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| Home Front: Politix |
| Kerry won’t scare any of the big beasts |
| 2004-02-10 |
| ELF I thought of the advice when I caught Presidential candidate John Kerry, the Default Democrat, at one of his final campaign stops in New Hampshire. Unlike the noisily anti-war Howard Dean, Kerry has taken a different tack. The thinking seems to be that, on the war, George W Bush is the mountain lion and the Dems need to "do all you can to appear larger". When I first encountered him on the hustings last summer, Kerry was austere and patrician and all too obviously found electioneering a distasteful chore. He mentioned his service in Vietnam a lot, but only as biography. Now he implicitly contrasts his military record with George W Bush’s, and thereby to the war on terror. Mostly he does this through meaningless slogans. Everywhere he goes he intones portentously: "I know something about aircraft carriers for real." What does this mean? Does he own one? He’s certainly rich enough to afford one and, unlike the French, one that works. But, of course, it doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s like the other catchphrases in his stump speech: "We band of brothers," he says, indicating his fellow veterans. "We’re a little older, we’re a little greyer, but we still know how to fight for this country." These lines are the equivalent of the guy in the woods raising his arms and opening his jacket: it’s a way of making a dull politician with no legislative accomplishments and two decades of shifty, flip-flop weathervane votes appear larger than he is. The Dems reckon that Bush is a single-issue candidate - he’s the war guy - and that, if Kerry can make himself appear larger on the national-security front, Bush’s single issue will cease to be an issue and the election will be fought on Democratic turf - healthcare, education, and so forth. So far the strategy’s working. Kerry won three purple hearts in Vietnam, while Bush was either in the National Guard or, according to Michael Moore, a "deserter". This charge is easily rebutted, but once you start having to explain things the other guy’s won. What counts is not the fine print but the meta-narrative: Kerry was in South-East Asia, Bush was in the South-West United States. That makes Kerry seem "larger", which may be why the Bushies are waddling away from a fight on the issue. But the idea that this puffs up Kerry to be the President’s equal on the new war is a more tortuous stretch. The only relevant lesson from Vietnam is this: then, as now, it was not possible for the enemy to achieve military victory over the US; their only hope was that America would, in effect, defeat itself. And few men can claim as large a role in the loss of national will that led to that defeat as John Kerry. A brave man in Vietnam, he returned home to appear before Congress and not merely denounce the war but damn his "band of brothers" as a gang of rapists, torturers and murderers led by officers happy to license them to commit war crimes with impunity. He spent the Seventies playing Jane Fonda and he now wants to run as John Wayne. Vietnam was a "war of choice". But, once you chose to go in, there was no choice but to win. America’s failure of will had terrible consequences. The Seventies - the Kerry decade - was the only point in the Cold War in which the eventual result seemed in doubt. The Communists seized real estate all over the globe, in part because they calculated that the post-Vietnam, Kerrified America would never respond. In the final indignity, when the proto-Islamist regime in Teheran seized the embassy hostages, they too shrewdly understood how thoroughly Kerrified America was. It took Mrs Thatcher’s Falklands war and Reagan’s liberation of Grenada to reverse the demoralisation of the West that Kerry did so much to advance. Senator Kerry has done a good job of enlarging himself but the reality is simple: George W Bush’s America has won two swift wars and overthrown two enemy regimes; John Kerry was heroic in a war that America lost and whose loss he celebrated. Since then he’s been a model lack-of-conviction politician. The question for anyone who thinks Kerry has "credibility" on national security is a simple one: who do you think Iran, North Korea, Syria, al-Qa’eda’s Saudi paymasters and the rogue elements in Pakistan’s ISI would prefer to see elected this November? Those guys are the real dangerous beasts and you can bet that, unlike Democratic primary voters, they don’t think Kerry looms so large, with his endless deference to the UN and the French, and his view that the war on terror should be more a matter of "law enforcement" - subpoenas, the Hague, plea bargains. That’s as profound a mis-understanding as the fellow on page 70 of my book, raising his butt to the mountain lion. And that’s not a position most Americans will want to take. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #11 Kerry and his supporters think they are so celver with these charges against Bush and the NG. In truth, the only thing he and his supporters are doing is defining the depth of the hole they must climb out of this fall. 2004 will be a great year for the right. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-2-10 8:54:11 PM |
