The Surprise Party (What you can learn from a little platform diving)

HOW GOOD is your knowledge of the political parties' platforms for November's presidential election?

Which party says that the most pressing priorities the nation faces in the next four years are winning the global war against terror, stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and promoting democracy and freedom in the world, starting with a peaceful and stable Iraq?

Which party promises to achieve these aims by transforming the U.S. military through technological innovation and investment, adding 40,000 soldiers, doubling the size of the Pentagon's Special Forces, and ending America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil?

Here's a clue: This same party says it will try to build global alliances, but will "never wait for a green light from abroad" to defend the country against new threats. It pledges unstinting support for Israel and promises to help it retain the qualitative edge necessary for its security. While it supports the creation of a Palestinian state (but under new and responsible leadership), it says it is "unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949."

Elsewhere in the world, the party says, a nuclear-armed Iran is an "unacceptable" risk; the United States should continue the six-party talks with North Korea, but should have "no illusions" about Kim Jong Il. It wants to strengthen the Patriot Act to make it harder for terrorists to launder money through the United States.

Congratulations if you picked the party of Edward Kennedy, Al Sharpton, Howard Dean, and Dennis Kucinich.

All right, I'll confess this was a slightly selective reading of Strong at Home, Respected in the World, the 37-page blueprint for a John Kerry-John Edwards administration.

In between the startlingly martial policy prescriptions was some familiar knockabout stuff about how President Bush has alienated the world, bullied allies, and diminished respect for America. But when you strip out the rhetorical barbs, you would be surprised at how much like a paper on Republican national security strategy it sounds.

Just as remarkable as what is in the Democratic platform is what has been left out. Liberal environmentalists will search in vain for any kindly reference to the Kyoto Treaty on global warming. International jurists will find not an encouraging word about the Rome Treaty on the International Criminal Court. Indeed, fans of the United Nations in general will be disappointed; there is some muted criticism of the way President Bush handled the U.N. in the war in Iraq, but not the slightest suggestion that it will be at the center of U.S. foreign policy in a Kerry-Edwards administration.

Nothing in the Democratic platform in fact comes close to justifying the claim it makes right at the start: "This November the choice we face as Americans may have more impact on our people and our place in the world than any in our lifetimes."

The Democrats are fighting this presidential election on their most aggressive foreign policy manifesto in almost half a century. For all their criticism of President Bush's foreign policy, it seems they have decided the safest way to trump the incumbent is to look even tougher.

The party left nothing to chance at its convention in Boston last week in its determination to demonstrate to a skeptical but interested public its national security credentials. No fewer than four generals addressed the 5,000 cheering, clapping delegates. A parade of top brass was wheeled out to take a bow in prime time just before John Edwards's vice presidential acceptance speech. Almost every speaker emphasized the Democrats' determination to fight the war on terror more effectively than President Bush. And of course, the story of John Kerry's own personal heroism in Vietnam, repeated endlessly through the week, was intended to convey the promise of strong, decisive leadership.

The platform, of course, is read only by a few fanatics and curious journalists. But, haggled over as it is by party strategists, it is a helpful guide to what the leadership thinks will sustain a presidential election campaign.

And it shows that, despite the deep unpopularity of the Iraq war among Democrats, the party's leadership is still unwilling to reject President Bush's decision to remove Saddam Hussein.

A Boston Globe poll this week indicated that 95 percent of the delegates who came to the convention believe the war was a mistake. But the closest the party leadership could get to their position was the following:

"People of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war in Iraq."

Instead of rejecting head-on the Bush team's post-September 11 strategy, the Kerry-Edwards approach seems to be: We could have done all these things without alienating our allies and upsetting the world.

But here's the trouble. How do they think an administration determined to prosecute the war in Iraq, to defend firmly Israel's right to its own security, and to ignore many of the international treaties much of the world holds sacred, could achieve its goals without alienating some old allies?

Certainly no one would say the Bush administration's diplomacy in the last four years has been of the highest quality. But no amount of sugar-coating could have sold these policies to America's allies without producing stresses in its global relations.

Instead, the Democrats' approach seems to assume that, with a kind word and a charming smile, all the objections that European and Arab states have had to the same policies the Democrats seem willing to execute can be just waved away.

Typical of this approach is the wonderfully blithe assertion in the platform that, in order to better secure the peace in Iraq, "we must convince NATO to take on a more significant role." This confidence flies in the face of the political realities in Europe, where NATO members are neither willing nor able to provide much support for the United States.

Of course a cynical view might be that what happens at the party's convention and what goes into the platform tells us more about where the Democrats' leaders think their electoral interests lie than what they might actually do in office. In this view, a list of policies carefully crafted for public consumption is not the best guide to a party's real intentions in government, for which we need to look at the voting and rhetorical record of its presidential candidate over 20 years in public office. Indeed, that record would at least explain why a Democratic party now animated by a boiling hatred of President Bush's foreign policies seems so willing to emulate them.

Gerard Baker is U.S. editor of the Times of London and a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.

Certainly no one would say the Bush administration's diplomacy in the last four years has been of the highest quality

This depends on how you measure quality. The Bush administration has revealed the truth of North Korea and Iran, flipped Libya, engaged Pakistan in the war on terrorism in a way they hadn't previously been, played some role in the reduction of Pakistani and India tensions that were predicted to lead to war, led the funding on AIDS, led world attention to Sudan and brought Iraq to accountability giving the United Nations an opportunity to gain some sort of international muscle. I'd question the naysayers and adversaries quality of diplomacy first before grading the leader of such a worthwhile list.

Kerry wants to tilt to France away from Britain. That's his code word about "allies".

As long as he's never called to the mat to say France, explain how we could have got Chirac to agree to Iraq, and why France cooperates with us on just about everything about terror but Iraq Kerry's meme gain traction and validity.

This is compounded by the fact of Bush's mishandling of defining the interests against the war. Instead he's gone "back to" the UN and France 5 or 6 times since the war to curry some favor or another, raise hopes of "troops", only to get slapped back in the face over and over. He should have defined French interests, why they acted so re: Iraq, and not suborned exposing Food for Oil. Instead he seems set to redefine Iraq as "War on Terror."

Is there anyone within the orbit of Mars who doesn't know that every line of it is a bald face lie?

For a year and a half of screaming at the top of their lungs to public embrace of lunatic conspiracy theorists, is there a human soul who believes they made that stuff up and mean these words instead, rather than the other way around?

They are liars. They oppose the war and would pull the plug within 48 hours. But they do not, even themselves, think this is a position they can present to the American people.

Meaning they have utter contempt for the American people. They think we are all brainwashed dupes programmed by facists. They think any lie to seize the reins is morally justified. "We must fool them today".

Can anybody possibly be fooled by anything so transparent? No. I know children of eight who understand the matter entirely and think they are ridiculous. Why the act, then? What po-mo wink is involved?

Just another layer of contempt. They believe in advertising. It is the only explanation they have for why their transcendent intelligence and moral paragon-hood does not already rule the world. People stupid enough to be duped by patriotism will be stupid enough to be duped by their mockery of it. That is the "thought".

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