Below is a great article by ADAM NAGOURNEY of the NEW YORK TIMES, in which Nagourney details how his own column from four years ago this week, in which at the end of a column on prospective Democratic candidates Nagourney and co-writer Richard Stevens casually dropped the line "White House staffers referred to North Carolina Senator John Edwards as "the Breck Girl":
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This article is indeed confessional - Nagourney asks rhetorically if he not only previewed to slow-burn smearing of Edwards and Kerry by the Republican campaign, but helped it along in his NYT column:
<< Our story may have had the result of not only previewing what the Bush campaign intended to do, but, by introducing such memorably biting characterizations into the political dialogue, helping it. >>
Unfortunately, as far as our desire to tar the Republicans as the party of negative conotations (smears) and the press-media as their willing dupes, it turns out that - THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES THEMSELVES joined in the slow-burn portrayal of Senator Edwards as "a pretty-boy empty suit":
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This demonstrates what the Republican smear-attack hired-guns and media specialists (read: Karl Rove & his accolytes) well know: that not only does SMOKE usually indicate some degree of FIRE, but in modern politics, as well as ancient politics, for that matter, MYTH often trumps "reality."
IF Democrat candidates can't deflect or derail images of "pretty-boy/empty suit" or "mandarin pooh-bah whose wife is a foreign billionaire" easily - THEY HAVE NO BUSINESS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT.
Kerry PROVED the Republican smear-mongers 'right', by not only making the entire Democratic nominating convention (in effect a coronation ceremony) ABOUT HIS OWN Vietnam record - but Kerry then ALLOWED the Republicans to turn that record - or at least the public perception of it - INTO MUSH! Republican operatives handed out cutsey band-aids with purple-hearts drawn on them with permanent markers - and Kerry had to run to veteran organizations for a defense against the smear that casually demeaned ALL who earned the medal given only to those wounded under fire in combat!
For his part, former Senator Edwards was recently grilled by - KATIE COURIC of CBS 'news' - and the impression was left across America that Edwards, if not his wife, WAS REDUCED TO A BADGERED FIGURE!
Americans DO NOT WANT A PRESIDENT - who looks like he (or she) has been beaten and bloodied by - KATIE COURIC ???!
WHAT has the Democratic Party come to, that ALL of its candidates are AFRAID of the press-media, AFRAID of the Bush-Cheney corruption-saturated White House, AFRAID of the Karl Rove SMEAR machine, and CAN NOT present a VOCAL AND COMPELLING INDICTMENT of the crimes and follies of the Bush-Cheney administration???!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/us/politics/23web-nagourney.html