| #10 No. But he did vote to make flotation devices mandatory on 1968 Oldsmobile Delta 88's. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-2-10 8:28:22 PM |
| #9 Did Kerry vote for the Ted Kennedy SCUBA Supplemental Bill? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-10 7:14:39 PM |
| #8 I respect Kerry's combat record but that does not make him a foreign policy guru. On the contrary, Kerry voted against the F-15, Patriot Missile system, B-1, Tomahawk, Cruise missile program, and a list of other weapons programs we use on a daily basis as an extension of our foreign policy which = Kerry's an idiot. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-2-10 7:03:41 PM |
| #7 Clearly, the writer is only aware of the superficial differences between Kerry and Bush. Kerry is a "foreign policy expert with a long record of internationalism behind him, he can plausibly broaden the debate, demanding explanations for why Mr. Bush's foreign policy has left America so unpopular in so many corners of the world." (The Economist, Jan. 31) Although if the U.S.A. is looking out for its best interests, it would probably be better off with a war hero than a recovered alcoholic in the White House. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-2-10 4:46:46 PM |
| #6 A2U - I didnt say it wasnt stupid, it was. Just that it was not an outreach to Iran in particular, which some are trying to make it out to be. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2004-2-10 2:03:27 PM |
| #5 It was a press release from Kerry's office, but I think the original was from a group of ex-pats in phrawnce. They held their primary in a church in Paris, saw it on FoxNews. --- LH, I wasn't aware that Kerry was running for president of the world. If the world wants W out, that alone makes me vote for W. I'm not so fond of their voices as they are, and I've been listening to them for over 20 years. Tune hasn't changed. Hate us, love our money. |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-2-10 12:31:21 PM |
| #4 It amazes me that Kerry hasn't been called out on this. Unlike Kerry shooting his wad now with respect to his military credentials vs. GWB's, that issue's best saved until after the conventions. Kerry's using his ammo too early in the campaign. |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-2-10 12:30:08 PM |
| #3 It was an email pleding reconciliation with all furriners - it was clearly aimed at papers like le monde and the Guardian - some bozo must have sent it to a list of foreign papers that included the Teheran Times. Stupid it may have been (like do WE need to take the initiative in reconciling with Chirac?) But the right wing bloggers have been completely misconstruing it. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2004-2-10 11:20:22 AM |
| #2 There was just an email sent to the black turbans from Kerry's office pledging some sort of reconcilliation with Tehran. He licking their boots already, and he hasn't even won yet. To bad Leiberman is out - he was the ONLY Dem with any national security credibility to understand that any sign of backing off is the same thing as screaming that its open season on Americans. Being a hero and coming back to call fellow soldiers murderers is lower than low. It amazes me that Kerry hasn't been called out on this. |
| Posted by: JerseyMike 2004-2-10 10:33:10 AM |
| #1 "who do you think Iran, North Korea, Syria, al-Qa’eda’s Saudi paymasters and the rogue elements in Pakistan’s ISI would prefer to see elected this November?" Re Saudis thats real hard to say, given that Bush has gone so easy on them for so long. Dont think it matters much to them. Ditto for ISI. WRT to Iran et al - not sure - Kerry might have greater cred to go against the mullahs there now - Bush will be forever dogged by the Iraq debate - but thats ONLY if Kerry is willing to be firm. IF he is (and im not sure he is), hes certainly not gonna say so NOW, when he still faces opposition in Dem primaries where too many naifs vote. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2004-2-10 9:23:48 AM |