2004 - The Year In Review I
2004 has been a busy year on many fronts. Probably the biggest story this year was the extremely bitter and vitriolic Presidential Election in which we mourned the death of civil poilitical discourse in the US. The campaign started early this year with a record-setting nine Democratic contenders - all trying to unseat the current sitting president, George W. Bush.
The hate started in January when the left-wing organization MoveOn.Org hosted their "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest where they sought campaign commercials made by their constituents. The judges of this contest included such unbiased and mentally stable persons as Jeneane Garofolo and Michael Moore. As a result, there was little real surprise when two of the semi-finalist entries compared President Bush to Adolf Hitler. MoveOn pulled the entries when it became apparent - even amongst all but the fringe element of the Democratic Party - that such comparisons were wrong and, quite frankly, in very poor taste.
February soon rolled around and brought us the Iowa Primaries. Howard Dean, the presumptive Democratic pack leader and the man who effectively mobilized the MoveOn.Org grassroots campaign fundraising efforts, fell flat on his face as voters overwhelmingly selected Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry to be their candidate. This event led to the famous "Dean Scream" that echoed through the MSM and the Blogosphere. As other states held their primaries, it became increasingly clear that Kerry would be the candidate the Democratic Party would throw against President Bush.
With the selection of Kerry as the Democratic nominee, the campaign started to go into full swing. So did the mud-slinging. Cries of "Bush is a moron/Nazi/puppet/evil genius/etc." and "Kerry is a gold-digger/communist/puppet/etc." came from both sides. Obvious and not-so-obvious attempts at electioneering by third parties also became prevalent. The most obvious being the infamous CBS documents meant to "prove" George Bush was AWOL from his National Guard service that were proven to be horribly perpetrated forgeries, and the attempts from the British left-wing newspaper The Guardian doing a mail campaign designed to affect voters in Clark County, Ohio. The not-so-obvious attempts included Hungarian billionaire George Soros donating literally tens of millions of dollars to various anti-Bush causes, such as MoveOn.Org and Air America Radio.
Another organization of note was the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - a group of Vietnam Vets - consisting of members of all political persuasions - who served in the same capacity that John Kerry served in Vietnam. Their stated goal was to expose what they called falsehoods in John Kerry's Winter Soldier Testimony in which he painted American soldiers as uncontrolled psychopaths who rampantly engaged in war crimes - crimes that John Kerry himself admitted to performing. Rather than dispute the allegations of the SBVTs, John Kerry tried to sue them into silence. When that failed, Kerry turned his lawyers on the media outlets who gave the SBVTs any exposure.
The hostile tone of the election carried on - intensified, even - up until the very last votes were counted in Ohio, when it became clear that the winner of the election was George Bush. Learning from the mistakes of former Vice President Al Gore, Kerry conceded the election when it became obvious that a legal challenge would be futile. There were some who still held out hope that Kerry would pull out a last-minute victory. The most notable of these were the constituents of MoveOn.Org and from the online forum Democratic Underground.
The hate started in January when the left-wing organization MoveOn.Org hosted their "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest where they sought campaign commercials made by their constituents. The judges of this contest included such unbiased and mentally stable persons as Jeneane Garofolo and Michael Moore. As a result, there was little real surprise when two of the semi-finalist entries compared President Bush to Adolf Hitler. MoveOn pulled the entries when it became apparent - even amongst all but the fringe element of the Democratic Party - that such comparisons were wrong and, quite frankly, in very poor taste.
February soon rolled around and brought us the Iowa Primaries. Howard Dean, the presumptive Democratic pack leader and the man who effectively mobilized the MoveOn.Org grassroots campaign fundraising efforts, fell flat on his face as voters overwhelmingly selected Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry to be their candidate. This event led to the famous "Dean Scream" that echoed through the MSM and the Blogosphere. As other states held their primaries, it became increasingly clear that Kerry would be the candidate the Democratic Party would throw against President Bush.
With the selection of Kerry as the Democratic nominee, the campaign started to go into full swing. So did the mud-slinging. Cries of "Bush is a moron/Nazi/puppet/evil genius/etc." and "Kerry is a gold-digger/communist/puppet/etc." came from both sides. Obvious and not-so-obvious attempts at electioneering by third parties also became prevalent. The most obvious being the infamous CBS documents meant to "prove" George Bush was AWOL from his National Guard service that were proven to be horribly perpetrated forgeries, and the attempts from the British left-wing newspaper The Guardian doing a mail campaign designed to affect voters in Clark County, Ohio. The not-so-obvious attempts included Hungarian billionaire George Soros donating literally tens of millions of dollars to various anti-Bush causes, such as MoveOn.Org and Air America Radio.
Another organization of note was the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - a group of Vietnam Vets - consisting of members of all political persuasions - who served in the same capacity that John Kerry served in Vietnam. Their stated goal was to expose what they called falsehoods in John Kerry's Winter Soldier Testimony in which he painted American soldiers as uncontrolled psychopaths who rampantly engaged in war crimes - crimes that John Kerry himself admitted to performing. Rather than dispute the allegations of the SBVTs, John Kerry tried to sue them into silence. When that failed, Kerry turned his lawyers on the media outlets who gave the SBVTs any exposure.
The hostile tone of the election carried on - intensified, even - up until the very last votes were counted in Ohio, when it became clear that the winner of the election was George Bush. Learning from the mistakes of former Vice President Al Gore, Kerry conceded the election when it became obvious that a legal challenge would be futile. There were some who still held out hope that Kerry would pull out a last-minute victory. The most notable of these were the constituents of MoveOn.Org and from the online forum Democratic Underground.
posted by Vic at 9:58 AM
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