Why Some On The Left Still Don't Get It

[politicasista]

Nice piece by a blogger at kerrygoddess' blog The Democratic Daily:

Snip:

Why Some on the Left Still Don’t Get It

Posted by Todd Mitchell
March 1st, 2007 @ 7:26 am


When I went to Crooks and Liars to view the clip, I found the comments accompanying the clip, by someone named “SilentPatriot”, to be disingenuous: “While it’s nice to see Senator Kerry finally get some satisfaction, this is what he should have been doing back in 2004. The SBVT lies were transparent and easily debunked — by official Navy records no less. Although he didn’t get much help from the media who refused to call out the blatant lies, inconsistencies and discrepancies, he could have defused this easily. Instead he ignored and, in turn, validated them.”

Not quite. While the response was a bit slow-footed in the summer, Kerry had forcefully and easily debunked the story by September of ‘04. The problem wasn’t his “ignoring and validating” theSBVT attacks, it was the mainstream media and the blogosphere too, I might add, who refused to give proper coverage to the Kerry campaign’s response. Couple that with the tidal wave of money and ads supporting the SBTV (which Kerry could do nothing about, hence the entire discussion of 527’s in the hearings) and the issue was kept alive long after Kerry had discredited it.

Thanks for the clip, but spare us the amateurish Monday morning quarterbacking next time.

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=5392

It is tiring to hear the "he didn't fight back" or "didn't attack hard," bla, bla, bla lines, but it's good that these Swifty clowns are being brought to light (somewhat despite the media spin. :grr:)

However, like it or not, the same tired lines are going to come up over and over again, and unfortunately, there will be a lot of rehashing the 04 campaign to promote the "formidable" 08 field at Kerry's expense.

[beachmom]

1. The "He didn't fight back" meme serves two masters

1. The media who were complicit with the SBVT the first 3 weeks. They're covering up their delinquency by blaming the victim.

2. Democrats who are seeking power. They need this for campaigning as well as to scape goat Kerry for not doing their job in '04.



Kerry himself has said he made mistakes on this issue, but I still think "He didn't fight back" is more about protecting the above two powers than really getting at what went wrong and how to fix it.

[wisteria]

2. I saw that yesterday. Sometimes, no matter how many times you answer with the truth

some people just don't want to hear it.

[politicasista]

3. True n/t

[karynnj]

5. Also on the right, it was ground hog day

I had some errands to run, so I listened to some talk radio. Hannity even played an exerpt of the Kerry/Fox bit. As hard as I tried to figure out why I should think thsy sane, soft spoken man was bad I couldn't get it - Hannity then asked people to thing about Kerry's comment on lies and smears, even though it was Kerry who was guilty of lies and smears -- in 1971. He then thanked G_d for the SBVT who told the truth about Kerry and we escaped having a President wh calls the US a pariah. (ignoring that with Kerry as President, we would have friends again.)

He completely ignored that the SBVT didn't spend a lot of time on Kerry's protests, but lied about his service.

I agree that the myth that Kerry didn't fight back is to protect the media and the other Democrats. With the other Democrats, I also suspect that it's kind of like people who immediately ask when someone dies of cancer whether they smoke. They can then worry less about there own mortality because they don't smoke.

Here the problem is a very biased media, and a right wing echo chamber. Kerry spent time thinking about how you get a message through in this environment - that is the disease. The others seem to prefer announcements that "they, unlike Kerry, will fight back" as their solution. In Hillary's case, she adds that they already did that - ignoring that when Bill beat his Bush, that Bush was at a 33% approval rate. Can you imagine how quickly Kerry's campaign would have derailed with of about 5 Clinton scandals? Kerry had to be near perfect - and he came pretty close. (Can you seriously see Edwards attacking Bush with the passion and strength of Kerry's comments on the ammo dumps. Without Kerry's grace and the obvious care he had for "our kids", there is no way those accusations would have touched as many people as they did.) The problem with believing you are immune, means you don't plan for it.

If Hillary thinks the Geffen attack was hard, she is crazy. The RW Hillary slam today is apparently that she is angry, ruthless and vindictive.

[ProSense]

4. Well, they all need to watch the Fox hearing

If they can't glean the amount of facts and rebuttals that were offered, then they don't want to accept the truth.

[MBS]

6. thanks for this one, too

wow, what a bonanza of good articles and comments to come home to this evening. Thanks, pol, and everyone else, too!