Why I don’t like Mickey Kaus

Could someone please tell me why Kerry’s actions 30 years ago are such an issue and not GWB’s? If there is so much reporting on where Kerry may, or may not, have slept in the 1970s, why isn’t there a good investigation in the SCLM of why GWB was grounded around that time?

I guess the logic is that Kerry talks about how his Vietnam service and his later activism prepared him for the presidency, whereas Bush never talks about how skipping his National Guard physical and being an alcoholic prepared him.

It helps if you stop trying to think like an intelligent person and try to place yourself in Mickey Kaus’s mind. I picture a small dark room wallpapered with pictures of John Kerry, on each of which Kaus has cleverly drawn fake mustaches and devil horns. But you need to create your own image.

das,

The problem is: GWB is not on the record denying or defining what the “grounding” was all about.

Kerry’s entire career starts from the premise of his war stories, his denying he threw the medals, his saying he did throw the medals, his saying they were only ribbons, his recanting that statement…

I agree, it’s all frivolous… but notice that most discussions around Kerry are saturated in the mundane and unimportant because he can’t walk a straight line.

Take the Bush DUI. The political last minute hurrah before the 2000 election amounted to nothing because he admitted it fully, took responsibility and submitted to the consequences. If he denied it or gave it wiggle room it would haunt him to this day.

He can claim right-wing attack all he wants… but Kerry’s ghosts are Kerry’s doings.

WE don’t have mass media in this country. We have a huge Republican propaganda machine instead.

*sigh*

just curious (I’ll kick myself later for asking):

What were the “silly (or false) allegations” that the “media whores” made about Gore?

Justin,

Go read any issue of the Daily Howler over the last 3 years.

http://www.dailyhowler.com

Neither Kerry’s actions 30 years ago nor Bush’s are “issues”. They’re “scandals”, something entirely different. An “issue” is a controversial topic by which members of the public identify which candidate is more closely aligned with his or her own constituency. A “scandal” is a proxy for issues, in which political operatives provide members of constituencies with excuses for voting for the candidate they’ve already chosen based on the issues. The scandal allows these voters to pretend that they’re above the petty, self-interested partisanship of constituency politics, even while participating in it.

If a candidate is “strong”–i.e., has locked up many large, politically powerful constituencies, then scandals have little effect on the fealty of those constituencies, and the candidate is said to be “made of teflon”. On the other hand, if the candidate is “weak”–i.e., has alienated more constituencies than he or she has retained the loyalty of–then even trivial scandals can be grounds for serious repercussions.

When a country is roughly evenly divided, as it has been (along partisan lines) in the US for most of the last fifteen years, scandals become enormously important as seemingly non-partisan rallying cries for the partisan faithful–even as their effectiveness in persuading anyone declines. Who, today, after all–in this era of war, economic turmoil, and social division–chooses a presidential candidate based on their long-ago personal lives?

20 years of yelling liberal media over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over has brought us to this point. It is the explanation for the discrepancy between the level of seriousness of 30-years-ago Kerry versus 30-years-ago Bush. That, plus Bush IS preznit, therefore it would kind of make the whole country look bad if we all found out that he was less than honorable at any point in his past. Kerry, on the other hand, is the dude TRYING to become president, and just like the She Bangs guy and any of the contestants on any number of reality TV shows, it is FUN to make the guy trying to win look like a fucking asshole. It’s just funny, I dunno. Watching people fail and tumble from on high is our national pastime. Do I need to offer examples?

If he denied it or gave it wiggle room it would haunt him to this day.

Yeah like the way he decisively handled the cocaine rumors. Well done indeed.

Ted, I’d like to stamp your MKDS bonus points card now, please.

Nine more like this and you earn a free haircut!

I was going to suggest that it was probably pointless pointing Justin to data, but I see he’s made that point for me.

Justin, you obviously didn’t try very hard. As several have already noted, the Daily Howler documents reporters in great detail, particularly, from 2000, the Times’ Kit Seelye and someone whose name i forget from the WaPo.

