Clift: "it’s time for Democrats to make the best of their candidate"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5962980/site/newsweek/

It’s an amazing thing to watch how the GOP attack machine works. First, they plant doubts about Kerry’s service in Vietnam. Then they imply his protest activities were treasonous. This week, Vice President Dick Cheney came in for the kill, declaring that a vote for Kerry would make a terrorist attack more likely. Cheney doesn’t make off-the-cuff remarks; this was intentional, and the linkage is there. It was treasonous to oppose Vietnam, and it’s treasonous to oppose this war. Bush says Kerry’s goal of bringing the troops home in four years sends “mixed messages” to the enemy. Criticize the war, and you’re giving aid and succor to the enemy.

What Bush did at his own convention was sheer alchemy. Iraq is his greatest vulnerability; he called it a “catastrophic success.” If there were problems, it was the result of the swift military victory. The administration was a victim of its own success. Who can argue with that? There’s a rule in politics to hang a lantern on your problem. Bush successfully conflated the war in Iraq with the war on terror so all good patriots will suck it up and take the casualties, starting with the first casualty: truth. Absent serious arbiters in the press, who’s to call him on it?

Kerry’s latest stump speech has a refrain about the $200 billion spent in Iraq and what it could buy at home. But what this election is really about is the thousand-plus dead and an administration that has the audacity to suggest a vote for the opposition helps the terrorists. If the polls are true, that Kerry is hemorrhaging support in Ohio and Missouri, he’s got to go directly at Bush. Republicans are better at this stuff, and so I asked a communications specialist on the GOP side to sketch out an ad he thought would work for Kerry.

This source envisions a 30-second or 60-second spot where Kerry confronts his critics. “They’ve been calling me a coward and a traitor, and it’s all about the linkage between Vietnam and Iraq. They want you to believe it is traitorous to oppose either war. I volunteered for Vietnam. I came home and spoke out against what was happening. When I see the wall with close to 60,000 names, I don’t want that to happen again,” He should then repeat what he said before the Senate in 1971: “How do you ask the last man to die for a mistake?”

[Fionn]

1. The GOP are so good at this shit

Taht ad idea should be emailed to KE04 right now.

[GaryL]

2. Good read.

And I suspect we will see Kerry say it again. At the debates.

[Owlet]

3. Everyone's an expert..

..on what Kerry should be doing.

Here's Alexander Cockburn's take on the campaign. No flames, please..I'm just the poster.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09112004.html

When historians come to dissect the Kerry campaign they will surely marvel at the rich platter of issues handed the Democratic candidate which he has thrust from him with shudders of distaste and instead turned back, like Mencken's Bryan, to swat at flies.

[spooky3]

4. He could ask: "Did YOU think Vietnam was a good idea?"

and reply, "then you agree with me."

Yet another example of what she's talking about--his opposition to Vietnam was that of a whistle-blower who people find to be a hero--ahead of his time and correct. How that can possibly be spun as a liability...well, that's exactly what she's talking about. Not only is the lantern to be shown on one's own weaknesses, a heavy layer of dirt is thrown on one's opponents' strengths.