His Inner Kerry (UPDATED: Adieu, Jacko)
WE INTERRUPT OUR NORMAL PROGRAMMING WITH THIS BREAKING NEWS:
Heat’s off Sanford … Michael Jackson’s dead. Do you remember where you were when you heard? Sanford does … off the front page.
News, commentary at Memeorandum.
Remembering Jacko: Malkin seriously, POWIP not. Allah at HotAir, I can’t tell. Driscoll is multiply updating the cultural phenomenon.
With Farrah down, too, Riehl is calling it “The Day The Tabloids Died.”
… I dunno, as an American tabloid professional, I predict a huge tabloid sales day tomorrow. Our boring broadsheet cousins, though they’ll do OK from their reporting on the death of “Mr. Jackson” and “Ms. Fawcett,” aren’t really in the game.
We’ll probably hear accusations in the coming days that our ilk, the steamy tabloids and the paparazzi, hounded him to an early grave. Like Marilyn, like Diana. Like a candle in the wind. Maybe. But I dunno, it was hard to look at him and not think it was all a desperate cry for attention. A desperate cry for tabloid attention. That, and prosecution.
And yes, as Tabloid-Americans we will miss Jacko, a.k.a. “the King of Pop,” a.k.a. ”the Gloved one,” a.k.a. “Wacko Jacko,” a.k.a. “pop weirdo,” a.k.a. “the Surgically Altered One.” But frankly, in a business that perennially asks, “What have you done for us lately,” he hadn’t done much for us lately.
Until today, that is. Yeah, it’s sad. They’re all talking tonight about what a great talent and innovator he was, but more than anything, as he told it himself, he was a pathetic child abuse victim, deprived of his own childhood. And maybe, acquittal or no, a perp. Adieu, Jacko.
We now return to our regular programming:
Shelly at Boston Herald calls it his “inner Letterman” as John Kerry wishes Palin missing instead of Sanford, but the botched-joke record suggests it’s his inner Kerry.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Kerry must have been channeling his inner Letterman yesterday.
The Bay State senator was telling a group of business and civic leaders in town at his invitation about the “bizarre’’ tale of how South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had “disappeared for four days’’ and claimed to be hiking along the Appalachian Trail, but no one was really certain of his whereabouts.
“Too bad,’’ Kerry said, “if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin.’’
OK, John, for starters … having to explain is just the first sign there’s something wrong with the joke. The fact that you don’t have to explain doesn’t help.
The Democratic-centric crowd laughed.
With him or at him? Dunno, they did vote for him.
Hate to quibble with my fine American conservative tabloid’s editorial position re Kerry mockery, but I’m not sure he merits a Letterman comparison. Letterman works for a living. And Kerry has a long leg up on Letterman as the punchline of his own jokes. In fact, Shelly may need to apologize to Letterman. That one could be actionable.
Allah at HotAir: Don’t be too hard on Waffles …
Surber: What Palin has that Kerry doesn’t … support within her own party.
Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom does a hack infidelity roundup, with the Cliff Notes on how this play goes.
Malkin finds the lefty Sanford yuks in bad taste. I dunno, let them have their fun. No party has a monopoly on moral lapses, hypocrisy. Under the law of partisan ass-biteage, the louder they squawk and laugh, the sooner they’ll be squirming. One of my favorite moral-lapse hypocrisy situations came up today when some feminist caller on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” was yapping on about the male patriarchal abuse of power blah blah blah, and a guest said yes, she was absolutely right, and brought up Bill Clinton, as a somewhat more relevant example who got a big pass from feminists.
Seriously, though … sort of, Powerline.
In other business HotAir hurtfully compares Obama to another great Massachusetts also-ran/punchline, Michael Dukakis.
Down Memory Lane with Kerry:
Is This Where I Get Me A Shark To Jump Over?
Meanwhile, from deep in the Kerry archives at Wingo Way:
Kerry rewrites U.S. foreign policy to fix Iraq wisecrackBy JULES CRITTENDEN17 December 2006Boston Herald
Some people seem to have an unerring instinct for the wrong side of history. You can rely on them, at critical moments, to abandon friends and accommodate evil, in the name of good.
Neville Chamberlain famously chose to talk with Adolph Hitler, and believed him when he agreed to peace in 1938. But Chamberlain was big enough a man to admit he was wrong in 1939, and to throw his support behind the winner when war broke out and he was politically beaten.
John Kerry has reversed that tragic historical formula. Politically beaten in 2004 in the midst of a war he supported but then rejected, he is now going to Syria to feel out a dictator’s mood for peace. He wants to hear what Bashir al-Assad’s thoughts are on Lebanon, Hezbollah and Iraq. The White House and State Department say this visit will only lend credibility to a meddling, unreliable dictator who routinely rejects U.S. proposals. “I’m going to push them (the Syrians) on a number of different issues. I’m curious about what they might or might not be willing to do as we go forward here,” Kerry said last week. “Do they have any suggestions how the various equations in the region might be changed?”
