[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Op-Ed Columnist: Cooking His Own Goose

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Op-Ed Columnist: Cooking His Own Goose

October 24, 2004
 By MAUREEN DOWD 



 

In yet another attempt to prove to George W. Bush that he
is man enough to run this country, John Kerry made an
animal sacrifice to the political gods in a cornfield in
eastern Ohio last week. 

Four dead geese are not too high a price to pay for a few
rural, blue-collar votes in a swing state. As long as Mr.
Kerry doesn't slip and ask Teresa to purée the carcasses
into foie gras. 

Tromping about in a camouflage costume and toting a
12-gauge double-barreled shotgun that shrieked "I am not a
merlot-loving, brie-eating, chatelaine-marrying
dilettante," the Democratic nominee emerged from his
shooting spree with three fellow hunters proclaiming,
"Everybody got one, everybody got one," showing off a hand
stained with goose blood. 

One of my first presidential trips was going to Texas one
weekend to cover Ronald Reagan hunting with James Baker at
Mr. Baker's ranch. President Reagan came back proudly
empty-handed. He didn't want to shoot any small animals. He
had his faults, but he never overcompensated on macho
posturing, thinking that blowing away a flock of birds in
borrowed camouflage for the cameras or bombing a weakened
dictator and then sashaying in Top Gun gear for the cameras
would give him more brass. 

Just as W. needed to shock and awe to prove he was no wimp,
Mr. Kerry needed to shoot and eat. As Jodi Wilgoren wrote
in The Times, a Kerry aide assured reporters that "two of
the birds would soon be sent back to Mr. Kerry for
consumption." 

The senator is desperately trying to prove his
regular-guydom. He's using more contractions and dropping
G's, T's and N's, as Ms. Wilgoren points out, and he drank
Budweiser with his male aides while watching a Red Sox
game, when you know he was dying for an imported beer. 

Democrats have been panting to get a gun into their
nominee's hands for a month now. Apparently three Purple
Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star in Vietnam combat
are not enough - even for Mr. Kerry, who seems to agree
with the Vietnam-evading president and vice president that
he has to prove he would be as tough on national security
as they have been. 

That wouldn't seem to be that hard, given that Mr. Bush and
Dick Cheney were the guys who were in charge when the
C.I.A. warnings came true and Bin Laden struck in the U.S.;
given that they let Osama and his top deputies slip away at
Tora Bora; given that they had a war in Iraq over imaginary
weapons; and given that they still don't even admit that
their belligerence and bullying have spawned a large
insurgency movement in Iraq and caused a recruitment swell
for Islamic terrorism. 

W. and Dick Cheney like being seen as a huge beast throwing
its weight around. That was the whole point of whacking
Saddam. The pair immediately began their
Beavis-and-Butthead snickering and sneering at the
Democrat's camouflage costume. 

The vice president is right that Mr. Kerry can't compete in
the arena of power hunting. When Mr. Kerry goes, only the
birds are in danger. When Mr. Cheney and his pal Antonin
Scalia go duck hunting together, the Constitution is in
danger. 

Even as they mocked the Democrat for trying to be macho
with a wildlife tableau, the Republicans were trying to be
macho with a wildlife tableau. 

The Bush-Cheney campaign began showing a new ad on Friday
aimed at scaring up more votes. Meant to be a chilling
cross between "The Wolfen" and "The Blair Witch Project,"
the ad plays more like a cross between a Sierra Club
promotion and "Lassie." 

The wolves stalking around the forest are not meant to
evoke scary Paul Wolfowitz and the neocons stalking around
the Pentagon, planning more mischief. They are supposed to
be the Al Qaeda terrorists stalking America, even though
they look too cuddly for the narration that ominously
warns: "In an increasingly dangerous world, even after the
first terrorist attack on America, John Kerry and the
liberals in Congress voted to slash America's intelligence
operation by six billion dollars, cuts so deep they would
have weakened America's defenses. And weakness attracts
those who are waiting to do America harm." 

One Kerry aide joked to a reporter that the Democrats
should do a response ad where Mr. Kerry comes into the
forest in a camouflage jacket and shoots the wolves. 

Why not? A few more dead animals might do the trick for
him. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/opinion/24dowd.html?ex=1099633585&ei=1&en=ee1c6f5a646e60e0


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