Cleland: I Cried Uncontrollably by Henneberger

Max Cleland: 'I Cried Uncontrollably for 2 1/2 Years' Posted: on Politics Daily 10/6/09 by Melinda Henneberger

Senator Cleland’s re-election loss in 2002 is the stuff of revisionist history. The “famed ad” ran one time and was pulled. His service and sacrifice in Vietnam is to be admired. I keep him in my prayers for his courageous battle against depression.

However, his senatorial representation for his constituents in Georgia was nuanced and flawed. He lost for good reasons for which he has never taken personal responsibility.

And his vile diatribes about folks in the Bush administration is not the sophist stuff or commentary that earns one respect.

Read: December 21, 2005 Who is Max Cleland? Kevin E. Dayhoff http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=1395 And trust me, for every mean thing I wrote, a half-dozen much nastier remarks were held back by my shriveled but nevertheless functional sense of decency.

While you’re at it re-read: January 4, 2006 A Tale of Two Introductions Kevin E. Dayhoff http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=1416

Max Cleland: 'I Cried Uncontrollably for 2 1/2 Years' Posted: on Politics Daily 10/6/09 by Melinda Henneberger

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/10/06/max-cleland-i-cried-uncontrollably-for-2-1-2-years/?icid=mainhtmlws-maindl3link3http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/10/06/max-cleland-i-cried-uncontrollably-for-2-1-2-years/#comments

In a phone interview on Monday, former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland was upbeat – "What's goin' on, kid?'' – and quick to laugh. But after losing his U.S. Senate seat to an opponent who ran post-9/11 TV ads that showed the decorated Vietnam vet alongside Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, Cleland fell into a depression he was afraid he might not pull out of. It was public service, he says, that had given his life shape and meaning after he left three limbs on a battlefield in Khe Sanh. But without that role, the old darkness came back. Along with his job and his bearings, he lost his relationship with his fiancée. "That's emotionally and physically over,'' he told me. "That's gone.'' And for a time, he was once again a patient at Walter Reed, where he'd first been put back together nearly four decades earlier – and was now surrounded by vets from Iraq and Afghanistan: "I cried uncontrollably for 2 ½ years.''

Read the rest here: Max Cleland: 'I Cried Uncontrollably for 2 1/2 Years' Posted: on Politics Daily 10/6/09 by Melinda Henneberger

Oh, be sure to read the comments – they are particular vile.

And here’s the ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKFYpd0q9nE

Related Articles
Obama: Politics of moment won't shape war strategy
16 days ago
WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama says he has no deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan and is pledging there will not be an indefinite American occupation. Sounding much like his...

Afghanistan: Doubt grows over another distant war
26 days ago
KENT, Ohio -The demonstrations, the troops, the fresh anger are all long gone. Where anti-war protests raged, today a granite plaza invites peaceful reflection. On the spots where four young people...

Analysis: Troop timetable absent in Afghan debate
27 days ago
WASHINGTON -As President Barack Obama weighs thrusting America deeper into the conflict in Afghanistan with perhaps thousands more combat troops, his administration has yet to answer a question at the...

20091006 sdosm Cleland I Cried Uncontrollably by Henneberger

*****

Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/ Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: http://www.westgov.net/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/

20060105 Enemy Imaging

Enemy Imaging

January 5, 2006 by Kevin Dayhoff (1,127 words)

Former Georgia Senator Max Cleland (D) has resurfaced in the news once again. In Maryland? What the heck is going on here?

Last month Governor Robert L. Ehrlich announced hiring Bo Harmon to be his political director for his re-election campaign. The Baltimore Sun ran an article on December 10, 2005, which said, in part:

“Maryland Democratic Party spokesman Derek Walker said he was shocked that the governor would hire Harmon, and compared the political director to Joseph F. Steffen Jr., the former Ehrlich aide who was fired after admitting to spreading rumors about Mayor Martin O'Malley.

Democrats here and in Georgia immediately criticized the hire, saying Ehrlich is bringing to Maryland a virtuoso of nastiness who attacked the patriotism of Cleland, an Army veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam.”

The Sun continued its criticism by calling the readers’ attention to a negative ad run by Senator Cleland’s opponent in the 2002 Georgia Senate race.

The ad used, what is known in the business as “enemy imaging.” Identifying an opponent with a nefarious character. Sorta like, running a picture of Governor Ehrlich with a fired state employee – Mr. Steffen.

