DERISION 2004


the five worst moments of the election year

On this election eve, in a political season that has seen the worst of times and times worser still, I feel compelled to award dishonor where it's due. So what follows is my utter derision for (In)Decision 2004, the rhetorically scum-sucking bottom feeders from a year of political primordial ooze:

The 5 Worst Moments from Campaign 2004.

(But first, because there were so many horrid moments from which to choose...)


THE 5 DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

• The formerly respected, formerly self-respecting former Mayor of NYC, Rudy Giuliani so shamelessly whoring himself for Bush (and a possible 2nd-term cabinet position) that he actually cited the new Bin Laden video as reason to vote for the President. (See how healthy and well-rested and, well, alive the terror mastermind looks, Rudy? That's reason to vote against Bush.)

• Dick Cheney shamelessly lying -- the Bush people prefer to call it “making our own reality” -- in the VP debate (“I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11,” he said with a straight face. Perhaps because he never actually suggested it; he always came right out and said it.)

• Dick Cheney shamelessly fear-mongering on the stump (“If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again.")

• Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill declaring that Mary Cheney’s sexual orientation is “fair game,” as if the Senator were happily hunting for lesbians. (Ellen DeGeneres and Melissa Etheridge must have been out of season.)

• All those damn “Here’s some information about Attorney General Candidate Tom Corbett” automated calls we keep getting.

Now, from the merely ridiculous to the sublimely ridiculous, I offer my top bottom five:


5. NBC’s Tim Russert Calls the First Presidential Debate “A Draw.”

This guy, I used to respect. I could even overlook the sappy memoir about him and his Dad. Because I always felt that, whatever the case and whomever the candidate, he called ‘em like he saw ‘em.

But then this.

Maybe he nodded off during one of Jim Lehrer’s interminably long questions. Maybe he was out looking for a new whiteboard. Or maybe he was bending over backward to avoid being a member of the stinking liberal media. But he and Karl Rove and Karen Hughes were about the only people on the planet with a brain and a soul – okay, scratch Karl Rove – who watched Kerry eviscerate Bush and refused to acknowledge it. Acknowledging it wasn’t partisan politics; it was just having a pulse and paying attention.


4. John Kerry’s Abortion Answer in the 2nd Debate.

This guy, I’m still trying to respect. And this answer -- two meandering minutes of qualification and obfuscation that made the Republicans’ “unprincipled flip-flopper” argument more (or is that less?) eloquently than Bush ever did -- didn’t make it any easier.

I wished that Bush -- or Charlie Gibson, if he’d been paying attention -- would have asked him a follow-up: “So, Senator Kerry, does that mean that, presuming you’re morally opposed to rape, you really can’t support a law that criminalizes it, because you don’t believe you should, in legislation, impose your personal moral views on the country?”

The answer couldn’t have been any worse than the original. I guess.


3. Democrats Disenfranchising Voters in Pennsylvania (& Elsewhere)

Though they had lots of competition from their colleagues on the right – the Democrats are fear-mongering, we insist, as we take a break from fear-mongering -- the left's amoral relativists win this year’s “Do As We Say, Not As We Do” Award. While still whining about alleged “dirty tricks” to disenfranchise Democratic voters in Florida and wildly accusing Republicans of trying to do it again all over the country, our Democratic friends were working their tails off to blackout the Green voters and petition-signers. Apparently, not honoring support for Al Gore is bad, but disqualifying support for Ralph Nader is just fine.


2. The “Global Test” Big Lie

Even in an era when and an arena where both sides willfully massage and gleefully spin and shamelessly misrepresent the ideals and principles of their opponents, this one set a new, despicable standard. Contrary to popular caricature, neither George Bush nor any of his team is stupid or ignorant (or both) enough to believe that John Kerry actually said what they said he said. Because he didn’t say it. And then, for good measure, he said again that he didn’t say it. And then he said again what he said. And then he said it some more. And then he said it to the President’s face in the second debate. And then several hundred pundits quoted him and demonstrated that what he said wasn’t what the Bushies were saying he said. But none of that stopped the President and the Vice President and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and every other soulless media mouth from saying it. Over. And over. And over again.

As if, somehow, that made it true. Or made you believe it.


1. The Company of Wolves

By now you know that, well, if you vote for John Kerry, packs of savage wolves with glowing eyes will descend from the mountains and eat your children.

The single worst commercial in the history of political advertising. Not as jaw-droppingly miscalculated as the “That’s Why American Joe!” ads that ran in a Baltimore congressional race in the early 90s, to be sure – but several levels of partisan hell beneath the Willie Horton (who actually existed and had really been released and raped again) spots from 1988. Funny how clear and fair that one seems, now that George W. Bush, who approved the message, is here to protect us from the Wolfen.

If things are this bad or – Lord help us – even worse four years from now, I can only hope the wolves do come. Being eaten alive and left to roam the moors couldn’t possibly be any more unpleasant.

Posted: Mon - November 1, 2004 at 08:16 PM          

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