In last night’s presidential election debate Kerry confidently claimed that he had a plan for fixing Iraq and made it sound like it was going to be pretty easy. Get some more countries involved, smile at Iraqis, move on. It made me wonder whether it is wise for a politician to promise so much. Americans who follow the news know that Iraq is a terrible mess and has been for most of its history as a country. To myself and a friend who watched (she is a bleeding heart old-style liberal who hates W.) Kerry seemed ridiculously overconfident when he said that he had a plan for Iraq and was sure that it was going to work. Did this strike an off note with anyone else who was otherwise a Kerry supporter?
42 thoughts on “Kerry v. Bush debate #2 (how much should a politician promise?)”
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I thought that what Kerry did was smart. At this point people have shown they want short, crisp, easy-to-understand lines. Even if they’re not necessarily 100% true. Look at what Kerry’s gotten for his mixed position on Iraq vs Bush’s consistent but totally wrong position.
For all I care, he can promise to repeal the laws of thermodynamics if it’ll help him defeat Bush. I was more concerned with how those lines will be used during his reelection effort in 2008, but he has to win in 2004 for that to matter.
People don’t want to hear the truth. A politician who told the truth would go down in flames. That’s why we don’t have elected officials who tell the truth. I’m not going to hold my candidate to an unrealistic standard.
Politically speaking, anything less than complete confidence would be electoral suicide for Kerry OR Bush.
That said, Kerry’s got a better chance because he’ll get more goodwill and he won’t mismanage the effort as badly as Bush has. Imagine if there were real bids- so much more money could be used so much more effectively, and so many more of our allies would have stake in reconstruction.
Germany and France *say* they won’t change their minds because to say otherwise would be to meddle in American elections and hurt relations with a possible second Bush administration, but realistically they will almost certainly want to make sure that a Kerry succeeds where Bush failed- it’s in their interest.
It’s funny how many in these comments, especially Bryon, suffer from the perception of European generosity. We’d be so much better if it wasn’t for W. If you really believe that these countries that opposed W will hop on Kerry’s bandwagon, then I have the leaning tower of Pizza to sell you for $10. THere are far more strategic issues at stake than W or Kerry are able to deal with on their own. FOr example, the fact that Germany has seriously underfunded army with such poor capabilities that they had to lease aircraft from Ukraine of all place to send their troops to Afghanistan. Nor is France willing to send soldiers to Iraq in the middle of a multi-faction civil war so that they just get killed. More soldiers on the ground will definitely help, but flags of those soldiers won’t change things. Kerry will have to deal with the same issues that W is dealing with. W’s biggest faults weren’t necessarily the war, but post-war planning and lack of honesty when shit hit the fan. You can’t have too many mistakes not fire a single guy at the top. It is flawed leadership. I don’t think Kerry’s got much better choices in Iraq. Kerry may try to look and appear multi-lateral, but in the end the choices are all Washington’s. Seeing what’s happening in Iraq doesn’t make countries eager to join the fray just because there’s new guy in the White House. So how much should Kerry promise? It’s also about how clear should Kerry’s promises be: like the one about not raising taxes on the middle class families with income under $200k, which is about 90% of all families in the US. Kerry’s is better of showing not just choices that may have to be undertaken but pointing to serious flaws in W’s leadership. Determination at some point becomes stubborness.
Sure. I think that anybody who says they can clean up Iraq, as both candidates do, is underestimating the size of the hole we’ve dug ourselves into.
Kerry also faces the backlash risk – if he wins and doesn’t manage to miraculously fix up Iraq, Republicans will be able to start every argument for the next thirty years with “If only Bush had won…”
But at least Kerry is proposing doing something new about Iraq. All long shots, yes, but the President lacks the credibility to succeed from here. And as John Kerry made clear in what I thought was the defining moment of the debate – the President does not seem to realize that it’s his job to fix it.
Philip, who did you vote for in the last election? Who will you vote for this time?
Of course, feel free to refuse to answer. But I can ask.
This link is 4 years old, but is still true:
http://www.exile.ru/feature/feature97.html
Sen. Kerry looks like he works for Karl Rove – Dem. party has been railroaded by its groupies into nominating the only candidate that can be defeated by W. – that’s what I call good party politics! Gov. Dean at least could’ve had an honest debate backed by his record.
When the State of New Jersey goes “statistically even” – that’s when you know it’s too late to hedge your bets.
Vele:
Not generosity- enlightened self interest. A chaotic Iraq helps no one- it’s just that giving Bush more resources won’t help that situation any.
Terry: I voted for Al Gore in 2000, mostly because he had written at least one book and I wanted to be able to tell the programmers with whom I was working “if the President of the U.S. can write a whole book then you ought to be able to write a little documentation”. I haven’t decided for whom I will vote this time, not that it matters because I live in Massachusetts and also I’ll be in Oaxaca, Mexico for Day of the Dead celebrations on our election day. I was inclined to vote for Kerry because W seems so obsessed with Iraq. But now that I’ve seen a bit more of Kerry I find that there is much to dislike about him as well (in all the years that he has been a Massachusetts Senator I’ve never been aware of anything that he has done or said).
Iraq is an intractable mess for which there is no simple solution (at least not that can be explained in a two-minute debate segment). But I think Kerry’s approach to internationalize the mess is probably the best available solution, though far from a good one. There is no way Bush could adopt this approach, since he has shown himself to be such an ignorant, thick-headed, arrogant bully that no foreign leader would want to cooperate with him. Kerry is free of this burden; he may possibly be able to get cooperation by truthfully stating that Iraq is not his doing and perhaps convincing other countries that it is in their interest to cooperate with efforts to clean it up.
