I guess it wasn't funny: Kerry LTTE in Globe today

[TayTay]

Last week the Boston Globe published a satirical piece on John Kerry's First 100 days (4/29/05 that bore no relation to the actual Sen. Kerry or what he has done since the Inauguration of The Idiot King. I thought it was funny. Apparently, the Senator's office didn't. Here is the Letter to the Editor in today's Globe (5/2/05):

Piece on Kerry not accurate or funny
May 2, 2005

DAVID MARTIN'S satirical waste of space (''John Kerry: The first 100 days," op ed, April 29) was about as accurate as it was amusing, which is to say not very. The Globe has covered in detail Kerry's return to the Senate. Martin obviously hasn't read a word of it.

Over the last 100 days, Kerry introduced his Kids First bill to provide health insurance to 11 million children living without it today. He introduced a Military Family Bill of Rights to increase benefits to our troops -- and guess what? -- he's already passed most of it in the Senate.

He has also introduced legislation to increase the size of the military to address the overextension of the Guard and Reserves. He's battled the EPA to overturn mercury regulations that fail to address a major health risk in the Merrimack Valley. He worked with Mayor Ed Lambert to lobby the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission against a liquid natural gas facility in Fall River.

He passed emergency legislation to keep beloved Fenway High teacher Obain Attouoman in the United States. He passed bipartisan legislation to get Massachusetts fishermen the same bankruptcy protection as family farmers.

If George W.Bush had done half the work Kerry has in these last 100 days, maybe our gas prices would be lower and we'd have fixed Social Security for the next generation.

DAVID WADE
Washington

The writer is communications director for Senator Kerry.

A lot of people have asked us Massholes to explain why there is a 'Globe problem' between the biggest New England newspaper and the Senator. Well, here is the problem in all it's weirdness. The Globe buys a satire piece that it thinks is funny (and I thought was funny precisely because it bore no relation to Sen. Kerry or what he has done after the election.) The Globe runs it, no doubt thinking it has been 'cute.' Sen. Kerry's office reads it and takes it the wrong way (I can see why, I'm not blind.) Tada! Globe problem illustrated. The Globe now has ammunition to say that Sen. Kerry is thin-skinned and humorless. Sen. Kerry's office has ammunition to say that the Globe is taking inaccurate potshots at him, but under cover of 'humor' an instance in which he is supposed to 'take it' and grin or be perceived as thin-skinned and humorless. Sigh! This is what we meant with the weird 'Globe problem.'

I missed this. I thought it was funny. There were writers on DKos (!) who thought it was a hit list of RW attack points. Sorry, gang. Any comments?

[JI7]

1. i think it's because

the Globe is pretty unfair to Kerry . if they were more fair they probably would not mind it. but it probably comes across as them just being assholes.

it's different from when Ted Kennedy does it or even Teresa and others since in those cases he knows the people doing it are doing it in a loving way. but the Globe hasn't really been fair to Kerry so it's hard to take it in a light way.

he can even laugh at himself when it was people like Letterman, Jon Stewart ,Al Franken and others joking about him.

a lot of the rumors and lies about Kerry seemed to originate from the Globe.

[TayTay]

2. Yeah, that's true. The Globe has a strange philosophy

about Kerry. On the one hand, they nitpick on little things. On the other hand, they have always endorsed him (Except once a long time ago.) I really wish the Senator would stop referring to his having 22 years of experience in the Senate. It's 20 years. This is a non-issue, except for the Glob which will pick on him for saying 22 years instead of 20. (Yes, it is that petty.) Sigh!

I found this little itty-bitty story (and it is nothing more than that) very illustrative of the problem. The Globe says, 'Lighten up. It was a joke ferchissakes." Kerry's people say, "It wasn't funny. It was a bunch of cheap shots and innuendo wrapped up in an alleged humor piece. We get slammed and are supposed to take it because it's supposed to be a joke." AHm, well, ahm, both sides have a point.

The Glob did say some really nice things after the election and printed some very sympathetic pieces about Kerry. (Honest. I have them.) Guess we are back to normal now. (I also think that the Glob has been ignoring Kerry on a lot of things. I thought David Wade was kind to the paper in his remarks about their coverage. I think the LA Times covers Kerry better than the Glob does. That's just MHO.)

Anyway, again, I just put this up because it is a perfect representation of what the relationships between the two powerful parties is like.

[whometense]

3. Funny.

I brought up the humor piece at dinner the night it ran. My husband's take was, "Not funny." And he's not the big Kerry defender I am - he just thought it wasn't funny. (He's a writer, and has had both serious and humor pieces published in major publications, including the Globe, so I guess he speaks with some authority.)

