Tina Brown on Dole: Old Warriors Giving Their Last, Worst Shot

[kskiska]

Bob Dole's nasty swipe at John Kerry's war wounds this week made you understand why Viagra has been losing market share to Cialis. The sight of that bitter old face piling on to protest that Kerry did not bleed enough is instant detumescence.

The worst thing about the Swift boat moment has been the steady march of aggrieved sexagenarians across our TV screens, banging the hollow drums of their pasts. They were heroes once and young, but look what politics has wrought: Gabby, flabby John O'Neill, the author of "Unfit for Command"; shifty George
Elliott; Van Odell with his sorrowful Wyatt Earp mustache; now-you-see-him-now-you-don't Bush campaign worker Ken Cordier. As the vets talk and talk on the cable shows, the inevitable black-and-white blowup in the background of the young Kerry's big, melancholy chin and soulful eyes gives reproachful testimony to better selves buried in the watery past of Vietnam.

(snip)

Kerry may have been three weeks late to respond, but he's always been a man who is slow to be roused and then implacable once he is. The disparaging Swifties have succeeded in fanning the full ire of the base -- the Democratic base, that is. Manhattan Dems bracing themselves at the beach for the big Bush week didn't just howl their anger at the sea gulls as the Vet Set spreads its sleaze. Donors were so motivated that they flocked from every corner of eastern Long Island on Saturday to stand in three inches of mud in a black cloudburst for a DNC fundraiser at financier Alan Patricof's East Hampton spread. Some, like the photographer Clifford Ross, who lives in the West Village, came back from the weekend fundraisers to start a "battleground block party," recruiting New York foot soldiers to go get out the vote in the swing states.

For believers in the Democratic cause there was something heartening about the veins standing out in John Podesta's lawyerly neck on the Stephanopoulos show, as O'Neill became mired in self-contradictions. On "Fox News Sunday," hosted by Chris Wallace, the self-admiring sneers of Bill Kristol were outflanked for once by the burning eyes and righteous passion of Kerry defender Juan Williams.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34151-2004Aug25.html

[DemMother]

1. Great column. I love the last lines...

"But Lt. j.g. Kerry was a patient fighter as well as a sometimes impetuous one. Often he would silence his boat's deafeningly noisy engines and lie in wait for hours along a dark, silent jungle riverbank, hoping to surprise the enemy. The election is still 10 weeks away. He has time."

[pfitz59]

2. Photo accompanying story perpetuates a lie.

Ken Cordier was never on a swift boat. He lied his ass off in the swift boat ad. Rove dropped him like a hot rock.

[Spiffarino]

4. No kidding? Where's a link?

This needs to be worked up!

[PROGRESSIVE1]

3. kick

[Manix]

5. ....well said Tina!

[SeveneightyWhoa]

6. Love it.

Great article.
Why do I love Tina Brown? Could it be -- her beauty, combined with articles like these? OOH WEE!

[ochazuke]

7. Keep the Swifty Liars going.

To see Our Guy get smeared by these scurrilous lies really makes me mad. The next time the Republican Destruction Machine cranks up, we need to bring up this episode and re-live it so as to rally honorable people to Kerry's defense.

Sort of like how the right-wing always brings up Hillary Clinton in their fund-raising letters.

[Rose Siding]

8. Wonderful piece

A dose of reality that still leaves you with a sliver of hope