I think that John Kerry’s…revelation…that he’s the preferred candidate of some unnamed foreign leaders is a mistake on several levels. It will obviously sell well among his base that the oh-so-sophisticated-and-nuanced-himself Jacque Chirac thinks that Kerry is his man (and who else does Mr. Kerry intend for us to infer as his hopeful future counterpart?). But it’s not at all clear that this will sell that well with independents and undecideds. What will the campaign slogan be–“Vote Kerry–The French Choice”? I suspect that in fact most American want their president to be vetted and supported by Americans, not “furriners.”
But an even bigger mistake is making the claim, and then feigning outrage when someone questions him on it, or wants more details. It opens up an opportunity for his opponents (so far not capitalized on, at least by the White House).
Their current response is to claim that if he won’t name names, then he must be making it up. Maybe this will be an effective tactic, but it sounds dumb to me. There’s no doubt in my mind that there are foreign leaders, even former US “allies” who would prefer Kerry (or any Democrat, or even any non-simian cowboy) in the White House to George Bush, so the charges that he’s a liar or making it up don’t have much weight to me.
I think that a much more effective commercial would be something like:
John Kerry says that some unnamed foreign leaders would prefer him as president to our current president. If this is true, why will he not name them?
Is it because among those names might be Kim Jung Il, the brutal North Korean dictator whose state-controlled press has been extolling Mr. Kerry’s virtues? Or Bashir Assad of terrorist-supporting Syria? Or Yasser Arafat, who continues to sponsor terrorism in Israel? The mullahs in Iran?
Or Osama bin Laden?
What is Mr. Kerry trying to hide?
We believe that an American president should be the choice of Americans, not unnamed foreign leaders.
It would serve him right for such an odious and dumb campaign tactic, and considering that I just saw a poll indicating that sixty percent of registered voters think that terrorists would prefer Kerry to Bush, I suspect that it would be a very effective ad.
And you know what else? I’ll be that, despite his supposed chumminess with Bill Clinton, Tony Blair isn’t on that list.
Manchurian Candidate is, quite simply, the best political thriller of all time. I can’t think of another that keeps me on the edge of my seat, even on the tenth viewing. The incredible script, Angela Lansbury’s Dearest Mommy, the effective use of black & white film for a movie about issues that were anything but black & white–I could go on and on.
I know that most people rave about Ms. Lansbury above all the other cast members, but–for me–Frank Sinatra wins the prize hands down. His disbelief, and then his disillusionment, and then his despair are perfectly portrayed. There were really two Sinatras, the singer AND the great actor.
In watching The Manchurian Candidate again and again, I never cease to be amazed at its prescient theme, the danger of the combination of fanaticism and patriotic fervor. Goldwater’s famous quote comes to mind, “Extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice”. In my opinion, this film just gets better with age.