Wow General Discussion politics is going crazy....

[Corey_Baker08]

with posts about Kerry, and Will Pitt is coming to the rescue.... :)

[JohnKleeb]

1. GOOD DEal ive ACTUally et

pitt

[LittleClarkie]

5. I bet he's a good guy

I love his writing.

Good grief, I can't believe I understood that, Kleeb. I guess I can add f'ed up keyboard to the languages I speak.

[JohnKleeb]

8. Hah yeah Pitt's great

[ginnyinWI]

2. I think this is the link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1783367

Good comments on Kerry in Pitt's original post. :)

[fedupinBushcountry]

3. I just posted

In response to Kerrygoddess, I was also a moderator on the Kerry blog (aka CarolforKerry).

You know certain ones on DU will never break from their criticism of Kerry, it is like talking to a brick wall, they have no reasoning, and if they only knew how much they acted like Repubs in their blatant attacks.

We had some of these same people come to the Kerryblog all the time and disrupt, it was bad enough killing Repub trolls, but it was sad when we had Dem trolls just there to disrupt, and take away from the conversation. I remember when Dr. Ron came and wanted information, we were right there with facts and plenty of info, and from that he started Doctors for Kerry, now if thats not proof of inspiration I don't know what is.

You know before the Kerryblog I had never posted anywhere,I didn't even know what a blog was, but at the time it was so refreshing to be able to have a voice again, and to spread the message and to see others inspired by just a few words.It was my second family for nearly 16 months, and I truly miss it.

[ginnyinWI]

4. I miss the old blog too!

(I was just plain "ginny" there, and was on from March 04 until it closed.)
But I do like the format here better--you can respond to one post without having to cut and paste it so the two are connected.

I am sick and tired of fighting GD and GDP after this week. It seems such a waste of time--you're right, they won't change because they enjoy being cynical and angry too much. They just naysay everything and don't offer up anything smart to replace it.

Some people feel empowered by their anger, but what does it really accomplish? Even the idea of "venting" is bogus; modern psychology has debunked that particular theory of Freud's. Venting actually only makes a person more angry! :eyes:

[Dr Ron]

6. We have a few spots

Besides here, there's Light Up the Darkness and the Unofficial Kerry Blog.

[ginnyinWI]

9. I also like the Independents for Kerry blog n/t

[politicasista]

7. OMG!

In the Will Pitt thread someone mentioned that a presidental candidate is someone who is "charismatic" and "has a nice, pretty wife" and Dean and Bill Clinton offered that. And that "Kerry always sounded tired and sleepy."

I didn't even respond, just used the ignore button. Some things are just laughable.

:rofl: :puke:

[ginnyinWI]

10. tired and sleepy ?!

Wow, now that is quite a stretch. It's true that he sounds like a grown-up, rather than a petulant child crossed with a chimp, which is what we've been accustomed to seeing lately. :(

[Vektor]

12. Teresa is one of the best looking

political wives I have ever seen. Not that it matters. That comment sounds like something a sexist Repuke would write.

[GRLMGC]

13. She's beautiful

and by judging her charity work, its both inside and out. That truly was a stupid comment, amongst the other stupid comments in that post, haha. I'm taking another break from GD and GD politics. It gets too stupid for me sometimes and I get a headache.

[politicasista]

14. Sorry GRLMCG

Thankfully it's gone. I am going to stop posting Anti-Kerry garbage here, really.

[GRLMGC]

15. haha, thanks

I'm just constantly amazed at what I hear people say.

[politicasista]

16. No problem

Nauseating isn't it?

[karynnj]

20. The comment on his wife is hateful and insulting to all three women

Hillary Clinton, Judy Dean and Teresa are all very accomplished woman who are involved in doing things that help people. They are all brilliant, well spoken women. It is demeaning to value any of them by saying they are "nice and pretty". Also, I don't think the state of the world is improved one iota if the First Lady is beautiful.

In fact comparing the combined looks of each couple, the Kerrys easily beat the Clintons, both Bushes and the Deans. I doubt this moved anyone's vote. Teresa is a very beautiful woman who is clearly a caring person. It's annoying that anyone pretending to be a Democrat would repeat Republican characterizations of a woman the Republicans once thought good enough to ask to consider running for the Senate herself. Apparently her looks and personality were ok then.

[Vektor]

11. Oh, for eff's sake.

What the hell did Kerry do wrong this time? Take a shit without asking permission?

[politicasista]

17. LOL!

They are just bashing him just cause they are bored.

