[Pokey78]

[Billthedrill]

Well, the bottom line is that Kerry commanded a Swift boat and Bush commanded a nation at war. It's not quite the same thing.

[Brett66]

Great article. BTTT

[Cosmo]

I think I've found my new Tag line

[Randjuke]

Mark Steyn is great! Has he been on TV as an analyst at all? Seems like his sense of humor would make him really interesting.

[Agnes Heep]

I can see a whole slew of Republican material in this one short article.

[jackbill]

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?

That's a profound paragraph.

I might argue with the "overthrown two enemy regimes" statement however. Perhaps it's a few more - Libya, maybe Iran, Syria and perhaps even Pakistan?

[hotpotato]

Mostly he does this through meaningless slogans.

[Sabatier]

Kerry comes across like a college president, the kind of guy good at fund-raisers and talking up rich widows for donations. Hmmm, come to think of it...

[azcap]

"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? "

 

This quote should be used in every GOP mailing and TV ad this year.

 

[AlbionGirl]

Leave it to Steyn, formidable polemicist that he is, but what a great phrase: Kerrified!

[Dog Gone]

Thanks for the ping!

[Gritty]

Steyn should be running the GOP campaign truth machine!

[VadeRetro]

Steyn nails another one.

[blanknoone]

This is the first time I have ever thought I could improve on a single word of Mark Steyn:

Steyn Version:John Kerry was heroic in a war that America lost and whose loss he celebrated.

Me: John Kerry was a junior leader and a hero in the war, but he was also a 'hero' and major leader to the protest movement that ultimately caused America to lose.

[Paul_B]

Thanks, Pokey. Super job, Mark.

The problem we have is that Kerry's stressing of his war medals makes for good soundbites. It's hard to combat soundbites, except by reasoned analysis, as Mark did here. In dumbed-down America, though, how many actually read political pieces?

I hope the Bush team figures out a way to deal with this.

[motzman]

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.

Steyn's great, but Bush is better. When your holding a Royal Flush, you make your opponent think your holding a pair of Ace's and Eights to get them go all in.

Kerry's going to look really bad when they're done with him.

[mc5cents]

Mark Steyn RULES!

[Malesherbes]

I subscribe to National Review and for a long time my first act would always be to turn to the "the back of the book," the last page, where Florence King's column appeared. Florence King is gone, and now to my delight Mark Steyn has replaced her. So I still go to the back of the book.

[Renfield]

There are times when I tire desparately of living in the Corrupted Age...I feel as if our society will never recover from its slide, and no more moral advancement will be made, or even attempted.

And then I read another Steyn column.

In centuries to come, Steyn will be seen as one of the great lights of our age.