I got a chuckle out of it for the same reasons you did - more for what it symbolized than for what it actually said. I can see both sides as well. Wade's letter could be taken as a sign of humorlessness, but it could also just as easily be seen as a preventative strike. ("Don't think for a second we're going to let you people slide into Swift Boat mode.")

[Dr Ron]

6. Kerry can't start saying 20 years.

If Kerry did this, they would accuse him of flip flopping after saying 22 years :)

His best chance might be to continue saying 22 years for the next two years until it is accurate. Then they might praise him for his consistency.

[karynnj]

8. Why DOES Kerry say 22 years?

If it were Bush, I'd question his skills in mathematics, but I would imagine Kerry knows how long he's been in the Senate. It sounds like he meant 22 years in public office. When did he say he was in the Senate for 22 years? I really like Kerry, but it's really dumb to say something like that because it's something people can accuse him of lying about. (20 years sounds as good as 22 )

[JI7]

9. i assume he is including his time as lieutenant Gov also

[TayTay]

13. This is the type of small stuff that the Glob criticizes Kerry for

He really is pretty squeaky clean. The negativity between Kerry and the Glob through the years is on stuff like saying 22 years instead of 20. That's it. Honest-to-gawd. That's why it annoys me. I wish there was a staff person with enough moxie to ask the Senator to stop saying that. (I think he's just thinking of service that includes Lt. Gov for 2 years as well. I think's it's just a glitch.) But I don't want to read about it in another snarky piece in the Glob or the Herald. It's so easy to fix.

[politicasista]

20. That's sounds crazy.

Sounds like really petty stuff. I think the Tennessean (Nashville newspaper) was like that to Gore.

[JI7]

10. i have a problem with the endorsement thing

since it makes it look like they are fair. but i know the Washington Post pretty much whored for Bush throughout the election but in the end they do their traditional endorsement of the Democratic candidate. it always seems like an attempt to keep their mostly Democratic subscribers while still being able to bash the democrats.

[kerrygoddess]

12. I don't remember ever hearing JK say 22 years

Did I miss that. During the campaign he always 20 years in the Senate and occassionally refered to his 30 year career of fighting the good fight.

David was right to respond, satire or not. Distorting JK's record for the sake of satire after the bull shit distorts extraordinaire of the past couple of years, should not be tolerated.

[TayTay]

15. He has said 22 years in committee

I have heard it at least 6 distinct times, plus in person at the Faneiul Hall thing.

[whometense]

16. Yeah,

I heard it too. I didn't think all that much about it, but I remember noticing it and thinking, hmm, really? I thought it was 20.

[karynnj]

17. Maybe the last 6 months SEEMED like years!

[whometense]

18. hahahahahahaha

can't blame him for that if they did...

[ginnyinWI]

4. Well, it's the six-month anniversary of the election today,

and, although I'm getting over it, it still does hurt! Our country still needs a president like he would be. And if it still hurts little me, imagine how those close to the senator feel.

As for JK himself, the response was probably more a political move--just taking the opportunity to get on record some of his accomplishments so far in this Congress. And it seems he's going to be more aggressive about negative press, going forward, by not letting these little "digs" go unanswered. Wade did acknowledge that they knew it was supposed to be a humor piece, but didn't want it to stand without rebuttal anyway.

[whometense]

5. Just listening to Stephanie Miller

about *'s tanking approval numbers. Who imagined he'd be a lame duck 100 days into his misbegotten second term?

If it weren't so sad for the country - and the world - I'd be laughing.

[BlueIris]

11. Oh, man. Didn't even realize we were at six months already.

Damn. Not so much with the "getting over it," for me. I haven't started any mornings by crying lately, but still.

[whometense]

19. look at it this way -

we're 6 months closer to the next election. Small comfort, but I'll take what I can get. :hug:

[TayTay]

22. I like that. It's more hopeful

My daughter came home today. It took about 20 minutes for her to utter the words, "I miss my friends and I'm with my parents for the summer." Dear Lord, it's gonna be a long hot summer, isn't it.

I think I'm gonna need a picture thread tonight folks. Just a warning. I may even need the heavy duty stuff (Navy pics.) We left stuff in NYC. And it's very tree-ish here. Did you know that? (No wonder I was so calm before. I didn't have my high-maintenance child with me.)

[whometense]

23. Commiserations

:hug: My high maintenance child goes to school a mile away, and drops in and out of our lives on a regular basis. Sort of like tactical bombing. ;-) I'm not sure which is worse, but at least I get to keep in practice. Your calluses are gone.

I'm due for a picture thread too. See what I can dig up.

[karynnj]

7. Might depend on how prominently they placed coverage

on Kerry's work. Not being from MA, I see the Globe and Herald articles you post, but don't know if they are page 1 or page 96. If they are prominently and regularly covering things Kerry does in a friendly, positive way, then I guess it was funny - because it was so not true. Maybe if they would have had a parallel article listing in one place what Kerry has done since November.

