaigning nowdays where the name-calling, dirty tricks, lying and devisiveness is just for effect, a game, and we're just pawns being moved around by the chessmaster(s).

Sherwood

[cegerer]

Yeah, I know. I should be happy the government only confiscates half of my money. Reminds me of a couple of clips in the Jackie Stewart biography (The Flying Scot). He and Sean Connery were chastized in the 70's for taking their money and moving to Switzerland. Why the move? They were paying 98% in taxes in the UK!!!!!!!!!!! I wonder if one of the Libs could make an attempt to justify a 98% tax rate for us ......

[kcf7z]

how does making $200,000 a year make you a multi-millionare as Kerry would describe.

If you review Kerry's tax return from last year, his burden was only 12% of his earnings using the very loopholes and shelters he disdains - unbelieveable that educated and professional people can't see through him.

Just airing some frustration.

[MFAFF]

Just to clarify the 98% rate that was mentionned.

That was on the top rate paid on income above £100,00pa at the time...when a highly paid doctor was on something like £3,000pa now I'm not sure what that equates to but in the order of £1M these days ($1.8M?) equivalent.

Now whilst not supporting such an exhorbitant tax rate but it does not sound nearly a bad...you pay in total a 98% tax on all earnings above that line..which at the time was 30+ times larger than a senior docotor....Its bit like saying you feel sorry for BIll Gates having to pay 98% tax on his earnings over $50M..not necesaarily fair but not necessairly a great burden...

Just to put it in perspective the current top rate on income tax is 40% on income over £38,000pa.

[fintstone]

Yep....He already got his the old fashioned way.....he married it. he just wants to make sure that none of the rest of the middle class ever improves their lot. It might make his "rich guys" club a bit less exclusive and make it a bit more crowded when he is yachting or snowboarding (when he is supposed to be in Congress working). I guess paying more income tax is not really much of a problem when you already have more cash reserves than most countries....and of course don't have to pay any income taxes on that....since it is not income.

[juanbenae]

i wish i had a chance to vote mccain.

[cegerer]

Well, thanks for the clarification on the 98% rate. However, taking 98% of anything from anybody is immoral at best, criminal at worst.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by k911sc
i wish i had a chance to vote mccain.

If the two parties did not hand pick who we get to vote for, it could of been John McCain verses Howard Dean.................both good choices, both could bring us responsible (to the people) government.

Get active in your party, maybe we can start to change things from the inside.

[techweenie]

Originally posted by kcf7z
If you review Kerry's tax return from last year, his burden was only 12% of his earnings using the very loopholes and shelters he disdains - unbelieveable that educated and professional people can't see through him.

Just airing some frustration.

Yeah, right. And if he didn't use all the tax loopholes available to people with his forms of income, you'd call him stupid.

I haven't seen either candidate promising serious tax reform.

[Bleyseng]

I don't think its any big deal that Kerry spoke about Cheney's daughter as she works on Cheneys re election and is over 21.

Fight fire with fire as Karl Rove started this BS.

Geoff

[mtelliott]

True, but leave the children out of it none the less. If he had dropped the comment, "who is a lesbian", then he wouldn't have been jabbing at the oposition and would still have made his point.

“And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was. She’s being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it’s not a choice.”

But, at some point, you have to drop to your openents tactics if you want to stay in the game. Kerry tried to ignore the swiftboat issue and it almost cost him everything.

Michael

[techweenie]

This (the Cheney family "outrage") is disingenous showboating.

Dick medntioned his 'gay daughter' in the 2000 debate, and again on the campaign trail within the past two weeks.

[fintstone]

Mona Charen

October 15, 2004


There was one moment in the final presidential debate in which John Kerry was downright likable. When offering up the standard gallant remark that he, Bush and Bob Schieffer had all "married up," Kerry had the presence of mind to realize instantly how that sounded coming from not just the only man on the stage, but one of the only men in America, who had been fortunate enough to marry a billionaire.

Grinning broadly, he added: "I more than others, perhaps. It's OK, I can take it." It was obviously spontaneous and funny.

Yet Kerry was also guilty of a smarmy mention of Dick Cheney's daughter being a lesbian. This was no offhand remark. Sen. John Edwards had raised it during the vice presidential debates as well, under the guise of "praising" the vice president for "embracing" his gay daughter. Sorry, but it just doesn't seem likely that Edwards was looking for ways to applaud his opponent. It was clearly some sort of strategy on the part of the ticket.

Following the debate, Mary Beth Cahill, Kerry's campaign manager, asserted defensively that since Mary Cheney was open about her sexuality, her situation was "fair game." Fair game for what? For exploitation? This doesn't add up.

Democrats will doubtless argue that Kerry raised the matter of Cheney's sexuality to dramatize the point that homosexuality is not a chosen lifestyle. How can it be so when even Republican vice presidents have lesbian daughters? But that's unpersuasive. Bush had just finished saying that he didn't know whether gays choose to be gay or are born that way. It was gratuitous and unnecessary.

