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Shining
the Light
on the Truly Negative Campaigners
EDITORIAL
Frank Salvato
June 8, 2004 |
One thing can be said with certainty about
Ronald Reagan; he had a tremendous love of country. No one would be wise to
question his patriotism lest they look the fool. Another thing that can be
said about Reagan is that he didn’t care very much for trash campaigning,
unlike what we are seeing in the current presidential election campaign.
He preferred to address the best that America has to offer when he took to
the campaign trail. The same cannot be said for the Democratic Party and
John F. Kerry.
Each time I hear the liberal talking heads proclaiming the Bush campaign is
running the most negative campaign in the history of the United States I
don’t know whether to laugh at their hypocrisy or teem with anger at their
blatant addiction to re-writing the immediate past.
It amazes me that the elite media, the Kerry campaign and the spinning heads
at the Democratic National Committee have the gall to completely overlook
the almost six months of ferocious Bush-bashing that were the Democratic
primaries. These attacks, coming from each and every one of the Democratic
candidates was without retort. The Narcissistic Nine engaged in the most
base of attacks on George W. Bush, all in the name of affording Democratic
voters the opportunity to choose which of them would be their candidate come
November. Yet they contend the Bush campaign is running negative.
When one listened to each of the nine during the debates, debates the Bush
campaign could not and did not comment on, it was fair to deduce that the
main focal point in each of the Democratic candidates debate portfolios was
the importance of besmirching the Bush presidency at every opportunity
whether it was warranted or not, whether the accusations were true or not.
The only one of the nine that had any decorum at all was Joseph Lieberman
and he was trounced at the polls.
Dick Gephardt called President Bush a "miserable failure” without taking the
time to back-up his accusations with fact or verified example.
Howard Dean intimated the War on Terror didn’t make us safer at home and in
fact had made us more vulnerable to terrorist attack even though success was
taking place at every turn – remember, "Why haven’t they caught Saddam
Hussein yet?”
John Kerry, using the most elementary of economic understanding, has made
accusations that the Bush tax cuts are bad for the economy even as one of
the most impressive periods of economic growth is upon us. Kerry has further
extolled the ravages of a 5.6 unemployment rate even though his hero, Bill
Clinton, patted himself on the back with the same figure during his
presidency.
Then we have the underhanded rumormongering that Terry McAuliffe and his
"backroom boys” have perpetrated on the American people about President
Bush’s handling of everything: the economy, jobs and, in the most base of
attacks, his service to our country in the Texas Air National Guard.
It has been a non-stop barrage of negative campaigning, personal attacks and
the propagation of innuendo, rumor and spun half-truths from the very first
word of the very first press release from the very first Democratic
candidate.
This negative campaigning was the order of the day throughout the Democratic
primaries and continues today. You can’t listen to a sound byte or read an
account in the papers of what Kerry or the DNC say without fielding an
attack on George W. Bush the man or the president.
Strangely, because of the Bush-bashing agenda of the Democratic primaries,
John F. Kerry, came out of them never having been forced to explain his
position on the issues. While the major political and social issues of the
day are addressed by the Bush Administration everyday, by word and by deed,
all we have gotten from the Kerry campaign is a hefty helping of
Bush-bashing and rhetoric. Now that’s a platform to be proud of.
It wasn’t all that long ago the elite media allowed an "off-mic” comment,
made by Kerry to a union worker in Chicago about the Republican Party and
the Bush campaign, to die without having the spotlight shined on it:
"Oh yeah, don't worry man. We're going to keep pounding, let me tell you --
we're just beginning to fight here. These guys are the most crooked, you
know, lying group of people I've ever seen," Kerry said not knowing he was
being exposed.
That being said it is no wonder Kerry has decided to sling mud instead of
bellying-up to the table of scrutiny with his own platform. Of course that
couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that what models Kerry has
afforded the American public have all been shot down as disastrous for our
country by scholars from both sides of the aisle. So, what alternative does
a candidate have when they have nothing of substance to offer the American
people?
The elite media will continue to report its lopsided and liberally bias
version of today’s events. They will continue to ignore the accomplishments
of George W. Bush’s crisis filled first four years in office while shopping
Kerry’s fantasy-based rhetoric. And they will continue to issue asinine
statements that benefit the Kerry campaign like, "the Bush campaign is the
most negative in the history of American presidential politics.” Because of
that I offer you the proof of the rhetoric used by the candidates during the
Democratic primaries and John F. Kerry’s continued assault on George W. Bush
to spotlight the media’s hypocrisy and the fact they simply aren’t telling
the American people the truth. They don’t want to.
Thank God "The Gipper” isn’t alive to see where this slanderous Democratic
campaign goes next. He would either be laughing with me or be teeming with
anger as well at what they are doing to his beloved country.Frank Salvato is a political media consultant and the
managing editor for The New Media Journal.us.
Click here for his complete bio.
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