We're governed by idiots, who want to treat us like idiots. The Republicans, undeniably idiots, try to smear John Kerry's service to the country and his right to protest the foolish Vietnam war, by lumping him in with Jane Fonda and dredging up the old animus against her.
They spoke at the same rally in 1970 (or sometime a long time ago.) They're in the same picture. Big hairy deal. It's incredible the way we mince up history and reinterpret history based on the fanaticism and craziness of the moment. A war that was about universally condemned a few years ago, Vietnam, is now undergoing the Bush 'revisionist history' treatment and to have protested it is now as 'unpatriotic' as it is to question Bush's criminal actions in Iraq.
Anyway, if we truly are such idiots that the Bush administration can sell-out America and get away with it, then we probably deserve exactly what we get.
I like the quotes from
CNN that Jane Fonda gave, to which I give resounding agreement:
Fonda also dismissed attempts to link Kerry to her controversial antiwar past with the photograph as "a dirty black propaganda tactic."
"My reaction is that the American people have had it with the big lie," she told CNN Wednesday. "Any attempts to link Kerry to me and make him look bad with that connection is completely false. We were at a rally for veterans at the same time. I spoke, Donald Sutherland spoke, John Kerry spoke at the end. I don't even think we shook hands.
"I'm tired of the government lying. I'm tired of people desperately pulling out anything that they can do to hurt another candidate, and I think that the American people feel that way, too," she said. "It's a bunch of hogwash."
Honest, red-blooded Americans, true patriots with some sense of our American heritage ought to be sick and tired of the government lying. We need truth. Democracy needs truth, not the kind of hogwash that is passing for government today. For the good of our country, if there's anything about America that patriots love, the current regime of crooks and scoundrels must go.
I like the campaign remark Pat Buchanan was making in 1999 of what he'd say to Bill Clinton upon his (Buchanan's) inauguration. I think it'd be a good thing for Kerry to keep in mind, something to say as he turns to greet former President George W. Bush: "Sir, you have the right to remain silent."