Category: Politics

Paul Harvey led off with it this morning, and USA Today has written a story about it, so it’s undoubtedly clear that as petroleum prices rise, so will the cost of heating our homes this winter. Unfortunately for those who would use fluctations in any market as campaign fodder, the brunt of the winter will occur after the election, but they can get ahead of the story and frighten voters. Let me explain how:

First, you take a revered older statesman of the party, preferably one with a dynamite Nobel prize to his name.

Then you put him on television, bemoaning the state of the country, and announce that citizens will have to put on sweaters and turn down their thermostats because of the policies of the current administration.

Oh, yeah. That will work.

Please try it, oh please please please.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, John Kerry explains Bush’s diabolical plans for cattle, including the dreaded Haliburton Battle Holstein. Or something.

Over the weekend, I read an article in the Kansas City Star which explained that John Kerry’s debate weakness was that he was too cerebral and nuanced. I couldn’t find it for my wife, but here’s another piece of the same flavor, written by the AP and courtesy of the Kansas City Star.

Lead sentence:

This fall’s presidential debates will pit George W. Bush’s folksy manner and big-picture brand of policymaking against John Kerry’s more cerebral outlook and nuanced world view.

Kerry’s superiority:

On paper, Kerry would seem to have just the right resume to thwack the president in this type of setting. A high school and college debate champ with two decades of Senate repartee under his belt, Kerry knows intimately the details of policymaking and how to argue any side of an issue.

Bush’s “strength”:

The president, by contrast, is rarely accused of offering too much information. He is militantly “on message,” often repeating a few set points over and over.

“Bush debates the way Chris Evert plays tennis – no unforced errors,” says Democrat Paul Begala, who played the part of the president in rehearsals with Al Gore for the 2000 debates. “He doesn’t get out of his game. He won’t try to get into philosophy and nuance and deep thinking.”

The debates:

Kerry, by contrast, “really has no facial expression,” says Lakoff. “He just talks. … I think Kerry’s long sentences and lack of intonation and facial expression say, ‘Yes, I’m very smart but I’m kind of phoning it in.'”

Jurgen Streeck, a communications professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said that while Kerry is not a very lively communicator, the debates may provide a good setting to showcase him as “a thoughtful speaker.”

Bush, meanwhile, must guard against smugness.

“He has that kind of smirk,” says John Fritch, head of the communications department at the University of Northern Iowa and director of the National Debate Tournament. “Given the issues that we’re dealing with, the casualties in Iraq, an inappropriate smile will not go over well.”

Says Begala, “If I were prepping Bush, I would warn him about crossing the line from self-confident to cocky. People like his self-confidence but there are moments, particularly when he’s jacked up on adrenaline, when he crosses that line.”

Go read the whole article, and you tell me if the point isn’t that Kerry’s smart, but comes off as too smart, and that Bush is not as smart but more self-assured, almost cocky.

Of course, this is AP, which Powerline has identified as a field office for the Kerry campaign anyway.

This morning, as I was taking my empties to the recycling facility so that they could hold beer again, I heard John F. Kerry’s response to the presidential radio address, where in Senator Marrybucks said:

Parents are sitting at kitchen tables and wondering how they’re going to make ends meet: How they’re going to buy back-to-school clothes this week, and still pay last week’s doctor bill. How they’re going to make this months [sic] mortgage payment, and still cover next semester’s tuition. And whether they’re going to be able to save for retirement or just have enough left over for a night at the movies.

Undoubtedly, some people will rejoice that John Kerry can get down rhetorically with the commen proletariat and empathize with their psychological discomfort. Unfortunately, John Kerry, in the interest of time, cut some of the best parts of his litany.

We here at mFBJN have done some crack investigative journalism, and by that I mean our staff did a little dumpster diving outside of JFK₂HQ in our constant effort to find discarded 3/4 full bottles of Pierre Ferrand Ancestrale Cognac, Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve Bourbon, or Jameson 15 Year Pot Still Irish Whiskey (discarded because the freshly-opened bottle “just tastes better”) or unshredded credit card slips (which you think this crack investigative staff would prefer to find is for you to judge, gentle reader). In addition to a cool pair of cuff links, our staff found a list of the dilemmas that John Kerry cut to make his speech fit.

These dilemmas that John Kerry cut from his empathy for the hoi polloi include:

• A $6000 road bike to ride during a single photo op, or a good used car to drive for four years or until it stops running.

  That six thousand dollars can only be spent one way, friends. You want to know the strata of used cars? $6000 and up, or anything you buy from a new car dealer is a good used car; anything $1000 and up that you can buy from a used car lot is a questionable used car, anything over $200 that you get from the classifieds which runs for a year or maybe two if you’re not afraid of brakeless driving is a fair used car, and anything you buy for $49 as salvage with the promise you’ll fix it up is a poor used car.

• A properly-tailored two piece suit, or an entire wardrobe for the children this year.
• A flattering haircut by a trendy stylist-to-the-stars-and-politicos, or two vacations with the family outside the state, both of which do not involve camping.
• Spending $300,000 to fly to the other coast in a luxury 747, or paying off the mortgage over 30 years, with full interest, for a single home in an inner suburb to a city in the middle of the country.
• The Swiss chalet, or everything your poor little heads can dream.

Face it, Johnnie Rich (1 of 2), I cannot personally abide by empathy coming from someone so far out of my social strata, particularly when its condescenion comes with a slate of government spending to salve the ills you imagine we have.

Now pardon me while I pick up the chip and reset it for the next guy.

Via Spoons, we have this story: Bush Glosses Over Complex Facts in Speech:

President Bush glossed over some complicating realities in Iraq, Afghanistan and the home front in arguing the case Americans are safer and his opponent cannot deliver.

On Iraq, Bush talked of a 30-member alliance standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States, masking the fact that U.S. troops are pulling by far most of the weight. On Afghanistan and its neighbors, he gave an accounting of captured or killed terrorists, but did not address the replenishment of their ranks — or the still-missing Osama bin Laden.

In the interest of elaborating on CALVIN WOODWARD’s points, I thought I would list some other things Bush did not address last night:

• Insecurity in Microsoft products, or the purported superiority of Linux.
• The ability of movie companies and comic book companies to maintain a profitable, lasting set of fan-appealing franchises when faced with misguided efforts, like The Hulk, and underappreciated-but-expensive films like Daredevil.
• Lara Croft or BloodRayne: Which video game babe is hotter?
• Cats who insist upon sticking their tails in my schooner of beer.
• Those burps where Blogger (or other blogging software) makes you think you will, or you actually lose a post. What’s up with that? Did Carnivore eat it?
• The mere annoyances that are Spam, Adware, telemarketing phone calls, junk mail, and print or broadcast advertising of things I don’t like–annoyances that demand FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ATTENTION NOW!
• Scofflaws who don’t buckle their safety belts. Why is this not a Federal crime yet, punishable with jail time?
• Women bloggers who ficklely start and stop their blogs, over and over again, challenging other bloggers who want to keep their blogrolls fresh (This means you, Lucas, du Toit, VKate, et al.)
• Those damn Chinese butterflies who keep beating their wings and starting hurricanes.
• A federal study to determine how many types of information wild moonbats can communicate through their barks and grunts.
• Introduction of federal tax assistance and incentives to bloggers unafraid of the beautiful blink tag.

Actually, history will show that Bush left more out of his speech than he included. Perhaps this was because it was a speech designed to come in under an hour with planned interruptions for applause, chants, and inevitable protestors.

Or maybe Bush is really trying to hide everything else from the world, which receives its information only when the Master pours his words into our ears.