“Reality-Based” Communiturds
The anti-American hippie Left is fond of euphemizing, as evidenced by this casual characterization by the New York Observer’s Steve Kornacki in his piece on Michael Dukakis, master political strategist (emphasis mine):
Since his fall collapse was made official on Nov. 8, 1988—an eight-point, 426-to-112 electoral-vote loss to George H.W. Bush—Democrats have held up Mr. Dukakis’ general election campaign as a case study in the perils of not hitting back. In 1992, Bill Clinton, with his rapid response team and pitch-perfect shaming of Mr. Bush in their first debate, showed he’d learned the lesson; in 2004, John Kerry showed that he’d forgotten it.
But while Mr. Dukakis readily indicts himself for fatally ignoring the 1988 version of Swift-Boating—the G.O.P.’s success with Willie Horton, he said, “was my own damn fault; no one else’s”—he worries that his party has oversimplified the lesson of his defeat, and of Mr. Kerry’s and Al Gore’s, too. And if Democrats don’t learn the right lesson soon, he fears they’ll be locked out of the White House for a third straight time in 2008—no matter how rosy the electoral math now looks.
“Swiftboating” is apparently now a euphemism for a Democrat being exposed by his own past. It is a verb for a Republican telling the truth and a Democrat not liking it.
One might think that it is an unfair attack —one to which those making it have no right— but that is total crap. Yeah, I remember Dukakis acting like he was better than fighting Bush the Elder. He was a smarmy, college-boy liberal. But if he “ignored” Bush on Horton, it was only because he had no defense for his furlough policies. None. Horton exposed Dukakis for just the kind of guy who would tell Bernie Shaw that he wouldn’t support the execution of the murderer and rapist of his own wife.
Similarly, Kerry had no response to the accusations and recollections of his fellow Swiftboaters because they were right. Kerry got busted with his own words and deeds. Period. Only an asshole who doesn’t understand how American politics works would presume to call the Horton ad or the Swiftboat Veterans’ anti-Kerryism as anything but hanging a dumb bastard with the rope he gave them.