The only difference is that after many folks, understandably, criticized the Chambliss campaign ad, the ad was taken off the air, changed and ran without the nefarious character images.

In the MD4BUSH–Steffengate saga; long after it has been revealed that MD4BUSH was a political dirty trick by democrats for which it has been suggested that several members of the Maryland Democratic Party have lost their jobs; the Sun is still running the negative ad which ‘enemy images’ Governor Ehrlich with Mr. Steffen.

So what is the rest of the Senator Cleland story? He lost his 2002 senate re-election bid because of his liberal voting record while serving in the senate and representing a conservative constituency.

Rich Lowry, writing in National Review on February 20, 2004, “Max Cleland, Liberal Victim,” put it best.

Democrat Senator Cleland “was on record supporting countless tax increases, and voted with his party's leadership against protecting the Boy Scouts from a campaign to keep them out of public schools and against banning partial-birth abortion. In many of these votes, he parted ways with his more conservative and popular colleague Miller, thus creating a major political vulnerability. He lost fair and square.”

This is what happened.

Senator Cleland returned home from Vietnam terribly wounded with injuries that would stop anyone but Superman. But he didn’t let being disabled stop him and he worked hard to recover and continue to serve his community and his country.

It was said best in a poignant Washington Post article on July 3, 2003, entitled “Political Veteran.”

After Mr. Cleland returned home from recovering from his injuries, in “1970, at 28, he became the youngest person ever elected to the Georgia Senate. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed him to head the Veterans Administration. In 1982 he was elected as Georgia's secretary of state” and served until 1996.”

In 1996, when Senator Sam Nunn (D) decided to retire from the U.S. Senate after serving 24 years, Georgia Secretary of State Cleland tossed his hat in the ring. Senator Nunn had always been strong on national defense and Vietnam veteran Max Cleland seemed a perfect replacement.

He wasn’t.

In 1996, Mr. Cleland narrowly defeated his opponent, businessperson Guy Millner by 30,000 votes. He only got 49 percent of the vote.

Slate published an article by Michael Crowley on April 4, 2004 called: ““How the disabled war veteran became the Democrats' mascot.” It is not a poignant or deferential piece. Mr. Crowley wrote, “There was little reason to expect Cleland to be a star senator, and he wasn't.”

Of his 1996 campaign, Mr. Crowley wrote:

“In that campaign, Cleland made up for his lack of political skill—the Atlanta-Journal Constitution noted that he "has never been known as a deep thinker" and was prone to "platitudes" in debates—by harnessing the emotional power of his war injuries…”

After six years in the Senate, Senator Cleland’s re-election was in deep trouble at home. Although he could serve his southern constituency well enough on local Georgia issues, “Cleland's undoing was that he couldn't negotiate the dilemma facing many Southern Democrats — how to vote liberal in Washington while appearing conservative at home.” (Rich Lowry, February 20, 2004, “Max Cleland, Liberal Victim” National Review)

In the 2002 election, Senator Cleland was challenged by four-term conservative Republican congressman Saxby Chambliss, “who'd been elected in the "Contract With America" class of 1994.” (July 3, 2003, “Political Veteran” Washington Post)

Mr. Crowley wrote: “Most of Chambliss' attacks were based on Cleland's most "liberal" votes on social issues like partial-birth abortion. But in the race's closing weeks, Bush and Chambliss hammered at the fact that Cleland was voting with Senate Democrats against Bush's proposed Homeland Security Department because of its infamous provision limiting union rights. The message was that Cleland was kowtowing to big labor at the cost of protecting America.”

Then came those “GOP television ads.” They crossed the line. They were unnecessary and inappropriate and should have never been aired.

In the Washington Post July 3, 2003 article it was noted:

“both sides ran attack ads, but none was as controversial as Chambliss' homeland security spot. It opened with pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. "As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators," said a narrator, "Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead. He says he supports President Bush at every opportunity, but that's not the truth. Since July, Max Cleland voted against President Bush's vital homeland security efforts 11 times!"

After both democrats and republicans condemned the inappropriate ad, the ad was removed from the air.

