Poland Moments
Evidentally, Tony Blankley — right-wing pundit for the Washington Times — (perhaps on today’s blathering show The McLaughlin Group) said that John Kerry evoking Mary Cheney was akin to Gerald Ford’s “Poland Moment”.
Gerald Ford’s “Poland Moment” came when, during the second debate, he pronoucned:
There is no Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe, and under my administration there never will be.
Poland, of course, being under Soviet control. Carter’s huge lead had been whittled away throughout the summer, and it was likely because of this that Carter squeaked out a victory in November. Which explains the rationale for hyping the Mary Cheney comment into a “Poland Moment”. (It also explains the media obsession, echoed in political strategy, of finding the single soundbyte.)
Kerry’s supposed “Poland Moment” goes like this:
We’re all God’s children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was, she’s being who she was born as.
I think if you talk to anybody, it’s not choice. I’ve met people who struggled with this for years, people who were in a marriage because they were living a sort of convention, and they struggled with it.
And I’ve met wives who are supportive of their husbands or vice versa when they finally sort of broke out and allowed themselves to live who they were, who they felt God had made them.
I think we have to respect that.
I thought it was a politcally – designed statement, a way of embarrassing Bush / Cheney’s base of right-wing evangelical base (I did hear a gay radio host describe joy at hearing Kerry’s comment, so perhaps I’m being too cynical here and not considering the opposite part of the equation). But, accepting the, quote-in-quote “worst”: What a way to embarrass them! With polite empathy.
As for President Bush: It seems like his “Poland Moments” have more meat to them. Some are rather trivial. Some merely display a lack of comprehension on Bush’s part. Some are deadly serious.
And one of these “Poland Moments” actually involves Poland!!
(Note: I did the customary google search for this entry, and I found this take on the “Poland Moment”:
I haven’t heard much from the media about John Kerry’s huge gaffe in last night’s debate when he left Poland out of the list of allies who joined the United States in the liberation of Iraq. This is an especially egregious gaffe since Kerry is touting himself as someone who can bring a “real” coalition together. President Bush picked right up on it and pointed out Kerry had left out Poland. I thought it was very reminiscent of the second Presidential debate in 1976 between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
It’s a mistake to ascribe representation of any vast political group to random postings at Free Republic (except, perhaps, Free Republic posters)… but, gee whiz, that’s funny. And it explains a few things.