Strength Sells. Show Some ..."Get some integrity"

[RedEarth]

via Kos.......

by Matt Stoller, Wed Nov 01, 2006 at 01:31:50 PM EST

To those people who are running scared about John Kerry's misstatement, I have a simple message. Get some integrity. John Kerry served in the military and put his life on the line for this country. He is one of the only sitting Democratic Senators to genuinely oppose this war by taking on his colleague, Senator Lieberman. He has done a huge amount for candidates this cycle, and will do more in the future. And yesterday, he misspoke - any one of us could have made that mistake. The fact that it's a controversy is actually not John Kerry's fault, it's yours. You bear the responsibility of buying into the fallacy that gaffes like this matter. You bear the responsibility of equating a slip of the tongue to a war that has killed hundreds of thousands.

And let's be very clear about the politics. This gaffe doesn't matter. No one is going to change their mind about the war because of John Kerry's mistake. What does matter is your reaction. The press has set up the rules so that if you're on offense you're winning and if you're on defense you're losing. It honestly doesn't matter if you, say, attack 9/11 widows or say that someone is faking Parkinson's disease. It's just offense/defense. Reporters have decided that printing reactions is their job, and that's life until their circulation drops to the point where they can no longer pay themselves to live in a dreamland composed of their own heroism at reprinting press releases. And let's be honest and not pretend like this is Kerry's fault; a gaffe like this was inevitable, and if Kerry hadn't said it the Republicans would have manufactured something else. It's what they do, people. Come on.

So all of you who have decided that it's good politics to throw Kerry under the bus are both disloyal and strategically short-sighted. I hope you reconsider your approach, or at least use this as a learning experience. Let's highlight two candidates and how they reacted, both in red areas.

more........

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/1/133150/739

[NewYorkerfromMass]

1. Fantastic post

just read it on kos.
And Sherrod Brown has responded brilliantly, as has Murtha- it's all about Iraq- and how Bush has f*ed it up!