If you don't re-elect this President, al-Queda will kill this dog
Dick Cheney in Iowa, apparently thinking that just because they're farmers, they must also be ignorant rubes:
Cheney's comment reminds me of that legendary — or infamous, depending on your perspective — "Daisy" political ad devised by the Lyndon Johnson campaign to slam Republican challenger Barry Goldwater during the 1964 election season. (According to some sources, Bill Moyers, later a respected TV newsman and commentator, was the architect of the ad.) The spot showed a cherub-faced little girl picking daisies in a meadow, as a voiceover announcer intoned a countdown. At the end of the ad, the meadow dissolved into a nuclear mushroom cloud, followed by the words, "Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home." The message, though not explicitly stated, was unmistakable: Vote for Goldwater, and this kid dies. (You can view the "Daisy" ad in its entirety on CNN.com's Goldwater obituary page. Scroll about two-thirds of the way down the page and you'll find the QuickTime link.)
Years later, the humor magazine National Lampoon parodied the theme in its notorious "Death" issue, the cover of which featured a sad-eyed mongrel hound with a revolver pointed at its head, and the caption, "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog."
Speaking of Barry Goldwater — and, oddly enough, I was — he was an interesting character. Though he was the guy most responsible for the shift of Southern voters away from the Democratic Party to the GOP, and was the most doggedly conservative idealogue of his heyday (and a notorious opponent of civil rights legislation, ostensibly on the grounds of states' rights), Goldwater never embraced — and often openly opposed — the so-called religious right. In his later years, he spoke out against such conservative darlings as the ban against homosexuals in the military, anti-abortion legislation, and the Whitewater prosecution. Which just proves, I suppose, the old "Hitler painted portraits and loved dogs" rule: no one can be entirely pigeonholed, even (perhaps especially) in politics.
It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.The Vice President of the United States should know better. But he doesn't.
Cheney's comment reminds me of that legendary — or infamous, depending on your perspective — "Daisy" political ad devised by the Lyndon Johnson campaign to slam Republican challenger Barry Goldwater during the 1964 election season. (According to some sources, Bill Moyers, later a respected TV newsman and commentator, was the architect of the ad.) The spot showed a cherub-faced little girl picking daisies in a meadow, as a voiceover announcer intoned a countdown. At the end of the ad, the meadow dissolved into a nuclear mushroom cloud, followed by the words, "Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home." The message, though not explicitly stated, was unmistakable: Vote for Goldwater, and this kid dies. (You can view the "Daisy" ad in its entirety on CNN.com's Goldwater obituary page. Scroll about two-thirds of the way down the page and you'll find the QuickTime link.)
Years later, the humor magazine National Lampoon parodied the theme in its notorious "Death" issue, the cover of which featured a sad-eyed mongrel hound with a revolver pointed at its head, and the caption, "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog."
Speaking of Barry Goldwater — and, oddly enough, I was — he was an interesting character. Though he was the guy most responsible for the shift of Southern voters away from the Democratic Party to the GOP, and was the most doggedly conservative idealogue of his heyday (and a notorious opponent of civil rights legislation, ostensibly on the grounds of states' rights), Goldwater never embraced — and often openly opposed — the so-called religious right. In his later years, he spoke out against such conservative darlings as the ban against homosexuals in the military, anti-abortion legislation, and the Whitewater prosecution. Which just proves, I suppose, the old "Hitler painted portraits and loved dogs" rule: no one can be entirely pigeonholed, even (perhaps especially) in politics.
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