House of Eratosthenes

Yesterday morning, I had some fairly flattering things to say about some guy who once ran for President of the United States by the name of John Kerry. That would be pleasantly surprising to those who are more sympathetic to the Massachusetts senator’s cause, I think, but what would be even more pleasantly surprising was that my positive comments had to do with skills, gifts and aptitudes that we all know the war hero has worked particularly hard to refine over a great deal of time.

Senator Kerry spent much of the long hot summer of 2004 atoning for his ridiculous utterance, “I actually voted for the $87 billion [in emergency funding for the troops in Iraq] before I voted against it,” opting to use silence as the best salve to cleanse the gaping wound. When he met the President in Coral Gables, his staff switched ointments, and they did it cleverly. It was really a thing of beauty, and I remember admiring him for it. When President Bush brought up the quote, and bloggers on both sides knew that he would, the Senator responded:

Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the president made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?

Pow! Right in the kissa! “Kerry fans” — actually, Kerry doesn’t have any fans, they’re just people who hate President Bush — to this day insist the Senator won all three debates, and this is the kind of thing they have in mind. Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. Lemonade from a lemon.

Wow, the words flow as if they came from Howard “Yeeaaaarrrrggghhhh!!!!” Dean himself.

Hey, I’m not averse to recognizing talent wherever I see it. Kerry is very, very good at thinking on his feet, pretending not to be a flip-flopper when he is one; in general, he’s a genius at salesmanship. Well, you know…he’s a genius at selling something to people who desperately want to be sold the thing, performing considerably worse in front of a crowd that’s a bit more skeptical. And I did go on to knock him for being…what was it I called him? I said he was “a horrible candidate for representative public office.” Well, you have to take the bad with the good, and since you only have to peruse my site for a little while to see I’m generally hostile to John Kerry’s…well, to every single scintilla in that crazy perspective from which he appears to see the world…when you factor that in, I was being generally pretty positive toward him.

Now since I wrote that, I’m not sure what happened. The ensuing timeline is pretty tight and doesn’t allow for much wiggle-room, so I figure sometime between three and five o’clock on the east coast, one of Kerry’s staffers read my blog. He must have e-mailed a link to Kerry’s Blackberry, whereupon maybe one of the Senator’s assistants taught him how to use it. Within the next five or six hours, max, someone well-connected with the Boston ultra-liberal inner-circle, must have made a comment in a conference forum about what was going through the Senator’s mind.

Because, after all, I have no reason to believe Ellen Goodman reads my blog. I would suspect hardly anybody does. But how else do you explain this gem which appeared this morning in The Boston Herald:

Don’t run, John Kerry
Ellen Goodman
April 28, 2006
:
The signs that John Kerry is going to run for president in 2008 are rising faster than the pollen count. There was the requisite New York Times op-ed — How many days late? How many dollars short? — on getting out of Iraq. There was the Globe op-ed that preceded the speech supporting war dissenters at Faneuil Hall to an audience of groupies yelling “Run” and “2008.” There was Ted Kennedy’s remark, “If he runs, I’m supporting him.”
:
I am not an opponent of Senator Kerry. I’m a constituent. I’ve voted for him six different times. On Nov. 2, 2004, I briefly wished that the Constitution let us pick a president by the early exit polls.
:
Democrats are cute when they get pragmatic, but not necessarily successful. This time, the stalwarts were convinced they’d found a moderate who couldn’t be polarized. But he was. They thought they found a decorated veteran — three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star — who couldn’t be trashed. But he was.

Kerry is not the only one who still imagines a thousand belated rejoinders for the swift boat attackers. He’s not the only one who cannot believe he actually said of Iraq war funding, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” [emphasis mine]
:
Kerry had many fine moments. I saw some of them on the trail and in the debates. But as many have said, Kerry is a politician who has more policies than ideas. Ask what he believes in and the answer is a 10-point plan. He ran a cautious campaign against a reckless commander in chief. And while caution is not a moral failing, Kerry’s gut seems to have a surgical bypass through his cranium.
:
John Kerry is a good, honorable, thoughtful man. And a lousy presidential candidate. He couldn’t do “ideas” the first time. He wouldn’t do them the second time. It’s just not in him.
:
John, please. Don’t even think about it.

