The Democrats Smear Offensive

There's one other base here, the media. Let's talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win and I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards I'm talking about the establishment media, not Fox. They're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and there's going to be this glow about them, collective glow, the two of them, that's going to be worth maybe 15 points.

Evan Thomas, Assistant Managing Editor, Newsweek, July 10, 2004

(Emphasis added-DD)


As the presidential race tilts towards George W. Bush, and John Kerry's campaign continues to combine incoherence with incompetence, many Democrats are literally beside themselves with rage. After careful consideration, they have decided that they and the Kerry campaign have simply been "too nice", and now it's time to get really nasty.

I hesitate to imagine in what sort of alternate universe accusing the President of the United States of lying, desertion, stupidity, being unpatriotic, sending Americans to die for political gain, implying that he knew in advance about 9/11 and let it happen, and numerous other allegations, is considered to be "too nice". Still, that's how they see it, and now they're going to take it to the next level. The key factor was the Swift Boat Veterans campaign against John Kerry. Convinced that they couldn't possibly lose the election, and unable to comprehend why any of John Kerry's fellow Vietnam veterans could possibly be angry with him, many Democrats and their allies are certain that the swift boat controversy can only be the result of an evil Karl Rove conspiracy. The lack of any actual evidence to support this belief is unimportant. The Democrats have already unleashed their September smear offensive designed to "even the score" for the swift boat issue and turn the campaign back in their favor, regardless of the cost to our politics.

As J. McIntyre of Real Clear Politics noted on Wednesday, September 8th, it's the media wing of the Democratic Party that is spearheading the assault:

Old Media and the Left, enraged by President Bush's surge in the polls and what they view as an illegitimate examination of Kerry's record, has decided that today is the day they will counterattack hard in an attempt to reopen the Bush National Guard story as an issue in the campaign.

The Boston Globe unloads an above the fold, front-page story: "Bush Fell Short on Duty at Guard: Records Show Pledges Unmet." The Globe's parent corporation, The New York Times Company, gets into the action with Nicholas Kristof 's "Missing in Action." Then of course there is the headliner with CBS's Dan Rather interviewing former Democratic Texas House Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes on 60 Minutes II later tonight.

CBS, of course, has been at the forefront of the Democratic-elite media coalition. Just this year, "60 Minutes" has featured interviews with Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, and now Barnes, giving each of them and their charges a huge publicity boost. Yet when Tommy Franks published his important and revealing memoir, "60 Minutes" refused to go near it. The fact that Franks supports President Bush is, I'm sure, a complete coincidence. Don't even bother asking if CBS has given any of the Swift Boat Veterans a hearing.

In addition to reviving the ridiculous "AWOL" canard, the Democrats and elite media are counting on Kitty Kelley's vile, slanderous, smear job on the Bush family to turn voters against the president. The "Today Show" is having Kelley on for three consecutive days to expand on her allegations of rape and drug abuse. As in the past, the major media are more than willing to help spread vicious, unsubstantiated charges of personal misconduct, provided that those charges are directed at Republicans. This is as desperate as it is pathetic, and is unlikely to have much of an impact, or at least much of a positive impact, for the Democrats. The reason is the principle of diminishing returns: Democrats, liberals, and leftists can only say so many venomous things about George Bush before they stop having much of an impact. As Jim Geraghty put it for National Review Online's "Kerry Spot":

We've had Howard Dean spreading the rumor that the Saudis warned Bush about 9/11. Ted Kennedy contended - in an argument that defies logic - that the war on Iraq was "planned in Texas" to benefit the president politically. We've had Michael Moore making the case that the war in Afghanistan was about a natural gas pipeline and oil company profits. We've had Paul Krugman arguing in the pages of the New York Times that Bush is trying to destroy democracy. We've had the antiwar left arguing, again and again, that Bush is the second coming of Hitler. I suspect that after a while, the public just tunes out this stuff.

I mean, once you've killed thousands in a war to boost Halliburton's profits, repealed the Constitution, and destroyed democracy, isn't cocaine use kind of mild?


The fact that all the Democrats have to offer in this campaign are vicious attacks on George W. Bush's character, that they are incapable of offering the American people a credible alternative to the Bush/Cheney Administration, is the ultimate statement of their bankruptcy. The Democrats have let their Bush-hatred consume them, and hopefully they will pay the price in November.