“You” being OpinionJournal: they apparently had so much fun suggesting that Senator Kerry play up the ROTC-on-campus issue that they’re now branching out into Vice Presidential picks for Kerry.
Like Tom Brokaw.
Tom. Brokaw.
Jesus wept.
Sorry to be so rude about it, but this is one of those things that sounds wonderful on paper but crashes and burns in real life. For starters… Brokaw doesn’t have the right television reflexes. I know that this sounds insane, but think about it: he’s spent his entire professional life being the guy that put others on the griddle, and they were never really allowed to hit back too hard (‘too hard’ being defined as ‘as hard as Tom Brokaw’). He knows how to punch and jab; does he know how to dodge and weave? Really dodge and weave, not just a token effort? And when it doesn’t work (it won’t: nobody ever gets through a political campaign without getting his or her clock cleaned), how will he react. Your average politician learns to smile when the fox gnaws by no later than their third campaign; unless he’s a natural, Brokaw would have to learn on the job, and look like an idiot doing it*…
Second… you know, there are qualified Democrats out there. Ones with actual political experience, whether from winning elections or service in a government agency. Brokaw has neither. He’s spent his career watching and writing about events instead of actually doing them. I’m sure that gives him a certain perspective; I sincerely doubt that it gives him the expertise.
Third and last… Brokaw on the ticket would mean interminable references to Marshall McLuhan and his damned medium and message. I know it. I’m already seeing stuff like The PoMo Primary: I’m begging the universe, no more navel-gazing. Or as little as possible.
I’m begging, here.
Moe
*And if you think that his colleagues will go easy on him… oh, right, suuuure they will.
Yes. I read that crap ’bout Brokaw between the crap-for-money that I do, and I had to ask, “why?” The man could barely explain why the greatest generations (and it is true, for it was) is the “The Greatest Generation.”
Ya want bobbin’ and weavin’? Edwards is your man. Honestly, I study the man in hopes I can do what he does half as well in front of a jury. (Funny how most of my career has been fightin’ against the trial-lawyer type. Be your adversary better than he or she is, I suppose.)
Boy, this would really make all that whining about the “librul media” seem reasonable, wouldn’t it?
But it would never happen, because it’s insane.
I thought it was a straaaaaaange article.
Why would anybody care who Kerry’s opponents think he should pick as a running mate?
Also, I read somewhere that Tom Brokaw is personally giving a blowjob to every living veteran of World War II. So he’s probably too busy to run.
No Marshall McLuhan? But the medium IS the massage Moe. The medium IS the massage.