Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Clearing The Fog Of Lies

My intent with this post is to plug The Patriot Project, which is explained by John Kerry in this HuffPo post as a group that “will defend any man or woman, regardless of party or affiliation, who is attacked or defamed and whose patriotism is questioned simply because they exercise their rights as Americans.”

As Kerry notes (using unusually blunt language, which is refreshing…no one can accuse him of being “nuanced” here), it is critical that we all respond to the Repugs and their slime machine as quickly as possible when they attack our candidates. The Patriot Project is a vital tool in accomplishing this task.

And by the way, I had been meaning to compliment Kerry for some time because, since his electoral loss, I believe he has reclaimed his ground as a leader in the Democratic party, certainly on the Iraq war (the only other nationally visible elected Dem with something of a plan is Joe Biden, which calls for partitioning Iraq, notwithstanding Jack Murtha's call for immediate withdrawal; I think Biden's idea was interesting a year or so ago, echoes to British colonialism notwithstanding, but I think the whole country is too far gone now to make that happen).

(By the way, as long as I mentioned Kerry’s defeat in 2004, I should point out that I believe it was brought on by voting fraud and the lies he mentions in his post, but also brought on a bit by his own campaign’s disorganization and inability at times to understand what the 2004 campaign was all about…as soon as he addressed Bush’s failures on security issues, Kerry’s poll numbers went up, but then he always seemed to revert to ‘90s-era themes related to the economy – those were important, but secondary at that time. I also can’t recall a single memorable TV ad from his campaign, and that unfortunately is one barometer to use to measure a campaign’s effectiveness.)

Since the 2004 election, Kerry has also come out in a big way to support both Joe Sestak and Patrick Murphy, he led the failed filibuster of “Strip Search Sammy” Alito to the Supreme Court, he also stood up immediately to Holy Joe Lieberman after his loss in Connecticut to Ned Lamont, and he has criticized the media silence in this country on the infamous “Downing Street Memos” dealing with the Iraq War.

That’s pretty darn impressive to me.

After the November 2004 debacle, I heard one Democratic beltway insider (Leon Panetta, I believe) state that “we shouldn’t nominate Democratic presidential candidates from Massachusetts any more,” lumping in Kerry with Michael Dukakis (and if you think THAT is stupid, get a load of Panetta’s quote here about the Democrats, FDR and Michael Moore…Faux News couldn’t have put it any better).

I’ll tell you what, Leon; if you can get the Repugs to agree not to nominate any more presidential candidates from Texas ever again, I’ll think about it, but I won’t promise you anything (pinky swear).

I have one final note – I mentioned Admiral Joe Sestak earlier. I haven’t said anything about the campaign because it seems to be going well at the moment and I’ve been focusing on the battle between Mikey and Patrick Murphy here, as well as the Philadelphia Inquirer’s laughable endorsement of Joe Pitts in the 16th district yesterday. Also, with the implosion of the Curt Weldon campaign in light of the FBI investigation (absolutely LOVE the timing on that one), I would say that things look good for the admiral at the moment (though stranger things have happened, I know…also, my lefty blogger “betters” have been covering that campaign every way over Sunday just fine).

Update: Speaking of the 7th district Congressional representative, congratulations to Crazy Curt for making the "Rolling Stone" list of the Top 10 Worst Congressmen (Curt slithered in at Number 8).

Update 10/24: You might want to have a word with your spokesperson, Senator.

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