John Kerry continues to pass up serious interviews with the news networks and continues to appear only on entertainment programs like David Letterman and Live with Regis and Kelly.
Since his goal is to appear more human and less robotic, he has given himself over to telling jokes, including a few that belittle President Bush's intelligence.
On Regis and Kelly, he joked that Bush needed a "lifeline" to call on for answers during the debate. I saw a clip from Letterman last night where he quipped that Bush would be sitting in Cheney's lap during the debates, suggesting that he was just a dummy being manipulated by Cheney.
While these comments are certainly funny, I don't think they reflect well on John Kerry at all. It is still possible to make fun of President Bush's policies without jumping on his supposedly weak intellect. However he got in, he did manage to fly jet aircraft and graduate from Yale and Harvard Business School.
A good example of such a joke was Gary Shandling at the Emmys suggesting that he hadn't prepared any jokes about Iraq because he "thought it would be over by now". Regardless of the fact that I don't think Bush ever said this would be a short conflict or that the timeline for establishing a temporary government and elections was obviously long-term, this is totally critical of the President without resorting to an ad hominem attack.
By the way, Kerry's "Top 10" list, linked to above seemed fairer because there were some digs at both Bush and himself - although I'm sure he didn't write them.
1 comment:
Just because you're not paying attention, doesn't mean they aren't happening. Senator Kerry was interviewed recently in Business Week, and by ABC News' Peter Jennings and Larry King. He also had an editorial in the 9/15 WSJ regarding his economic policy. There are others, I'm sure.
IMO, a Bush supporter would have to be out of his frickin' mind to get into a 'serious journalism interviews' contest regarding Kerry.
Since you brought it up, my all-time favorite article from last year was "Prez in Topless Tabloid" from the Washington Post. Here's the scenario:
Bush grants a softball interview to the UK Sun, which routinely publishes pix of topless women, and snubs pretty much every major news organization in the United States who didn't promise not to ask him the hard questions. After announcing the interview, the White House Press Corps eats a hapless Scott McLellan alive. In fact, judging by what else the article revealed, our Fearless Leader has refused to be interviewed by anyone who isn't a GOP muppet. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A43228-2003Nov14¬Found=true
Kerry needs to lighten his image and reach a younger, disaffected base of voters. With the exception of SNL, the Daily Show and Letterman are the best ways to do that. Perhaps he'll even make the audiences wonder if it wouldn't be nice to have an intelligent President again. One who's actually capable of handling unscripted interviews without crib notes, I mean.
:-)
J
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