Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

Didn't you get your mailer? Stupidity has now become a prime political asset in this country.

Who in their right mind could hold W responsible for anything? He's too "stupid" to be accountable, right? Actually, he can't be any more stupid than the people that are voting for him, but that's the point. He doesn't make them feel bad about themselves or something.

Qualified? W is perfectly qualified for that role and he and his people know it. After all, they're not stupid.

Kerry was met with "polite" silence when he made that speech to the National Guard. Kerry said a president has a duty to speak honestly; the Guardsmen let Kerry know that they disagreed.

At least Kerry spoke eloquently before the Guard. NPR's website has links to sound files of two recent stump speeches by the candidates. Bush's stump speech is much more compelling and more persuasive. It has a beginning, middle and end. He speaks plainly. You get a sense that Bush is in command and knows what he's doing.

Kerry, on the other hand, has the worst stump speech I have ever heard. It has no center. There is no beginning, middle, or end, except temporally. It is a muddle. You can be excused for believing that Kerry is a confused, muddled thinker. It is a disaster of a stump speech. And then he delivered a different speech to the National Guard, and he got, at most, a polite response.

This is a huge disappointment. I hope that, at the least, Kerry fires Bob Shrum.

It is often said that the first casualty of war is the truth.

If John Kerry's 'plan' for Iraq starts with nothing more than a rescue of truth that will be enough for me.

I will trust him to do the right thing if he will trust me with the truth.

Truth is over-rated. People want to be guided in the right direction. This is especially accurate for soldiers. Most important things are direction and morale for soldiers. Kerry made a mistake here talking about truth and elaborating further about losses in Iraq. Soldiers don't want to hear that they are losing, because any doubt about success and goal may compromise their own survial. For example, most soldiers say they should have been allowed to stay and finish the job in Vietnam and Somalia (see black hawk down), even though the success was driven by factors they as soldiers have no control of.

I would fire Kerry's speech writer, or at least rip a new one into him. Politicians don't become president for telling the truth. They use truth and lies (this is critical ==>) in their favor to do positive work. Bush lies a lot to deny his failures and justify his wrong decisions. Truth is important, but there are time and place where truth must be compromised for sake of morale and leadership.

I will be voting for Kerry simply because I can't stand Bush. But, Kerry's team needs to do better to win. As it is, they simply can not win by just getting the anti-Bush votes.

Bush has set the bar very, very low. Any competent politician could defeat him.

Instead, we nominated someone who can't.

I would like to personally thank the Democrats of Iowa. What a wonderful present you've given us the next 4 years.

"When was the last time somebody told you--with a straight face--that George W. Bush was highly qualified to be president?"

Why do you think that botox is now the drug of choice among right wing shills.

FSOA: Soldiers wish to be guided in the right direction but, surely their lives on the ground in Iraq will depend on an "accurate" reading of the foe. Suppose they believe W. that it is only "anti-Iraq terrorists" who are preventing a good outcome. Will this help them survive when, in reality, they are facing a nationalist guerrilla uprising in Baghdad and the Sunni areas?
If they believe W., and politely reject Kerry, they will, sadly, be in danger of forfeiting their lives for his delusions. Just like Vietnam, where 58,000 Americans died for nothing. NOTHING.

Regarding Kerry's national guard speech from the NY Times:
One dissenter in the audience explained his logic: "What he was saying about George Bush not telling the truth on Iraq—I just don't believe that. George Bush did tell us the truth, so I guess I couldn't believe what Kerry was saying."

This is your typical voter. Disaster in the making, Mr Shrum.

pt martin is seeing some of the same evidence I am seeing. On an Eshaton thread, someone supporting Bush said that whenever Bush gets well out in front, the MSM start sounding like Hennypenny, the sky is falling. The chaos in Iraq is not real; only "the distorions of reality" by the MSM are real. The epistemological circle is closed. At bottom the Bush supporters and the ill-informed wish to think of America not as an imperial tyrant, but as an exceptional virtuous nation. Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire will never enter the smallest corner of their minds.

pt martin is seeing some of the same evidence I am seeing. On an Eschaton thread, someone supporting Bush said that whenever Bush gets well out in front, the MSM start sounding like Hennypenny, the sky is falling. The chaos in Iraq is not real; only "the distorions of reality" by the MSM are real. The epistemological circle is closed. At bottom the Bush supporters and the ill-informed wish to think of America not as an imperial tyrant, but as an exceptional virtuous nation. Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire will never enter the smallest corner of their minds.

sorry for the double post!!!

Is George Bush going to win?

The American people don't want a president who tells it like it is, because what it is changes all the time! People want a president who makes decisions, and sticks to them even when they become bad decisions!

I don't know what "most soldiers" have to say about staying the course and finishing the job. But I do think that the failure of Vietnam has undergone some rather fantastic revisionism at the hands of Empire-icists.

I have to say I agree with pt martin and g-lex on the almost deliberate blindness of many Americans regarding our effect on Iraq. I had a conversation with a woman whom, up until this exchange, I had considered relatively tolerant and well-informed. But she is thinking she will vote for Bush because she is afraid of terror. When I asked her about Iraq, she told me that "those people" had lived under a "kleptocracy" and had no educated middle class anymore, so of course it was going to be a long, hard slog, but we would probably be able to fix everything up. Furthermore, she was unconcerned that we had invaded for what have proven nonexistent reasons. She is not deeply or perhaps even not so deeply bothered by the torture of prisoners or the casual killing of civilians. The loss of "those people" are insignificant in her life.

