Perhaps aware that April showers soon give way to May flowers, the blogosphere turned cumulous this morning and rained insults on John Kerry and his campaign, which it critiques as little more than a steady stream of mumbles, fumbles and stumbles.
Today, Gen. Wesley Clark came out of the woodwork to defend Kerry’s service in Vietnam. Clark, in part, wrote, “Make no mistake: it is [Kerry’s] bravery these Republicans are now attacking.” The boys over at Oxblog aren’t buying it. “I have a lot of respect for Kerry’s bravery in Vietnam. In my life, I haven’t done anything nearly as brave as serving in the armed forces or pulling an injured comrade out of the water in the midst of a firefight. But if someone asked me whether or not I had thrown away my medals, I’m pretty sure that I would be brave enough to tell the truth.”
Hugh Hewitt continues the Kerry bashing, noting, “Just watched John Kerry on Hardball. Incredibly, although Chris Matthews asked not a single hard question, Kerry managed to hurt himself badly on at least three occasions, and I didn’t hear the entire interview.”
Instapundit applauds Hewitt’s critique, buts adds a few words of caution, “Yes, that’s the campaign in a nutshell, at the moment. Message to Republicans: Don’t get cocky. Kerry can’t possibly do this badly for the entire campaign.”
Which is exactly what Ruy Teixeira thinks, as long as the Kerry campaign heeds Josh’s Marshall advice from last week. Marshall, writing in the New York Times, suggested that “Mr. Kerry is far more likely to win if he has a plan to show how he – and thus the American people – can succeed rather than simply showing how President Bush – and thus they – have failed.” Teixeira agrees, “And it’s going to call for more than a ‘secret plan to end the war,’ as Nixon was able to get away with. Sure hope they’re working on this one down at Kerry campaign HQ.”
And the storm ends with Mickey Kaus, the Nor’easter of all Kerry bashers, who calls the proprietor of www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com, Alan Blevins, a “fraud” for not adhering to the strict code of ethics that governs Kerry detractors. Kaus writes that Blevins “thinks ‘all of [the d.b. evidence against Kerry can] be explained as lies, deception, media excess, or simply poor campaigning strategy.’ If only it were so…Blevins is just pretending to have grasped the full gravity of what Democrats are being asked to do in November.”
–Thomas Lang
Thomas Lang was a writer at CJR Daily.