My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.
2004-10-15
Mon Dieu!!
So John Kerry went over an unwritten line and brought into play one of the family members of a candidate.
Forgive me if this doesn't tick up my shock-o-meter.
There was once an unwritten rule that politics ends at the water's edge; I guess the Dems missed that memo, too. Between Jim McDermott actually going to Baghdad, the Senate minority leader calling the President's policy a "miserable failure," and a whole host of Dems screaming "Bush lied", it's safe to assume that that rule is out the window.
Wasn't there also somewhat of an unwritten rule that you don't criticise one of your successors in the Highest Office? Guess Jimmy Carter missed that one.
There was also an unwritten rule that you never use personal tragedy for politcal gain. And while the Minnesota Democrats forgot that rule in 2002, the voters still enforced it on them. Unfortunately, the national Democrats failed to learn that lesson, and continue to try to exploit the beheadings of Americans for political gain.
And, while it was never really an unwritten rule, wouldn't it be safe to assume that one of the qualifications to be a national leader would include graciousness in defeat? Ahem. . . calling Al Gore.
Speaking of Al Gore, one would have thought it went without saying that you never, NEVER screw with the military to win political victories. It was on a cold December night in 2000, when I heard about the Dem memo on how to get military ballots thrown out, that I vowed to never vote for a Democrat again until a prominent Democrat condemned the Gore campaign for that act and apologized. I'm still waiting.
Was Kerry out of line? Absolutely, but that's not really surprising. What is surprising is how cavalier the Democrats view this sort of behavior. If they really had any sense of where that line was, MBCahill would not have described the Veep's offspring as "fair game," and with twelve hours to reflect on it, Elizabeth Edwards would not have tried to defend the action by attacking Lynn Cheney.
What is there not to understand about this? The Democrats understand one standard of behavior: obtain and wield political power. Unless there is a serious backlash that costs them a shot at political power, they will continue to ignore and even disparage the standards of decent political behavior that have governed this country's politics for many years.
In other words, they will continue to do this unless WE CRUSH THEM!
And even then, they would only change to accomodate political reality--not out of any sense of honor. | |
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