Weren't you, like, running for president or something?

[saavedra77]

We keep hearing that this November’s presidential election will be the most important of our lifetimes, in terms of foreign, fiscal, & environmental policy, & of constitutional law. I don't think that I'll find much disagreement with this among my friends, here: For most of us, the consequences of four more years of unilateral foreign policy, borrow-&-spend economics, environmental neglect, & eroding civil rights are profoundly depressing to contemplate.

Unfortunately, John Kerry’s recent actions make me wonder whether he understands that there's more on the line here than his career. Today’s Washington Post analysis really encapsulates my current frustrations with the Kerry campaign: too defensive, too focused on the past, too convoluted--on Iraq in particular.

I wish I could say that I disagreed: Too often, when I hear Kerry speak, I can see exactly where he's stepping in it, exactly how the Republicans will skewer him. The most egregious example came when Kerry affirmed that he would have given the president authority to invade Iraq even if he knew that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Anyone with half an ounce of political sense could have told Kerry that he was walking into a trap. In essence, Kerry was providing Bush with cover for the administration’s biggest foreign policy embarrassment & bolstering Bush’s case that Iraq needed to be invaded ... well, just ‘cuz. Incredibly, though, Kerry didn’t seem to get it.

As John Stewart shouted out over the airwaves that night: “You’re trying to lose!”

I’ve volunteered to do door-to-door & phone bank work for the Kerry campaign, but I have to say that defeating Bush would be a lot easier if the guy at the top of the ticket would act like this is the most important presidential election of our lifetimes!

Comments

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

I was just wrestling with this problem yesterday. Why doesn't Kerry -- who is probably best equipped and most motivated to dismantle Bush and his fear machine than anyone -- willing to actually expose all of Bush's lies? The only answer I could come up with is that he doesn't want to, that he and the Democratic party would rather inherit it. Dismal indeed.

It's making me pretty depressed.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

My sense is that Kerry is trying to woo an electorate that's very divided over Iraq by splitting the difference. While the administration's prewar rationale for invading Iraq was so demonstrably wrong, much of the public appears to have bought the White House spin about how much of a potential threat Saddam may have been, & about the intrinsic virtues of liberating Iraqis from him. Kerry just doesn't seem to be prepared to challenge these retrospective justifications. Who knows? Maybe he agrees with them. Or maybe he simply feels that it's easier to argue that he would have done a better job of deposing Saddam than it is to challenge the whole idea of the war.

Unfortunately for Kerry, even if he really does basically support the war, the Republicans are still painting him as an appeaser who wouldn't have had the guts to overthrow Saddam. And, as it turns out, arguing that "I would have done it differently..." hasn't done much to deflect these attacks.

Ironically, the administration has found a way to present what some consider greatest strategic error in recent U.S. history as their biggest success: "Isn't the world better off without Saddam in power?" "Didn't Saddam actually use chemical weapons against his own people (& what does that imply about what he'd do to us, given the chance)?" etc. When you put it that way, most people answer "yes" & "yes."

Given the apparent ineffectiveness of Kerry's "yes, but ..." strategy, I can't help but wonder whether challenging the whole idea of the war wouldn't have been more effective, after all. It's not like there isn't a strong counterargument out there: just off the top of my head--"Cynical dictators with return addresses don't attack superpowers or share powerful weapons with people they can't control." "Reports from region indicate that Iraq war led to a 'recruiting bonanza' for al Qaeda. How does that make us safer?" "'Liberated' Iraq is being terrorized by Taliban-like militias that weren't there before we invaded, & many ordinary people--especially women--at this point feel less free in the face of that terror." It certainly would have been clearer.

Bottom line: Kerry's got to do a much, much better job of persuading voters of how & why he can deal with Iraq & terrorism better than the president; otherwise, neither he nor the Democrats are going to "inherit" anything.

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see that as an explanation for Kerry's strategic. Still not very encouraging. It does bring to mind the rationalizing of someone in Moving Pictures who reasons something like, "well, mountains -- you go up one side, done the other -- I guess on average it comes out flat." It's just not the sort of thing you can effectively take a median position on.

Incidentally, it's easy to argue that while Saddam wouldn't want to directly attack a superpower, it's easy to argue (even without evidence) that he would , could, or did indirectly arange or support an attack. I'm sure now he's wishing he did. Actually, for that matter, he did try and have GHWB killed, didn't he? Not something that would affect most Americans, but it could be seen as an attack on the US, even if he is just an oil shill these days.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

"... while Saddam wouldn't want to directly attack a superpower, it's easy to argue (even without evidence) that he would, could, or did indirectly arange or support an attack."

Point taken: Although I'd argue that the risk of such an attack being traced back to Saddam was the same as if he'd carried it out on his own. He'd still be running a high risk of large-scale retaliation, & probably regime change. Nor does it seem credible that Saddam would ever have risked supplying WMD to an independent group (assuming for a moment that he still had WMD), as this would cede the surrogate the power to threaten him & his regime.

The problem here is that so much depends on how you think that Saddam's mind worked: Based on what I've read, I see him as a totally ruthless bastard whose one big goal in life consisted in enhancing his own personal power. On the other hand, once we introduce the word "madman" into the conversation--connoting loss of touch with reality, unpredictability, impulsivity, violence--people tend to become unreceptive to thoughts about Saddam's likely strategies for surviving & staying in power. Then we start thinking about the incomprehensible, about bin Laden, about Mohammed Atta. Hence the importance of the "madman" language in the president's pre- & postwar justications for toppling Saddam: if you convince people that he wasn't just a mericless bastard, but a psychopath, then it seems like toppling him was the only way to protect ourselves from unpredictable future violence.

& that ruthless bastard/psycho distinction is shall we say not well understood, out there ...