-Faith
OK. I'm from Pennsylvania and I'm a little bitter, so you're just going to have to excuse this post as the long repressed result of my ire. Because I have spent practically every evening for the last nine months writing about what John Kerry has done for this country and for Massachusetts, sometimes barely able to keep up with the legislation and the speeches and the hearings, and now a bunch of obstructionist, warmongering, Bush-enabling, knuckle-dragging jerks are claiming he's not doing enough?
Screw you, NRSC and your weak-kneed, loser candidates.
Who has kept us in Iraq, despite the legislation Senator Kerry introduced to get us out? Who has racked up massive debt, squandered our hard-earned taxpayer dollars, lied us into a trillion dollar war that has cost thousands of lives, and practically destroyed the good name of the United States of America while letting the people who attacked us escape? Who is responsible for $3.30 gasoline, the loss of our good jobs to outsourcing and the fact that many of us still don't have health care?
Who obstructed more Senate business last year in half the time of any previous Congress?
Well, I'll give you a hint, it wasn't John Kerry. So if you want to talk about what he hasn't done, fine. Because he hasn't done any of that. What he has done is this. Go ahead, look at it. Anything there look good to you? How about getting out of Iraq responsibly, or help for small business, or veterans care, or 'kids first'? There are hundreds of good pieces of legislation listed, and if any of it didn't get passed, go find a Republican and ask him why.
Listen, I just finished my taxes, and this is not a good day to mess with me. I'm sick of watching good legislation die because some idiot Republican in Congress thinks it's more important to suck up to George Bush than to help the American people. Don't like the bill? Well, just say so, but don't lie and say the Democrats -- especially John Kerry -- haven't done anything. Because I've written about 300 posts here in the past nine months that say otherwise.
OK, I'm done. For now. But you can bet I'll write a post about every bill, every amendment this sorry lot of Republican reprobates has blocked if they keep this up. I'm sick of politicians who think Americans are so stupid we can't see for ourselves who is acting in our best interest. We've been bamboozled by Republican dirty tricks one too many times, and, to borrow a phrase from the liar in chief, we won't get fooled again.
Senator Kerry's internet director explained this all in a bit calmer fashion in his post at BlueMassGroup, so I'm just going to re-post it here and you can see what all the fuss is about. Sorry I couldn't give this a better intro, BriVT, but despite what you might be hearing from Hillary, we Pennsylvanians are a little angry these days.
Re-posted from BlueMassGroup
The National GOP Attack On Kerry
by: BriVT
Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 18:07:51 PM EDT
(Facts are such stubborn things! - promoted by David)
{disclaimer: I'm John Kerry's Internet Director}
It's always fun when the GOP attacks these days. What with gas pushing $4 a gallon, their nominee calling for 100 years in Iraq (or a thousand, make it a million!), and our economy rampaging toward recession, it's kind of tough to run on the issues. And when you have a bench as bare of credible candidates as MA ... whaddya gonna do?
Lie. Avoid the issues. And put a picture of Britney Spears on it.
The gruesome details (with bad pop culture references) below ...
As much as it pains me to do this to you, I must give you those gruesome details by embedding this YouTube from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC):
John Kerry has authored and shepherded a number of bills into law. In fact, Knowlegis named Kerry the 12th most powerful Senator because of his effective advocacy for Massachusetts and progressive issues.
Here's a blog post with a sampling of some of them. Short version: help for veterans. Fairness for our fisheries industry. Ethics reform. And more.
As my friend (and fellow JK staffer) David Wade said:
NRSC must stand for 'nobody really shows competence.' When people get their facts this wrong they usually lose on the first round of 'Are You Smarter Than a 5th grader.' In just the last two years, John Kerry has written and passed legislation that denied congressional pensions to corrupt members of Congress like Duke Cunningham, passed legislation to establish eye injury centers for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, secured $13 million in disaster assistance for Massachusetts fishermen, and put the Senate on record condemning Burma's military junta.
OK, attacks are part of politics. But, note to NRSC, when you attack, can you please just get the basic modicum of facts right? I mean, really. If you are going to come in to Massachusetts from your GOP DC offices and attack our legislators, I, for one, would really appreciate it if you wouldn't be so obvious and bald with your lies.
If I can get "meta" for a second, the NRSC is mostly just trying to raise money for itself. It's far, FAR behind the DSCC in fundraising, and their entire online fundraising haul amounts to a rounding error in a day of Barack Obama's online fundraising. So they're trying to juice it any way they can. I'd feel pity, if they had the basic sense to keep their attacks in the realm of reality.
But, the question is, what are our esteemed Republican Senatorial candidates going to do about it? Are they going to allow the NRSC to destroy (well ... further destroy) the GOP's name in Massachusetts in order to fundraise for themselves? Or are Scott, Beatty, and Ogonowski going to move past lying politics and distance themselves from it?
With the ideology and policies of the GOP so thoroughly discredited, I'm sure it seems easier to run on gimmicks like these, but as much as I'm making fun of them here, this is serious. The decisions and work Senators do can make a real difference in people's lives. It can be the difference between health care for children, or those children going without. It can make the difference between a veteran getting support they need when they get home, or having to go it alone. It can make the difference between a future with new energy sources and a cleaner environment, or one with a warming planet and environmental catastrophes.
As much as the NRSC would like us to think otherwise, politics matters. Results matter. And lies just don't cut it.
