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Mark Steyn: Kerry's got a strategy: it's summit for everyone
The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 10/03/04 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 10/02/2004 1:46:20 PM PDT by Pokey78

Those of us who've been sweet on George W Bush for a long time have got used to these moments. In Thursday night's televised debate with John Kerry, he wasn't wrong on the substance, he just didn't have enough of it.

He was in the same state he was in in early 2003, just before launching the Iraq war, when he was tired and punchy and stumbling round the country not making a case against Saddam but just droning the same phrases over and over: "He's a dictator." Smirk. "He gassed his own people." Smirk.

On Thursday, his own people seemed to have gassed him. Bush droned, repeatedly, that Kerry was sending "mixed messages", but his own message could have done with being a little less robotically unmixed. He said: "It's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard - and it's hard work. It is hard work," again and again, round in circles.

And it is, no doubt. It's tough and it's hard work and it's incredibly hard doing the title number of Singin' in the Rain, but Gene Kelly made it seem blithe and effortless and graceful.

And the President of the United States owes his people a performance - in wartime especially. Churchill didn't just communicate the weight of the burden that he carried but also that he had the strength to bear it.

But who needs Churchill? It's not just that Tony Blair or John Howard of Australia could have done the job much more convincingly. Almost any of us armchair warriors could have put down John Kerry's feeble generalisations better than Bush did.

And yes, it's true, if you hadn't been following the election campaign closely till Thursday night, Senator Kerry wasn't as pompous or as boring or even as orange as some of us had led you to believe (his sudden tan had been much remarked on in the days beforehand) - 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 to the emergency doors. Perhaps the hand movements were just to show off the manicure he'd had during the day, while Bush was out putting his arms round Florida's hurricane victims.

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 authorise Bush to go to the UN 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 Defence 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.

Having met him, I'm sceptical of Kerry's extraordinarily high valuation of his personal charm. But the notion that he'll be able to bring the French on board would seem to be at odds with Jean-Pierre Rafarin, the French prime minister's aside to a representative of Le Figaro the other day that "the Iraqi insurgents are our best allies". In a summit showdown between Chirac and Rafarin on the one hand and Kerry on the other, I bet on the Gallic weasels.

In his pre-baked 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 has no executive experience, he has 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 US 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. 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 September 12th 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. Mr Kerry thinks he can rebuild the polite fictions of September 10.

A majority of the American people - albeit not as big a majority as it ought to be - gets 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.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: firstdebate; kerry; kerryforeignpolicy; marksteyn; steyn
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1 posted on 10/02/2004 1:46:20 PM PDT by Pokey78
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To: Howlin; riley1992; Miss Marple; deport; Dane; sinkspur; steve; kattracks; JohnHuang2; ...

2 posted on 10/02/2004 1:50:27 PM PDT by Pokey78
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To: Pokey78

This looks like the same article that is in the Chicago Sun-Times.


3 posted on 10/02/2004 1:52:47 PM PDT by quidnunc (Omnis Gaul delenda est)
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To: Pokey78

Thanks, Pokey! This is better than the Sun-Times article.


4 posted on 10/02/2004 1:55:47 PM PDT by UnklGene
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To: Pokey78

Thanks, Pokey! This is better than the Sun-Times article.


5 posted on 10/02/2004 1:55:49 PM PDT by UnklGene
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To: drpix

Picture needed!


6 posted on 10/02/2004 1:56:06 PM PDT by MEG33 (John Kerry has been AWOL on issues of national security for two decades)
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To: Pokey78

One of the clearest expositions I've read of the incoherence of Kerry's Iraq policy. I wish I had confidence that the undecided electorate would get and understand this simple message from Steyn.


7 posted on 10/02/2004 1:57:43 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: Pokey78

"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."


Thank you, Mark Steyn.


8 posted on 10/02/2004 1:58:11 PM PDT by MEG33 (John Kerry has been AWOL on issues of national security for two decades)
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To: Pokey78

Let us not forget that while F'n was getting his nails manicured the President was out visiting with the citizens of Floriduh who had been clobbered by multiple hurricaines. While F'n has been spending his time avoiding the duties of a U.S. Senator the Commander in Chief is NEVER off the clock!


9 posted on 10/02/2004 2:00:50 PM PDT by Thom Pain (Quisling - from Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), a synonym for "traitor")
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To: Pokey78
Having met him, I'm sceptical of Kerry's extraordinarily high valuation of his personal charm. But the notion that he'll be able to bring the French on board would seem to be at odds with Jean-Pierre Rafarin, the French prime minister's aside to a representative of Le Figaro the other day that "the Iraqi insurgents are our best allies". In a summit showdown between Chirac and Rafarin on the one hand and Kerry on the other, I bet on the Gallic weasels.

Speaking as a third-rate hack, I'd say that as a general rule articulacy is greatly over-rated. 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.

Steyn spares no one in this article but clearly defines the truth.

10 posted on 10/02/2004 2:02:37 PM PDT by mylife (The roar of the masses could be farts)
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To: Pokey78
JOHN FRENCH KERRY'S SECRET PLAN: IS IT A FRAUD OR A DELUSION?</FONT


11 posted on 10/02/2004 2:03:21 PM PDT by drpix
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To: quidnunc
This looks like the same article that is in the Chicago Sun-Times.

No, it's far longer than the one you posted.

12 posted on 10/02/2004 2:05:00 PM PDT by Dog Gone
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To: Pokey78

I agree that this election is primal. I just think a lot of real undecideds will go into the voting booth and vote for Bush. The terror threat will hit them like a sudden sweat just as the go to vote, and they'll be afraid to vote for Kerry. They really don't know Kerry, but they do know Bush has kept us free from attack for 3 years.


13 posted on 10/02/2004 2:05:47 PM PDT by tell me
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To: Dog Gone

HA!


14 posted on 10/02/2004 2:06:16 PM PDT by Pokey78
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To: drpix

Great picture of the summit!


15 posted on 10/02/2004 2:07:27 PM PDT by MEG33 (John Kerry has been AWOL on issues of national security for two decades)
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To: KB4W

ping


16 posted on 10/02/2004 2:14:57 PM PDT by arbee4bush (Then, in a clattering crescendo of keystrokes, the issue exploded in cyberspace.)
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To: Pokey78
Those of us who've been sweet on George W Bush for a long time have got used to these moments.

How true, but don't tell that to the Panic Brigade.

17 posted on 10/02/2004 2:18:47 PM PDT by Madame Dufarge
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bump


18 posted on 10/02/2004 2:21:30 PM PDT by GretchenM (A country is a terrible thing to waste. Vote Republican.)
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To: Dog Gone
Dog Gone wrote: (This looks like the same article that is in the Chicago Sun-Times.) No, it's far longer than the one you posted.

The Sun-Times article is 1074 words, the one in The Telegraph is 1094 — only a 20-word difference.

19 posted on 10/02/2004 2:21:34 PM PDT by quidnunc (Omnis Gaul delenda est)
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To: Pokey78

BTTT


20 posted on 10/02/2004 2:23:12 PM PDT by spodefly (A bunny-slippered operative in the Vast Right-Wing Pajama Party.)
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