Easterblogg has some interesting takes on the Democratic race concluding with this.
Brace yourself for a week of think-pieces on why Kerry is doing so well. One reason being missed by the big-deal media is the Douglas Brinkley book Tour of Duty about Kerry’s years in Vietnam. The big-deal media decided to ignore this book–an exception, ahem, being Easterblogg, which said in November that Tour of Duty was “about to make big news.” Tour of Duty is selling well and being much-talked-about on radio, which I think is influencing the campaign. The book depicts Kerry as honorable, as serving his country, as horrified to find himself in a bad war–and as having said so at the time. Middle Americans respect honorable military service, and Kerry’s views on Vietnam, written down in the late 1960s while he was in his twenties, reflect the middle-American consensus on why Vietnam went wrong. As the story this book tells increasingly gets out, voter admiration for Kerry can only rise.
And why did the big-deal media ignore the book? Cynicism alert! Most in the big-deal media don’t respect honorable military service. They flipped the pages looking for inflammatory passages that could be pumped up, and instead found the story of man’s struggle to reconcile his conscience with his duty to country. The big-deal media aren’t interested in that. Voters are.
Yesterday Easterblogg noted that, “The last person to advance from the United States Senate to the White House was a wealthy Massachusetts war hero.” Make that, “The last person to advance from the United States Senate to the White House was a wealthy Massachusetts war hero with a popular book extolling his military service.”