Last night on TV John Kerry accused George Bush of going to a rodeo when he didn’t have more than an hour to spend with the 9/11 investigation. A rodeo!
This is a stupid attack. But stupid attacks are better than no attack at all.
Mickey Kaus of kausfiles.com, the best Kerry watcher writing, today notes that ‘two recent polls may indicate Bush’s first positive ads were ineffective, blunted by the (to me, absurd) complaints of 9/11 victims’ relatives.’
While the Democrats have managed to tie up the debate over whether the president has the right to use footage from the crucible event of his presidency in ads, Kerry has made a truly outrageous remark that should be a major campaign issue.
He has bragged that European leaders are rooting for him. (See ‘World Leaders Praying I’ll Win: Kerry’ in the New York Post.)
The Bush campaign should be having a ridicule fest with this. So why is a New York Post headline more devastating than anything the Bush campaign has put forward?
Where are the anti-Kerry ads to the tune of La Marseillaise. I want to see a clip of Kerry delivering the line about Euro leaders with “Nous Marchons! Nous Marchons!” in the background.
And what about Hercule Poirot endorses Monsieur Jean Kerree?
Bush & Co. have made so little of Kerry’s stupid Euro remark that most people don’t even know he said it.
The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol propose an alarming answer (but one that rings true) to the question of why we’ve heard so little from the Bush campaign in general: It’s because the White House ‘isn’t even trying.’
‘Lack of concerted effort is the least alarming part of Bush’s problem,’ they write.
‘What’s worse is the White House and the Bush campaign seem to have been spooked. They seem fearful and tentative and weak at exactly the moment when they need to be confident and aggressive.
‘Democrats and their allies are united behind Bush’s opponent, John Kerry, and have no qualms about attacking the president on any subject whatsoever. At best, Bush’s aides respond defensively. At worst, their clumsiness turns a minor flap into a prolonged controversy.’
Call me crazy.
But I think George Bush should be running for president.
Now.