The Note
W A S H I N G T O N, March 24—<br> -- TODAY SCHEDULE (all times ET)
FUTURES CALENDAR
NEWS SUMMARY
Let's take a short break from the Bush-Kerry savage combat over Dick Clarke; 9/11; jobs, numbers that don't add up; numbers that don't add up; a $1 trillion tax gap; a $10 trillion tax gap; disrespecting veterans; bankrupting Medicare; opposing tort reform; opposing prescription drugs; living in a parallel universe; failing to heed warnings; squandering the surplus; sticking it to the middle class; supporting a 50-cent gas tax hike; being in the tank with big oil; blocking the energy bill; and credibility to try to do a bit of a re-set on WHY we are where we are.
Here The Note will take two risks -- the risk of offending people we have covered in past cycles -- and the far, far greater risk of committing what has been considered for at least a decade the ultimate sin in political journalism: appearing to suck up.
We feel quite confident in suggesting that from top to bottom the Bush and Kerry folks are as nice a group of people as you could ever meet in presidential politics (not counting, of course, the attendees of a Kucinich campaign bake sale, or Elizabeth Edwards).
Now, there ARE some exceptions on both sides (and you know who you are).
But for the most part, this pattern both the campaigns have fallen into, where every press release, every speech, every event, and every strategy meeting is about how to destroy the other fella, is the product of an odd juxtaposition where lovely people are trying to decapitate their opponents -- and it is only March.
Think of it as sort of the opposite of what happened during the Cold War, when mutually assured destruction insured that the peace would be kept, with both sides recognizing that the use of even a single nuke would unleash the unthinkable.
Now that the weapons of mass destruction have begun to fly, neither side wants to lose for failing to have launched everything from every silo, ship, and slingshot.
We all can recite in our sleep the reasons proffered for this:
-- the 50-50 nation;
-- Kerry emerging unscathed from the nomination process with good fav/unfavs;
-- the cable-Web driven 24/7 news cycle;
-- Michael Meehan's access to a word processor;
-- the front-loaded Democratic calendar;
-- the fear that if one side lets up for even a day, they will be patsies;
-- the ghosts of Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush;
-- the ghosts of the Little Rock War Room;
-- the need to stoke the base;
-- the (apparent) lack of respect the candidates have for each other;
-- Jim Dyke's access to a word processor;
-- the Rosetta Stone belief of both parties that Negative Works;
-- and the heartfelt belief on both sides that four years of the OTHER guy as president would inflict true long-term damage on America and the world.
It even got to the point last week where the RNC took the President's favorite movie (We aren't kidding: LINK), "Austin Powers," and produced a cutting take on the GOP's "John Kerry: International Man of Mystery" thematic.
And take, for instance, two of the nicer foot soldiers in their respective camps: Terry Holt (the dashing BC04 spokesperson who learned everything he knows about being nice and not nice on Capitol Hill) and Stephanie Cutter (the graceful Kerry spokesperson who learned everything she knows about being nice and not nice on Capitol Hill).
Their loyalty to the men for whom they speak, to their colleagues, and to the causes in which they serve cannot be questioned.
Their kindness to all those people, plus to the lazy, demanding, and ungrateful reporters who ask them a million questions a day, is manifest. (Note to Cutter: we still need an answer to the voice-over question.)
And yet yesterday, before a late-night truce was apparently brokered, Holt and Cutter engaged in a day-long attack-mode back-and-forth over, well, nothing.
Or, more to the point, over SOMETHING, although we aren't quite sure what it was.
Thus the Bush and Kerry campaigns went into full Seinfeld mode yesterday, trading lines inspired from the world's greatest sitcom -- and The Note offers you an exclusive look (and, yes, we egged them on, as sort of a controlled experiment).
Bush campaign spokesperson Terry Holt sent off the first barb with his "yadda, yadda" comments in yesterday's Washington Post and New York Times.
"John Kerry's campaign seems to be summed up this way: I went to Vietnam, yadda, yadda, yadda, I want to be president. He would have the American people ignore his 19-year record in the United States Senate. . . . In the case of John Kerry, the truth hurts."
