Posted 1:14 AM by Robert

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Quoted blocs below are from the New York Times:

Senator Bob Graham of Florida, a former rival of Mr. Kerry for the Democratic nomination, said Mr. Kerry still had not settled on a defining theme to counter what Democrats called the compelling theme of security hammered into viewers of the Republican convention.

"The people are there, the candidate is there; it's the reason to vote for the candidate that's still a little out of focus," Mr. Graham said.

Ah, yes. I knew there was something a little out of focus. The Democrats are just missing the reason to vote for the candidate. Fix that one little detail and everything will turn out fine. Just fine.

And Senator Christopher J. Dodd ... was one of several Democrats who said they now thought Mr. Kerry had made a mistake at his convention in July by talking mainly about his history as a Vietnam War veteran and criticizing Mr. Bush's policies, without offering a vision of what a Kerry term would be like.

Yes, yes, that "vision thing" again. I suppose some critical meanie might take a candidate's failure to present any vision whatsoever of his term in office in favor of harping on an inflated, minor, 35-year-old war record as a "mistake." Isn't Senator Dodd just picking?

Mr. Dodd said ... "Vietnam, in terms of John Kerry's service, that was a good point to make, but making it such a central point sort of invited the kind of response you've seen." .... Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana said Mr. Kerry had spent too much time talking about national security, including his own views on the Iraq war, and overplayed Mr. Kerry's Vietnam war experience, inviting the attacks that have dominated debate in recent weeks.

So Senators Dodd and Bayh both think that John Kerry "invited the kind of response you've seen" - that is, he invited the Swiftee ads, "the attacks that have dominated debate in recent weeks." That's just what the Swiftee vets and their advocates have been saying all along. Who knew Senators Dodd and Bayh were two of them?

Mr. Kerry's situation is complicated by the fact that because the Republicans scheduled their convention so late, there is relatively little time to turn things around.

Yes, that was the idea. And the Democrats not only have relatively little time to turn things around, but relatively little money to turn things around - thanks to the campaign finance "reform" laws they cherish so.

Democrats ... invoked Mr. Kerry's history of getting more focused on a contest only when he was faced with the prospect of imminent defeat.

Such Democrats seem to believe that either (1) Senator Kerry will remain unfocused or (2) the Senator is now "faced with the prospect of imminent defeat." Woody Allen expressed a similar idea in My Speech to the Graduates:

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

No doubt such Democrats are offering up similar prayers at this very moment.