This is about as ad hominem as it gets, but in today's New York Times, William Kristol is huffing about a MoveOn ad that "boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past. And the sole responsibility of others."
He finds the commercial featuring a mother refusing to make her baby available for John McCain's hundred-year Iraq war "unapologetic in its selfishness, and barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve."
Such posturing is particularly galling from a charter member of the Neo-Cons who, when other people's sons were dying in Vietnam, were too busy getting into post-Harvard politics, as Kristol was, or hiding out by pulling family National Guard strings a la George W Bush or getting multiple deferments, as Dick Cheney did, or otherwise choosing not to serve, as only the most fire-breathing of them all, John Bolton, has had the honesty to admit.
"I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy," Bolton wrote in the 25th reunion book of his graduation from Yale about his decision to join the National Guard and go to law school.
Talking about service, Kristol's one-year stint with the Times expires in January just before the Bush Administration does. Haven't they all sacrificed for their country long enough?
Showing posts with label Bush Vietnam war service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush Vietnam war service. Show all posts
Monday, June 23, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Bill Clinton's Bimbo Offensive
In attacking Barack Obama, the ex-President has gone past embarrassing into his own kind of seductive swiftboating.
Is there any difference in twisting the record of someone who opposed the Iraq war from Day One on behalf of an opponent who voted for it from smearing a man who fought and bled in Vietnam to benefit someone who dodged serving there?
More and more leading Democrats, including John Kerry, are complaining, but perhaps even worse than the cheap politics to which Bill Clinton has lowered himself is the insult of treating voters as too stupid to see through what he is doing--of wooing them like bimbos who will swallow anything.
In our sound-bite age, all politicians invert the truth occasionally, but it has become a modus operandi for the former President who once explained his distortions in the 1996 election to opponent Bob Dole with a smiling, "You gotta do what you gotta do."
Now, when political figures and reporters comment on his behavior, Bill Clinton gets testy as he did with a CNN correspondent who raised a question that led a former South Carolina Democratic chairman to compare his attacks to those of Lee Atwater, Karl Rove's mentor. "Shame on you," the prospective First Spouse says.
The ex-President must be even less charmed by ABC News' Jake Tapper's exegesis of how both Clintons tortured Obama's words about Ronald Reagan in a Las Vegas interview into meanings that were clearly not there.
But Bill Clinton seems exhilarated by it all. "I know you think it's crazy," he told a South Carolina crowd, "but I kind of like to see Barack and Hillary fight. They're flesh and blood people and they have their differences--let them have it."
The Clintons are letting Barack Obama "have it" with a truthiness that would make George W. Bush blush. As someone whom most Americans once respected and many admired said recently on the campaign trail, "Give us a break!"
Is there any difference in twisting the record of someone who opposed the Iraq war from Day One on behalf of an opponent who voted for it from smearing a man who fought and bled in Vietnam to benefit someone who dodged serving there?
More and more leading Democrats, including John Kerry, are complaining, but perhaps even worse than the cheap politics to which Bill Clinton has lowered himself is the insult of treating voters as too stupid to see through what he is doing--of wooing them like bimbos who will swallow anything.
In our sound-bite age, all politicians invert the truth occasionally, but it has become a modus operandi for the former President who once explained his distortions in the 1996 election to opponent Bob Dole with a smiling, "You gotta do what you gotta do."
Now, when political figures and reporters comment on his behavior, Bill Clinton gets testy as he did with a CNN correspondent who raised a question that led a former South Carolina Democratic chairman to compare his attacks to those of Lee Atwater, Karl Rove's mentor. "Shame on you," the prospective First Spouse says.
The ex-President must be even less charmed by ABC News' Jake Tapper's exegesis of how both Clintons tortured Obama's words about Ronald Reagan in a Las Vegas interview into meanings that were clearly not there.
But Bill Clinton seems exhilarated by it all. "I know you think it's crazy," he told a South Carolina crowd, "but I kind of like to see Barack and Hillary fight. They're flesh and blood people and they have their differences--let them have it."
The Clintons are letting Barack Obama "have it" with a truthiness that would make George W. Bush blush. As someone whom most Americans once respected and many admired said recently on the campaign trail, "Give us a break!"
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Mailer
He wanted to write The Great American Novel but changed the face of journalism instead. He died today at 84, leaving behind a torrent of words and an outsized public persona.
Norman Mailer was the opposite of shy. At a cocktail party, drink in hand, in front of a TV camera and, above all, on the printed page, he poured out opinions and indelible impressions for half a century. An early collection of essays was aptly titled, "Advertisements for Myself."
His World War II novel, "The Naked and the Dead," made him famous but he will be remembered, along with Tom Wolfe, for the New Journalism of the 1960s. Coming to it from opposite directions, Wolfe, a reporter by trade, and Mailer the novelist created something as different from traditional journalism as "Moby Dick" is from a tract on whaling.
In 1968, Harper's turned over a full issue to Mailer's account of the Vietnam protest march on the Pentagon, which later as a book titled "Armies of the Dead" won both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
The next year, after a beery lunch and boozy dinner with a few New Journalist friends, Mailer decided to run for Mayor of New York and, in a put-on campaign, drew over 40,000 votes.
