Political Warfare
Reported by Eleanor - September 3, 2004 -
On Special Report with Brian Wilson (Sept. 3, 6:00 p.m.), Cameron and Angle changed their campaign coverage slightly from earlier in the day.
Jim Angle covered the jobs numbers in approximately the same way, and he added the Time poll numbers showing Bush 11 points ahead of Kerry, remarking that with those numbers Bush would like to have the election tomorrow.
Carl Cameron said that Kerry unleashed a "scorching" attack on Bush. When Kerry got the news about Clinton's illness, there were no "whispers" about being overshadowed by the former president. (As there were before the news?) Kerry is trying to recapture the momentum. Cameron repeated his earlier comments supporting Cheney and Bush on Kerry's observations of their accusations about Kerry being unfit for office and unpatriotic. Kerry also said that misleading the nation into war is what makes you unfit. On Kerry's comments about the first net job loss since the depression, Cameron said that looks "inevitable."
Brian Wilson interviewed Michael Barone about the new poll numbers from Time as evidence of a successful convention. But we have a polarized country here, and this may not be the last turn in the road.
During the panel discussion, Wilson said he is shocked that so much time is being spent talking about something that happened 35 years ago. Mort Kondracke said Kerry's head is still in the Viet Nam era - a precursor to a McGovernite policy ...Viet Nam syndrome. (That's incredible! The media ran the Swift Boat ads hundreds of times for free. Now that Kerry is fighting back, they're implying that it's Kerry fault we're talking about Viet Nam!! Also, I've heard McGovernite two days in a row.) Kondracke stated that what Kerry said today diminishes him..it's petty and small. Wilson said he's lucky the news cycle today is not working in Kerry's favor. (That's how standing up for yourself is interpreted.)
On the job numbers of 144,000, Kerry said that at that rate, we won't have net new job growth until 2011. Wilson said it depends on how you look at the numbers, and Barnes pointed out again that the numbers are going up.
Ceci Connolly made the point that Bush "quietly" announced late this afternoon, going into Labor Day, that Medicare premiums are going up 14-15% for a premium of $79 a month and that will make a lot of seniors unhappy. (Make it as invisible as possible, right?)
Comment: This program ended with a video from David Letterman about a not-so-funny joke called "Kerry on Terror." Kerry was on a video clip, taken out of context, saying that he would allow terrorists to destabilize the United States, among other pro-terrorism remarks. It wasn't funny, and the context wasn't explained, just laughed about. I remember an observation by Kerry that the opposition was accusing him of such things. Unfortunately, the viewers of this piece aren't necessarily familiar with the context of this video. Obviously, Kerry needs to understand that every word coming out of his mouth can be chopped and truncated to fit the agenda of his detractors, sometimes as a bad joke, and other times as a deliberate attempt to smear him, like the votes against defense systems, "voting for and against" the $87B, and quoting the words of other people who told him they cut off ears and heads. The democrats must anticipate and be prepared for this kind of crash and burn politics to continue. It will be a long 60 days if he tries to play nice. His opposition, as evidenced by the republican convention and its aftermath, are taking no prisoners.