[TayTay]

18. I love Will Pitt

This was awesome:

How does a terrible candidate win all three debates hands down? How does a terrible candidate come within an ace of beating a 'wartime President,' something no other candidate has been able to do ever, with the entire media establishment turned out against him and a good portion of his own base chomping on him because they were bitter their own guy lost, with rampant fraud taking place in a number of swing states?

I saw Kerry with my own eyes sit in Al Franken's living room with Rick Hertzberg, senior editor for the New Yorker, David Remnick, editor for the New Yorker, Jim Kelly, managing editor for Time Magazine, Howard Fineman, chief political correspondent for Newsweek, Jeff Greenfield, senior correspondent and analyst for CNN, Frank Rich, columnist for the New York Times, Eric Alterman, author and columnist for MSNBC and the Nation, Richard Cohen, columnist for the Washington Post, Fred Kaplan, columnist for Slate, Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate and author, Jonathan Alter, senior editor and columnist for Newsweek, Philip Gourevitch, columnist for the New Yorker, Edward Jay Epstein, investigative reporter and author, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., I saw him sit there for three hours and go punch for punch with a dozen high-powered editors and reporters on whatever topics they wanted to touch on. He came out on top. That's a bad candidate

Yup, Will Pitt's a Masshole. He has that deep respect for Big John and his 'Beautiful Mind.' I wrote my own love letter to Kerry last week wherein I talked about how much I respected Kerry as an intellectual powerhouse in the Senate. He was a profoundly great candidate and would have been a profoundly brilliant President. (And still might be.)

You know, it's funny, I was at a love fest for my other Senator yesterday and that was great. But my two Sens are loved in very different ways. Kennedy is the go-to guy for legislation. He is a funny, back-slapping get-along guy. He is a smart and consistent advocate for working class America and for social justice. We love him in MA for that. We have that deep affection that you can see.

Maybe the deep respect and affection that we hold for Kerry is held in a New Englandy way that people can misinterpret. John Kerry is not a back-slapping kind of guy. But if you want to have a program championed and you need a floor put under it that will be unassailable, he's your man. When Kerry undertakes a program, he will not only finish it, but the inner workings of it will be solid, well-thought out and sound. The tireless work that Kerry did on things like normalizing relations with Vietnam was unbelievable. I do not think there was anyone else in the US Senate who could have gotten that through, never mind gotten the recommendation through with the signatures of every single member of the committee. No one.

Kerry is, I think, one of the best informed thinkers in the Senate. He has an incredible range of knowledge across an amazing range of topics. We know this in MA. It is much harder to put affection for this kind of thing into the kind of visible affection that Kos values. But Kos is shallow and uninformed. Maybe professional staff, who do, after all, come and go, didn't feel deeply for Kerry. But the people in his home state do. We know what he can do. We have seen him in action and we know what his values are and where his heart is. And we know that we are incredibly lucky and blessed to have someone that talented, knowledgeable and committed as our Senator. That Kos can't see this is beyond me. He apparently wasn't looking very hard.

[ginnyinWI]

19. I loved that piece, too

I especially enjoyed reading that second pph about sitting in Al Franken's living room. I read it three times. I would have simply loved being in that room and hearing those answers. Simply wonderful. :) I can just see it: Kerry surrounded by these journalists and loving the discourse.

As for Kos, like I've said before, I wonder who's paying him now.

[whometense]

21. I remember the event

because Eric Alterman wrote the most wonderful post about it on Altercation'.

Here's Will Pitt's original essay about that meeting.

I'm trying to find Eric Alterman's. They were both just great.

[ginnyinWI]

23. thanks whome--

I never get tired of this stuff! Thanks for finding it for me! :pals:

[whometense]

24. you're welcome!

I never get tired of it either. What a list of people. Wouldn't you have just loved to be a fly on the wall in that room???

Wish I could find the Alterman post.

[whometense]

25. Found it!!!

http://weblog.theviewfromthecore.com/2004_03/ind_003370.html

From MSNBC 12/5/03

Dec. 5, 2003 / 11:47 AM ET

KERRY CONUNDRUM CONTINUED

What in the world are we going to do about John Kerry? While his numbers were apparently collapsing in New Hampshire yesterday, Kerry sat down for two hours in Al Franken’s living room with about a dozen and a half journalists, writers and the odd historian, poet and cartoonist. It was all on the record and yet, it was remarkably open, honest and unscripted. Let’s be blunt. Kerry was terrific. Once again, he demonstrated a thoughtfulness, knowledge-base and value system that gives him everything, in my not-so-humble-opinion — he could need to be not just a good, but a great president. I feel certain that just about everyone in that highly self-regarding room left deeply impressed. But Kerry is not going to be anointed president by a group of Upper West Siders who agree on most things, even if we don’t on the war. If he is to have any chance at all, he is going to have to win back Dean voters, but quickly.

