What kind of a "First Lady" is this????

[MrRepublican]

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Teresa Heinz Kerry, the outspoken wife of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites), pulled no punches on Monday in telling a rally what she thought of the Bush administration -- hell.

........

When a Bush supporter with a bullhorn shouted "four more years" from the back of a large crowd packed into a downtown Milwaukee park, Heinz Kerry, who was introducing her husband, responded: "They want four more years of hell."

........

Last week at the Democratic Convention in Boston, where Kerry formally accepted his party's nomination as Bush's opponent, Heinz Kerry briefly caused a stir when she told a reporter to "shove it."

[Britbrat]

Sounds like she says what she thinks -- can't be a politician!

[Festus]

I might could deal with Kerry (even though my vote is going to be for Bush)...but his wife scares me even more than Hillary. Mrs. Kerry is nothing more than a spoiled rich bitch that thinks her money allows her to say and do whatever she wishes. Yes, she has that freedom here in the US...as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights. I'm thinking she doesn't worry about that concept.

I'm curious to see if Laura Bush has much, if anything, to say during the Republican convention or other moments when she would have the opportunity to speak. I'm thinking she has more dignity in her little finger than Mrs. Kerry has altogether. IMO, Laura Bush is a fine example of a 'first lady'.

All of this aside, it really doesn't matter a whole lot who the Hell is President as the Congress is the real 'boss' of this country. The President does get to make some 'power-play' calls...but Congress gets to approve/veto the vast majority of them.

[Aerobatic69]

Sounds like she's her own person, and will stand up
for what she's believes. Tells it like she sees it.
Fiesty, strong, prolly make a great First Lady.

[stetto]

Complete lack of dignity, grace, and respect for her own and her husband's position--In other words a perfect role model for the left...

[Cablemender]

And if your definition of "is" is is, then she DID say "anti-American" in her speechthat the "shove it" reporter asked her about. However, if your definition of "is" is merely is, then she didn't say what was on the tape.

Apparently their campaign has diverted some Botox funds for her vocal chords.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

How dare a reporter insist on on asking questions about what she said, the peasant.

But I think over all, I don't worry too much about her, she doesn't have political ambition of her own, seems she is tagging along for the ride. The sound bite machine loves to hear her speak and I bet there are more than one in the DNC that cringe when she does.

I'm surprised we havent heard more about the latest Bushism.

[RetNavySuppo]

Eric-K,

Do you mean this latest one?

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."—Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

Sounds like a Freudian slip to me.

(Freudian slip - a mistake made in speaking by which, it is thought, the speaker inadvertently reveals unconscious motives, desires, etc. - Webster's New World Dictionary)

I find it very revealing that some of you spare no effort to criticize Teresa Heinz Kerry's language when she is totally fluent (as in getting her point across clearly, whatever that point may be) in 5 or 6 languages. Yet you see nothing wrong with a President who cannot even properly articulate his position in just ONE language.

I can't remember a single President that has slaughtered the English language to such a degree that it has spawned a cottage industry dedicated to the cataloging of these endless misstatements.

[stetto]

RetNav, name a President that didn't have an otherwise unimportant flaw or idiosyncracy that wasn't pounced upon by those who would ridicule, perhaps out of frustration over lack of something more substantial? Ford fell down a couple times, but he was stereotyped as ALWAYS falling down, Nixon's nose, Johnson with everybody's pecker in his pocket, Reagan and "Mommy", Clinton and the entire female intern pool...With Kerry it may be the large numbers of faces mounted on his head. If you were there for Hoover, Wilson, the Roosevelts, etc. you'd find more.

My mother used to tell me that people use ridicule to minimize their own flaws and shortcomings, especially those who revel in it the loudest.

Please stick to what you're good at, finding and submitting the REAL stuff, leave the ridicule to that other member who seems obsessed with Bush's diction & delivery....

[Cablemender]

Bush doesn't deny them right after he says them on tape, while Mrs. Kerry did regarding her anti-American remark. That's a far cry from poor public speaking ability.

[Galvin]

Every First Lady that has emerged as her own person and has not been content to bask in her husband's shadow has been attacked and excoriated by those who believe such women should "know their place". Eleanor Roosevelt was probably the best example of this until Hillary Clinton came on the scene.

Interesting that any woman who speaks her mind forcefully is deemed a "bitch". As to the reporter who was told to "shove it", try reading things in context before you start beating your tin drum about bitchy women. The guy is the employee of a virulently anti-Kerry ultra right-wing rag and has made it his mission in life to be a regal pain in the ass to the Kerrys. She has obviously tired of dealing with him.

