Guardian: Now It Gets Dirty

[kskiska]

The hall was dark and so was Lynn Cheney's mood. The wife of America's Vice President pulled no punches in saying exactly what she thought of John Kerry.

There was a saying in her home state of Wyoming for people like Kerry, she told a crowd of Republicans in Pennsylvania who had just watched the third presidential debate in a dimly lit hotel ballroom. 'When you keep trying to make something look good and it is not so good, you call it putting lipstick on a pig,' she snarled to the crowd's raucous laughter.

Calling Kerry 'a pig' was extraordinary language, even by the standards of an American election campaign that has plumbed new depths of bitterness and divisiveness. No one in the hall batted an eyelid…

(snip)

Deep in a forest park outside the small Pennsylvania town of Saxonburg, a local sports hero spoke to a crowd of 3,000 Republican supporters awaiting the arrival of Dick Cheney. Sid Bream, a legend at the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, was stumping for Cheney and President George W Bush. But his sights were set on Kerry and his words were full of anger.

Kerry was a man, Bream said, who would take away America's cherished freedoms. 'The Democrats are the ones who want to burn the flag,' he said 'They want to push abortion, they want to push sex for teens.' His bloodcurdling language did not stop there. In the rural woods and farms of Pennsylvania, hunting is huge; most households own guns. 'We need to make sure that you tell your hunting buddies and let them know that I guarantee that John Kerry and John Edwards will be trying to take away your guns,' Bream declared.

(snip)

At the heart of the new fierceness to the race is Kerry's remarkable recovery. Conventional wisdom has put the surge down to his performance in the first debate, when he appeared calm while Bush made faces as he got visibly angrier at the senator's challenges on Iraq.

But the truth goes back further. It lies with Kerry's appointment of a slew of top former Bill Clinton aides, including Mike McCurry and Joe Lockhart, at the beginning of September. It also lies with a 90-minute phone call Kerry had with the former President as Clinton lay in a hospital bed after heart surgery. The advice was simple: it was time for gloves off. Since then, Kerry's campaign has gone on the attack, especially about Iraq. That allowed Kerry to take the fight to Bush in the first debate, scheduled to be on foreign policy, and blow him out of the water.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1329373,00.html

[aquart]

1. Bush has no right to be in the water in the first place.

Idiot can't swim.

[mark11727]

2. Memo to Sid Bream...

"In the rural woods and farms of Pennsylvania, hunting is huge; most households own guns. 'We need to make sure that you tell your hunting buddies and let them know that I guarantee that John Kerry and John Edwards will be trying to take away your guns,' Bream declared."

Yeah? Well, Kerry's a hunter too, ya dumb shit!

[captainjack]

3. exactly. taking away assault weapons is not taking away hunting rights.

i have NO idea if they really believe what they are saying - if so, perhaps reasoning will change them?

if they are consciously lying, these republicans deserve a horrible death.