Salon to Kerry: "Go after Bush the way he should've gone after OBL"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/10/29/bin_laden/index.html

"Memo to Kerry: Don't let Osama steal your thunder
Keep going after Bush, the way the president should have pursued bin Laden at Tora Bora"



Oct. 29, 2004 | Sure, paranoid liberals have worried for months that Osama bin Laden would be the October surprise in this presidential election. But it was supposed to be a captive Osama, dragged in chains to Crawford, Texas, shorn and humbled like Saddam after being extracted from his spider hole. What to make of swaggering Osama in his golden robes, hectoring President Bush about his behavior the morning of 9/11, warning Americans of more terror to come just four days before the election?

I watched excerpts of the video with a sinking feeling, at first, that Video Osama could help Bush almost as much as an Osama in an orange jumpsuit. Like most Americans, I hate even looking at him. He brings out my patriotic fury. I can't stand the idea of the Saudi fascist trying to shame Bush with a garbled version of the president's "The Pet Goat" moment, when the president continued listening to a child read that apparently riveting story after learning that the first tower had been hit. (Osama clearly hasn't had time to rent "Fahrenheit 9/11" to get the accurate version of what happened.) Even though I still wonder why Bush stayed in that classroom, hearing bin Laden taunt him with the memory of the 50,000 people trapped in those towers, people whose murders he now admits to planning, is revolting.

Clearly bin Laden's appearance can help Bush by bringing back the horror of that September morning, by making swing-state voters angry at the unprovoked attack on Americans and nostalgic for the leadership Bush showed briefly in its aftermath -- after a wandering Air Force One finally brought him back to the White House. But the al-Qaida leader could help Bush even more if his emergence rattles John Kerry in these closing days of the campaign, and brings back the tentative, cautious candidate-persona Kerry left behind with the debates.

After stumbling in the Swift boat summer, Kerry has made this a thrilling race in the last month because he finally found his voice, settled into his skin, and faced up to the fact that he had to confront the president directly for his terrible failures over the last four years. Struggling to defend his own early, complicated stance on Iraq -- especially in the face of the Bush camp's droning taunt of "flip-flopper" -- Kerry lost the momentum he had coming out of the Democratic convention. His delay in hitting back after the Swift boat smears hurt more. But in the days before the presidential debates he stiffened his spine and the American people began to see a new John Kerry -- sober, resolute and determined to fight back.

[Catt03]

1. Thank you Salon

OK Kerry.....what are you going to do?

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

2. 40 minutes ago, AFP News posted:

Kerry pounds Bush for failing to kill bin Laden

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041030/ts_alt_afp/us_vote_kerry_binladen&cid=1506&ncid=1963&sid=96378801

...so Kerry's already on the path.

:toast:

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Kerry had "momentum" out of the Dem convention??

Don't think so.

A two pt. "bounce" is not momentum. All in all it was a wasted opportunity with a lot of... sorry to offend... disingenuous and trite rhetoric. A four day bore-athon.

I'm down with the rest of this article, though. And the K-Man has indeed found his voice. And his skin.

Paul

[KittyWampus]

6. Yeah, Carter, Clinton And Clark Were Boring

Sharpton was also boring.

And please indicate what Internal Campaign Polls you were privy to that said Kerry only got a 2 point bounce?

Or are you using CNN poll numbers?

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. No internal campaign polling...

but Newsweek, ABC, and CBS, ( I'll leave out CNN ... 5 pt drop):

NW: 4pt bounce
ABC 5 pt bounce
CBS 1 pt bounce

3.3 avg... OK... its not exactly " 2Pts" ( factor in CNN and it's LESS than 2) but it's not much and it's the lowest I can recall since McGovern's 2 a.m. eastern time acceptance speech in 1972.( he lost two pts. if m,emory serves).

NONETHELESS: 3.3 bounce is not "momentum". The convention was BAD.
There is supposed to be more of a bounce. The party was falling over itself trying not to offend. Hence a lot sanitized, boring pretentiousness.

Didn't see Clark; Sharpton had one good line. Big Bill blew what I thought would be the best opportunity of the convention: reprise and reshape Reagan's highly effective and (in this case) inarguable rhetorical Q: "are you better off now...?" Opted instead for the boilerplate "the man who....yada yada yada".

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz.

The polls quoted are from the Seattle PI website.


Paul

[Pig_Latin_Lover]

4. I agree

Kerry should really drive this home over the next few days.

The fact is, the only way OBL helps Bush is if he is in American custody. He's not.

[MichiganVote]

5. Beat Bush with a full battery of the things he has done wrong

Make it absolutely a hailstorm. Time for the jugular. Hammer and hammer everything this useless piece of crap has done or failed to do.

[Harlan James]

7. Yes! Pound the fucking bastard!!

The GOP thinks they can ride Osama to its 2nd consecutive election victory. In 2002 Osama won it for them, and now they're hoping he'll do the same in 2004.