Kerry Supporters Might Want To Be Writing Slate's Mickey Kaus

[Khephra]

I may not want Kerry to win the primary, but I still don't think he should be made fun of in this manner.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2091818/

[tsipple]

1. Amen

Senator Kerry is a great statesman, and Mickey Kaus...

[paulk]

2. he even gets a hit in on John Glenn

who would of made a better candidate than Mondale, way back when. Is Kingsley still at Slate? He's the only guy there worth a fuck. Kaus is a hack.

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. You mean Michael Kinsley?

Not any more:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002/02/12/michael-kinsley-slate.htm

[helleborient]

4. I might be thick, but...

Where is he being made fun of?

It does discuss directly the serious lack of support in N.H. for Kerry's campaign - he's lost over half of his support from 28 down to 13 according to the ARG polls. This is very serious implosion of a campaign. It's not like Howard Dean and Wesley Clark have just picked up a bunch of undecided voters. Kerry has lost support of the voters he once had.

Maybe the turnaround will come...but it looks a bit like turning the Titanic...and there's only a month and a half to do it.

And I thought the comparison to John Glenn was to a similar campaign implosion.

[paulk]

12. He insinuates Glenn was a "loser"

When Glenn was doing better in national polls against reagan than Mondale was. The Democrats shoved aside an electable candidate and nominated an unelectable one. Kind of like they're doing now.

Kaus ' reference to Glenn is the usual cheapshot that Kaus is well known for.

Alterman gives him shit in his article for writing about Kerry's hair.
Kaus is not a serious journalist. Kaus is a shitheel.

[dsc]

17. As I have posted twice now

Mondale was beating Reagan (ie had higher poll numbers) after Glenn withdrew. It is baldly untrue to claim he didn't.

[sandnsea]

5. Been going on for months

We're kind of used to it. Doesn't surprise me at all. If it's not his hair, it's his face; if it's not his money, it's his aloofness. It's a gossip column primary. Nobody is talking about issues. I don't post gossip column articles, I wonder why other people do.

[helleborient]

6. The Eric Alterman piece about Kerry being touted is a cocktail party

Report.

We should drop that, too?

[blm]

8. Care to ask Pitt if that Q and A was a "cocktail party"

I'd like to read his reply.

[sandnsea]

9. Is it about policy?

Or literally nothing.

Alterman talks about Kerry and policy, not stupid shit like hair and aloofness and crap that doesn't matter. Same as this piece.

If issues and policy had actually been discussed the last 6 months, instead of hyped up bullshit, we might actually get a real candidate next year and not end up with another mass marketed McPresident.

[helleborient]

10. He talks about him being a really nice guy EXTENSIVELY...

That is the same thing as talking about other personality traits..like aloofness.

It's just Kerry supporters like the strokes when they come from Alterman.

And...hmmm...I first heard the trumpeting of Kerry's height, his great looks from his supporters. It began there...again it's only disliked when it's not fawning.

[helleborient]

11. Show us the policy meat from Alterman in that article...

Here's a quote:

Let’s be blunt. Kerry was terrific. Once again, he demonstrated a thoughtfulness, knowledge-base and value system that gives him everything, in my not-so-humble-opinion—he could need to be not just a good, but a great president. I feel certain that just about everyone in that highly self-regarding room left deeply impressed."

There is NO policy in the article...other than Kerry's umpteenth comment about being duped by President Bush on Iraq.

PLEASE...show me the policy discussion in the praise of Kerry as a great cocktail party guest.

[blm]

7. and YOU should read Eric Alterman.

.

[polpilot]

13. Kerry should receive the respect he deserves.

He has.

Dean '04...

[dsc]

18. I just did

and I would like you to site some text from that article which was about issues. I didn't really see much at all.

[DrFunkenstein]

14. Mickey Maus Was Putting Out Hit Pieces A Year Ago (12/4/02)

MICKEY KAUS, CIRCUS CLOWN: With his recent comments on Candidate Kerry, Mickey Kaus has finally won election as a certified, unionized, full-fledged circus clown. Try to believe that he wrote it:

Kerry Mystery Challenge: What is it that makes so many people, myself included, intensely dislike Sen. John Kerry? This is the great mystery surrounding his 2004 presidential campaign. I don’t think “aloof and arrogant,” the traditional Kerry negatives, are exactly it—he may be aloof and arrogant, but there are plenty of aloof and arrogant people I don’t rule out instantly due to their gross characterological deficiency, which is what I do with Kerry.

It’s not just his “long record of opportunism,” though again that’s part of it. … I say we harness the power of the Web to solve the mystery! A copy of Kerry’s undoubtedly riveting book, The New War, to the kf reader (or non-kf reader) who most precisely describes the root of Kerry’s loathsomeness. ...(References to descriptions of Kerry by others may also qualify for the prize .)

... My own attempt: I think it starts with the phony furrowed brow. Perpetually furrowed and perpetually phony. It’s been furrowed for so long I doubt he could unfurrow it now even if his advisers convinced him that would be a good tack to take!

...Then add the sense that Kerry would never ever take a principled or unpopular stand if losing the argument might actually threaten to derail his precious political career. (He apparently made some anti-affirmative-action noises in 1992 and quickly backed down when the obvious groups complained.)

Add in relentless, obvious self-promotion to the point of indignity—sucking up to Gore while jockeying for the vice-presidential nod in 2000, for example (as described by The New Republic’s Ryan Lizza). Plus the way his equally ambitious supporters call him “JFK.” It’s creepy. The man’s an animatronic Lincoln. There’s a metal plate in the back of his head—under all the glued-on “hair”—that they open up and stick screwdrivers in when he gets back to his office.... There, that’s my best shot. But I’m not sure it’s quite there. I know you can do better!

<>

Let’s see. Kerry has a furrowed brow, and Kaus is troubled by his hair. By one of those mysterious coincidences, Kaus’ concern with Kerry’s hair surfaced hours before Matt Drudge began flogging the topic. Just another one of those events in which great minds coincide.

Does anyone believe Mickey Kaus is this stupid? We’ve met Kaus once—sharing a pleasant group meal—and noticed no signs of the fatuous soul he now directs at the next White House race. But in Campaign 2000, Mickey Kaus and his vacuous cohort all spilled out of their Volkswagen bus, making an unvarnished, two-year-long joke of your White House election. There’s no reason to doubt that they’ll do so again. Will earth tones give way to John Kerry’s hair? Yes, they will, if this vacuous crew has its way with your White House election.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120402.shtml

[JI7]

15. waste of time

i don't waste time reading this person's writing. and coming from him something negative on kerry is expected.

[dsc]

16. Kaus is a clowning clown

who like all clowing clowns tells tales he likes. He should be ashamed of himself and his ilk.