{"id":2627,"date":"2004-09-28T09:28:21","date_gmt":"2004-09-28T14:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2627.html"},"modified":"2004-09-28T09:28:21","modified_gmt":"2004-09-28T14:28:21","slug":"i-guess-he-forgot-to-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/i-guess-he-forgot-to-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"I guess he forgot to focus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, we got a hint that the Bush campaign was getting a little nervous<\/a> about defending the disaster in Iraq, especially as John Kerry became more aggressive and assertive in his criticisms.<\/p>\n

“[Bush officials] are clearly worried that this could take a nasty turn,” said one senior Republican strategist who joined a conference call on Monday about how to respond to Mr. Kerry’s counterattacks. “The headlines are getting to them.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In case you were looking for proof about just how “clearly worried” they are, consider that Bush hosted a “Focus on Education” event<\/a> in Ohio yesterday, but glossed right over education policy to talk about the war.<\/p>\n

The Carpetbagger “tale of the tape”:<\/p>\n

Bush mentioned “education” six times.
\nHe also mentioned “Saddam Hussein” six times.<\/p>\n

Bush mentioned “No Child Left Behind” seven times. He mentioned “Iraq” 15 times.<\/p>\n

Bush referenced “my opponent” eight times — more than “education” or “NCLB” — but none of the references related in any way to Kerry’s position on education.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think Bush is feeling a little defensive. Next up, a “Focus on Health Care” symposium in which Bush emphasizes how brave he was to visit New York after 9\/11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, we got a hint that the Bush campaign was getting a little nervous about defending the disaster in Iraq, especially as John Kerry became more aggressive and assertive in his criticisms. “[Bush officials] are clearly worried that this could take a nasty turn,” said one senior Republican strategist who joined a conference call […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}