Insulted that Holt had "yadda, yadda'd" over Kerry's service in the Vietnam, Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter demanded an apology from Holt and fired back, "George Bush's campaign can be summed up this way: 'I lost three million jobs, turned record surpluses into record deficits, denied affordable health care and prescription drug coverage to most Americans, yadda, yadda, yadda, four more years.'"
Then Holt pulled an Elaine: "As I said, I mentioned the bisque."
And then: "Kerry knows how to take a position, he just doesn't know how to hold a position. And that's really the most important part."
Cutter responded, "As much as they hate it, this President's record is what's on trial. Watching George Bush destroy this nation's economy is just as painful as watching Elaine dance. Like Seinfeld, this Administration's record is a show about 'nothing.' Only difference is Seinfeld will have been on the air longer."
Turning to his Costanza handbook, Holt replied, "It's too bad the Kerry campaign can't take a little light-hearted ribbing. I guess over there 'the sea was angry that day, my friend.'"
"OK, from now on, just facts ma'am. Higher taxes, weak on defense, wrong for America. And that's not funny at all."
Don't get us wrong -- we aren't in the business of telling the campaigns how to do things, and we like a sharp elbow as much as Jeff Ruland does.
But it would be lovely if the relative bipartisan comity of yesterday's 9/11 hearing wouldn't come as such a shock (and let down) to the press at a time when America faces a range of challenges at home and abroad.
(Here ends our own parody of a David Broder column closing paragraph, and, yes, this whole lead was constructed because we didn't want the excellent verbal work of the comedy team of Holt and Cutter (a modern-day Shields and Yarnell, if you ask us LINK) to go to waste.)
President Bush speaks at the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony this afternoon, and addresses the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, before attending this evening's Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner, all in Washington.
(The gold medal ceremony will provide one of those rare George W. Bush/Hillary Rodham Clinton photo ops that can be used in the overall Bush-to-Clinton-to-Bush-to-Clinton transition montage Dick Morris dreams of being aired on Jan. 20, 2009.)
Sen. Kerry enjoys his last day of vacation in Ketchum, Idaho before returning to Washington, D.C. this evening -- not in time to make the dinner.
First Lady Laura Bush speaks at a congressional event in Connecticut and an Alzheimer's Association Gala in Washington, D.C.
This afternoon, chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster will testify, along with CBO Director Douglas Hotz-Eakin, at the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the trustees report on Medicare and Social Security solvency. Foster should be particularly interesting, given his contention that his boss, Medicare administrator Thomas Scully, threatened to fire him if he revealed the higher Medicare cost estimates.
9/11 Commission:
White House Chief of Staff Andy Card appeared on nearly all of the morning shows to defend the President's efforts against al Qaeda before and after the Sept. 11 attacks and to try to downplay Dick Clarke's role in the Administration prior to Sept. 11.
"The President from the day he took office was concerned about terrorist attacks on the United States," Card said to ABC's Charlie Gibson and repeated during every other appearance.
He added on "Fox and Friends:" "When we took office, we accepted the plans the previous Administration had and the President said he wanted to make it more robust. He found that they were deficient." "He didn't want a plan that just swatted flies," he continued on "The Today Show." We wanted to produce change. The President has been working hard to defeat terror."
Card had three main lines of attack on Clarke: On "Good Morning America" he said that "Dick Clarke was not in on all the meetings." On CNN, during a taped interview with John King, Card said that "Dick Clarke is a very smart man. He's a little bit of a character . . . But his view is not the reality." And on the "Today Show" (and other places) Card pointed out that "The primary focus he suggested we should pay attention to is cyber-security. The briefing he demanded to have with the president dealt with cyber-security and not with al Qaeda and terrorists attacks."
When asked about the September directive which the White House and National Security Council yesterday admitted had provisions for "military options" against Iraq, Card defended the President's decision and restated the Administration's focus on Iraq as integral to the war on terrorism. "The President was appropriately concerned that Saddam Hussein and his regime -- who were sworn enemies of this country and subject to U.N. sanctions and to no-fly zone restrictions -- would take advantage of the Taliban regime and use that to attack the United States… He was preparing for all circumstances. But the primary concern that the President had post-9/11 was eliminating the Taliban regime so they could not be a safe harbor for the al Qaeda network."
Related Stories
ABC News Live