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| He was complacent, arrogant and humourless. How they loved him |
| 2004-08-01 |
| Steyn, of course. From the Telegraph. EFL It was interesting to see Ben Affleck emerge as the Hollywood mascot of the Democratic Convention. The week reminded me of Ben's movie Pearl Harbor: wall-to-wall evocative military imagery, a cast of thousands, superb production values, but a huge gaping hole where the star performance was supposed to be. On TV the other night, young Mr Affleck offered a pearl of wisdom to Mr Kerry and his consultants: "You have to enervate the base," the Hollywood heartthrob advised solemnly. Thank goodness Steyn is willing to sacrifice some of his brain cells to watch this crap and catch boners like this; I couldn't stand it. If it's enervating the base you're after, John F Kerry would seem to be the perfect candidate. On Thursday, for his first big moment in the national spotlight, his only concession to the occasion was to speed up his delivery, in order to cram a 90-minute address into the hour of primetime the networks were prepared to give him. But otherwise it was classic Kerry: verbose, shapeless, platitudinous, complacent, ill-disciplined, arrogant, and humourless. Don't hold back, Mark - tell us what you really think. *snip* At one level, what's happening is very unfair. Three-quarters of Democratic voters opposed the Iraq war; 86 per cent of convention delegates opposed it. But they've wound up with a presidential ticket comprised of two Senators who both voted in favour of it. And, after being for-and-against the war for the last year according to political necessity, Kerry seems to have settled on a position of doing pretty much what Bush is doing while simultaneously spending more time on the blower to Kofi, Jacques and Gerhard. If I were a principled anti-war Democrat, I'd be furious. But the anti-war Dems aren't principled, so they're not. They'd support the anti-Christ if he were running against Bush. (But wait - the leftists think Bush is the anti-Christ; it's the ultimate in cognative dissonance!) But they're not. Because the real distinction is not between pro- and anti-war, but between September 11 Americans and September 10 Americans. The latter group is a coalition embracing not just the hardcore Bush haters - for whom, as the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 makes plain, it all goes back to chads in Florida - but the larger group of voters who've been a little stressed out by the epic nature of politics these last three years and would like a quieter life. That's what John Kerry's offering them: a return to September 10. In his dreams. *snip* Say what you like about Bush, but on Iraq he stood by his principles and rallied the British, Australians, Poles, Italians, etc, to join him. He also rallied Kerry and Edwards to join him. They voted for his war, as the columnist Debra Saunders of The San Francisco Chronical drolly pointed out: "Kerry and Edwards followed. Bush led." Someone said that in San Francisco? Ouch! Kerry now says that Bush "misled" him on Iraq. But, if he was that easily suckered by a renowned moron, how much more susceptible would he be to such wily operators as Chirac. They would speak French to each other, and Jacques would blow soothingly in his ear, and Kerry would look flattered, and there'd be lots of resolutions and joint declarations, and nothing would happen. We'd be fighting the war on terror through the self-admiring inertia of windbag multilateralism. That pretty much sums it up. The man definitely has a way with words! *snip* Leadership is about hearing different viewpoints and reaching a judgment. But Kerry gives the impression that, as long as he enjoys the perks of the top job, he's happy to subcontract his judgment to others. If he actually, you know, had any. He moans endlessly about the "outsourcing" of American jobs but, when it comes to his own job, he's willing to outsource American foreign policy exactly! to the mushy transnational talk-shops and to outsource homeland security to some dubious intelligence tsar. There's no sense of any strategic vision, no sense that he's thought about Iran or North Korea or any of the other powder kegs about to blow. I tried to ask him about some of these matters during the New Hampshire primary and he intoned in response, "Sometimes truly courageous leadership means having the courage not to show any leadership." (I quote from memory.) Yep, that's our "truly courageous" Kerry. *snip* His default position is the conventional wisdom of the Massachusetts Left: on foreign policy, foreigners know best; on trade, the labour unions know best; on government, bureaucrats know best; on defence, graying ponytailed nuclear-freeze reflex anti-militarists know best; on the wine list, he knows best. Dead on target again. *snip* Last year, I was at a Kerry campaign stop in New Hampshire chatting with two old coots in plaid. The Senator approached and stopped in front of us. The etiquette in primary season is that the candidate defers to the cranky Granite Stater's churlish indifference to status and initiates the conversation: "Hi, I'm John Kerry. Good to see ya. Cold enough for ya?" Etc. But Kerry just stood there nose to nose, staring at us with a semi-glare on his face. After an eternity, an aide stepped out from behind him and said, "The Senator needs you to move." "Well, why couldn't he have said that?" muttered one of the old coots, as Kerry swept past us. That's how I felt after the Convention: all week Senators Biden, Lieberman and Edwards made the case that the Democrats were credible on national security. Why couldn't Kerry have said that? Because in the end he's running for President because he feels he ought to be President. That's his message to George W Bush: "The Senator needs you to move." And even then everyone else says it better. Now that's painful (heh-heh)! Read the whole thing. |
| Posted by:Barbara Skolaut |
| #6 Gunning for Steyn's job, Angie? CF - rumor's out that he's trying to tap one (both?) of Kerry's daughters. How you could possibly have sex with that woman and not get disturbing images of nailing Senator Horseface is beyond me. |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-08-01 3:44:29 PM |
| #5 Hey Affleck, SHUT UP AND SING -er- ACT -er- ENTERTAIN -er- ah forget it -- shut up and BANG whats-her-face and keep her off the movie screen. At least contribute something to the effort. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-08-01 3:34:27 PM |
| #4 Angie: Cool! You go, girl! :-p |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-08-01 2:54:14 PM |
| #3 I was listening to Dem speeches last week on the truck radio driving north of Fairbanks. I had flashbacks to my '60s Berkeley days. It was awful. Everyone with an axe to grind and an agenda was up there on the podium, grinding the axe and ramming their agenda down our throats. IMHO, middle America watching this display on the telly will be repulsed by the fringe radicals which make up much of the Democratic Party nowadays. If they are not, then it means that collectively the country has lost its moral compass and we are in deep s**t. I sure hope that we wake up out of this nightmare in November. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-08-01 2:53:58 PM |
| #2 Hey! Steyn, August 1: [Kerry and Chirac] would speak French to each other, and Jacques would blow soothingly in his ear, and Kerry would look flattered, and there’d be lots of resolutions and joint declarations, and nothing would happen. Me, July 28: Where Bush got a cold shoulder and a curt brush-off, Kerry will get a warm embrace and a polite brush-off. Kerry and the Europeans will have wonderful dinners where the champagne freely flows, and they will speak in beautiful French, and get along so amiably....And we all (especially Kerry) will walk away quite satisfied, despite the fact that the agreements have been qualified and nuanced into futility. Great minds think alike. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2004-08-01 2:31:02 PM |
| #1 Even if I were still a Democrat I'd be hard-pressed to find a reason to vote for this clown-- or any reason to vote against Bush. Kerry is easily the least-inspiring candidate the Dems have fielded since that sad-eyed basset hound, Walter Mondale. And now comes John Kerry, with the same depressive message. Bleah. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-08-01 2:14:16 PM |