The real question would be could anyone, especially any of his constituents, have taken the article as partially true. All of us reading here are probably seeing far more of both Kerry and the Senate environment than is normal. (esp those of us who turned from the Finance committee to see Kerry vote :) ) The fact that Kerry is getting anything passed is an amazing accomplishment, but most people aren't watching Kerry vote on C-Span. If anyone took seriously the comment of vowing to make it the Senate at least once or the comment of Hillary saying he was needed in the Senate, then it is unfair.

I think that losing the election is still a very sore spot, aggravated every day as he deals in the Senate with the destructiveness of Bush's Presidency. This is complicated because both he and Teresa endured mammoth character assignations last year. It had to be painful to Kerry to have people distorting things and attacking both his and especially Teresa's characters. Neither of them deserved the attacks and to this point, I have seen no attempt anywhere in the press to question whether their own behavior caused them to be complicit in this - all I've seen is criticism of Kerry for not fighting the lies faster.

To a workaholic, who in the 2000 VP article was described as exuding seriousness and purpose, the Republican charge that he was a do-nothing Senator must have hurt. It was obviously very important to Kerry to be seen as gracefully accepting defeat and fighting on. At a time when Kerry has very little access to get his message out, he is faced with what in general is a hostile media. This makes it very difficult for him to restore his reputation. Teresa, who is not a public figure, will have an even harder time getting credit for being the serious, caring person she is. John and Teresa are getting very little help from the media in regaining the reputations that Rove and company attempted to destroy.

It may come down to are they "friends" enough to tease him. A good case can be made that they aren't. It seems that the Globe has sometimes been slow to give him credit or praise when it is deserved, but has never neglected to call him on things that they disapprove of. If they really wanted to, they could have written something nice when he got the Kennedy award. So, Kerry or his staff could have taken the satirical piece as not funny and really a gratuitous insult at a time when Kerry is getting very little credit for what he is now doing and very little credit for having been right about almost everything that people disputed during the campaign.

[TayTay]

14. Glob coverage is a nutso point with me.

John Kerry is an excellent Senator and public servant. Excellent. He has a superior record of representing the interests of Massachusetts and the nation in the US Senate. He has done incredible work on rooting out corruption in government and has gotten little credit or reward for it. (And was told, in so many words, to stop rocking the boat.)

The Glob drives me crazy. I think Kerry is one of the best Senators we have ever had. He is also squeaky clean. The worst the Glob has ever come up with on Kerry is the appearance of a conflict of interest when he either used a rich person's boat for a fundraiser or borrowed a car or apartment. Duh! This is chickenshit stuff. But the Glob does it. (Grrrrrrr. I cannot tell you how agitated this makes me.)

I live in a state where we have spent $15 billion dollars on a huge public works project (state and federal money) that friggin leaks. $15 billion dollars. Why isn't the Glob going after fraud and waste in the Big Dig every friggin day? Somebody lined their pockets at the public expense on this. And the builders and designers are Rethugs! Give me a friggin break. (Some of them pigged up money in Iraq. Go after them Globbies. Go serve the public trust you friggin bastards.)

So it drives me off-the-scale crazy when little stuff like this happens. (Say 20 years, dammit. I don't ever want to hear the Glob snarkily mention that. It's their way of ignoring and belittling people they don't like.) Aaarrrrrrgggghhhh! IT drives me crazy because it's so stupid.

[politicasista]

21. I agree, they were so mean to him and Momma T

It is not liked they killed anyone. It is sad joke!

[wisteria]

24. I didn't think this piece was funny either.

I thought it was just me, so I kept quite. The more I thought about it though, the more I didn't care for this caricature of John Kerry being though of as accurate by anyone. I was concerned people would actually believe he was depressed, childish, bored and controlled by Theresa. This is similar to my thoughts on Laura Bush calling herself a "Desperate Housewife" after implying Bush was a tired bore.
After all the negative press Senator Kerry received during and right after the election, I don't blame him for being upset about this. It did appear to highlight Republican attacking points.

[TayTay]

25. There was a followup LTTE today

which, surprise, accused the Sen of being humorless and told him to lighten up. Screw them. They can bite me.

There waws an even more entertaining letter from some dipshit in Maine who is blaming Sens. Kerry & Kennedy for the rise in the crime rate in Boston. Someone must have put dumb-juice in their water again.

[karynnj]

26. Maybe he means that if Kerry would have remained as a prosecutor

he could have eliminated crime in Boston or possibly the entire state of Massachusetts by now!

Or if Kerry and Kennedy left DC, and had a really, really huge rally with lots of cool people, maybe everyone would go and there would be no crime in that time period.

Maybe, he suspects that your Senators are sneaking into Boston committing crimes themselves - no one would recognize them.