[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Kerry: Slo-Mo on Swifties

[michael at intrafi.com]

The article below from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by michael at intrafi.com.



/--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\

 I HEART HUCKABEES - OPENING IN SELECT CITIES OCTOBER 1

 From David O. Russell, writer and director of THREE KINGS
 and FLIRTING WITH DISASTER comes an existential comedy
 starring Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Hupert, Jude Law, Jason
 Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Mark Wahlberg and Naomi Watts.
 Watch the trailer now at:

 http://www.foxsearchlight.com/huckabees/index_nyt.html

\----------------------------------------------------------/


Kerry: Slo-Mo on Swifties

August 22, 2004
 By MAUREEN DOWD 



 

WASHINGTON — It's easy for the Bushes to stay
gallant. They delegate the gutter. 

There are always third-party political assassins,
ostensibly independent, to do the dynasty wet work. 

W.'s old pal and running partner, Lee Atwater, set up the
Bush modus operandi: Lay in the weeds while craftily
planting plausibly deniable surrogates to slice up your
rival. 

The New Yorker editor David Remnick, writing in Esquire in
1986, limned the 1980 Congressional race in South
Carolina's Second District "between Atwater's man,
Republican Floyd Spence, and a Faulknerian figure named Tom
Turnipseed At one press briefing, Atwater planted a
reporter who rose and said, 'We understand Turnipseed has
had psychotic treatment.' Atwater played it cool and
refused to comment, but later told the reporters off the
record, 'In college I understand he got hooked up to jumper
cables.' " 

Karl Rove is Atwater's protégé on jumper cable politics.


The weird thing is, given how transparently the Bushes play
the game of staying above the fray even as their
creepy-crawly surrogates do dishonorable and undignified
things, their rivals always seem caught off guard when the
third parties show up to rip their throats out. 

The phlegmatic Michael Dukakis never knew what hit him with
Mr. Atwater's Frankenstein monster Willie Horton coming at
him in a third party scare ad and G.O.P. smear leaflets and
letters. 

John McCain should have known what was coming in South
Carolina, but he acted stunned and hurt when he was hit
with the Atwater/Rove mud treatment by shadowy Bush
supporters. 

Just as the Bush campaign dragged out fringe veteran
surrogates in South Carolina to slime the former P.O.W. for
being antiveteran, now the stomach-turning Swift boat
attackers are sliming a war hero as a war criminal. 

They started their vengeful and brazen campaign in May,
after plotting since winter. But John Kerry is only now
forcefully responding - though he should have had a
response ready, since the Nixon tool John O'Neill has
dogged him since '71. 

Charging on Thursday that Mr. Bush wants the Swift boat
sleazoids "to do his dirty work," Mr. Kerry reached for yet
another Vietnam reference and water metaphor: "When you're
under attack, the best thing to do is turn your boat into
the attack." 

The Skipper would do well to get a swifter boat. How
pathetic is it that he's playing defense on Vietnam when W.
didn't even serve? 

Bill Clinton implied two weeks ago that Mr. Kerry was
acting sluggish. "Whenever they hit me, I hit 'em back," he
told Jon Stewart. "And whenever they came up with a charge
I didn't believe was true, I answered back." 

Reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post last
week made it clear that the vile Swift boaters have told
wildly varying accounts, sometimes supportive of Mr. Kerry.


The Times revealed that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - is
that like the administration's Clear Skies Act for spewing
pollution? - has a trellis of ties to Karl Rove, the Bush
family and Bush supporters. "A Texas publicist who once
helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was
running for vice president provided them with strategic
advice," Kate Zernike and Jim Rutenberg wrote. Indeed, it
was the same woman who worked for a third party group that
slimed Mr. McCain on the environment in the 2000 primaries.


And the group's ad was produced by the Dukakis tank ad
wizards. 

The Kerry camp knows the Swift boat snipers are hurting the
Democrat and fears the Bush oppo campaign will soon move
from tarnishing Mr. Kerry's war record to dwell on his days
as a shaggy-haired antiwar spokesman. The White House must
tear down his heroism before it can tear down his
patriotism. 

Meanwhile, the Bush crew is shamelessly doing to Mr. Kerry
what it once did to Mr. McCain: suggesting that the
decorated Vietnam vet has snakes in his head and a
temperament problem. "Senator Kerry appears to have lost
his cool," Scott McClellan told reporters in Crawford on
Friday. And the Bush campaign chairman, Marc Racicot, said
on CNN that Mr. Kerry looked "wild-eyed" responding to
Swift boat muck. 

It makes sense for W. to use surrogates to do his fighting,
just as he did when he slid out of Vietnam and just as he
did when he sent our troops to fight his administration's
misbegotten vanity war in Iraq. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/opinion/22dowd.html?ex=1094199613&ei=1&en=5239a4f3117ef337


---------------------------------

Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine
reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like!
Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy
now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here:

http://homedelivery.nytimes.com/HDS/SubscriptionT1.do?mode=SubscriptionT1&ExternalMediaCode=W24AF



HOW TO ADVERTISE
---------------------------------
For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters 
or other creative advertising opportunities with The 
New York Times on the Web, please contact
onlinesales at nytimes.com or visit our online media 
kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo

For general information about NYTimes.com, write to 
help at nytimes.com.  

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company