Among the complete and total pieces of bullshit these reporters printed and reprinted and reprinted were: Gore claimed to have invented the internet; Gore claimed to have discovered Love Canal; Gore lied about singing union songs as a child; Gore lied about the cost of prescription drugs; Gore changed his clothing style because of Naomi Wolf; Gore sighs too loudly; Gore grew up in affluent surroundings; and on and on and on and on.

Furthermore, on what basis do you think that pundits (or Fox News) don’t have an obligation to honesty? If you don’t like Gore’s policies, define why you don’t; but as a news reporter or pundit, to keep repeating RNC spin points about Gore in lieu of doing any actual journalistic work is both lazy and dangerous to our democracy.

Meanwhile, Ted, you’re right on the money about Kaus. My own theory is that the welfare reform issue convinced him that America’s biggest problem is ’70s style liberalism, and his brain has locked there permanently.

Once an intelligent iconoclast, Kaus is now nothing but an idiot.

Why is Mickey Kaus jealous of John Kerry but not George Bush?

Why do middle aged guys like Kaus still try to rebel by being conservative instead of liberal, thye way people of Kerry’s generation did? haven’t they noticed that the cons are now the dominant paridigm?

“Notice how the only news source to publish anything recently about Bush and cocaine is “Conspiracy planet”… and it’s an editorial piece.

Notice how almost every article about Kerry and medals is about the contraversy from legitimate news sources.

What’s the lesson here?”

The lesson here seems to be that so-called legitimate news sources have standards no higher than “Conspiracy Planet” when it comes to spreading smears about Kerry.

Good job, Brother Ted.

If Kaus posts like he’s still enamored of being allowed to write snarky comments. How long has he been doing this?

ChrisS
Poobah, 2nd order
MKDS

The Observer writer is Anson, not Ansen.

Ansen is the last part of the name of David Jansen, who played ‘The Fugitive’, who was on the run from a desperately unfair charge. So the conspiracy comes around after all, come to think of it.

Jawbone, it’s not the RNC — it’s Charlie Gibson. Charlie Gibson, for goodness’ sake. What *has* the world come to? Senator Kerry says, ‘God, they’re doing the work of the Republican National Committee.’

Hey, Kaus has more integrity in his left ear than Kerry in his whole impotent body(google Kerry, prostate). Kerry was in Washington to throw away hos medals and to call his fellow American soldiers “childkillers” and “rapists”. This Kerry scumbag called American soldiers war criminals and you Democrats want him to be the Commander in Chief of our troops now fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The man with no loyalty? Those kids are dying trying to destroy evil and secure our nation. They are getting wounded. This is war. War is not the time to play political games like Kerry did in the 70’s. Kerry used the soldiers fighting in Vietnam for his own political goals. Kerry has blood on his hands. Maybe you Democrats are blind, but I assure you middle America will NEVER make Kerry Commander in Chief after he stabbed American soldiers in Vietnam. It’s not fair to ask our boys who are drying for us to accept such a devious anti-war protester, anti-soldier commander in chief. We would be spitting in our troops face. We middle Americans will never do that to our troops. We love our troops. If you know what that means. We love them. We respect them. We honor them. They are giants amongst you democratic backstabbers. Our soldiers are strong. Kerry made them weak with his protesting in Vietnam. They are strong now. We middle Americans will NEVER allow liberals to weaken our army AGAIN like you did in the 70’s. Our army kills our enemies. Kerry would be a stain on the honor of our military. Be a patriot, support our boys. MAY THE UNITED STATES REIGN SUPREME FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

At the risk of speaking to a brick wall, I have one more comment for Justin, regarding the assertion that “GWB is not on the record denying or defining what the “grounding” was all about.”

Bullshit.

