Don’t Revel in Media’s Targeting of Kerry.

[David Zephyr]

While I have great reservations about Senator John Kerry on issues of policy which need not be repeated here, I am utterly sickened by the orchestrated media attacks on Kerry’s personal life and character that have now begun. And even though I anticipated the media shit storm, it is little consolation now that it has arrived.

I urge all supporters of Kerry’s opponents not to revel in Kerry’s situation. I know that many of us who support Howard Dean were dismayed by what seemed to be nothing less than joy expressed by some here over relentless personal attacks and fabricated stories that torpedoed our candidate. I know that Kucinich supporters shook their heads at how the media continually dismissed him and how the supporters of Clark were dumbfounded by how the news establishment ignored Clark’s wins and made them look like losses.

On January 20th, just after the Iowa Caucus as it became all too apparent to those of us who supported Howard Dean that the Corporate Media and the Washington Establishment was determined to destroy the former Governor of Vermont’s presidential candidacy, I stated the following:

“Dear friends and supporters of other Democratic candidates do not take solace in these attacks on Howard Dean for soon the establishment which owns your news organs will be targeting your candidate with equal fury and ridicule in order to re-elect the greatest advocate of corporate supremacy over the people in our nation's short history….Enjoy Dean's disfavor with the "press" at your own collective peril. You will be next.”

But, I also wrote the following at that time: “But here is my promise to all of you: When your candidate's "turn" comes around, I will stand with you against the lies and slander. You can count on it.”

I meant that then and I mean that now as Matt Drudge begins the early dirty work for the more established press to bring down still one more Democrat.

I will continue to stand resolutely against some of Kerry’s positions, but I will also speak out against any revelry by people of the Left in seeing the Media hatchet this man to pieces…as they have done to Democrats for decades upon decades now.

Is it any wonder why the Corporate Media is stumbling all over themselves to anoint a light-weight, one term Senator from North Carolina to be the standard bearer of the Democratic Party? The nice, young man who can not even deliver his own state in a General Election against President Bush?

For any of you who care to actually hold me at my word, here’s what I wrote then: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=148972

[wabeewoman]

1. I agree

I am unabashedly for Dean but I HATE this! Of course, it has to be sex because that is what gets repugs panties in a knot. I hope Kerry hits back and hits back hard. And Drudge needs to be called on it if its false-we should write all news media and tell them this guy has no creditability and they shouldn't be quoting him.

[David Zephyr]

2. I'm Happy To See Another Dean Supporter Feels the Same Way.

Thanks.

[calimary]

13. This Dean fan feels the same way, too, David.

I am disgusted. I hope to Dear God that Kerry sues Drudge for everything he owns. And that Theresa follows with a libel suit of her own. A one-two punch. And ALL that Heinz money (left from Theresa's late first husband, a republi-CON, no less!) put to such good use. She DID say, not long ago, that she'd open her own checkbook to fight back if there were a personal attack against her family. This certainly sounds like one.

[brainwashed_youth]

3. what media coverage?

Drudge is the only one reporting this. Nobody else, not even Fox, has mentioned this all day. Not on air or their websites. This just screams "smear campaign".

[ibegurpard]

4. You're a bigger man than me

I salute you.

[ShadowCabinet]

5. I saw this coming...........

I posted this over a week ago in the glow of the Kerry sweep and the calls by Kerry supporters for the Dean, Clark and Edwards supporters to join the bandwagon.

With the appearance the Kerry is running virtually unopposed, the media was going to start digging to find something, anything that could be used to smear Kerry. At the time, I said it was short-sighted to ask the other candidates to drop-out because as long as the debate continued and the focus would be on GWB, the better off we as Dems would be.

The real question will be what kind of traction this story will have. Already, the spin is on another Clinton-like scandal involving a prospective Democratic nominee. Given the Clinton-fatigue the country has over the Lewinsky/impeachment mess, I fear this could be just the start of the unravelling of any possible hope to dislodge GWB from the White House.

