Safire this Monday in the NY Times brought up for me the question, as he often does: Does any part of him believe what he's writing or is his cynicism simply out of control?
The premise of the column was that Kerry's remark about the "most crooked..lying group"--ie the Republican attack dogs--was his slandering "tens of millions" of Republican voters.
That's like saying the French are a crooked people because you don't like the actions of their president....hmmm....
Anyhow, Safire went on to dismiss Kerry the soldier's "physical courage" as stuff of "four decades ago" (no reference to Bush and the military necessary here) and call Kerry's sticking up for what he said phony toughness.
Then, amazingly, comes the contrast to Bush's "demonstrated tough-mindedness."
It was too much for me. I sent off the following letter, which I reproduce here in the certainty the Times will never publish it:
To the Editor:
Does William Safire ("On Phony Toughness," op-ed, Mar. 15) expect anybody but convinced Bush supporters to be swayed by his comparison of John Kerry's "phony toughness" to George Bush's "demonstrated tough-mindedness."
George Bush as tough minded? The man who dismissed the first attack on the World Trade Center as a bad pilot error while the rest of America responded. The man who proceeded into a Florida classroom where, informed of the second attack, this time with his Chief of Staff's clarification that America was under attack, froze in his seat for another twenty minutes, the Commander in Chief paralyzed as Americans threw themselves out of hundred-story windows and a hijacked plane remained in the air? The man who, finally back on Air Force One, flew to Nebraska? The man who rejoined his countrymen in their trauma only when fully scripted, and has remained embarrassingly, repetitively scripted ever since?
"Tough-mindedness" is wanting as an argument for a second term of George Bush as President.
Sincerely blah blah blah...
BTW: I've never done this before. I know I should link to the Safire column but I don't know how. Is it explained somewhere on Kos's site? Or could a kind soul direct me to instruction elsewhere?
--lorenzo