Editor’s note: Michael Ackley’s columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
As Bill Clinton prepared for coronary bypass surgery, Sen. John Kerry asked a campaign audience for a round of applause that could be heard by the former president in his distant hospital. Clinton’s response has not been recorded, but Tinkerbell says she’s “feeling much better, thanks” …
Speaking of pixie dust: Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic National Committee chairman, had to be pixilated to buy into the John Kerry mantra that it was beyond the pale to criticize – or even question – the Demo presidential candidate’s Vietnam War record. At least, it seems he had to believe he was under some form of enchantment to think he could do so while nobody noticed the contradiction of his attack on President Bush’s military reserve service …
At last somebody has come right out and used to words “mean spirited” to describe Sen. Zell Miller’s GOP convention broadside at Kerry. Because we recently reiterated the definition of the term from the Blind Partisan’s Dictionary, we will not repeat it here. However, when former President Jimmy Carter applied it to Miller’s jeremiad, he provided us the opportunity to make another citation from that lexicon. Carter said the senator had shown “unprecedented disloyalty.” The BPD defines “disloyalty” thus:
disloyalty: n. 1: placing one’s country ahead of one’s political party 2: ascribing heinous acts to one’s comrades in arms.
As an example of the latter, the dictionary cites “making unsubstantiated claims of ‘atrocities’ by fellow soldiers.”
Doing his part to lend civility to the presidential campaign, Al Gore tells the New Yorker – according to advance reports – that Bush is a bully and a coward. The reports do not indicate whether Gore is demanding the return of his lunch money …
Perhaps the strangest articulation of the “mean spirited” chant came from Kerry campaign spokesman Howard Bashford, who told us, “Vell Miwa wav meam am mafy!” Asked to repeat this, he snarled, “Zell Miller was mean and nasty!” Then he put the pacifier back in his mouth …
Tell us, dear readers: Was there ever a presidential campaign in which one side treated the tone of the debate as so much more important than the substance?
Now comes retired Air National Guard Lt. Col. John “Bill” Calhoun of Georgia, who declares he served with George W. Bush during the president-to-be’s disputed assignment at Alabama’s Dannelly Air National Guard Base.
The 69-year-old retired officer lends verisimilitude to his recollection by relating conversations with Bush, as well as his observation of the magazines Bush read during that 1971-72 assignment.
This is bound to discomfit Texans for Truth, one of the organizations trying to prove the president was AWOL 35 years ago. TFT, of course, is not connected with the Kerry for President campaign, just as Swiftboat Veterans for Truth is not connected to the GOP campaign.
Nevertheless, this is an opportunity for Sen. Kerry to join in the president’s call for cessation of all attacks on the candidates’ military service. Or, he could steal a march by demanding that TFT lay off.
As Bush has not demanded the same of the swiftboat vets, this would let Kerry demonstrate he, at least, is taking the high road.
Is anybody giving odds?
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