No doubt about it: They do.
Kerry added last week in Cairo that he’s also ready to go to Tehran. He just doesn’t have time for this most important mission at the moment. This has a bit of the “for it before I was against it” feel to it. Iran just did that big Holocaust denial thing, and even John Kerry recognizes this isn’t a good time to be grandstanding with crazy anti-Semites. Al-Assad, on the other hand, accused of backing assassinations in Lebanon, having taken over the domination of that country from his dad . . . somehow Kerry must think he can come off looking like the engaged foreign policy whiz.
Here’s what one respected Iraq blogger, Omar at www.IraqtheModel.com [http://www.IraqtheModel.com], who lives with the bloodshed outside his door, had to say late last week about talking to Syria and Iran:
“The history of the Middle East - one full of blood from coups - taught us not to trust clerics nor dictators. Both never keep promises and they can come up with pretexts to feel good about their lies; clerics would say they had to do so to serve God and the community and dictators . . . well, they have no respect for their people in the first place, so why would we expect them to feel ashamed of not keeping promises!”
It doesn’t take a great student of history to see that. But Kerry very much needs to make up for the devastation he wrought on his own presidential dream with that stupid Iraq wisecrack. An end run around U.S. foreign policy looks like the way to go.
Beyond that shallow goal, however, the depth of Kerry’s interest in dealing with murderous dictators was revealed in Cairo last week. He said talking to them is a necessary step to resolving problems in the region. But the Bush administration’s push for democracy “has been counterproductive . . . It’s created turmoil and uncertainty.” Sorry. The turmoil and uncertainty were not created by giving people the opportunity to freely express their political will for the first time. It was created by dictators, mullahs and terrorists who do not care to see a free, modern state emerge in their midst. It was created by the people whose suggestions for changing the various equations in the region Kerry is seeking out.
Just as 35 years ago, Kerry sought to advance his career by abandoning Vietnam to murderous communists, he now wants to throw Iraq to the wolves. Like a disaster-seeking missile aimed at the wrong side of history.
The good news as of late last week was that President Bush is signaling he plans to stay in this fight.
Quitting a worthy fight would be great mistakeBy JULES CRITTENDEN19 November 2006Boston Herald
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” John Kerry once famously asked.His question resonated in the Vietnam-era 1970s, when a war of communist expansion had come to be viewed as a liberation struggle, and America’s involvement on the supposed wrong side of that was seen as a colossal, deadly mistake. It has resonated again today, as the war in Iraq came to be viewed by some parties as one more great big American mistake.
The fact is in war, there are mistakes, and men die because of them. These are not the kind of mistakes Kerry was refering to, or that the anti-war faction talks about today. These are missteps in combat or actions based on poor information or judgment, and they are tragic.
Sometimes they are misguided tactics or strategies. These mistakes are an unavoidable part of the terrible business of war, and correcting them is part of the process of achieving goals of national interest and national defense . . . goals that in Iraq are of global interest and global defense.
Then there is the other kind of mistake. When with good intentions you have embarked on a necessary fight, you decide you want to back out because it has gotten ugly. When, for example, you discover that in war people die, and death is tragic. When, because war is a complex thing, the nature of the threat shifts or becomes more challenging, and it is frustrating.
In war, you accomplish your goal, which is winning, or you lose, or you arrive at a stalemate and await further developments. Exiting, without having won or achieved stalemate, is losing. When you face inferior forces and a further threat from their emboldened allies, exiting is also a mistake.
The issue is especially relevant today, in the wake of the Democratic win in congressional elections, and early signs - Rumsfeld’s replacement and the signals from the Iraq Study Group - that President Bush himself might be looking for the door.
But there are several reasons to be hopeful that the United States and its allies do not want to turn Iraq into a mistake.
Last Wednesday, Gen. John Abizaid told Congress he wants to maintain troop levels in Iraq and boost the training of Iraqi forces. There has been strong political pressure to give the commanders what they need. Then news reports suggested the Bush administration is getting ready to push another 20,000 troops into Baghdad to tackle the militias and quell sectarian violence. This is good news.
A recent study of troop levels and U.S. and Iraqi deaths found that when the number of troops has gone up, the number of deaths has come down. The Iraqi people need to know we are committed to them, and their government must be discouraged from an increasingly destructive sectarian path.
Thursday, House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi’s choice for majority leader, anti-war zealot John Murtha, was rejected in favor of the more moderate Steny Hoyer. Not only did the party reject the politics of outright abandonment, it also administered a spanking to Pelosi that takes the shine off her electoral “thumpin’ ” of Bush.
