We Don’t Attack Opponents in Personal Ways

“We’re running a very positive and affirmative campaign,” said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Indeed, Sen. Kerry, D-Mass., renounces nastiness: “We have not stood up,” he said, “and attacked our opponents in personal ways.” Really?

Let’s go to the videotape.

“Week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie.” — Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., on how the president deceived the American people into supporting an invasion of Iraq.

Her party must defeat the “extraordinarily ruthless machine” run by Republicans. — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., at a Democratic fund-raiser. “Ruthless”?

“Let me tell you a secret. Whenever he is in the presence of a wealthy contributor, he is a moral coward, unwilling to stand up and say no, no matter what public interest is at stake. He will not choose the public interest over the private interests of a wealthy and powerful contributor.” — Former Vice President Al Gore, at the state Democratic convention in Tacoma, Wash.

“Let me tell you, we’ve just begun to fight. We’re going to keep pounding. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I’ve ever seen.” — Sen. Kerry following a speech on economic policy in Chicago, apparently unaware of the nearby open mike. “I have no intention whatsoever to apologize for my remarks,” the senator said the next day.

“Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he’s not a leader. He’s a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.” — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side. They’ve written a new constitution for Iraq and ignore the Constitution here at home. They draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics. Now they want to write bigotry back into the Constitution.” — NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, charmingly comparing Republicans to the terrorist Taliban who once ruled Afghanistan, to a cheering audience of liberal activists at the Take Back America conference in Washington, D.C.

“Beginning very soon after the attacks of 9/11, President Bush made a decision to start mentioning Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the same breath in a cynical mantra designed to fuse them together as one in the public’s mind. Indeed, Bush’s consistent and careful artifice is itself evidence that he knew full well that he was telling an artful and important lie — visibly circumnavigating the truth over and over again as if he had practiced how to avoid encountering the truth. . . . President Bush is now intentionally misleading the American people by continuing to aggressively and brazenly assert a linkage between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.” — Former Vice President Al Gore, citing the 9/11 commission report as proof of Bush’s “lies.”

“We should keep Bush where he belongs,” gesturing downward to her genitalia, “and not in the White House.” — Whoopi Goldberg, at a recent star-studded Democratic Party fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall, embarrassing some in her audience with a risque double-entendre.

“He’s just another cheap thug that sacrifices our young. . . . You’re going to get us killed with your little white lies.” — John Mellencamp sang, at the same Radio City fund-raiser, in a song called “Texas Bandido.” (About the Bush-denouncing stars, Kerry said that every performer “conveyed the heart and soul of America.”)

“When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ it reminds me of the Germans. . . . My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me.” — Billionaire George Soros, supporter of the MoveOn organization, to The Washington Post, stating that the White House was under a “supremacist ideology.” MoveOn.org later posted an ad morphing President Bush into Adolf Hitler.

“I think the president wanted to be a wartime president. I don’t think he wanted to go to war, but I think he wanted to be a wartime president. He saw this as something we had to do. Afghanistan was fine and that was important . . . but Iraq is what he wanted, and that’s what he got.” — Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., on “Meet the Press” last week, responding to a question from Tim Russert as to how the president became so “emphatic and convinced” about the intelligence information on Iraq.

Isn’t this getting a little old? The president is a liar; intentionally misled; conducts foreign policy to enrich his oil buddies; conducts foreign policy to enrich his buddies tied to the defense industry; and, irrespective of how well the economy continues to perform, the president stands accused of “the worst economic performance since Herbert Hoover.”

Sure sounds to me like a “very positive and affirmative campaign.”