[David Dunham]

6. Kerry'll Stay in, Be the Nominee, and Beat Bush

[Carolina]

18. we were better with a chorus of

candidates chipping away at Bush. By winnowing the field so early and essentially saying Kerry's the one, the Party has opened the door to 10 long months of attacks. The opposition will stop at nothing. We knew this and we have played into their hands.

I don't like it and any frontrunner/presumed candidate would face it. But we are headed for a shitstorm of attacks against Kerry not simply because he's the frontrunner but more importantly because the leadership and the people bought into the media-spawned 'electability' label and jumped on Kerry's bandwagon.

Haste makes waste AGAIN. Common sense should have told us to keep many voices targeting Bush not only to bring him down but also to keep the news cycles focused on his many deficiencies and to keep the GOP unstable as to where to direct their viciousness. That's why it would have been good for Dean to win a state here and there, Kerry to win a state here and there, Clark to win a state here and there, Edwards to win a state here and there. McAuliffe, Brazile, the DNC should have been encouraging the voters to look at all our candidates and let the process unfold but noooooooooooo.

I have said for ages that a brokered convention would be a good thing for this very reason ... it would have contracted the time for GOP attacks on a SINGLE Democrat.

Look for the floodgates to open now, much too early.

[dsc]

7. If this is false

then I will defend him too, but if it is true then no way. Kerry made his marriage my business by making my right to marry his.

[Eloriel]

9. Whoaa! EXCELLENT point. Sign it, dsc!!

[drfemoe]

10. Good Answer .. .. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

11. The liberal British press is reporting some interesting things....

It is clear that the John Kerry that is quoted in the Harvard Crimson magazine is not the same John Kerry that voted for the Iraq war and PATRIOT Act.

Campaign gets dirty as muckrakers turn over Kerry's personal life and Bush troubles return

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
13 February 2004

In what may be more than co-incidence, The Harvard Crimson magazine has unearthed an interview Mr Kerry gave the student paper in 1970, urging that US troops be put under the command of the United Nations - again a subject that makes Republicans apoplectic.

Republicans have seized on the remarks by Mr Kerry, then a leading spokesman of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, as proof of the Massachusetts senator's softness on defence. In the interview, Mr Kerry describes himself as "an internationalist" who wanted to see US troops deployed across the world "only at the directive of the UN", and activities by the CIA "almost eliminated". Who is behind this simultaneous unearthing of ancient material is unclear, but political veterans suspect the shadowy hand of the Republican "opposition research" department which has long been amassing information on the Democratic candidates.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=490822

[dansolo]

14. Do you mean that Kerry is a *hypocrite*??

Kerry snidely trashed Dean for his comments on the role of the UN, and then we now find out that Kerry held a position that was even more extreme than Dean's? Color me shocked. While I recognize that a person is fully entitled to change their mind, his smug ridiculing (and misrepresentation) of Dean's position just stinks of hypocricy.

[JVS]

15. Wow. Total lack of integrity!

[calimary]

16. Devastating reply. I'm gonna remember that one.

[Eloriel]

8. You're a good man, David

Unfortunately, no one listened to you the first time around. I made a similar appeal re mindless, senseless, untrue RW-style attacks being made unceasingly against Dean here which was also ignored. (Surprise, surprise.)

But I can't join you on this. Not JUST because of the bad treatment of Dean (especially at Kerry's hands!!) which for me is reason enough, but also because I think America will be better off without a Kerry nomination and/or presidency. I al also personally in no mood for another serial philanderer in the White House.

[kaitykaity]

12. Even if this is true, I don't much care.

I have my doubts, considering the source. I actually believed Teresa Heinz-Kerry when she said that if John ever screwed around on her she'd kill him and he knows it (paraphrasing).

I didn't care about Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, or any of Clinton's other 'bimbo eruptions'. If I am to remain consistent, I can't hold this against Kerry (again, true or not.

I have other, more fundamental reservations about Kerry as our candidate.

[stickdog]

17. Yes, the media wants nothing more than four more years of the "bad cop."

Bush is of the rich, for the rich and by the rich.