"I'm John Kerry..."
"No, I'm George Bush..."
"No! Wait...I'm BUCKHEAD...."
Posted on 09/19/2004 3:12:43 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Democrats need to get a grip on themselves. John Kerry is not down for the count. He still has a good chance to capture the presidency on Nov. 2, even though the percentage of Democrats who believe that has fallen from 66 to 43, according to the latest poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. This race is likely to remain tight right down to the wire, with the lead shifting back and forth. President Bush has gained momentum in recent weeks as Kerry was thrown on the defensive by the swift boat attacks. But there's no reason for Democrats to panic six weeks out. The presidential debates, which could tip the election either way, are still ahead, and events, especially in Iraq, could alter the political equation overnight.
In many ways, Kerry has been a terrible presidential candidate - don't even ask me to explain his position on the Iraq war - who for too long has offered voters little more than his war biography and nuance. But he is the only alternative to President Bush, and that's why the 2004 election is still in play and why the Bush campaign should be worried.
The postconvention polls should be read with caution and the pundits of doom and gloom ignored. If Kerry wins the presidency, it will not be because the Clintonites rescued his campaign or because Kerry transformed himself into a brilliant and charismatic campaigner. It will because American voters decide they do not want to risk another four years of Bush's leadership at home or abroad. A majority of them are anxious about the economy and believe the war in Iraq was a costly mistake that has made the world a more dangerous place. They may not like Kerry or agree with him on most issues, but casting a vote for the Massachusetts Democrat is the only way they have to evict Bush from the Oval Office and change the nation's course.
Republicans want this election to be about national security, where polls show Bush holds the political advantage. More voters trust Bush than Kerry to lead the fight against terrorism. That Kerry has been unable to change that perception is one of the major failures of his campaign so far, and it's largely because Kerry has been unable to give a coherent answer on why he supported the Iraq war that he now criticizes as "the wrong war, in the wrong place" but one he still supports.
Even voters who disagree with Bush's policies see him as a resolute leader. Kerry can't compete on resolve, but he can remind voters that Bush's resolve has led us into a quagmire in Iraq and complicated the U.S. struggle against terrorism. As Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution wrote recently, ". . . resolve in itself is not a strategy, and plenty of resolute leaders - Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, for example - have led their nations to ruin by pursuing the wrong course. Bush's resolve, moreover, has been accompanied by what many perceive to be arrogant, nationalistic rhetoric that has alienated allies American needs and provoked potential enemies around the world."
The question Kerry should be asking the American people in this election is not whether they are better off than four years ago but whether they feel safer since their "resolute" commander in chief led the nation into an unnecessary war.
Kerry appears to be finally pulling out of Vietnam and engaging the president on Iraq, although he doesn't have a lot of room to maneuver given his incoherence on the issue.
Speaking to the National Guard convention in Las Vegas last week, Kerry accused Bush of deceiving the American people by presenting an optimistic picture of the war. The "hard truth," Kerry told his audience, is that "the mission in Iraq is in serious trouble."
He went on: "I believe you deserve a president who isn't going to gild the truth, or gild our national security with politics, who is not going to ignore his own intelligence, who isn't going to live in a different world of spin, who will give the American people the truth, not a fantasy world of spin."
Those are serious charges to make against the president of the United States - lying to the nation about the course of the war, playing politics with national security. If Kerry wants to play the role of truth-teller in this campaign, he owes us the truth about whether he now regrets his vote for the war. He says he would cast the same vote today knowing everything that he knows now. Does anyone really believe that? If Kerry is serious, then he does not deserve to be president. Truth be told, I would bet that even George W. Bush, knowing what he knows now, wishes he had never started this war.
Philip Gailey's e-mail address is gailey@sptimes.com
SOP for the Democrat pantheon.
The Fulbright connection rears it's ugly head yet again. First Clinton, now Kerry...
BTW, the reason Kerry was effective before the Senate in 1972 is that he lied through his teeth and nobody challenged him on it.
"I remain a little anxious, because there IS an opposition case to be made with regard to Iraq".
Not in reality! The dims did this with Vietnam, and AMERICA lived in shame for two decades. We were forced into losing the war by the dims manipulating the news media to make it appear we were losing the war. The fact is we were winning in a BIG way, but the lies drove America away from the truth and victory.
WE will NOT allow AMERICA'S HEROS to be spit on again. They are to be HONORED and REVERED!
