Things that make you go "hmmmmm"

[sinanju]

I was driving home from the mall today after getting a haircut (and I look damn good, if I say so myself). While stopped at a traffic light, I noticed a coffee shop across the street. There was a big sign under the name of the place. It read:

BUSH SUNDAY

Join us and have 10% of your bill donated to the Democratic Presidential candidate

At first, seeing only the first two words, I thought the shop owner was a Bush supporter. Only after reading the smaller type below did I realize that he intended to contribute to the Democratic candidate. No mention of Kerry. Just Bush's name in big bold letters. And that's when it hit me.

All they have is Bush-hatred. It isn't about supporting Kerry. Kerry is fungible. He's a commodity, a generic politician whose sole redeeming feature (and the only one that appears to matter) is that He's Not Bush (tm). It's all about the demon Bush. I've said before that the visceral and blinding hatred for Bush I see on the left is a mirror image of the tinfoil hat-wearing Clinton-haters of years past, and it's truer than ever.

And it's only April. It's going to be a long, long campaign season.

P.S. Even as I composed this post, I saw my first Kerry tv campaign ad*. It included a shot of Kerry saying, "I'm John Kerry and I approved this message." Which looks and sounds suspiciously like a rip-off homage to Bush's recent ad blitz. Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe that's just the latest Madison Avenue fad, an alternative to having the candidate mutter "Paid for by Bush/Kerry/Whoever for President Committee" at the end of the spot. Even so, it looks and feels like Kerry leaning toward the next desk to look at George's answers on the pop quiz. Derivative. Imitative. And imitation, as they say, is the sincerest form of flattery.

*Oops. Maybe not. I remember seeing other ads blasting Bush, but this is the first one I remember which featured Kerry himself, and definitely the first one with the "I approved this message" tagline.

Comments

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

The "I approve this message" is the McCain-Feingold Act equivalent of the Miranda rights reading. Expect to hear it a lot until and unless the Supreme Court has an attack of clue about the whole thing.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

Okay. So "paid for by X for President committee" isn't sufficient anymore? I guess not, now that I think about it, since the First Amendment doesn't apply to third-party endorsements anymore.