Political Mythology I

I'm late in blogging today -- sometimes life intervenes -- and want to skip over Kerry's speech, as enough has been said about it already. One comment on the coverage of Kerry's introduction, however, seems in order. I'm from Georgia and still think of Max Cleland as the Secretary of State, a position he held with honor for years. I was listening to CBS radio coverage of the convention last night and the reporter said something like: Mr. Kerry is referring to Max Cleland, a former senator from Georgia who lost an arm and both legs in Vietnam; he was defeated after his opponents accused him of being unpatriotic.

I don't think this myth, which is based on nothing more than the Democratic spin machine and Cleland's own inability to admit he's a liberal, will ever die. Max Cleland lost because he ran in a conservative Southern state with a voting record as liberal as Ted Kennedy's. The GOP pointed that out, as they should have, and the voters chose. I know Southern stereotyping is always easy, but do the national media really believe Georgia's voters are so stupid that they would believe charges that Cleland was unpatriotic? They didn't believe Cleland when he said he thought the way they did, after all.

I'll have more to say on political myths soon.