Toot toot

Seeing no one else stepping in to handle this job, the Dash brothers will now toot their own horn. Our political coverage, from Iowa to the Dem's v.p. hunt, has been close to unerring, and generally better than you'd get from any one media parrothead.

Still, we aren't the best of bloggers, in that we don't post everyday (we have LIVES, people! For instance, there are so many Star Trek episodes to watch for the fifteenth time!) and we don't do a lot of links.

So we'll try to do a little better on the links, but since the whole point of the blog is for us to shoot our mouths off, separately and together, that's what we'll continue doing.

Apropos of politics, the Iraq scandals continue to grow. Under heavy cross-examination fire in Congress, CIA director Tenet admitted that he had to warn Bush and Cheney that they were exaggerating intelligence judgments on Iraq's supposed WMDs and connection with al Queda. Now there's a report from inside the Pentagon that a lot of this stuff was manufactured there. It appears in salon, in their new alliance with move on.org: right here. (See? That's a link.) Halliburton continues to make news, all of it bad for the Bushies. The latest involves over-estimating and overcharges on some sweetheart Iraq deals. (You can look that up yourself. There's a limit to how much work we'll do for you.)


The narrative: So far this campaign season, the media is following the story called "Kerry attacks." It's dramatic, and it's new, since Bush has had the media in his pocket for three years plus. Now Bush is vulnerable and the media is famously shark-like, heading for any blood in the water and when not going for the kill (which might be too dangerous for our chickenhearted media)hovering there like chatty, sing-song grinning, heavily made-up vultures.

Kerry has been very skillful in keeping control of the story, but sooner or later he's going to hit a slack period. Then the media will look for another story, a reversal if possible, like "Bush fights back." The longer the Kerry-driven story goes on, the lower the bar the media will set to begin reversing it: the capture or killing of bin Laden would certainly do it, but so would something a lot smaller, like a modest uptick in job growth.

That's when the Kerry people have to be ready with Act III, not just Kerry Counter-attacks but "Kerry inspires." Ideally this would happen in the last weeks before the election, but it will need to begin at the Dem convention in July. Kerry will need to begin laying out a positive vision (which he does to campaign audiences, but those aren't the soundbites.) The convention will mainly be his best opportunity to project a lasting image of himself. That's when viewers/voters want to know, who is this guy? And his wife and family. He'll need to project honestly, but he can: he's a guy with dimensions, with a solid family life, he's athletic, etc. plus he has the personal authority to be a leader in tough times.

So that's the campaign as we see it: so far Kerry has successfully fought off the Bushies' attempts to define him, but they'll only just begun. He's been pretty impressive about remaining on attack, and he's clearly fearless. So the next months will be that game, and when or if the story switches from Kerry's to Bush's. Then the Dem convention is crucial to establishing Kerry as a man, a human being, voters can be comfortable with and above all (this time), have confidence in. Then at some point, especially if Kerry is still ahead in the polls, he concentrates on inspiring people to vote for him, rather than against Bush.

While we're blathering, a word about the status of the v.p. hunt. So far it's playing as we said it might. Kerry, having been stung by the very public Gore v.p. hunt in which he was mentioned and ultimately rejected, is keeping the process quiet and orderly. But as it goes on, support for John Edwards grows. The longer the process goes on, the more difficult it will be for Kerry to choose anyone other than Edwards.

No credible new names have surfaced, except John McCain, which is pretty interesting, however unlikely. We still like Gephardt, but with Kerry so effective on the attack, the need for a v.p. to do the dirty work diminishes, and Edwards as Mr. Sunshine makes more sense. The two are appearing together today or tomorrow, so let's see how that looks.