Message to John Kerry: All You Have to do is Stand up to Take a Stand

[reprehensor]

From Buzzflash

January 25, 2006

Message to John Kerry: All You Have to do is Stand up to Take a Stand -- Filibuster Alito.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

John Kerry would have made a good and decent President, but he was a lousy candidate: he listened to the greedy Democratic consultants who always confuse losing and wimpiness with some vague concept of "being moderate."

What the Dems have failed to understand in recent years -- and are once again evidencing by their failure to filibuster Alito -- is that you win by winning. It's that simple.

Americans respect winners. Winning changes perceptions in and of itself. You can't be perceived as strong on national security, when you don't have the guts to defend yourself from attacks that you don't have any guts.

That's what happened to John Kerry when he let the Barbary Pirate hit men of the Bush Campaign, the treacherous "Swift Boat Liars," define him as a liar and a coward -- when they were supporting a ticket composed of two chickenhawks who worked mighty damn hard to successfully evade service in Vietnam.

continued at link...

[Mass]

1. We should send the same message to all Senators, starting with Reid

Leahy said he was letting Reid decide whether there would be a filibuster or not. So, Leader Reid, if you are the leader, start the session by saying there will be a filibuster.

[wisteria]

2. Reid will be responsible for making a filibuster decision.

Reid is the minority leader. kerry can support the move, but he can not stand-up alone and call for it.The determination to filibuster will need the support of a majority of Democratic Senators.

We may not have that kind of support for this move. And we have to consider it might have a negative effect on voters in 2006. We don't want Alito, unfortunately, it appears most Americans don't share our concern. The Republicans and the media have made this into a partisan issue and we are the underdogs here.

[Mass]

3. After this diktat from the DLC, they dont have the vote

meaning that Reid will not take the decision. I hope somebody will stand up and call for a cloture vote, just as a principled decision. I dont care who, but I sure wish this happens.

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=192&contentid=253692

For the same reason and others, we do not think Senate Democrats should try to filibuster this confirmation. A filibuster is certain to fail; indeed, the Senate is certain to respond to a filibuster by outlawing them permanently in judicial confirmations. Using this weapon now would stake Democrats to the implausible argument that Alito's inevitable confirmation is the most egregious act of the Bush administration and the Republican Senate, going into a critical midterm election.

[wisteria]

8. At this point, I would settle for delaying a vote on confirmation

until after the SOTU address. Just on principle alone. Bush had said he was willing to work with both parties an come up with a compromise candidate, then as usual, he screws us and throws some meat to his base of fanatics.

[Mass]

10. You will need a filibuster for that.

[wisteria]

12. You mean there is no other way to delay the vote with testimony

or new information? Damn, I don't want to see Bush swager and gloat about this in his speech.

[Mass]

14. No, this can all be blocked by a vote against cloture.

[wisteria]

11. My guess is that the internal polling numbers must not support

this move. It appears we were not successful in convincing Americans that Alito is a danger to their individual liberties and will yield greater power to this administration. The Republicans upstaged us on this with their theatrics and the help of the media. Re: Mrs. Alito.

[cyberia]

9. Alito surpasses triangulation issues

There is very good evidence that a Supreme Court with Alito on it will provide a majority that will shred our rights. This is about the survival of the republic, not the Democratic dips in the Senate.

[wisteria]

13. And yet, other people seen to not consider him a threat at all.

It is a very difficult decision to make.

[mtnsnake]

4. The first line/paragraph about the "candidate" says it all

"John Kerry would have made a good and decent President, but he was a lousy candidate: he listened to the greedy Democratic consultants who always confuse losing and wimpiness with some vague concept of "being moderate."

As far as his campaign, I've always faulted his campaign managers and advisors more than Kerry himself, although the buck stops with Kerry. He should've fired the bunch of them part way through his campaign like so many thought he would, when all signs pointed to trouble, yet he hung on with them until it was too late. For that part, sticking with them, I fault him. Poor decision making on his part to listen to the people who were obviously steering him in the wrong direction.

Kerry's at his best when he's himself, when he's attacking the bad guys...not when he's taking the high road all during THEIR attacks.

[wisteria]

5. You are wrong to make this about John Kerry.

There are right times and wrong times to take a stand. Unfortunately, I think we have to let this one go.

[mtnsnake]

15. I'm not the one who made this about Kerry

Read the article that the OP provided. The entire article makes it about Kerry from top to bottom. I agree with many parts of the article.

Hey, I think Kerry's a great Senator, a fine man, and a legitimate war hero. I also think he's a poor campaigner.

Then you have this part, where the article says, "John Kerry should stop with his meaningless petitions and do what he won't do because he doesn't have the passion to stand up for democracy."

