The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Teresa's bizarre speech
I could have sworn I was in the Twilight Zone or something when I watched Teresa Heinz-Kerry's speech last night. At least I was not the only one; annika seemed to have a big problem with it as well. Her blog references a great analysis of the speech itself in The American Thinker. I don't know what it is about her, but THKFK (Teresa Heinz Ketchup Fortune Kerry) gives me the heebie jeebies. To think that this woman could be influencing the President of the United States on a daily basis is enough in itself to send the Dow into a major tailspin. Here are some choice quotes from the American Thinker piece :
Acknowledging the applause, and maybe the signs, her first words were, “Thank-you. Thank-you. I love you, too.” Nothing about how honored she is to be addressing the convention and the nation. Just an acknowledgement of the assumed love for HER. Though the crowd had already stopped cheering and applauding, she gestured with her hands to quiet them, as if her body were programmed in advance to do so. The hands lingered a few moments too long, hanging there in front of her while the audience was silent. “Thank-you Christopher. Your father would be proud of you and your brothers.” Now this is getting downright creepy. Long before any mention of her current husband, she invokes the memory of her dead Republican first husband, Senator John Heinz, whose family fortune she now spends on behalf of a Democrat, and in support of extreme left wing causes through the Tides Foundation. Would Senator Heinz be proud that his son spoke before a Democratic convention, solely because his stepfather was the presumptive nominee?
To demonstrate the fact that she really does speak five languages, she hailed Spanish- and Latin-Americans in Spanish, Franco-Americans in French, Italian-Americans in Italian, and Portuguese- and Brazilian-Americans in Portuguese. A few words in each language, specifically using the hyphenated form in mentioning each group in its own native language. Because she was not speaking English, perhaps the hyphen overkill didn’t trouble as many people as it should have. Such linguistic showboating bothers me when people order their meal in French, sometimes to a waiter who doesn't have any idea what they want to eat.
...
She finally did thank the crowd, and promised to tell us about her husband, the living one, But then, out of the blue, hands pressed together in front of her, she declared, “This is such a powerful moment for me.” A slight audible brief buzz rose from the crowd. It was, after all, a stunning statement. Even this friendly crowd seemed shocked at the self-centeredness of the remark. She revealed to the world in that moment that the Presidential campaign, as far as she is concerned, is her toy, a fashion accessory, something for a woman who already has five houses, a Gulfstream V jet, and obsequious servants, business managers, and a Senator-husband dependent on her checkbook for the lifestyle he enjoys so much.
She is clearly a woman who enjoys telling others her opinion. She makes her pronouncements with a slightly grand air, as if giving a gift to lesser mortals. She went on to mainly talk about herself, her father, her marches against apartheid while a student in South Africa, and her right to speak her mind and be “opinionated” (hands making quotation marks in the air). It all seemed rather defensive, as if she needed to prove herself virtuous, and entitled to have a major voice in matters of public concern. Maybe growing up in a racist Portuguese colony as a member of the tiny white colonial elite has left her with a bit of guilt. Incidentally, she only referred to the land of her birth as a “dictatorship,” glossing over her family’s participation in a harsh colonial system oppressing black Africans. Because her father only was able to vote once, at the age of 73, she even posed as a family of victims of "dictatorship."
Eventually she did get around to mentioning that John F. Kerry served in Vietnam. She made the strange claim that he earned his medals “the old fashioned way,” as if Purple Hearts had been handed out for scratches requiring nothing more than a band-aid in the two World Wars. She also veered off into environmentalism, a plea to listen to the “wisdom of women,” and outright mysticism -- “the mystic chords of our national memory.” Lincoln? I guess he had a long face, too.
But it was really all about her. This is clearly a woman who thinks and feels that she is the one paying the bills, so she gets to call the shots. I can imagine that Sen. Kerry has had to put up with a lot of this, but has made his peace with it, considering the financial benefits.
It was a powerfully scary moment for me. After the speech, Brit Hume put it best when he said after mentioning that this was the first time in history a candidate's wife had made a major speech in a convention: "After this speech, I can see why..." No doubt.
