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:: MAX BLACK ::
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."--C.S. Lewis
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:: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 ::
Main-Stream Media Meltdown
Mark Steyn in the UK Telegraph Opinion:The other day it was CNN host James Carville, former skinhead-in-chief to Bill Clinton, yelling and howling all over O'Neill's answers before brushing him aside with, "I've got no use for this man."
Meanwhile, the grandees at the New York Times, having studiously ignored the story for two weeks, decided that, with the Kerry campaign all but paralysed by the issue, they'd have to sully their lily-white hands with the ghastly business and kill it themselves. Maureen Dowd, the paper's elderly schoolgirl columnist, dismissed the dissenting Swiftees as "creepy-crawly", "stomach-turning", "sleazoids".
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I said a couple of weeks back that John Kerry was too strange to be President, and a week or two earlier that he was too stuck-up to be President. Since I'm on an alliterative roll, let me add that he's too stupid to be President. What sort of idiot would make the centrepiece of his presidential campaign four months of proud service in a war he's best known for opposing?
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How cocooned from reality do you have to be to think you can transform one of the most divisive periods in American history--in which you were largely responsible for much of the divisiveness--into a sappy, happy-clappy, soft-focus patriotic blur without anybody objecting? Most Vietnam veterans of my acquaintance loathe John Kerry, and, if he wasn't aware of that, he's too out of it to be President.
Kerry's three purple hearts, bronze and silver stars make him the most decorated soldier in the shortest period of combat in the history of the United States Military; all he's missing is are green-clovers, yellow-moons and pink-hearts. That the media accepts this outlandish fantasy is beyond unbelievable--it's become truly offensive. Both Kerry and the media are going to be damaged by this Pravda-like disinformation campaign--they both come off as cowardly, dishonest and undependable.
Related: Hugh Hewitt quotes this mornings WSJ lead editorial:
"We've tried to avoid the medals-and-ribbons fight ourselves, except to warn Mr. Kerry that he was courting precisely such scrutiny (" Kerry's Medals Strategy ," February 9). But now that the Senator is demanding that the Federal Election Commission stifle his opponents' free speech, this one is too rich to ignore.
What did Mr. Kerry expect, anyway? That claiming to be a hero himself while accusing other veterans of "war crimes"--as he did back in 1971 and has refused to take back ever since--would somehow go unanswered? That when he raised the subject of one of America's most contentious modern events, no one would meet him at the barricades? Mr. Kerry brought the whole thing up; why is it Mr. Bush's obligation now to shut it down?"
By refusing to confront the allegations head-on, Kerry is making the situation much worse; and it will fester until he can summon the courage to answer the charges forthrightly. As always, it's the coverup, not the crime that matters.
Update: Powerline congratulates Cap't Ed as the first source to reveal Kerry's first Purple Heart was bogus, a story which is just now breaking in MSM. Apparently, the Kerry team is trying to find a way to back-out of this mess but it ain't gonna happen. Score yet another win for the blogosphere.
:: Max 8:44 AM [+] ::
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