I happen to like strong women and am not afraid of them, unlike many people I know.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Heheh, yeah strong women probably scare me, but I have to check with my wife on that before I commit to it. ;D

I heard that statement from Bush and knew he had just gave the absolute proof to all the tin foil hat crowd and conspiratists out there. "look! he admits it" It is already automatically accepted as a Fruedian slip among the modest critics it seems.

I won't comment on the fluency of Mrs Kerry, I have seen her speak enough to make up my own mind about it, but I am glad the President keeps you guys busy with his speaking ability, I would hate for you guys to be bored and ride me about my typing. ;D

[stetto]

From the horse's mouth...

[glow=red,2,300][shadow=red,left,300]KILLING THE QUESTIONER[/shadow][/glow]


By Colin McNickle
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, August 1, 2004


A week ago tonight, I asked Teresa Heinz Kerry a simple question here: "What did you mean?" And a wicked firestorm was sparked. Incredibly, most of it was directed against me.
Moments earlier, Mrs. Heinz Kerry had talked of "un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits" that supposedly have crept into our political discourse. Her talk before the Pennsylvania delegation was, in part, a plea for a return to civility.

She was not specific. As any journalist would, or should, I sought an example. Instead, I got a finger in the face and was told to "shove it." I have been told worse things by more important people.

By week's end, I and/or the exchange had been immortalized in some hilarious editorial page cartoons and become a part of David Letterman's "Top 10." But liberals also did their best to demonize not only me but the Trib. "Right-wing rag" became the pejorative du jour, vomited repeatedly by liberal media elitists.

Heinz Kerry said I attempted to "trap" her. To defend her intemperance, she publicly impugned my personal and professional integrity. On national television the woman who herself raised the specter of McCarthyism with her unexplained remarks insinuated I was engaging in the same tactic.

Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry called his wife's actions appropriate.

Entertainer Patti Labelle told the Boston Herald that Heinz Kerry "should've pimp-slapped" me. Molly Ivins either repeated or created the myth that I had grabbed the possible future first lady. I didn't touch her.

Bombastic, fact-challenged liberal filmmaker Michael Moore supposedly called me "rude." A friend told me that Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, a leftist journal, said the exchange was the result of a long-running personal feud between Heinz Kerry and myself. That's absurd, patently; I don't run in those circles.

Longtime liberal national political columnist Jack Germond -- now retired and a convention "guest" who was shilling for his new book -- told CNN's Judy Woodruff that I was "not a legitimate newspaperman."

Ms. Woodruff allowed the slander to pass without challenge. Mr. Germond's wife, Alice, is secretary for the Democratic National Committee, noted a profile published before the incident in Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine.

I report, you decide.

Shove it, (expletive)!" one fellow told me as I walked down a Boston street. "You're the (expletive) who called Mrs. Kerry 'un-American,' " a girl told me in Boston Common.

And once the DNC's liberal attack machine was fully cranked, the e-mails and telephone calls started.

"I hope you burn in hell," read one e-mail. "You're a (expletive) Nazi," went another. "Teresa should have told you to go (expletive) yourself," another friendly e-mailer offered. And these were among the milder communiques; those that included death threats will be forwarded to the senders' respective hometown police departments.

One of my daughters back in Pittsburgh was brought to tears by a caller to our house. The clever woman identified herself as a Washington reporter seeking to interview me but then embarked on a filthy tirade. It seems a member of the Heinz Kerry Civility Enforcement Patrol posted our home address and telephone number on the response part of my convention blog.

As I struggled to close this column with something profound, an e-mail popped up from my oldest brother in faraway Ohio.

"From what I'm hearing on late-night radio, the liberal definition of a 'strong woman' is one who abuses anyone who asks a question she doesn't want to answer," he wrote. "A strong conservative woman would have come up with an example of how the questioner's paper had misrepresented the truth about her candidate or position."

Of course, Teresa Heinz Kerry didn't do that because she couldn't.

That said, and as I shove off from Boston, I'm still waiting for the answer to my question of Sunday night last.

[Galvin]

www.alternet.org/story/19389

The Pittsburgh Tribune review is a paper owned by an ultra far-right billionaire, Richard Mellon-Scaife, and has been involved in denigrating Teresa Heinz long before Pennsylvania's Senator Heinz was killed in an automobile accident. Their attacks have continued with renewed vigor now that she is married to Senator Kerry. Given the history of unrelenting attacks on her as both Senator Heinz's and later Senator Kerry's wife by the paper my only wonder is why she hasn't said "shove it" or worse to these people long before this.

My reaction? Wow, we might finally get a first lady who actually speaks her mind and fights back. Good on her. I wish Hillary had cut loose similarly on the pack of jackals who dogged and continue to dog her for little other reason that they love to hate her.