Was Kerry trying to damage the Bush-Cheney ticket by calling attention to something many conservative Republicans probably did not know about the vice president's daughter?

Here's how that makes sense. Liberals tend to believe that conservatives are bigots. On the subject of homosexuality, they think conservatives oppose gay marriage not because they genuinely believe in the sanctity of heterosexual marriage but because they hate gays. To cite Mary Cheney therefore seems to them a "gotcha" moment.

It was tawdry. One cannot even imagine what stratospheric level of outrage the national press would have reached if a Republican had commented on the sexuality of a Democrat's child.

Another revealing moment: the discussion of religion. President Bush was nearly eloquent on the subject. Kerry seemed to picking his carefully focus-grouped way through a potential minefield. He wanted credit for being Catholic with its Kennedy associations, but also made it clear that he would never impose his religious views on anyone else.

In fact, he rhetorically backed up and drove over this territory a number of times. His religious views are terribly important to him, he protested. But he would never, never impose those view on anyone. It reminds me of the line that was once current about Sen. Teddy Kennedy, that his religious views were so personal he declined to impose them on anyone -- including himself.

We Bush supporters have had to become accustomed to his peculiar dips and rises. Had he been as focused, energetic, articulate and persuasive in Debate I as he was in Debate III, the election would probably be a foregone conclusion. But Bush has a habit of getting lazy, or distracted, or I don't know what and slipping down to within view of the precipice. The palms sweat. He then reaches down into himself and finds the wherewithal to scratch his way back up to safe ground.

Structurally, this should not have been a close election. The country has not elected a self-proclaimed liberal since Lyndon Johnson and hasn't elected a non-Southern Democrat since John F. Kennedy. Both Mondale and Dukakis, who believe all of the same things Kerry does, lost by crushing margins. Further, the savage attack on the United States revived Americans' desire for a muscular foreign policy -- an unequivocal advantage for the president. It should have been short work for the Bush campaign to quickly sketch Kerry's extremely liberal voting record for voters.

Yet they didn't. They painted him as a flip-flopper. If the Swift Boat Veterans had not charged into the breach, Bush might be behind today. (And ironically enough, if the Federal Election Commission had bowed to the Bush campaign's wishes to include all 527s under the campaign finance restrictions, the Swift Boat Vets would have been silenced.)

President Bush very much deserves to be re-elected. But he has made difficult what ought to have been easy.

[911pcars]

Flint,
How about just a link to your desired site or just your humble opinion?

I think a straight up copy and paste commenting is redundant and just takes up unnecessary bandwidth unless it supports a point you're making.

No comment about content, but who's Mona? A friend? Does she own a Porsche too but was too afraid to comment personally?

Sherwood

[bryanthompson]

I think if Kerry truly didn't mean to use Lynn Cheney as a tactic, he should've come out right away and said he was sorry, it was an off-the-cuff remark, and he meant no disrespect to the family. That'd be the end of it. How pi$$ed off can you be about something some said when they've apologized for it?

The remarks of Cahill and Edwards' wife didn't make it look any less personal-attackish.

[Aurel]

Women tend to marry men that ressemble their father. With a father like Cheney, it is no wonder that his daughter is a lesbian.
Now THAT is what Kerry should have said

Aurel

[Bleyseng]

haha, I totally agree!

[CamB]

That article sucks.

Here's how that makes sense. Liberals tend to believe that conservatives are bigots. On the subject of homosexuality, they think conservatives oppose gay marriage not because they genuinely believe in the sanctity of heterosexual marriage but because they hate gays. To cite Mary Cheney therefore seems to them a "gotcha" moment.

Incorrect - liberals want for conservatives to stop taking their position without thinking through the ramifications on REAL PEOPLE.

Dick Cheney has a notably different position to GWB on gay marriage, BECAUSE he has a gay daughter. His view of gay people is (apparently) different to GWB, BECAUSE he has a gay daughter.

The accusation is not that Conservatives hate gays, it is that they form their position without any empathy or knowledge. In that sense, and that sense alone, they are bigotted.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by 911pcars
Flint,
.......

No comment about content, but who's Mona? A friend? Does she own a Porsche too but was too afraid to comment personally?

Sherwood

Mona Charen has been a syndicated columnist since 1987 and her column has become one of the fastest growing in the industry. It is featured in more than 200 papers, including the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution and the Washington Times. She spent 6 years as a regular commentator on CNN's "Capital Gang" and "Capital Gang Sunday," and has served as a Pulitzer Prize judge.

Yes, a friend.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by CamB
That article sucks.

......

The accusation is not that Conservatives hate gays, it is that they form their position without any empathy or knowledge. In that sense, and that sense alone, they are bigotted.

Read the last 2 liberals' posts before your post...and then consider which party you refer to...