Bush has still not released all of his records. He gave the press a big pile of stuff which his advisors vetted twice before releasing, but he did not take the far simpler step of signing a release form to allow his full military record to be reviewed… as John Kerry did… and as John McCain did in 2000 when the Bush campaign was making false claims about his mental health. As it stands, we have only Bush’s word that this is the complete file, and many key pieces of information that would be present in any military file are missing, indicating that… yep, you guessed it… Bush lied.

In addition, portions of the “complete” file Bush gave to the press were redacted… including the name of the other man who was grounded at the same time as Bush… a man who turned out to be Bush friend and Saudi family contact James Bath. Now, why do you suppose that kind of thing would be such a threat to national security that Bush would have it deleted from documents he then claimed represented his “complete” record. Could it be that Bush was interested in suppressing potentially embarassing information?

So, let’s review: Bush says he’ll release all his records on MTP. He pretends to do so but does not actually do so. He edits the things he does present. He then accuses Kerry of not releasing his records. Kerry signs a release allowing public scrutiny of all his military records. Finding nothing but a stellar record in Kerry’s files, Bush allies (and hacks like Kaus) instead attack Kerry’s record with vague accusations and unsupported suggestions.

And the final step… people like Justin stick they’re fingers in their ears and say “La la la la la! I can’t hear you! La la la la la!” The cycle is complete.

I would have thought by now, especially given that ole Feiler Faster Thesis, Kaus would have had an extended stay in a country home near akron or somesuch and then would have written a book called “blinded by the right, well not exactly the right, more like my own pretension” and gone on to fame and fortune as a staight talker on Air America…..

Jeremy,

”brick wall”
I’m not sure why you think you’re talking to a brick wall? I’ve posted several responses to some valid questions. Is it because I haven’t accepted your opinion?

*explitive*
I stand by my statement: “Bush is not on the record denying or defining what the ‘grounding’ was all about.” If you read my posts above you’ll see that I’m not defending Bush… (although I am admittedly pro-Bush). The purpose of my post was to demonstrate that Kerry’s medal flap is more prominent news because he did deny and define his history in multiple and sometimes conflicting ways.

records
Should Bush release all of his records? I’ll be honest about it. Sure. But again, my point is this: Kerry has said many things on records that have differed over the last 30 years which is why it becomes headline news and Bush’s record has not been prominently featured.

While we’re on the subject of war atrocities, try a Google on the name “Lieutenant William Calley” or “My Lai”.

Or, for that matter, read the recent series in the Toledo Blade about atrocities committed by American soldiers in Vietnam.

I’m frankly surprised that any honest person denies that these things happened. Maybe John Kerry didn’t commit them, maybe his mates didn’t either, but by God somebody sure did.

Justin:

Thank you for saving me some time in the future, by teaching me never to respond to your posts. As others have stated, Somersby is serious about documenting his allegations. I guess you just don’t want to see.

Everybody go to Ricky Vandal’s site. The guy may be certifiable.

Ricky, go play with your My Little Pony collection and quit bothering the guests.

Justin, putting your fingers in your ears and saying nonny-nonny isn’t an argument. We’ve all seen it before many times. You want “Contradiction” — it’s down the hall. This is “Argument” here.

I’ve been trying to send this e-mail to Kaus, but my @#%! e-mail program won’t send it for some reason. If anyone wants to cut and paste and send it for me, I’d be much obliged. Anyway, here is is:

From: Sage in Hollywood
To: mickey_kaus@msn.com
Subject: Dude, quit the nitpicking

Mr. Kaus,

Do you actually take yourself seriously? Do you ever step back from your anti-Kerry blog and look at the big picture? You take a single blustery comment from a 27-year-old war protestor, a guy who has been targeted by Nixon’s secret police, and you blow it up into a huge character issue thirty years later. WTF??? Who CARES if they were ribbons or medals? John Kerry threw his ribbons over the fence, he threw some medals that other veterans asked him to throw, and yeah, maybe he took a macho stance on a TV interview. Big fucking deal!!! Maybe he didn’t want to admit that he didn’t have his other medals with him, because then the reporter would have questioned his resolve. He never said straight up that he threw the stars or the Purple Hearts, he just let the reporter believe what he wanted to believe. Protester types do that all the time when trying to get their point across. He’s not gonna shoot the movement in the foot by saying “No, I wanted to keep my best medals.”

