by Klaus Rohrich
September 6, 2004
Last week's presidential "debates" brought out an interesting contrast between the two candidates. Bush and Kerry are like a turkey and a peacock, respectively. Both are birds, but that's where the comparison ends.
Like Bush, the turkey is often considered stupid and is underestimated by many. In the wild this bird is extremely intelligent and vigilant, displaying an uncanny ability to elude predators and enemies. The turkey's survival skills have been honed so finely, that some naturalists have observed a symbiotic relationship with other animals. For instance, the turkey has a tremendous sense of sight and can differentiate colours, but has almost no sense of smell. Deer, on the other hand are practically blind, yet can smell enemies from hundreds of yards away. Subsequently turkeys often stay in close proximity to deer, as both benefit.
George Bush is very much the turkey in his ability to sense danger from afar. He is also often referred to in derisive terms for being, well, a turkey. But his grasp of the realities of today's world seems a lot more grounded that that of the peacock Kerry.
The peacock, a favourite bird of the French aristocracy, is very beautiful and majestic and loves to strut about preening itself and puffing itself up to be noticed by the opposite sex. Peacocks, although stunningly beautiful, are not terribly bright and are weak flyers, capable only of flying for short distances. Most of the peacock's day is spent scratching about looking for plants and small animals to eat. Now doesn't that perfectly describe John Kerry?
Kerry, too is urbane and attractive and has been known to strut about in search of heiresses. He doesn't appear to be a strong flyer, as he seems to unable to pursue one train of thought too far before pursuing another.
It's interesting to note the orgasmic response that people like CNN's aaron Brown and Jeff Greenfield, along with the rest of the liberal media have had to the debates, immediately rushing to award the debate to Kerry and citing newly commissioned polls that prove the turkey, Bush is now beginning to lag behind the peacock. This despite all the inconsistencies inherent in Kerry's debate performance.
It has been said that for liberals there is no past. There is only now. and so it appears with Kerry's "debating" tactics. On the one hand, Kerry was lamenting the fact that poor young american soldiers had to face the dangers of the Iraq insurgency without body armour. However, he also failed to mention to the nation that he, Kerry, was among the senators that voted against the $87 billion bill that would have equipped those soldiers with that body armour. He, of course, also failed to mention that he "voted for it before [he] voted against it."
Kerry kept talking about Iraq being the "wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place", insisting that america's beef was with Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization and not with Saddam. Within two days of each other Kerry said that had he known then what he knows now, he would still have voted in favour of the war in Iraq, and then he said that if he knew then what he knows now, he would not have voted in favour of the war in Iraq. Doesn't it strike people as odd that no one is calling Kerry on these inconsistencies?
In addition to the above, Kerry also managed to say that he would have done exactly the same thing as Bush has done, only he would have done it better and cheaper. I'd love to know the nuts and bolts of that plan. What's hard to understand is why the pundits let him get away with it. True, Bush could and should have nailed him to the wall several times, but somehow he passed up the opportunity.
Small wonder that in a post-debate poll in France 90 percent of Frenchmen polled said they would vote for Kerry if they could vote in the american elections.
In some respects, I think the debate clarified the polarization that has taken place in the U.S. over the past four years. There appear to be two distinct camps among americans. One that is concerned with style and one that is concerned with substance. Those concerned with style do not appear to care what their candidate says, so long as he looks good saying it.
Yes, Kerry outperformed Bush in the strutting department. But he still managed to prove that he was totally bereft of a core belief or an original idea.