[MrRepublican]

Eric,

What you have just posted is an incident that goes way beyond Galvin's example of a "strong woman". This is not a gender based issue. To think that such a person has hopes and designs to reside in the White House and share the power of the presidency frankly scares the hell out of me.

[stetto]

Decorum and poise...vs. lack thereof...

[glow=red,2,300][shadow=red,left,300]'NUFF SED...[/shadow][/glow]

[Cablemender]

Well I'm glad to see the Clintonista spirit is still alive and well in the current campaign. So, as I understand it, if a DNC candidate (or their wives) say something, it can't be questioned. If it is, then you have to ask who the questioner is (don't forget to define "is" too), and who they work for. If they work for (i.e. their company is owned by) a partisan, then their question is negated by the fact that person is a partisan in the first place, and it is obviously biased.

This makes me wonder, then, why on earth would you be concerned about Bush "lying" about WMDs, since the truth is irrelevent to you in the first place? Theresa Kerry SAID that some "Un-Pennsylvanian and un-American" tactics were creeping into politics. Since no one can ask her without being demonized, perhaps you could explain what she meant? Or do you deny she said them too?

This is exactly what you are in for for the next four years if Kerry gets elected. You'll get four years of "we decide for you," without anyone being able to question their motives or content without being branded some kind of extreme political partisan.

The Kerry's have already given example after example of the way they live; above everyone else, and nothing they do is their fault. Kerry falls on his ass on a skiing trip and it was the secret service agents fault, even though he fell 3 times and the SS agent ran into him once. He tells environmentalists he doesn't own an SUV, his family does. When pictures surface of several SUVs on Kerry properties, all with plates registered to him, not his family, he offers no explanation except to say the person asking was in some way hitting below the belt with the question. Well, who raised the issue in the first place? Who made the claim, "I don't own any?" Now his wife calls some (unspecified) republicans "un-American," and we can't know who she means, because she says she didn't say it, and anyone who tries to ask is painted as an extremist.

What happens when Kerry breaks his vague campaign promises? Are we then prohibited from asking "why?", or are we relegated to believing he never said them to begin with?

This is the four years you can look forward to with him in the White House. I think more and more everyday people are seeing past this shroud of "everyday person" they try to portray themselves as. They are anything BUT that. They live in a state where no one questions what they do because the political apparatus of that state is so powerfully democratic it is virtually impossible to get a simple building permit if you aren't "in" with the right people. That's what they want to bring to America, their views shoved down your throat without question, and without dissent. They are showing you a good forshadowing of that right now in the way they conduct themselves.

What more do you need if a person is on tape saying something, then denies they said it? I wonder what would happen if Bush denied he ever landed on an aircrat carrier? Oh, I'm sure it would go over well if he blamed the questioner and said they were a partisan left-winger, right?

[stetto]

Gee Tom, if they want plain talk, just give it to them...

HYPOCRITS[/b]

[Galvin]

That word is hypocrites, by the way.

And a good word it is. You would call us hypocrites who would elect a president whose wife has finally gotten fed up with being attacked by a paper which has made attacking her its life's work and told a reporter to "shove it".

What would you call people who voted for a guy who, in 1988, the year after he claimed to have quit drinking but who was reportedly drunk, stormed into a mexican restaurant in Dallas and screamed at Wall Street Journal editor Al Hunt in front of everyone, "You f*cking son of a b!tch. I saw what you wrote. We're not going to forget this." ?

Hunt was sitting at a table eating with his wife and four year old kid at the time. He, his wife and child and the other restaurant patrons had to endure several more minutes of profanity laced invective before our future president stormed out.

There were quite a few witnesses to this and that it happened is not in dispute.

Your sense of perspective is a bit skewed.


"For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it."GWB—Philadelphia, May 14, 2001

[Cablemender]

Uh-uh, I don't give a hoot that she told a reporter to shove it. In fact, many more probably need to be told that more often.

My complaint is that she denied saying the "anti-American" remark when it is right there on the tape, plainly audible for anyone to hear. If she didn't want to answer for it to that reporter, they have several Boston globe reporters hovering all over their campaign they could have used to explain the remarks without fear of it being slanted to the other party, but, they did not. She continues to deny it, and her party is content with that explanation. They even tried to (according to Maureen Dowd of the NY TIMES, hardly a right-winger by ANY stretch) say she didn't say "shove it..", but instead said "shove off..", all in keeping with the nautical Gilligan's Island (Dowd's word's, not mine) theme of the Dem Convention.

If the story with Bush and Al Hunt is true, I'd never heard it before now, then I'd say Bush owes him an apology, because that kind of behavior in a public place is never called for, especially a beef between men aired in front of someone's family. Clearly that was wrong. Even the Mafia operates on a higher plane than that.