Which brings us full circle. Since the Sun has brought it up. Beyond the issue of comparing how many articles the Baltimore Sun ran on MD4BUSH-Steffengate with how many articles it ran about the alleged criminal identity theft of Lt. Gov. Michael Steele’s personal financial records by Senator Schumer's staff at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee…

Now that MD4BUSH has been outed as a democratic dirty trick, the Sun needs to do a reality check and realize that by continuing to run the picture of Governor Ehrlich with Mr. Steffen on their web site, they may think that they are cleverly perpetuating a negative “enemy-imaging” ad on Governor Ehrlich.

What they are really doing is perpetuating a reminder of despicable gutter politics at its worse.

It is a rule of classier political practitioners that the family of an elected official or candidate for office is off limits – out of bounds. No matter what party to which they belong.

When is the Sun going to take the picture off their web site?

Just asking.

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster. E-mail him at: kdayhoff@carr.org
####

The Tentacle Who is Max Cleland? Kevin E. Dayhoff December 21, 2005

The Tentacle Who is Max Cleland? Kevin E. Dayhoff December 21, 2005

The Maryland Democratic Party’s election campaign website, otherwise known as Baltimore’s Sun (BS), ran a “news story” December 10 on Bo Harmon, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich’s selection to be his campaign manager.

In an attack ad that was offered as news, the BS cherry-picked convenient quotes to bestow partisan opinions upon unwitting readers – and to trash Governor Ehrlich. It is an old and tired trick in what the BS would like to pass as journalism.

The BS quickly promulgated the moon bat logic that Mr. Harmon is a craven campaign manager who ran “one of the most despicable campaigns in the history of Georgia, if not the nation," according to Georgia Democratic Party Chairman Bobby Kahn – “in the successful attempt to unseat Democrat Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia in 2002.”

Sounds like sour grapes more suitable for the National Enquirer or a partisan political newsletter, but hardly a news story.

Indeed, the article makes for an interesting study in the practice of political rhetoric. It has all the ingredients of a coherent political campaign. But, wait – isn’t the BS a newspaper that represents itself as adhering to the high journalistic standards of an impartial purveyor of the news?

[…]

Meanwhile, another coordinated attack by Michael Olesker was then conveniently published at the end of the first news cycle to reiterate the BS campaign platform planks promoted December 10.

The column reiterated what Rich Lowry referred to in a February 20, 2004, National Review article; as the “trumped-up mythology based on the idea that Republicans ‘questioned Cleland's patriotism’ in 2002.”

It all has to do with rehashing the 2002 senatorial election in conservative Georgia in which incumbent political moderate Senator Cleland, a disabled Vietnam veteran, lost to conservative U. S. Rep. Saxby Chambliss. Desperate Democrats claim Senator Cleland lost because Senator Chambliss’ campaign manager, Mr. Harmon, questioned Senator Cleland’s patriotism by lumping him together in an attack ad with the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Mr. Olesker continued: “We already knew Ehrlich gave us the Prince of Darkness, Joe Steffen, and we already knew Ehrlich's attacks on hate radio, and we already knew the history of dirty tricks secretly orchestrated against Ehrlich opponents in a series of political campaigns. But we didn't suspect the smiling governor of Maryland would bring in the likes of Harmon, who gave new meaning to the term ‘gutter politics’ when he went after Cleland…”

Ya da ya da ya da.

Then there is the matter of a few curious sentences – that looked familiar. Mr. Olesker wrote that Senator Cleland: “On one of his first trips out, an old girlfriend pushed his wheelchair around Washington. Near the White House, the wheelchair hit a curb. Cleland pitched forward and fell out, flopping around in dirt and cigarette butts in a gutter.”

Compare this to the following written by Peter Carlson in The Washington Post, on Thursday, July 3, 2003, on page C01: “On one of his first trips out, an old girlfriend pushed his wheelchair around Washington. Near the White House, the wheelchair hit a curb. Cleland pitched forward and fell out, flopping around in dirt and cigarette butts in a gutter.”

Hmmm. Okay. Who among us has not missed a proper citation?

Then Mr. Olesker wrote, after he forgot to properly cite words that were not his own: “It took Harmon to put him back in the gutter, three years ago.”

Oh! Pleeeze!

[…]

Read the entire column here: Who is Max Cleland?

http://thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=1395

20051221 SDOSM TT Who is Max Cleland ttked
Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: www.kevindayhoff.net http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/
Kevin Dayhoff Art: www.kevindayhoff.com
Kevin Dayhoff Westminster: www.westgov.net