Kerrys polished, but can't make his case
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| Mon, 10-04-2004 - 10:19am |
And yes, it's true, if you hadn't been following the election campaign closely till Thursday night, Kerry wasn't as pompous or boring or even as orange as some of us had led you to believe, though his lipstick was a slightly distracting shade and he would have been better advised to ease up on what was either his simultaneous signing for the deaf or an amusing impression of the stewardess pointing out the track lighting leading to the emergency doors.
But none of that matters. If John Kerry is so polished and eloquent and forceful and mellifluous, how come nobody has a clue what his policy on Iraq is? As he made clear on Thursday, Saddam was a growing threat so he had to be disarmed so Kerry voted for war in order to authorize Bush to go to the U.N. but Bush failed to pass ''the global test'' so we shouldn't have disarmed Saddam because he wasn't a threat so the war was a mistake so Kerry will bring the troops home by persuading France and Germany to send their troops instead because he's so much better at building alliances so he'll have no trouble talking France and Germany into sending their boys to be the last men to die for Bush's mistake.
Have I got that right?
Oh, and he'll call a summit. ''I have a plan to have a summit. . . . I'm going to hold that summit ... we can be successful in Iraq with a summit . . . the kind of statesman-like summits that pull people together ...'' Summit old, summit new, summit borrowed, summit blue, he's got summit for everyone. Summit-chanted evening, you may see a stranger, you may see a stranger across a crowded room. But, in John Kerry's world, there are no strangers, just EU deputy defense ministers who haven't yet contributed 10,000 troops because they haven't been invited to a summit. And once John Kerry holds that summit all our troubles are over. Summit time and the livin' is easy, fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high, your daddy's rich and your ma is good-lookin' ... No, hang on, your wife is rich and your manicure's good-lookin' ...
In his prebaked soundbite of the night, Kerry said: ''Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the president made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?''
Interesting question. The play-by-play pundits thought it brilliant. But I beg to differ. It would have been a better line if he'd said, ''But the president's made a mistake in how he's fighting this war. Which is worse?'' There may be a majority that thinks post-Saddam Iraq has been screwed up; there's not a clear, exploitable majority that thinks toppling Saddam was a disaster, and Kerry can't build one in the next month. But it would still have been a lousy line for this reason: ''Talking about'' stuff is all Kerry's got. He's no executive experience, he's never run a state, never founded a company, built a business, made payroll. Post-Vietnam, all he's done is talk and vote. For 20 years in the U.S. Senate: talk, vote, talk, vote. So, if his talking and voting are wrong, what else is there?
Speaking as a third-rate hack, I'd say that as a general rule articulacy is greatly over-rated. It's not what it's about: Noel Coward would run rings round Mike Tyson in the prematch press conference, but then what? But, if articulacy is the measure, how come Kerry can't articulate an Iraq policy any of us can understand? By contrast, for an inarticulate man, Bush seems to communicate pretty clearly. He communicates the reality of the post-9/11 world, a world where you can't afford to err on the side of multilateral consensus and Hague-approved legalisms and transatlantic chit-chatting and tentativeness and faintheartedness about the projection of American power in America's interest.
A majority of the American people -- albeit not as big a majority as it ought to be -- get this. John Kerry still does not. Which means he lost the debate. He got a technical win on points from the pundits, but this election won't be won on points. It's primal. The pundits keep missing this. They thought Kerry was good in the debate, just as he was good in his convention speech, because on both occasions he was tactically artful. But that's not going to cut it. We're post-Clinton: you can't triangulate your way to victory.


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Yeah, there is that too... :)
The bottom line is that Iraq WAS a mistake from the get-go. So so many Americans knew that from the very beginning- so many had a gut feeling that we were starting something that would turn out a mess. We didn't want to be right. We wanted the current administration to know better, to know more than we! It's embarrassing and frustrating that they didn't.
My husband is from Germany, we go to Europe every year. The visit we had this year involved many political conversations—not a single one involved praise of our recent actions (we were in Spain, Italy and Germany). They were more about fear regarding what we'd do next and questions like "who do we think we are?" So many Americans seem to think that we're the only country on this planet and that no matter what the rest of the world says, we are always right. This is called ethnocentrism.
It's ok to question authority people. It's ok to say, "You know, I love my country but I do not feel right about the things our government is leading us into." Because you're certainly not alone in that sentiment.
People can criticize John Kerry until they're blue in the face; the fact is, no matter WHO Bush ran against I would not vote for Bush. And over half of this country feels this way. Does that not tell you something? Bush could not care less about the plights of the average American. He is pompous and arrogant without reason. He can not admit, let alone apologize for making an enormous mistake which cost thousands of lives. He has failed us. And he has failed the world. We deserve better. And at this particular point in time, Kerry is our only hope. And Kerry seems to understand the hope and responsibility being placed upon him. So spin, spin, spin post-debate all you want, but Kerry is the better man across the board. It was evident Thursday.
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I have no interest in being thrown in jail with no legal protection.
As for creating the monsters, see Afghanistan, 1980's. We were warned it would come back and bite us, and it did.
I'm tired of people thinking we own the world and everyone else should bow to us. We are part of this world, and we should act like it. We use a disproportionate amount of the world's resources. We get pissed at France because they disagree (and no, I don't particularly care for the country.) We have Canadians post here... ask them how they feel we treat them.
All I am saying is be more of a positive influence... but can we? Let's be the country that gives people hope...that they look up to... what I was taught we were as a child, and what I believed in heart and soul.
Bev
Edited 10/4/2004 4:42 pm ET ET by bgs3
Edited 10/4/2004 4:44 pm ET ET by bgs3
By all means, fight terrorism, but recognise that some of our policy creates a fertile environment for terrorists to recruit.
Edited 10/4/2004 4:54 pm ET ET by rayeellen
Are you kidding? If we withdraw on a publicly known set timetable all the terrorists will have to do is "wait it out." Why heck, that'll just make them even more resolute and once we leave, since it's all prettily mapped out, there's the perfect opportunity for replenishment.
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