I loved
the Saturday address angle from Kerry's camp. Bravo.
No one really thinks the guy can win--I desperately want him to, but money, DNC ineptitude and the GOP's willingness to go for the through tells me he can't.
But I'm dying to be wrong.
If Kerry runs this campaign with some balls, if he's willing to get up in Bush's grille like this, if he's willing to fight the battle head-on and not skirt around hoping for a side wedge like gay marriage to lift the bow--who knows, he just could be bold enough to pull this thing off.
There are two issues and only two issues to run on. Carry these issues, carry the election.
Economy: This could improve, but Kerry needs to keep pummeling the guy on watch about his head and face on this issue. No jobs. No recovery. Deficit. Fiscally oblivious.
War on Terror: This one won't improve, even when they trot out UBL in May-July. The GOP intends to run squarely on Bush's war record. And this is where Kerry has to punch him in the teeth.
We occupied two third-world countries with the equivalent of the Washington Generals running their defense. So what? Anyone can order the might of the US Armed Forces into BFE on a dime. It's what you do with that might, it's what you do after the gunplay dies down that matters.
In Afghanistan, it's nearly as lawless as before, the Taliban is on the mend and we're lucky the puppet leader we installed is still alive. Who cares, we've got a skeleton crew on watch there, we're not in this one for the long haul. We'll be talking about the vacuum we created afterwards 10 or 20 years from now and how our lack of followthrough bit us in the ass again.
In Iraq, we may have grabbed Saddam but we damaged our international credibility beyond immediate repair and we managed to liberate a country and make them completely hate us at the same time. Bravo. We had no plan for reconstruction, we had no plan for transition. Now we're at the whims of a cleric and public perception back home.
In the rearview mirror this is going to look like every other incursion we've undertaken--we're willing to do the mechanistic military part, we're not willing to stick it through and do the softer, harder parts afterward.
And after all of the lives, after all the bloodshed, after all the money, what do we have? Limited progress against terror, a turbulent Middle East and new generations of Arabs who hate America. Nice work.
While Bush was busy kicking in the door and turning on the light, macho-style, the cockroaches adapted, went scurrying and mutated to make themselves more adaptive. Bravo again.
So hit him in the teeth, JK. This fraud is no war time leader. Any man in that office can wield American military might; using it for constructive good is another thing altogether--and this guy has zero clue about that (or even the responsibility it involves).
He's probably too busy listening to God in his Secret Service earpiece for circumspection.