How Dare John Kerry !

[kentuck]

How dare he not lay down and let the Bush henchmen roll over him like they have done so many times in the past? Like they did with Michael Dukakis and Geraldine Ferraro and John McCain and Max Cleland and to Al Gore... Who does he think he is to fight back against these character assassinators and negative peddlers? Why should he react any different from the others? Who would dare to stand up to these criminals? Is John Kerry insane?

[Ghetto_Boy]

1. Maybe he'll do the "you vote for me & I'll vote for you" with *

[RobertSeattle]

2. Josh Marshall at TMP has a good post on this

Basically this comes down to the "meta" argument that if Kerry won't defend himself against SwiftVets - will he defend America? A bogus argument, but subliminal.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_15.php#003296

[kentuck]

3. Josh says....

<snip>
On one level, of course, the aim behind these attacks is to cast suspicion upon Kerry's military service record and label him a liar. But that's only part of what's going on.

Consider for a moment what the big game is here. This is a battle between two candidates to demonstrate toughness on national security. Toughness is a unitary quality, really -- a personal, characterological quality rather than one rooted in policy or divisible in any real way. So both sides are trying to prove to undecided voters either that they're tougher than the other guy or at least tough enough for the job.

In a post-9/11 environment, obviously, this question of strength, toughness or resolve is particularly salient. That, of course, is why so much of this debate is about war and military service in the first place.

One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you.

...more

[bigtree]

5. Macho nonsense

BTW women, who made a huge contribution to Clinton's victories, make up a sizable amount of the support for Kerry. Neanderthal politics is for cave men.

[yellowcanine]

4. How brazen of Kerry to get wounded in Vietnam when George Bush

did not have that opportunity because he was busy defending Texas from Mexico who hadn't actually shot at us since the 1840s??