Is there anything that would prevent a reasonable person from concluding that the only reason she spoke on that podium last night was that she forced Kerry to force her on the rest of us? Personally I hope the whole country was watching... it was enough to scare the hell out of a bunch of undecideds right then and there...
Acknowledging the applause, and maybe the signs, her first words were, “Thank-you. Thank-you. I love you, too.” Nothing about how honored she is to be addressing the convention and the nation. Just an acknowledgement of the assumed love for HER. Though the crowd had already stopped cheering and applauding, she gestured with her hands to quiet them, as if her body were programmed in advance to do so. The hands lingered a few moments too long, hanging there in front of her while the audience was silent. “Thank-you Christopher. Your father would be proud of you and your brothers.” Now this is getting downright creepy. Long before any mention of her current husband, she invokes the memory of her dead Republican first husband, Senator John Heinz, whose family fortune she now spends on behalf of a Democrat, and in support of extreme left wing causes through the Tides Foundation. Would Senator Heinz be proud that his son spoke before a Democratic convention, solely because his stepfather was the presumptive nominee?
To demonstrate the fact that she really does speak five languages, she hailed Spanish- and Latin-Americans in Spanish, Franco-Americans in French, Italian-Americans in Italian, and Portuguese- and Brazilian-Americans in Portuguese. A few words in each language, specifically using the hyphenated form in mentioning each group in its own native language. Because she was not speaking English, perhaps the hyphen overkill didn’t trouble as many people as it should have. Such linguistic showboating bothers me when people order their meal in French, sometimes to a waiter who doesn't have any idea what they want to eat.
...
She finally did thank the crowd, and promised to tell us about her husband, the living one, But then, out of the blue, hands pressed together in front of her, she declared, “This is such a powerful moment for me.” A slight audible brief buzz rose from the crowd. It was, after all, a stunning statement. Even this friendly crowd seemed shocked at the self-centeredness of the remark. She revealed to the world in that moment that the Presidential campaign, as far as she is concerned, is her toy, a fashion accessory, something for a woman who already has five houses, a Gulfstream V jet, and obsequious servants, business managers, and a Senator-husband dependent on her checkbook for the lifestyle he enjoys so much.
She is clearly a woman who enjoys telling others her opinion. She makes her pronouncements with a slightly grand air, as if giving a gift to lesser mortals. She went on to mainly talk about herself, her father, her marches against apartheid while a student in South Africa, and her right to speak her mind and be “opinionated” (hands making quotation marks in the air). It all seemed rather defensive, as if she needed to prove herself virtuous, and entitled to have a major voice in matters of public concern. Maybe growing up in a racist Portuguese colony as a member of the tiny white colonial elite has left her with a bit of guilt. Incidentally, she only referred to the land of her birth as a “dictatorship,” glossing over her family’s participation in a harsh colonial system oppressing black Africans. Because her father only was able to vote once, at the age of 73, she even posed as a family of victims of "dictatorship."
Eventually she did get around to mentioning that John F. Kerry served in Vietnam. She made the strange claim that he earned his medals “the old fashioned way,” as if Purple Hearts had been handed out for scratches requiring nothing more than a band-aid in the two World Wars. She also veered off into environmentalism, a plea to listen to the “wisdom of women,” and outright mysticism -- “the mystic chords of our national memory.” Lincoln? I guess he had a long face, too.
But it was really all about her. This is clearly a woman who thinks and feels that she is the one paying the bills, so she gets to call the shots. I can imagine that Sen. Kerry has had to put up with a lot of this, but has made his peace with it, considering the financial benefits.
It was a powerfully scary moment for me. After the speech, Brit Hume put it best when he said after mentioning that this was the first time in history a candidate's wife had made a major speech in a convention: "After this speech, I can see why..." No doubt.
Is there anything that would prevent a reasonable person from concluding that the only reason she spoke on that podium last night was that she forced Kerry to force her on the rest of us? Personally I hope the whole country was watching... it was enough to scare the hell out of a bunch of undecideds right then and there...