I couldn't agree more. Where do those email petitions ever go? He and other Dems should be taking action in the real physical world, not just in cyberspace.

[TayTay]

17. You mean like saying he will vote for a filibuster

and wants the Admin to report on the Clandestine Prisons and has an amendment in that is actually causing the Rethugs in the House to hold up the bill and his action on getting emergency loans released to desperate people in the flooded area of the Gulf from Katrina and that sort of thing?

Hmm, sounds like real action to me. Or maybe the need to stand up to the Pres on NSA, torture, neglect of his own people, etc is not what you had in mind? Hmmmm, sounds like a leader to me. Oh, and none of those things were done with a 'petition.'

[TayTay]

6. All those people are still there.

We should make sure that the Carville's and Begala's and Lockhart's never work again on national campaigns. They are the ones who advocated for the national ticket to be conciliatory and focus on domestic issues. Kerry rocked when he started going after Bush directly on the war and on his failed plans for same.

I hope James and Paul and all the rest of the gang get put out to pasture permanently. I would never work for or send money to any candidate that employed them.

I agree, they are bad for the Democratic Party.

[wisteria]

7. I don't like any of those people either. I think they are bad for the

party.

[karynnj]

16. Kerry did fight back and he and his team did prove several

claims were lies.

One of the biggest problems Kerry had was not having the type and quality of support that the Democratic nominee in "the most important election of our life time" should have had. Part of the problem was beyond the control of Democrats - Bush could manipulate his "terror" machine whenever Kerry's numbers rose and most of the radio and cable TV media was firmly behind Bush.

There were some Democrats who could have done more. Here are three that are easy to identify:

1 and 2) Carville and Begala - they acted like smirky adolescents in 2004. They were 2 of the few Democratic voices on TV and they seemed more intent on making clever jokes than in helping Kerry get out his message. That they now have the chutzpah to complain that Kerry, who was working day and night with his and Teresa's entire combined family to do so, didn't get his message out is unbelievable ly annoying. Even as Kerry was winning the primaries, they were still talking maybe Hillary would be brought in in a brokered convention if there was no clear winner.

They still say they didn't get Kerry's message. As intelligent Democratic spokesmen, would it have been too much to ask of them to really listen to Kerry's excellent convention speech and the speeches designated as major on subjects like Iraq, terror, the environment, health care etc. As they are so good at "quick, war room responses", why didn't they replay Kerry's April statement that the Navy gave him his medals and the facts are what the facts were for 35 years, this short clip and the audio from Nixon tape which comments that Kerry was clean and a war hero - every time the SBVT thing came up. It's interesting that they could defend Clinton for charges that had some merit, but not Kerry for baseless lies.

They did criticize Bush - largely by making fun of him. This to some degree backfired because those type of snarky cheap shots were appreciated only by the people who already hated Bush.

3) Former President Bill Clinton - Bill Clinton's egotistical need to be the center of the spot light hurt in 2004, as it did in 2000, where he had his dramatic entrance at Gore's convention.

One small example: if he had to put out his autobiography a month before the convention, wouldn't it be nice to credit the nominee for things he did. To write as much as he did on the importance of opening Vietnam (as Bill's accomplishment), listing Kerry after McCain and Kerrey as one of several Senate vets whose approval helped is disgusting. In a 955 page book, one more paragraph wouldn't hurt. No one reading the book years later would even notice 3 or 4 Kerry paragraphs - but people in 2004 using the index in the back might be impressed. By mid-February, it was obvious that Kerry was the candidate and this was when Clinton was still making changes - in the case of Vietnam, it was Kerry's hard work that made the accomplishment feasible, so a less self absorbed person would have included a mention in the first place. (One of the best accounts Of Kerry's work on the POW/MIA committee was in McCain's second book where he said that no one other than Kerry could have gotten all the committee members to agree on the conclusion.)

In fact the longest mention of Kerry is slightly unsettling. Clinton talks of deciding to make a campaign appearance for Kerry in 1996 in his race against Weld. He mentions his good relationship with Weld, but mentions he "didn't want to lose Kerry" because he was one of the Senate's leading experts on the environment and high technology. Seeing that a President likely wants to lose none of his party's incumbents, this trade off between his good relationship with Weld and Kerry's value sounds strange. Clinton then finishes the paragraph with, "He (Kerry) had also devoted an extraordinary amount of time to the problem of youth violence, an issue he has cared about since his days as a prosecutor. Caring about an issue in which there are no votes today but which will have a big impact on the future is a very good quality in a politician." This slightly weird sentence to me shows the difference between the two men - Kerry doing what is right, Clinton thinking votes and politics first (but conceding that doing it is good). I'll take Kerry's solid core values over Clinton's poll driven value system any day.