An associate of mine sent me this link on 9/11:

http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon.php#Main

which if you haven't seen it, you certainly must.

And even though it's horrifying, the whole time I was watching it, all I could think was this:

Science can explain what a Y and X chromosome is and how we each of us develop in one way or the other an "outie" or an "innie", but it can never explain why the outie's want to stick their Y in the innie's, and the innie's usually let them.

Which made me wonder how political theorists would explain how a right-wing oil cabal was able to take over US government, and stick it to the American people and the Iraqi people, and a host of other misfortunate innie's around the world ... and the innie's let them!

Yet with all their smoke and mirrors, shock and awe, Big Brother, cloak and dagger, Star Wars, Wall Street, Politiburo might, the Republican Red Army is led by raving baboons. Baboons so politically incompetent they lost the Iraq war.
They didn't even see it coming!

Still, with that one single stroke of the voting lever, we can send them jibbering back to their corporate boardrooms. Get out the Democrat vote, or die!

Current Projected Tally: (9/17)/04)

Electoral Votes: Bush 285 Kerry 253
Popular Vote: Bush 51.1% Kerry 47.0%

http://www.electionprojection.com/

g-lex...do us all a favor. Go there...THEN give us your erudite opinions.

I assume that FSOA has some personal experience of war on which to base the opinion set out above. It may be that once upon a time, soldiers could not handle truth, but not now, and certainly not back in the Viet Nam war. Soldiers are there, and they know far better than we about the conditions of the war zone,and the risks they take. I remember well listening to that blackguard Nixon talking about the successes in Viet Nam at lunch at Fort Bragg, and thinking to myself that he was a blithering idiot and a liar to boot. No one, certainly not soldiers, wants to be lied to, blatantly, in contradiction of facts visible by looking out the door, listening to the tales of others, and seeing the wounded.

A large number of soldiers, from generals to privates, and all different nations, are talking and writing of their experiences in Iraq. None of them sees it the way Bush talks. In fact, as I type this, I feel no small amount of rage at this view. So, I think I'll move on.

Bill:

Just read the National Intelligence Estimate for July: you know, the one that Bush has been lying about for the last month.

Brad, how about a Kerry speech-writing contest?
I would have written those 3 paragraphs of his National Guard speech like this as a first draft:

Sometimes truth hurts. In wartime, truth hurts even more.
But not telling truth in time of war is not just hurtful -
it is deception, dishonesty and outright coverup.
We are a nation of decent people. Our hearts are in the right
place. Of all people, you at national guard - you have
volunteered to be in the guard. you wanted to serve your
community, your state and your country, to make your
neighborhoood and your country better.
So you deserve in return a honest dialog from your commander
in chief. You deserve a straight heart-to-heart talk, not
of deception and coverup from your commander in Cheif.

Did you get that from President Bush two days ago?
I do not think so. Why do I not think so?
He did not even acknowledge the ultimate sacrifice made by
1000 of your comrades, our countrymen and women, who
gave their lives in Iraq. Is that deserving of a president?
You tell me. He did not acknowledge the 17000 young men and
women, who were maimed and injured in that war on the
Iraq desert. Do you not deserve an injury report and a moment of
silence from the commander in chief?
And he did not tell you that as each day as sun goes down on
that iraqi desert, nights are getting hotter and heavier,
insurgents are getting bolder and life for our troops is
getting more dangerous. And he has shared no plan with you
on how to reduce casualties and how to bring peae and stability
to Iraq. And you deserve that. Don't you think so?
He did not give any plan to you, because - this is the saddest
part - he does not have a plan. President is lurching from
crisis to crisis with no clear plan.

The test of a commander in chief is not how he sends you to war
but how he brings you back home safely and with pride.
And he doesn't even receive the war dead with the respect
that they deserve.

Meme Competition: Find the one-liner the Kerry campaign should adopt that most succinctly characterizes the Bush quagmire.

My entry:

"This is the administration of the buck stops elsewhere."

" I remember well listening to that blackguard Nixon"
masaccio

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Christ, but I do miss my Da'. Even 23 years later.

Malachy McCourt parses the etymology of "blaguard," a word not often heard this side of the pond. He attributes the first usage to Jonathan Swift in the 1730s, who used it to describe the Dublin laborers who unloaded the coal from the ships. Their faces blackened by the coal dust, they were called "black guards" because they used to guard the ships from those who might want to steal a lump of coal. These unkempt fellows had a habit of drinking prodigious quantities of alcohol, which led to rather belligerent behavior. But over time, instead of meaning "dirty, drunken bastard," a gentler definition took root, that being "charming scoundrel."

Now that you mention it. Sounds like Dubya, don't it?

Let's keep the situation in context. Kerry's speech was given to the National Guard who's members ultimately serve the Commander In Chief. What kind of reception would a union organizer receive after speaking to group of Wal-Mart employees who know that their reactions were being videotaped and noted by members of management? While my analogy may not be perfect we should keep in mind that the "polite silence" noted above may not accurately reflect the feelings of the audience. As a former Infantryman in the US Army I can attest to an environment of stifled personal opinion.