What's the point in Dems calling well-meaning Dems idiots? (and worse)

[bigtree]

among other insults. I'll be damned if I'll stand aside for (supporters?) with an axe to grind against our candidate and allow folks to insult my efforts and viewpoint without as strong a rebuttal as the attack. I don't see a great need to respond in kind, but I just think I deserve a few points of defense.

Thoughtless, insulting rhetoric towards members of our party is what I would expect from the other side. It serves no purpose except to define the posters. Moreover, what I have read so far from the dissenters suggests that the they haven't a clue about what the Kerry campaign has been engaged in outside of the dissenter's own biased rhetoric about late responses and weakness, and they don't seem to care at all about what the campaign has been up to.

I challenge the insulters and all the dissenters of the Kerry campaign to post something today about what the Kerry campaign is actually doing today. There has been, alongside of the responses and counterattacks from the Kerry camp, a steady profusion of responses and challenges to many other issues and concerns, raised in response to the Bush campaign and many on the Kerry camp's own inituitive, that have been offered daily. I've posted many of the reports and so have Skinner and others, with almost no discussion or response. I would be more inclined to heed criticisms of the Kerry campaign if the posters could indicate that they actually follow the good that the campaign has done so far and show some appreciation for this man who has put his life on display and up for inspection for our party and for our country.

To disregard all efforts of the Kerry campaign save the strident tit for tat is a gross misrepresentation of the excellent campaign that Kerry and his team have given us so far. I certainly won't take a second out of my day to praise or credit the Bush campaign for anything, much less praise or credit them for the slanderous, proven false attacks on the record and service of John Kerry. I won't ever admit that the foolish, immature heckling by republican hacks and cronies is worth spit. I won't ever take a poll that is sponsored and administered by the same biased, compromised media we decry and bash our candidate over the head with it just to support detractors notions about their percieved ineptness or weakness of the Kerry camp. The constant grousing isn't constructive or effective, and the singularity of the attacks by those 'on our side' completely ignores the deep substance and effort that the Kerry campaign has graced us with since before his nomination.

Where is OUR spine? We have a winning campaign and a winning candidate. Kerry is 'polling' even in most accounts with an incumbent, 'wartime' president. That is a reflection on the excellence of his efforts. I don't see what some here are pointing to, outside of biased, compromised polls, that would lead anyone on our side to conclude that Bush has the better campaign. Record joblessness, record loss of healthcare, lying and 'miscalculations' on our invasion and occupation of Iraq, abandonment of our veterans and soldiers, decimation and compromising of our environment in favor of logging interests, nuclear meddlers, and polluters, the abuse and eviceration of our civil liberties, the abandonment of our nation's poor in favor of giving our hard earned tax dollars to the wealthiest, the sham of declaring himself the 'education president' while refusing to actually fund his own inituitives, the snubbing of science in favor of political meddling and obstruction, the attempted use of our constitution to discriminate against our nation's gays and lesbians, the refusal to sanction anyone in his office responsible for the outing of a CIA agent, the reintroduction of new nuclear weapons and weapon's production . . . All of the Bush's weakness remains.

Those pitiful smears by the republican cabal have also served to draw attention to Bush's absense from duty and to Cheney's refusal to serve. They have not actually affected the credibility of John Kerry among anyone who has bothered to look at the facts of the accusation and bothers to pay any mind to Kerry's actual campaign. When we get the spotlight back after the convention, our nominee will stand tall against the counterfeit losers in the White House.

I look foward to discussions where we are not feeding on ourselves in our frustration at the Bush campaign and their supporters. I don't think anyone should be satisfied in trashing the hard work and concern of others in our party who may have a different strategic view of how our nominee's campaign should be run. We won't win by maligning and alienating well-intentioned advisors, strategists, and surrogates who want to rid the country of Bush just as strongly as others who profess concern for the campaign in one breath and distain for the candidate and his team with the other. We need to maintain comity amongst ourselves, put misguided acrimony aside and acknowledge who the real enemies are. United, we WILL defeat this incumbent president. Divided, we run the risk of helping to defeat ourselves.


"And I will make a song for These States, that no-one State may under any circumstances be subjected to another State;

And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by night between all The States, and between any two of them:

And I will make a song for the ears of the President, full of weapons with menacing points,

And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces:
—And a song make I, of the One form’d out of all"

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900

[bryant69]

1. Good post

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[WI_DEM]

2. Idiots was a strong title for that post

but well meaning democrats also can disagree. As a matter of fact it is what our party is well known for, unlike the modern day GOP which doesn't allow debate. Many well meaning democrats are working for a democratic victory in November can still be critical of our nominee when we think that he is blowing it. Other well meaning democrats who are working for success in November believe not criticizing the tactics of our nominee is the best thing to do. I tend to think Kerry blew it by not responding to the Swift Boat Slime for two weeks until his internal polls indicated it was beginning to be a problem. The entire month of August which should have been focused on Bush and his record was wasted due to these ads and Kerry's initial silence. Hopefully now it will get back on track. I also hope that Kerry will begin to speak out more vigorously than he has so far about Bush's Iraqi policy and the deceit which led to the war. Polls also indicate that this is the top issue of the campaign and could well be where Bush is most vulnerable. To take Iraq off the table would be to neutralize our most potent issue.

[bigtree]

4. The Kerry camp was not silent, although Kerry himself didn't respond till

later.

The first significant response to the ads came from a Kerry campaign group of officers who stood up against the charges. Del Sandusky was dispatched to key states for meetings and appearances. Wes Clark came out strong afterwards.

In fact, the Kerry campaign opened up on Bush's absense from duty as early as April. Check out my post that recalls the attack by the Kerry camp: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=679943

I think the Kerry camp played it just right. You decry his initial silence yet you despair about the time wasted on the responses, as if the swiftliars would have been silenced by one sharp rebuke. They have all been discredited , yet they keep on popping up with new lies. I don't see how we could have done anything to stop these ignorant dolts from getting an audience from the compliant, compromised media or these other conservative interest groups who serve as platforms for any weasel with an axe to grind against Democrats. The Kerry camp has done an outstanding job in discrediting all of the charges, including the ponderous inanity of questioning Kerry's account of the 'Christmas' Cambodia mission. Does it really matter when he was on that mission? He was there on hazardous duty. Bush was a no show. Does it matter how Kerry recieved the Purple Hearts? They are automatic when injured on duty in a combat zone. Yet, these morons continue to babble on as if they were deaf and dumb, oblivious to the fact that they have been exposed as liars. The media continues to present every new accusation as breaking news and each rebuttal as a 'dispute' of the 'facts'. I can't imagine anything that Kerry could have done earlier that would have stifled this bunch. At worse, this episode has mostly served to allow a hard hitting examination of the non-service of Bush and Cheney somewhere down the road without any justifiable outcry from Bush. I expect it sooner than later. Also this is just as good a distraction as any to divert and muddy the republicans from their convention nonsense. All in all, a good fight. I feel like we're ahead, even if we haven't yet won the race. Most of the polls that show Bush ahead are within the margin of error and I expect those numbers, especially Bush's popularity to tank in our favor.

[IronLionZion]

3. That's big reason why the Dems don't control any part of government

and perhaps why we don't have some of the things we want. Dems are a disorganized and fractured bunch. It's unbelievable to see Dems fighting amongst themselvs while the Republicans destroy this country.

As an Independent, it's interesting to see the HUGE difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in the way they run campaigns. If Dems united behind their candidates, we wouldn't have assholes like Bush and Santorum in office today. We'd have Dems who are far from perfect, but much better than their neo-con opponents.