I’ve been robbed, but I’m not calling the police. I’m quite flattered.

Look, here is why it’s glaringly important to the Democrats to take Goodman at her advice, assuming Senator Kerry fails to.

While this crack about “ask what he believes in and you get a 10-point plan” has some truth to it — it has a lot of truth to it — it is nevertheless patently unfair to advance the notion, or to assume it, that Kerry has a weakness for thinking on his feet or for speaking in public. Yes, he lost; but that’s not the reason why. Look at his victorious opponent, for heaven’s sake. The challenger lost the race because he garbled one line about voting against the $87 billion? I don’t think so. It wasn’t the garbling — it was the betrayal of the flip-floppery that made this devastating. If he talked like Porky freakin’ Pig, but was nevertheless forthcoming about voting against the $87 billion, who knows he could be President right now if he handled it that way.

John Kerry didn’t shoot himself in the foot when he flubbed a line. He shot himself in the foot when he tried to be all things to all people.

And that is why you need to go grab yourself a folding chair and a cup of coffee before you ask Senator Kerry what he thinks about anything. He doesn’t want anyone to say “I was going to vote for him before he said X, and now I’m not going to.” It is his paramount goal, to avoid that. That’s what makes him a bad leader.

Democrats need to put in place, an agenda we’re simply not willing to have. Kerry’s ability to tell you it’s raining outside, in such a way that you’ll swear to God he just told you the sun is shining, and nevertheless when you go out in a tank top and shorts and no headgear and end up soaking wet, but it’s all your fault and none of his — that is exactly the talent the Democrats need. But he isn’t Bill Clinton because amidst all the confusion and obfuscation, he comes across as exactly what he is. You can listen with just half an ear, being halfway awake, and you can tell there’s a reason he’s giving you 5,000 words when fifty words should get the job done. He’s trying to anticipate what might motivate you to do what he doesn’t want you to do, and avoid saying it.

Bill Clinton was much better. He said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky,” and I gotta believe that unless someone knew a great deal about the case being investigated, and President Clinton’s unique — uh — personality…they would never in a million years think to ask “Wait a minute, maybe we should ask him if she had relations with him?”

Put more succinctly, Kerry is a good confuser and obfuscator, but Clinton was all of these things, plus a good illusionist.

That’s what the Democrats need to sell their poo-poo sandwich right about now.

What do they want to get going, after all? Just do whatever you want with the terrorists, give ’em whatever they want so long as the next day, terrorism is out of the headlines. Get the public riled up and agitated about Social Security cuts that aren’t really coming. Get some debates going about robbing thirty-something apartment rats who are barely making ends meet, to buy free medicine for rich old seniors with Winnebagos and summer homes. Get everyone arguing about socialized medicine. Make people forget about their huge income tax increases, and instead incite them to near-riot status about 75 cent ATM surcharges. Also, get them scared stiff that Donald Wildmon and Jerry Falwell are personally going to knock down bedroom doors, and send to Guantanamo Bay anyone caught having sex in any position other than missionary.

In short, stop asking the unwashed masses what they’re worried about. Tell them what they’re worried about. That’s what leaders are for, in Democrat-land.

And then cram that big ol’ giant toothpaste tube with the mish-mash of liberal baby-killing, soldier-slandering, tax-increasing, mediocrity-promoting, neo-quasi-socialist goodness down everybody’s throat.

Well if you ran that kind of agenda past people in a poll, worded that way — or even tastefully cleaned up, somewhat, with the meaning left intact — we’re just not into that stuff. We really aren’t. We’ll vote for a Democrat over a Republican if a really juicy, all-consuming Republican scandal has been dominating the news. We’ll do that. But we feel incredibly uncomfortable about choosing a leader that way.

That’s just the way it is.

So they need another Clinton, or they can pretty much just forget the whole thing. And it will work that way even if gas goes to fifteen bucks a gallon, the Dow plunges to 2500, and Bush’s approval rating goes to one-stinkin’-percent.

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Imitation is the Sincerest Form VIIIFriday, April 28th, 2006

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Friday, April 28th, 2006