A decade later, he won another Pulitzer for "The Executioner's Song," about the last year in the life of Gary Gilmore, a remorseless killer. In between and afterward, he wrote ambitious novels, feuded with Feminists, stabbed one of his wives and fathered nine children.
A contemporary of mine, he was the ultimate opposite in temperament. A year ago, on a documentary about Marilyn Monroe, I was interviewed about my experiences in working with and getting to know her in the 1950s, but much more of PBS' time was devoted to Mailer who never met her but whose fantasies had filled a book and were vividly fascinating.
He never wrote The Great American Novel, but he did change the way several generations of us see the world.
Norman Mailer was the opposite of shy. At a cocktail party, drink in hand, in front of a TV camera and, above all, on the printed page, he poured out opinions and indelible impressions for half a century. An early collection of essays was aptly titled, "Advertisements for Myself."
His World War II novel, "The Naked and the Dead," made him famous but he will be remembered, along with Tom Wolfe, for the New Journalism of the 1960s. Coming to it from opposite directions, Wolfe, a reporter by trade, and Mailer the novelist created something as different from traditional journalism as "Moby Dick" is from a tract on whaling.
In 1968, Harper's turned over a full issue to Mailer's account of the Vietnam protest march on the Pentagon, which later as a book titled "Armies of the Dead" won both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
The next year, after a beery lunch and boozy dinner with a few New Journalist friends, Mailer decided to run for Mayor of New York and, in a put-on campaign, drew over 40,000 votes.
A decade later, he won another Pulitzer for "The Executioner's Song," about the last year in the life of Gary Gilmore, a remorseless killer. In between and afterward, he wrote ambitious novels, feuded with Feminists, stabbed one of his wives and fathered nine children.
A contemporary of mine, he was the ultimate opposite in temperament. A year ago, on a documentary about Marilyn Monroe, I was interviewed about my experiences in working with and getting to know her in the 1950s, but much more of PBS' time was devoted to Mailer who never met her but whose fantasies had filled a book and were vividly fascinating.
He never wrote The Great American Novel, but he did change the way several generations of us see the world.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
MoveOn, Standby and Rathering
The brouhaha over the “General Betray Us” ad evokes mixed feelings in a veteran of advertising acceptance and pricing wars.
Today the Public Editor of the New York Times chides the paper for both the content of and charges for the MoveOn ad that has replaced troop withdrawal from Iraq as the main subject of political contention for almost two weeks.
First, should the Times have accepted the ad? Not without a change of headline. The executive in charge says he was influenced by the question mark, but that won’t wash. He discloses rejection of a previous MoveOn ad until a doctored photo of Dick Cheney was removed. Tacky, insulting, libelous word play on anybody’s name is just as unacceptable.
Standby pricing is tricky. Ostensibly used to fill unsold advertising space at the last minute, because press forms are no more flexible than airline seats, it is often used by overeager sales people to inflate ad lineage figures.
In this case, if MoveOn had not been guaranteed the ad would run that Monday, the price would be defensible. If the Times had retained the option to run it at its own convenience, that would have qualified as standby. But apparently that was not what happened.
Ordinarily, all this would be marginally interesting to media people, if the Republican attack machine had not jumped on it to divert attention from the real Iraq debate, exactly as they did in 2004 with Dan Rather’s reporting on George Bush’s evasion of combat service in Vietnam.
Rather is now suing CBS to correct that distortion, but somebody should be defending the Times from being Rathered over the Iraq war now. It’s too bad political parties don’t have the equivalent of a Public Editor to hold them accountable for their mistakes, few of which are as innocuous as those of newspapers.
Today the Public Editor of the New York Times chides the paper for both the content of and charges for the MoveOn ad that has replaced troop withdrawal from Iraq as the main subject of political contention for almost two weeks.
First, should the Times have accepted the ad? Not without a change of headline. The executive in charge says he was influenced by the question mark, but that won’t wash. He discloses rejection of a previous MoveOn ad until a doctored photo of Dick Cheney was removed. Tacky, insulting, libelous word play on anybody’s name is just as unacceptable.
Standby pricing is tricky. Ostensibly used to fill unsold advertising space at the last minute, because press forms are no more flexible than airline seats, it is often used by overeager sales people to inflate ad lineage figures.
In this case, if MoveOn had not been guaranteed the ad would run that Monday, the price would be defensible. If the Times had retained the option to run it at its own convenience, that would have qualified as standby. But apparently that was not what happened.
Ordinarily, all this would be marginally interesting to media people, if the Republican attack machine had not jumped on it to divert attention from the real Iraq debate, exactly as they did in 2004 with Dan Rather’s reporting on George Bush’s evasion of combat service in Vietnam.
Rather is now suing CBS to correct that distortion, but somebody should be defending the Times from being Rathered over the Iraq war now. It’s too bad political parties don’t have the equivalent of a Public Editor to hold them accountable for their mistakes, few of which are as innocuous as those of newspapers.
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