Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Democratic Party Apologizes for Local Club's Call for Assasination of Rumsfeld

St. Petersburg Democratic club ad says 'pull trigger' on Rumsfeld

USA TODAY online continues the story of the St. Pete (FLA) Democratic Club's Local News advert calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's assasination. The advert, in the free community newspaper Gabber contains the following 'call to action', if you will:

And then there's Rumsfeld who said of Iraq 'We have our good days and our bad days.' We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say 'This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger," the ad read under a banner "St. Petersburg Democratic Club." ... "Do you want to salvage our country? Be a savior of our country? Then vote for John Kerry and get rid of the whole Bush Bunch!" The ad then directs financial donations to Kerry's campaign headquarters in Washington.



To its' credit, the Kerry campaign responded immediately to the local affiliate's faux pas:

Mark Kornblau, a Kerry campaign spokesman, said the club was not working for their campaign "in any official capacity" and called for an apology ... "It is outrageous and does not in any way reflect the position of our campaign. We hope that those responsible will retract the statement, apologize for it and move on to more productive pursuits," Kornblau said.



Ahh, the DNC caveat ... "move on". I'll not nitpick that last bit too much; I hate the phrasing, but support the idea that such ads distract from the campaign at-hand. I would, however, offer them the following piece of advice: The irrational fury present in the St. Pete club's advert represents a not entirely uncommon sentiment that has taken a solid hold within the ranks. DNC-funded websites like MoveOn.org and Democratic Underground underpin and spread messages of impotent rage and 'victory at any cost'. The DNC has continued to fuel the wholly-unrelated-to-fact (conspiracy) theory that "Bush stole the election" and the unquenchable lust for Bush's figurative head on a platter (with Dick Chaney's and Donald Rumsfeld's as accompaniments), and they shouldn't be shocked when the local parties feel unencumbered by decorum and place adverts like this.

Just my two cents, no need to hit the tip jar.

Monday, April 12, 2004

The "Anyone But Bush" Psychosis Reaches Critical Mass

Courtesy of (who else) The New York Times and Howard Dean:
For Ralph Nader, but Not for President

When Howard Dean can write in something beyond simple sentences ("a sentence must have 1 noun & one verb"), please wake me up. In an otherwise unremarkable plea to the DNC electorate, Dean argues that we can't let Ralph Nader "steal" votes from the democratic candidate. A Vote for Kerry + a Vote for Bush = Trashing "of many of (Nader's) accomplishments." The conclusion does not equate its' component parts, but you gotta give Howard props for chutzpah:

"Our agenda is rooted in hope and real American values; opportunity, integrity, honesty. This is the way to defeat George Bush."


Even that inherently (andhilariouslyy) disingenuous statement is not the telling moment of the piece. Rather, it's the number of times each presidential candidate is mentioned, particularly that of the DNC's candidate ...

Bush: 7 times ...

Nader: 9 times ...

Kerry: Once.