The operation was a success, but the patient died

9 November 2004

Remember how, in the second debate, Dubya refused to acknowledge that he had made any mistakes? He’s got his counterparts on the Democratic side, too. According to the New York Times, Kerry adviser Robert Shrum (a gentleman discussed before on this site) “suggested that there was little they could have done differently to change the result.” Shrum also complained, “The economy was not driving the news coverage.”

The author of this Times article neglected to mention that (a) as a recent New Yorker article makes clear, Shrum makes economic populism the focus of every campaign that he manages; (b) Kerry’s poll numbers started rising after Shrum was effectively demoted and Kerry began talking more about the mess in Iraq.

Memo to future Democratic presidential aspirants: Please, please, please don’t hire this guy!

via NDN Blog

• Later: Lessons learned, lessons to be taught
• Earlier: The cyan and the————-