When listing Kerry's expertise, note that he left out the years of experience on foreign policy. If he were truly generous - which he's not - he could have mentioned that Kerry was the first (or one of the first) to worry about non-state terrorism. These last 2 things were key issues in the election. Bill Clinton had the biggest Democratic voice - other than Kerry's and he opted during what we all think was a key election to consider his reputation over the party and country.

The problem is that this is in a book that was published to great fanfare the month before Kerry's convention! The paragraph is unsettling because it damns with faint praise. If he couldn't say something nicer, he could have delayed his book 6 months to hit Christmas 2004. At the time the media itself said that Clinton was sucking up all the oxygen.

Bill Clinton gave a nice speech at the convention, but it was too much Clinton, not enough Kerry. Additionally, focusing on things Kerry did in the Senate while Clinton was President would have been good. Kerry didn't need Clinton speaking about how heroic Kerry was in Vietnam (which given Clinton's own views was not sincere) - Kerry had his crew who had first hand experience. Kerry contributed many of the ideas that Clinton used in the COPS program and he and Kennedy had co-sponsored legislation that was re-written to be S-CHIP. To get passage, the Jr Senator's name was dropped, but he had done much of the work.

More importantly, Clinton was in a unique position to explain Kerry's prescient warnings on non-state terror and his persistence in fighting to close BCCI, the terrorist bank. The problem is it shows Kerry in a better light than either Bush or Clinton.

[blm]

19. Bullshit - leftleaning media and Dem pundits fucked up throughout 2004.

They were the ones who got their asses kicked on a daily basis when they were supposed to be Kerry's frontline in the communications battle.

[blm]

18. BULLSHIT - The leftleaning MEDIA should have stepped up and defined that

fight. Bush never defended himself one bit. He had his machine do it for him.

Leftleaning media could have been way SMARTER, and said that Kerry is responding to the lies, there were plenty of times when he did, but not OVER-responding and whining about the barbs because he is a man that has stood up to bullets and faced down bazookas and machine gun fire. A few barbed lies aren't going to cut him to the core the way they do others who've only swatted away mosquitos in their lifetime.

Leftleaning media and the Dem punditry and spokepeople were WEAK, PATHETIC, and undisciplined when matched with the RW message machine. They got their asses kicked on a daily basis when they were supposed to be the everyday frontline in the communications.

[ProSense]

20. Uninformed people are free to write crap, but that piece is inaccurate

Kerry voted against the three critical nominees:

Rice
Gonzales
Roberts

Imagine where we'd be without these three.


Kerry's vigorous response to the SBVT smears is documented in DU Research Forum. I would say the media defined Kerry for those gullible and uninformed enough to listen. Kerry is a hero, someone says he isn't and without checking the facts and listen to the rebuttals, some people just accepted the SBVT BS.

[ProSense]

21. And another thing: this is another example

of buying the RW BS (from the piece in the OP):

Snip...

Most recently, he posted a "petition" that asked people to support him in getting other senators to oppose Alito. The petition concludes, "I am honored to join John Kerry by putting my name in the Congressional Record against Judge Alito. I call on you to do the same with your vote."

So here's the Kerry trade-off, you give him your name and e-mail address and it is added to his list of potential campaign contributors and supporters. In return, Kerry votes "No" against Alito (as if a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts could get away with voting "Yes"), knowing that it doesn't matter because there are 55 Republicans and they will all vote for Alito, unless there is a defector or two. The petition is meaningless, except as a way for Kerry to grow his campaign list. He knows that; we know that.

Sounds like RW BS to me:

http:// www.townhall.com/blogs/capitolreport
/TimChapman/story/2006/01/24/183612. html
(cut and paste as this is a RW rag)

It's not like a person can't sign the petition and end the alliance with Kerry after that. Don't sign the petition if you hate John Kerry, but don't try to pretend this is not a serious attempt to show public opposition to Alito.

[Mass]

22. Wrong question. The question is : why not Reid, or Durbin.

Why does this person attack Kerry (rather than any of the 43 other Democrats)? Why a divisive action rather than a constructive action?

Rather than trying to divide Democrats one against the other, a blanket statement that at least ONE Democrat call for a filibuster would be more useful. As much as I understand your frustration, our time would be better used calling REID and tell him we want this filibuster.

[ProSense]

23. Question? Is this in response to my post? n/t

[Mass]

24. Oops - No it was an answer to the OP and BuzzFlash editorial

If Buzzflash cared about filibustering Alito, he would not have written this editorial.