Friday, Tony Blair said al-Qaeda, Iraq’s Sunni insurgents, and its Iranian-backed Shiite militias have turned Iraq into a “disaster.” But our most stalwart ally added, “We are not walking away.”
Which brings us back to Kerry’s infamous question. How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
The answer is, you don’t. It would be abhorrent to do so. You ask men and women to offer themselves for a worthy cause, and you honor the sacrifices they make by fighting that cause to a successful conclusion.
The irony is, like Kerry’s call 35 years ago, today’s calls for a quick exit from Iraq are in fact calls to create a mistake, which men and women will then be asked to die for.
Bay State dems the best thing to happen to GOPBy JULES CRITTENDEN5 November 2006Boston Herald
It’s that time of the election cycle when we get ready to take one for the team. I’m talking about conservatives. Here in Taxachusetts.
Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank and Mike Dukakis. Gay marriage and Willie Horton. The strictest gun controls in the nation, and gun violence is skyrocketing. John Kerry, still reporting for duty.
We all know the jokes, we’ve heard them all before. People are always amazed to learn that conservatives live here in Massachusetts. They wonder what that can be like. It can be galling to think that, in presidential elections, your vote doesn’t count.
It is nothing more than a symbolic gesture, to let the world know, for example, that more than a third of John Kerry’s voting constituents prefered a Republican from Texas.
But to view the national stage from Massachusetts is to know the bitter truth that our state plays an important role in America’s political theater. Every two years, bluest blue Massachusetts sends in the clowns. We show America what could be and America generally sees it and acts accordingly: runs in the other direction.
From Kerry’s insulting jibes at our troops, to the efforts by Kennedy and others in our delegation to undermine a wartime presidency and give Euro-style socialism a foot-hold in the New World, Massachusetts gives America its bogeymen.
We have a Democratic legislature here by default.
The hapless local GOP has been unable to muster challengers in any significant numbers, despite 16 years of managing to shoehorn a mixed bag of Republicans into the governor’s office. Even blue Mass. voters have wanted someone to put the brakes on. But that would appear to be over.
With the likely election of Deval Patrick as governor, we’ll give America a brave new Dukakis, not to mention an advance glance at an Obama administration. Watch and learn. It is perhaps the best 2008 gift we, Massachusetts, could give the GOP.
More Kennedy. More Kerry - no way he’s going quietly; his Web site now sports a Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial saying his dumb troops-dumb Bush joke was “right either way.” A rasher of Patrick. Frank in the Democratic House leadership. What more could a Republican candidate in 2008 ask for?
Among the GOP candidates in 2008 is likely to be Mitt Romney . . . another ironic Democratic gift to the nation. He gets trashed here at home for making Massachusetts jokes in Iowa and South Carolina. It could be his strongest suit. Mitt emerges from the Democratic wilderness, bruised and bedraggled from ridiculous combat with legislators who, for example, ignore lawful petitions in constitutional conventions to avoid giving the voters a say.
Mitt made his bones tilting at Ted 12 years ago - the most serious threat the Bay State’s 800-pound gorilla has faced in decades (this year’s challenger didn’t have a prayer).
Democratic control of Congress, should it come to pass on Tuesday, will offer America the spectacle writ large that Massachusetts offers in miniature. It won’t be the worst thing that could happen.
Speaker-hopeful Nancy Pelosi, suddenly faced with the prospect of actual responsibility, is begging her minions to keep a lid on it. You know they won’t be able to. As they engage in the destructive practice of investigating every spurious claim of rights-trampling that already has been hashed over repeatedly, we will get a sneak peak at the Democratic vision for America.
An America eager to ingratiate itself with the world and embrace any bizarre fringe cause that emerges. This is what we live with in Massachusetts. We hope for the occasional upset, so we can show America, see, we’re not all like that. There are rational, normal people here.
But this year, it looks like we’ll be taking another one for the team.
Topics: Boston, hacks, moronocy
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:35 am on Thursday, June 25, 2009
4 Responses to “His Inner Kerry (UPDATED: Adieu, Jacko)”
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June 25th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
It’s always nice to revisit history, if only to remind ourselves just who the unfortunately retarded public figures were.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
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June 25th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
[...] makes prostitute joke about Palin’s daughter; Update: Both Palins rip Letterman Jules Crittenden: His Inner Kerry Clinging to G & G: I bet Letterman is a golf cheat, tooJimmy Arone, Big Hollywood: Bill Maher: [...]
June 26th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Palin’s response to John Kerry…
Well, when he said it he looked quite frustrated, and he looked so sad, and I just wanted to reach out to the TV and say “John Kerry, why the long face?”
link with the video:
http://www.conservatives4palin.com/2009/06/video-palin-addressing-troops-in-kosovo.html