Thursday, December 16, 2004
You Heard It Here First
August 23, 2004: In the midst of the Swift Boat Liars controversy, a regular reader of this blog commented, "This is our Willie Horton, folks." Two days later I observed that "If [Kerry] loses, we'll look back on the last two weeks as the critical moment."
December 15, 2004: "The campaign manager for Sen. John Kerry's failed presidential bid said Wednesday she regrets underestimating the impact of an attack advertisement that questioned Kerry's Vietnam War record."
And that's just the tip of the iceberg that is Mary Beth Cahill's cluelessness. The campaign thought originally that there would be "no reach" to the ad, and campaign officials were frustrated after the controversy continued to boil even after the central allegations of the Liars had been debunked. The first suggestion is at least plausible, to a point. Independent groups are always coming up with campaign ads on their own, and some of them are indeed loony and ignorable. But it shouldn't have taken the Kerry campaign more than a couple of days to figure out this ad was not one of them. As for their frustration, wasn't there one damn current or former journalist around the campaign who could have told them that in the August news doldrums, a story as juicy as that was going to have legs? And that in the 24/7 media world, having the truth on your side doesn't make you bulletproof? It was Cahill's job to know this stuff, and she failed at the worst possible moment.
In early September, I put up a post titled "Winner by Forfeit," in which I lamented Kerry's weak response to Republican attacks. In it, I quoted a Salon reader who wrote to the magazine about an article on Kerry's response to the Liars: "More and more, Kerry resembles not JFK so much as another Massachusetts politician, Michael Dukakis, who allowed the other side to define him and never fought back, believing points would one day be awarded for control of the moral high ground." Based on what Cahill said yesterday, that's pretty much what happened. Like the Dukakis campaign, the Kerry campaign simply couldn't believe that what the Repugs were doing would cause serious damage to their man. By the time they woke up, it was too late. Willie Horton was back in the house.
Way back last spring, I wondered if the Kerry campaign really understood that the 2004 election was not like every other election of the past 40 years. As the campaign unfolded, there were moments when you got the feeling that yeah, maybe they did. In the end, however, it's pretty clear they simply didn't. Not only were they incapable of understanding the nature of 2004, they were incapable of understanding the nature of 1988, after having had 16 years to think it over.
Recommended Reading: One of the great holiday traditions is back again: Norman Solomon's P.U.litzer Prizes for the year's most foul-smelling attempts at journalism.
And for more proof that there is no hole in Hell deep enough for George W. Bush, click here.
August 23, 2004: In the midst of the Swift Boat Liars controversy, a regular reader of this blog commented, "This is our Willie Horton, folks." Two days later I observed that "If [Kerry] loses, we'll look back on the last two weeks as the critical moment."
December 15, 2004: "The campaign manager for Sen. John Kerry's failed presidential bid said Wednesday she regrets underestimating the impact of an attack advertisement that questioned Kerry's Vietnam War record."
And that's just the tip of the iceberg that is Mary Beth Cahill's cluelessness. The campaign thought originally that there would be "no reach" to the ad, and campaign officials were frustrated after the controversy continued to boil even after the central allegations of the Liars had been debunked. The first suggestion is at least plausible, to a point. Independent groups are always coming up with campaign ads on their own, and some of them are indeed loony and ignorable. But it shouldn't have taken the Kerry campaign more than a couple of days to figure out this ad was not one of them. As for their frustration, wasn't there one damn current or former journalist around the campaign who could have told them that in the August news doldrums, a story as juicy as that was going to have legs? And that in the 24/7 media world, having the truth on your side doesn't make you bulletproof? It was Cahill's job to know this stuff, and she failed at the worst possible moment.
In early September, I put up a post titled "Winner by Forfeit," in which I lamented Kerry's weak response to Republican attacks. In it, I quoted a Salon reader who wrote to the magazine about an article on Kerry's response to the Liars: "More and more, Kerry resembles not JFK so much as another Massachusetts politician, Michael Dukakis, who allowed the other side to define him and never fought back, believing points would one day be awarded for control of the moral high ground." Based on what Cahill said yesterday, that's pretty much what happened. Like the Dukakis campaign, the Kerry campaign simply couldn't believe that what the Repugs were doing would cause serious damage to their man. By the time they woke up, it was too late. Willie Horton was back in the house.
Way back last spring, I wondered if the Kerry campaign really understood that the 2004 election was not like every other election of the past 40 years. As the campaign unfolded, there were moments when you got the feeling that yeah, maybe they did. In the end, however, it's pretty clear they simply didn't. Not only were they incapable of understanding the nature of 2004, they were incapable of understanding the nature of 1988, after having had 16 years to think it over.
Recommended Reading: One of the great holiday traditions is back again: Norman Solomon's P.U.litzer Prizes for the year's most foul-smelling attempts at journalism.
And for more proof that there is no hole in Hell deep enough for George W. Bush, click here.
