Bush family wounds America below the belt line

[Clinton Crusader]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0907-15.htm

Thom Hartmann: 'Bush family wounds America below the belt line'
Date: Wednesday, September 08 @ 09:46:33 EDT
Topic: Election 2004


By Thom Hartmann, Common Dreams

In 1988, the Bush campaign planted a lie in the media that Michael Dukakis had suffered from depression after losing an election for governor. According to Susan Estrich, his campaign manager, it cost Dukakis six points in the polls. A Bush family friend planted another lie that Dukakis' wife, Kitty, had once burned a flag at a demonstration - and Dukakis took another hit in the polls.

The Bush family is at it again, with the now-well-documented lies told from the pulpit - er, podium - of the Republican National Convention, including lies told directly to the American people by George W. Bush himself. While many of these lies, like Bush's assurance that he was looking out for seniors when the next day would see the largest hike in Medicare premiums in history, were of the Bush-praising variety, the most toxic were those that either lied about John Kerry and his record, or implied that Democrats (and,
implicitly, Greens and progressive independents) don't value their nation or its defense.

Which presents the Kerry campaign with the same conundrum the Dukakis, McCain, and Gore campaigns faced when confronted by Bush family lies -how to respond?

There's an old concept about fighting fair in relationships that has to do with what therapists call "the belt line." When you get to know somebody, you discover the things you can say that will irritate, bother, or even anger them. But you also learn the things you can say that will emotionally wound them. When people use those emotionally wounding things in order to win a fight, it's referred to as "hitting below the belt line."

Good marriage counselors teach couples never to hit below the belt line. The reason is simple: when a person has repeatedly been hit below the belt line, the wounds don't easily heal. Over time, if the "below the belt line" hits are repeated, the wounds will cut so deep that trust is lost, self-confidence and commitment disintegrates, and the relationship is doomed, and the recipients of the hits can be devastated - wounded beyond easy repair. The most common responses to being hit below the belt line are to endure the wounds or leave the relationship. But some people respond by hitting back below the other person's emotional belt line. This, too, is the death knell of a relationship. Today, John Kerry faces the dilemma of a person who's been repeatedly hit below the belt line. How he responds will not only shape the outcome of this election, but may also determine how badly the psyche of the American people will be wounded.
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[opihimoimoi]

1. Bush is weakening America with divisiveness of the rotten kind

the below the belt wounds will hurt us in so many ways...all the signs of a very poor and selfish leader .

America will rue the day Bush is reselected....dats for damn sure.

[cthrumatrix]

2. it's the corporation that own everyone who would enjoy us as surfs