If you spent as much time nitpicking George W. Bush’s character flaws, your brain would explode from the sheer input overload. Why not write a blog about W.’s drunk driving? Hey, he could have killed somebody! Thousands die every year from drunk driving. How about W.’s challenge to go mano-a-mano with his father? If W. is so tough, why didn’t he go “mano-a-mano” with the Viet Cong like John Kerry? Why not blog about W.’s disappearance from the Air National Guard. That’s not a matter of ribbons vs. medals, that’s a matter of FAILURE TO APPEAR for MILITARY SERVICE. In my mind, Kerry’s indiscretions aren’t even close. And it doesn’t end there. W.’s stinky business deals over the years, his mocking of death row inmate Karla Fay Tucker, his use of surrogates to impugn the sanity and patriotism of political rivals…..I just can’t believe you take yourself seriously with these petty — yes, PETTY — John Kerry attacks.

And hey — while we’re at it, let’s talk about things that happened in the last four years. Yeah, Kerry failed to take credit for his wife’s SUV. Bush failed to take credit for misleading the nation into WAR. Kerry said he voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it (the truth, even if clumsily told). Bush said “We’ve found the weapons of mass destruction” (a lie, plain and simple). Bush’s campaign has said that Kerry voted to raise taxes 350 times, a number that was totally debunked by your pal Michael Kinsley. Bush pretended to Bob Woodward that he was reluctant to go to war with Iraq, when in “Bush at War” he had Iraq on his hitlist the first weekend after 9/11. Bush wasn’t reluctant at all, nor was he skeptical of the shaky WMD evidence. If he was skeptical, wouldn’t he be angry now that the evidence turned out to be false? Wouldn’t he fire George Tenet for claiming it was a “slam dunk”, if Bush was some champion of truth? It’s all b.s. Now that the truth is out for everyone to see (nod to David Kay), Bush is still peddling the same old lies about Saddam Hussein being a threat to America. Saddam wasn’t a threat to anyone except Shiites and Kurds in Iraq.

One of my high school friends, a Marine, died in Fallujah on April 8th. For what? WMD? No. Fighting al-Qaeda? No. Spreading democracy? Is that the current rationale? Who would have approved this war if that was the goal? Does America want to be responsible for creating democracies at the point of a gun? If so, there’s a lot of countries yet to occupy. But if we implement democracy as poorly as Bush has done in Afghanistan and Iraq, all that blood and treasure will be wasted on a failed mission.

Why aren’t we taking on real threats (Iran, North Korea, Al Qaeda) if Bush is such a tough cowboy? The guy is a total faker, a chump, and it’s too bad people like you can’t see it. You can call John Kerry a pompous liberal all you want, but the truth is he killed twenty men in Vietnam. He’s got real guts, not fake bluster like this short-sighted slug we have in the White House. Go ahead and predict buyer’s remorse by Democrats all you want. I predict buyer’s remorse by the American people, once they see that Bush has no clothes. If only there weren’t mealy-mouthed nitpickers like you peddling the moronic RNC spin.

Sincerely,

Sage V.H.
Hollywood, CA

The double standard for Bush and Kerry reveals the liberal bias of the media — reporters and pundits believe liberal Democrats to be superior human beings and so hold them up to a higher standard than the “Re-thug-licans” or whatever we’re supposed to call them. Of course Republican presidents lie to us about an unnecessary and immoral war — the public would have to be a bunch of idiots not to just assume that — but when a Democrat lies about his sex life, or his medals, or whatever other minor point Democrats lie about, it’s a big deal. It’s like, you expect Saddam Hussein to kill people, but if Billy Graham accidentally bumps into someone and fails to say he’s sorry, that’s news.

I personally agree with conservatives that this pernicious liberal bias is completely unfair.