The media and the dims have proven to be liars and forgers in this election. 20 plus books are on the shelves forsale right now, proclaiming the media bias that exists today. Memogate is exploding into the largest political scandal in the history of our country. Watergate no longer is the dim's whippin' boy!
Let the left try to paint Iraq as Vietnam. THE TRUTH WILL DESTROY THEM (at least what is left of them)!
LLS
That would be an interesting scene. All the questions that need to be asked and not dare raised so as to protect their candidate.
Nice dissection.
They work with what they have.
It ain't much but it's all they got.
***...If others could understand your truth, you would not think of yourself as a "vanguard." You would no longer inhabit the morally charmed world of an elite, whose members alone can see the light and whose mission is to lead the unenlightened towards it. If everybody could see the promised horizon and knew the path to reach it, the future would already have happened and there would be no need for the vanguard of the saints. ... They do it for the progressive faith. They do it because they see themselves as having the power to redeem the world from evil. It is that terrifyingly exalted ambition that fuels their spiritual arrogance and justifies their sordid and, if necessary, criminal means. ...***Source
"I'm John Kerry..."
"No, I'm George Bush..."
"No! Wait...I'm BUCKHEAD...."
And it encouraged and strengthened our enemies. Would 9/11 happened if the anti-war movement had failed?
Which side are you on?***....The swift boat controversy has brought to the surface a long-suppressed debate about who we are and what we stand for in the world and in history (space and time). ***
Great movie. Still gives me the chills.
First, Johnson gave military objectives and necessities second place to political concerns, which is precisely Kerry's weakness.
Second, the press in America (and John Kerry) betrayed the nation by portraying American soldiers, sailors, and marines as sadistic monsters (they weren't) and the war as unwinnable (it was). Americans wearied of liberating Vietnam from communism because they were led to believe that they couldn't win when, in fact, victory was possible.
Kerry was instrumental in pushing the nation into defeat in Vietnem. He will do the same thing in the war on terror.
"Kerry still has one advantage: He's not Bush"
Why is that an advantage? If he were Bush, he'd be a shoo-in.
So true.
So true!!
Democrats have yet to learn that hate is not a platform
KERRY STILL HAS A MAJOR DISADVANTAGE, HE'S NOT BUSH
I totally reject the theory that it was the SwiftVet ads which hurt Kerry.
I believe that the voting public, after finally getting a good look at Kerry during the convention, realized during the month of August what a weak-kneed wimp Kerry really is.
Plus they saw TaRaZa up close and personal, which would scare anyone with the slightest desire to see someone with class living in the White HOuse.
Then, when people saw GWB during the GOP convention, they were affirmed in their knowledge of what a strong, principaled and loving man they already have as President.
Certainly the SwiftVet ads added to the notion that Kerry was a creep and a back-stabber during and after the Vietnam war, especially among military veterans and males with a sense of honor.
But I believe the tide would have turned even without the SwiftVets. Still, I keep sending them $$ anyway because I believe in what the SwiftVet's cause. They are the TRUE heros of the Vietnam war, not this puffed up charlitan Kerry who wrote himself up for five medals in three months.
The End.
Every time I begin to think that the Dem's have a legitimate issue in the Iraq War, I think back to before the war and how we had just witnessed an anthrax attack soon after a terror attack.
Saddam Hussein was allowing terror training camps in his country, and he was funding terrorists both globally and in Israel.
The alternative to war would have meant leaving Hussein in power. It would have meant leaving the terror camps, and his support to AlQaeda funding.
Terrorists would still be using Iraq as a cushy resting resort, gaining weapons supplies and who knows what else.
And Saddam would still be making chemical nuclear and biological weapons, even if he was doing it in Libya or elsewhere.
No, there was no alternative to the Iraq war if the US wants to remain safe while also stemming the tide of international terrorism.
Anything else is Monday Morning Quarterbacking to the maximum degree.
Hmmm....no mention of Nader at all.
Actually, I think the point is correct though, not being Bush is the only thing Kerry has going for him. If there wasn't an "anybody but Bush" crowd, Kerry would have nobody.
But the Democrats would have had better choices in Dean, or Gephart, who maybe would have had a theme to their campaigns other than Vietnam...Kerry simply is anybody but Bush, nothing more.
The author is hoping for disaster to us or our brave troops so "sKerry the Poodle" will be elected.
Unreal!
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