Newsweek (on Kerry's urgent task of developing a coherent message)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4881085/


Dick Cheney has questioned John Kerry's leadership while Kerry has criticized the vice president for having 'other priorities' during the Vietnam war By Howard Fineman and T. Trent Gegax


NewsweekMay 10 issue - Sen. John Kerry has been a man under fire. In a choreographed attack, Republicans last week ambushed him with a 33-year-old leaked videotape (unearthed in the National Archives) and bombed him with $5 million in negative ads. The aim: to indelibly depict him as a weak-on-defense waffler defined not by his bravery in Vietnam but by his later protests against the conflict. His convoluted answers to a simple yet symbolically loaded question—did he throw away his combat medals, or just his ribbons, in a 1971 protest?—drew stinging reviews. A new Democratic survey surfaced, showing what a party operative conceded was "further erosion" in the senator's image. Spinning strenuously, Kerry's handlers sought, without being asked, to distinguish him from a hapless standard-bearer of the past. "Our guy is not Dukakis!" yelled one. "Mike wore a funny helmet in a tank. Kerry carried an M-16 in the jungle!"<snip>

As it was then, so it apparently is now. In theory, it's foolish to take on a sitting president in his role as the commander in chief. But that's what Kerry has decided to do. He now questions George Bush's National Guard attendance record and Dick Cheney's multiple draft deferments. This week Kerry launches a huge TV ad buy touting his war years and his "strength and service." "We won't concede one inch on 'strength'," says one Kerry operative.

<snip>Instead, Kerry has been ridiculed for numerous position shifts and baloney-slicing emendations of the story of his story. Among them: Does he own an SUV? (He once said he did, but now he says his family does, though he doesn't.) Was he for or against an $87 billion war appropriation? ("I voted for it before I voted against it," he said.) Which war decorations did he toss at an antiwar protest in 1971 on the steps of the Capitol? (At the time, he said they were medals; in 1984, he said they were ribbons; last week he said that medals and ribbons were "absolutely interchangeable.")
<snip>

But the more urgent task is developing a coherent message. For that, Kerry has deployed a consultant team led by Robert Shrum, the widely praised—and widely derided—writer and adman. Shrum is known for lilting, alliterative speeches, union-hall populism and his track record—which is excellent in everything except presidential campaigns. Working with Mary Beth Cahill, the campaign manager, Shrum and his partners have assembled their pitch. They are planning to sell their candidate as a paragon of "service and strength" whose mission statement is "Together, we can build a stronger America." A new, lengthy (60-second) "bio" spot will run for three weeks in at least 20 states, including at least one (Louisiana) in the South, NEWSWEEK has learned. It will include footage of Kerry in Vietnam and as a protest leader ("We aren't going to run away from that," said one adviser). There will be testimonials from some of Kerry's Vietnam compatriots.

What's interesting is not how different the substance of the message is from Bush's—but how similar. In a post-9/11 world, it seems, "togetherness" is a good idea, but "strength" is indispensable. In a well-crafted—and well-received—speech at Westminster College in Missouri late last week (a speech written by newly installed wordsmiths), Kerry in essence agreed with Bush on most points: that we can't leave Iraq precipitously, that we may need more troops, that we have to involve NATO and train the Iraqi military carefully. "We should sign him up as a surrogate," said Nicolle Devenish of BC'04. "Those are all our positions." But she may be missing the point. For now, at least, Kerry's strategy is clear: if the country wants a commander in chief, pick the one who has actually been under fire in war, not the stateside guy who got us into Iraq.

Bush is INCOHERENT!!!

And by the way, last week's Newsweek story suggesting that his wife is a "loose cannon or crazy as a fox" doesn't help matters.

:headbang:
rocknation

is what we call "unbiased" these days.

Is anyone more disjointed, incoherent, and incapable of expressing an idea than the thief in chief?

Kerry's message is very clear. It is obligation of the corporate media as obscurantists for the dictator wannabe to dissimulate.

When it comes to understanding what Kerry is saying, reporters from the AP to the NY Times to Newsweek start with, "Brain hurt! Not understand words! Message not coherent!"

Do they ever bother to think about how it's possible to vote for one version of a bill and against another? Or how the words "medals" and "ribbons" are interchangeable? Or how credibility in the international community can be spent the incumbent, but yet available to a new president -- a significant difference? They act like they're incapable of thinking things through, let alone reporting them.

Makes me crazy!!