No Way to Run a Campaign - Update

Today I am updating the entries for my post No Way to Run a Campaign for the days Aug. 24th and Aug. 25th.

Aug. 24th - John Kerry comes out of his media semi-seclusion to appear on Comedy Channel's Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Kerry manages a "Daily" double of both alienating the main stream media by appearing on the Comedy Channel instead of say - NBC, ABC or CBS while at the same time appearing less Presidential than host Jon Stewart. Even the normally "Kerry friendly" Slate rips into the appearance:

Kerry's charisma was less than zero: It was negative. He was a charm vacuum, forced to actually borrow mojo from audience members. He was a dessicated husk, a tin man who really didn't have a heart. His lack of vibrancy, his utter dearth of sex appeal made Al Gore look like Charo. . . .

Aug. 25th - Kerry sends triple amputee Max Cleland to Bush's Texas ranch to demand the President denounce the swift Boat Veteran ads. The event seems staged (and is even reportedly filmed by Michael Moore) and reminds people of a quote from Kerry from back in 1971.

"I called the media. . . . I said, 'If I take some crippled veterans down to the White House and we chain ourselves to the gates, will we get coverage?' 'Oh, yes, we will cover that.' "--John Kerry, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 22, 1971

The "stunt" may have double back-fired when the Bush Campaign presents their own letter which reads in part:

We’re proud of our service in Vietnam. We served honorably in Vietnam and we were deeply hurt and offended by your comments when you came home.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t build your convention and much of your campaign around your service in Vietnam, and then try to say that only those veterans who agree with you have a right to speak up. There is no double standard for our right to free speech. We all earned it.

The letter is signed by by among others - two Congressional Medal of Honor recipients.