After Al and Rick Hertzberg introduced him, I put this to Kerry as the first question: “Senator,” I said (or something like this), “I think you may be the most qualified candidate in the race and perhaps also the one who best represents my own liberal values. But there was one overriding issue facing this nation during the past four years and Howard Dean was there when it counted and you weren’t. A lot of people feel that that moment entitles him to their vote even if you have a more progressive record and would be a stronger candidate in November. How are you going to win back those people who you lost with your vote for this awful war?”

Kerry and I had what candidates call a “spirited exchange” in which he defended his vote. He said he felt betrayed by George Bush, whom he had believed, had not yet made up his mind to go to war when the vote was taken. He never expected a unilateral war given the way Powell, Scowcroft, Eagleberger and others were speaking at the time. He defends his willingness to trust the president of the United States, but now realizes that this was a big mistake. At one point, after answering somebody else’s question, he turned back to me and pointedly — one might evens say “passionately” — insisted, “And Eric, if you truly believe that if I had been president, we would be at war in Iraq right now, then you shouldn’t vote for me.”

It worked for me. But of course, I’ve now spent four hours with the guy and liked him to begin with. He still has the problem—perhaps unsolvable—of how to break through to Dean voters in the short amount of time he has left when the media has their storyline already and no candidate gets to say anything that lasts more than a few seconds. (It’s a hell of a way to pick the guy who could, if he felt like it, nuke the planet out of existence.)

It’s true, I think, that Kerry improves the closer you look — and I don’t mean the guy’s hair. (That’s Mickey’s beat.) He does as well as Clark and better than anyone else in a one-on-one match-up against Bush. And it’s just crazy to say that you want Dean to get the nomination if you don’t believe he can beat Bush. Voting, as I keep having to say over and over to you silly Nader voters, is not therapy; it’s choosing between available alternatives. Dean is not a sure loser in November, but he is a much, much harder sell than Kerry, Clark, Gephardt or Edwards. And fair or not, this ought to give one pause.

After the meeting broke up, Art Spiegelman tried to tell Kerry that he should just stand up, and in a clear, unmistakable fashion say, “I was wrong to trust President Bush with this war. I thought he would do the things he promised before embarking on this war but I now see I gave him more credit than he deserved. I wish I could have that vote back but I can’t. Now the thing to ask ourselves is where do we go from here and who’s the best person for the job?” I second this emotion. Sure, a lot of self-important pundits — a least of couple of them English-born — would mock Kerry for admitting he made such a mistake. But most people would admire it.

Even in the SCLM, one of the things that most infuriates people about Bush is his unwillingness to admit a mistake no matter how obvious it is to the rest of the world. Kerry could simultaneously humanize himself and re-introduce his record and values to the Dean supporters who have deserted him. But time is short. And saying this kind of thing is hard for a proud man. But as Kerry himself pointed out, we have a dysfunctional government and this is the most important election facing America since 1968. America, as many of us know her and love her, may not survive another four years of this administration’s horrific combination of audacity, incompetence, ideology and mendacity.

Just to be clear, I do not endorse candidates. I make observations. Personally, I see much of value in all the major Democratic candidates, though I like Lieberman a lot less than the others. Which one I personally like or even admire the most however, is not really of any concern, even to me. I represent a tiny sliver of the electorate that can’t even elect a mayor of New York City. All I care about in 2004, as a citizen, a father, a patriot, a non-Christian, and a member of the “world community” is saving the country from four more years of a catastrophe I believe to be inevitable should George W. Bush win his first honest election to the presidency.

[Firespirit]

22. Will Pitt is a good guy

I'm not sure I'd call him a "Kerrycrat" per se, and he's had some strong criticisms of Kerry's actions in the recount/fraud fiasco (criticisms that I really don't agree with), but he would defend Kerry a great deal on the election results board back in December, and I see he's still doing that. He was a voice of sanity in that bedlam, a rarity among all the Kerry-bashers and those who would make fun of about 90% of the posters on the board who were working on election fraud.

I really liked that interview he took with Cam Kerry back in... January, I think.

[LittleClarkie]

26. See, that's the difference

Pitt knows how to criticize without bashing. I have no problem with that. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't make everything they do wrong. Will is showing a level head in this, and maturity.