Frauds and Phonies

Kaus says that Bonifaz’s criticism of Kerry for voting YES on Iraq but now whining that Bush “promised” not to invade, could really hurt. “Never mind what it says about Kerry’s judgment that he trusted the vague promises made by a president he now claims is so unfit for office…. It turns out that in his Senate floor speech before the Iraq vote, Kerry noted the ‘promises’ and anticipated their possible breaking.”
Kerry is the one who promised to “be the first one to speak out” if Bush failed to beg the UN for permission, etc. Yet he didn’t do so at all out of cynical political calculation. The whole point of these two stories is to expose candidates who are in Cover-Your-Clymer mode after accusing people of doing things they haven’t done. I don’t care if it’s Kerry or Edwards or Clark; we are dealing with people who are frauds. Dean is the only one who’s comfortable being who he is, and thus blows the cover of the kook hatred the rest of their party tries hard to conceal.

A friend e-mailed me with a specific perspective on Edwards, writing, “He has spent his life convincing groups of 12 people on a jury to go his way.” So being a phony comes most naturally to Edwards. Bill Clinton was a natural fraud in much the same way. He didn’t have to stop and think on his feet or in advance strategically about how to fool people. Compare that to Wesley Clark, who can’t answer the simplest of questions on the estate tax. Sadly, this stuff doesn’t bite Democrats, as we see with Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick and Robert Byrd belonging to the Ku Klux Klan.
You’ll never see last-minute stories about a Democrat’s DWI. All we ever get are manufactured stories from the mainstream press praising their supposed positives. A lot of you have been calling in with worries that Bush isn’t attacking Edwards or any of these other guys. You have an instinctive understanding that these phonies are going to get away with misrepresenting themselves and their policies. You’re hoping other people figure it out, and you don’t hear or see other people saying it. That’s why you’re upset. I understand totally, and I hear you.