What’s with these guys? Does Kerry Inc. really believe that personally attacking individual Cheneys, and now Laura Bush, is a winning strategy? Are they desperate, or merely insensitive?
Today the Kerry campaign attacked Vice President Cheney for getting a flu shot, even though Cheney fits “the government’s definition of those most vulnerable to a looming influenza epidemic as he has a long history of heart disease.”
Earlier today Teresa Heinz (I’m using the name as listed on her recently released tax return, not the name, Teresa Heinz Kerry, she has prefered to use during the campaign) apologized for an extraordinary attack she launched yesterday agains Laura Bush, of all people. In an interview with USA Today published yesterday, Ms. Heinz said:
Well, you know, I don’t know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don’t know that she’s ever had a real job — I mean, since she’s been grown up…. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things. And I’m older, and my validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience is a little bit bigger — because I’m older, and I’ve had different experiences. And it’s not a criticism of her. It’s just, you know, what life is about.
To me, this comment fairly reeks of elitist snobbery. Ms. Heinz’s “validation” seems to me to have come from marrying two men, the first of whom was rich and the second of whom aspires to be powerful.
But as bad as that comment was, I think today’s apology was in some ways even worse:
Laura Bush worked in public schools in Texas from 1968 to 1977, the year she married George W. Bush.
In a statement issued Wednesday, Heinz Kerry said: “I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a school teacher and librarian, and there couldn’t be a more important job than teaching our children. As someone who has been both a full-time mom and full-time in work force, I know we all have valuable experiences that shape who we are. I appreciate and honor Mrs. Bush’s service to the country as first lady and am sincerely sorry I had not remembered her important work in the past.”
Note well the stinger on the tail of this statement, “in the past.” What this state acknowledges is that teaching is, in the terms of her initial criticism, “a real job.” What it does not acknowledge is that staying home and raising children is a choice worthy of Ms. Heinz’s respect.
Daughters, wives, husbands with heart problems … whatever. They’re all “fair game.”
UPDATE
Just a moment ago I saw Kerry “campaign strategist” Hilary Rosen lie (yes, lie) about Heinz’s comment on Chris Matthews’ Hardball. She said Heinz’s comment occurred in the context of being asked about working outside the White House. It didn’t. Look at the entire “context” by reading the question and answer in USA Today linked above.
UPDATE II [21 Oct. 3:25PM]
PowerLine makes the same point.
UPDATE III [21 Oct. 4:30PM]
… as does Beldar, with a twist.
Speaking of Teresa whatshername, I once heard that for her to use the name ‘Kerry’ is illegal, because she is not actually married to John Kerry.
Intereresting. Very interesting. And that fact may go to explain the name on her tax returns.
Look, there’s nothing wrong with her name, and they Kerrys may not have been married in a Catholic Church, but they were married civilly. John Kerry had an actual, factual divorce from his first wife (he may not have had an anullment, which is perhaps why they didn’t get married in a Catholic Church).
When my Ma remarried after my dad died, she didn’t change her last name, which she had used for over 20 years. I don’t think keeping the name of your first husband is weird at all, especially if you’ve got that name plastered over countless accounts and documents. Perhaps Teresa didn’t want to throw away a million dollars hiring lawyers to fix everything with a new name.
What I haven’t heard is what was the the “full time job” that Teresa Heinz claims to have held?
meep – For what it’s worth, my problem with Ms. Heinz’s name, insofar as I have one, is not that she didn’t change her name when she married Kerry. It is that, for political purposes, she pretends that she did.
Maybe she doesn’t consider being a wife or mother a “real job” because she used her husband’s billions to outsource the job to scores of nannies, chefs, butlers, maids and other such staff.
I’m also curious as to what her “real jobs” have been. Does she consider being an heiress so taxing that it counts as a job?
In one respect, this isn’t anything new. I started noticing back in late Spring or early Summer that it seemed to be a tactic of the Kerry campaign to attack the Bush administration on EVERYTHING they do. No matter what it is, or why, attack them for having done it. This was most evident to me when Kedwards criticized Bush for making a campaign stop in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, though he hadn’t made one there in 2000. (“Bush is just pandering this year,” or whatever the specific charge was.) Never mind that Bush was the first presidential candidate to make a stop in Johnstown in three decades. I think the recent “personalization” (so to speak) of attacks has just been an escalation of this tactic.
Teresa made her money the old-fashioned way — on her back, waiting for her rich husband to die!
meep, as I understand it, Kerry was separated from his first wife after twelve years, divorced six years after that, and then got an annulment some years after that.
I for one am very glad that the Bush campaign hasn’t so much as broached the subject, but frankly the annulment process in the US post-Vatican II is horrifying. Kerry had two children by this woman, lived in an officially-married state with her for twelve years, and yet the Church’s position is that this marriage never took place.
Ordinarily the grounds for an annulment involve “immaturity” or the inability to understand what one is consenting to in the marriage ceremony.
Keep something in mind with regards to the Kerrys and Co. : It is not an attack or insult when they attack or insult someone who opposes their beliefs. It is an attack, an insult, when someone attacks or insults their beliefs.
Simply, Liberal double standard.
So Kerry’s first marriage was annulled? Then doesn’t that make his two daughters illegitimate in the eyes of the Church?
Claire, it doesn’t work like that. Children of an annulled marriage are not illegitimate, even though the annullment is a declaration that a valid marriage never took place.
It does seem rather odd and certainly hypocritical that a billionaire heiress would accuse Mrs. Bush of not having a real job. I think in general, Teresa Heinz is a bit of a nut (look at some of the groups she has donated to) who has already stuck her foot quite firmly into her mouth on more than one occasion. It would probably be better for Kerry if she made fewer rather than more public appearances. It is a shame that these sort of arguments and personal insults are detracting from logical debate of the very important issues in this years election. I had hoped that Kerry and Edwards, who have from the beginning attacked Bush for dividing America, could avoid these issues.
So why was Kerry’s first marriage annulled after two children? You’d think they’d have known it wasn’t valid in a few weeks or months. Is he so dense that it took him years to figure it out? Or is this just a rich guy’s recourse – pay off the Church, get an annullment, remarry in the Church, and keep on paying those big tithes? Forgive me for being a cynic, but I just don’t buy it as other than a blatant attempt to have his cake and eat it too…
I for one am very glad that the Bush campaign hasn’t so much as broached the subject, relays manufacturer ut frankly the annulment process in the US post-Vatican II is horrifying. Kerry had two children by this woman, lived in an officially-married state with her for twelve years, and yet the Church’s position is that this marriage never took place.
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