When John Kerry got swiftboated, he just sat back and took it. I wondered if he was doing some politician kung fu or some Gandhi-esque passive resistance.
Now I see that he is just a gutless swine.
By now, everyone has seen the “Gainesville Taser” incident. (coverage here) The way the police acted, I’m surprised that they didn’t drag the student off to a re-education camp. This kind of thing happens way too often, but this time they got caught.
The debate over the officers’ actions will rage for weeks, and my mind is already made up after watching the complete video multiple times. But, there is another subject worthy of debate here — Kerry’s complete mental paralysis.
Compare and contrast these videos.
Here’s Kerry… note how he just mumbles on in his “I can drone better than Ben Stein” as the student is dragged from the microphone and tortured.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE76LQwT6qA&]
If that U.S. Senator had said “hey, leave him alone!”, what do you think those lowlives with badges would have done. You’re damn right they would have left him alone. It certainly would have de-escalated the situation. At the very least, Kerry would have seemed to have taken a position on it — not his mealy mouthed statement issued after the fact.
If you think that the Right Wing is always wrong on censorship issues (which it usually is), compare Kerry’s gutless paralysis to this video of how Rumsfeld handled a similar incident. Let me remind you that the assembly with Rummy was supposed to be “certified dissent free.”
Just how bad do you have to be to make Donald Rumsfeld look like a First Amendment hero?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1FTmuhynaw]
Of course, this is no apology for the sleazeballs with the badges. Their actions were entirely uncalled for, and they turned what might have been a slight minor disturbance into a major incident. If this had been done to an “enemy combatant,” by US Soldiers, the media would have been all over them – but this wasn’t combat, this wasn’t war, this was an American citizen speaking on an issue of political importance to a standing U.S. Senator.
I stick up for the police way more often than my writing might suggest, but on this one, these officers lack the maturity and judgment to carry a badge, let alone tazers and guns.