I think Kerry is correct in asserting that Bush would only offer “more of the same,” since he is incapable of doing anything else. Bush’s steadfast, resolute, implacable adherence to his neo-conservative ideology precludes him from even considering anything inconsistent with that ideology. A continuation of Bush’s policies will mean only that the chaos in Iraq will deepen into outright civil war, and Iraq will become a breeding ground as well as a Cause for recruiting more Islamic extremists. That cannot be good for the United States no matter how many times Bush insists that his policies make America a safer place. Nor can the repeated insistence of Bush, Cheney, and the rest of his administration that any criticism of the administration or its policies is harmful, unpatriotic, or invites a terrorist attack. Reasoned dissent is a basic element of democracy, and Bush’s persistent attempts to suppress it indicate either a harmful, unpatriotic contempt for democracy and its processes or inexcusable ignorance.
Unfortunately, Kerry is a weak and not particularly appealing candidate. His only redeeming quality is that he is not George W. Bush. I suspect that very few voters actually support him, but regretfully accept him as the only alternative to the despised Bush. Aside from the unfortunate tendency of Kerry and his advisors let Bush and the Republicans define him and the campaign (exactly as Al Gore did four years ago), Bush has the advantage of a large number of voters who actively support him. Many of those voters are Evangelical Christians who adore Bush as one of their own. They’re the sort of people who, when interviewed, claim that “family values,” “morality,” and issues like abortion and same-sex marriage are the most important issues of the campaign, more so than Iraq, the economy, or anything else. Kerry has no corresponding following, except for the people who see Bush as the worst threat to the fundamental fabric of our constitutional system and have as much zeal to vote Bush out as the Evangelical Christians have toward their dogma.
The most unfortunate shame is that our electoral system has degenerated to the point that the likes of Bush, Kerry, and Gore are the best it’s capable of producing. But that’s a problem for another day. As things stand, Bush is such a threat to the security, health, welfare, and continued existence of the United States that there seems no choice but to place the future of the United States as a constitutional republic upon the woefully inadequate shoulders of John Kerry.
> But now that I’ve seen a bit more of Kerry I
> find that there is much to dislike about him
> as well (in all the years that he has been a
> Massachusetts Senator I’ve never been aware
> of anything that he has done or said).
Such is the state of the Democrats that they can’t even put up a decent alternative to GWB’s lunacy. They deserve to lose the upcoming election, although I hope desperately that they don’t. I’m firmly in the ‘anyone but Bush’ camp, and Kerry falls in that category.
> I voted for Al Gore in 2000, mostly because
> he had written at least one book and I wanted
> to be able to tell the programmers with whom
> I was working “if the President of the U.S. can
> write a whole book then you ought to be able to
> write a little documentation”
Have you actually read Earth in the Balance? I’d rather spend the rest of my life reading documentation for open source software than spend 5 more minutes navigating Gore’s turgid prose.
In my ideal world, Noam Chomsky would be president. Who could be more qualified? His book Hegemony or Survival forever changed the way I look at US foreign policy in particular and politics in general.
Unfortunately the voting public find it easier to relate to a Harvard C student who has failed at practically everything he has ever tried than vote for someone with a conscience and thoughts of his own.
Is anybody pro-anything these days? I have yet to hear anything from my Democratic or left-leaning friends besides anti-Republican sentiment. Did Bush really dig the hole in Iraq all by himself? Any chance our obsession with burning Dinosaur juice had something to do with it? All the finger-pointing does is vilify the apponent without accepting or inviting responsiblity on the part of the accusor. For this, I give Kerry some credit – at least he had the guts to suggest something.
(Comments of a registered Republican looking – but not finding – an alternative to voting for Bush. My main issue is that I never liked the whole WMD angle – I would have been fine with a policy that says “Our oil industry pumps billions in to the hands of a pre-industrial, savage culture, lead by a tyrant – we either need to a)stop using oil or b)send in the troops.)
I do politics for a living (trying to relax by looking at blogs, and look what I get!!).
The basic strategic question for big-picture strategists is, are voters smart? or are voters dumb? (which Phil is raising here by saying, what promises are believeable? )
More finely-tuned: are the marginal voters i need to win smart or dumb? What will they respond to? And what can I say to them that won’t cost me my base?
Bush believes his base and marginals will respond to certainty; by simply repeating his soundbites over and over, he reinforces those who buy that simplemindedness and tries to make the choice crystalline by inspiring trust with his certainty (and inspiring fear with Kerry’s “flipflops”).
Kerry gives a nod to that certainty by saying bush’s way isn’t working, mine will– saying it with much more gravitas and much less belligerence– believing that bush-hating voters have nowhere to go, and marginals will respond to his certainty combined with more presidential tone.
By aping Bush’s certainty in an appeal to marginals, Kerry risks driving smart voters like Phil away. It thus becomes a kind of prisoner’s dilemma for people as smart as Phil: Bush is an idiot; Kerry is not Bush, so Phil has nowhere to go.
I’ve been able to win a bunch of elections by betting that voters are smart– and in fact every four years the college-educated tick up a few points, as depression-era generation dies off and the boomers become a bigger and bigger proportion of the pool. But presidential races are like playing chess in 50 dimensions, and there are lots of ways to win.
It just won’t be pretty to people like Phil or myself.
Philip, W. actually has written a book, and it was out well before the 2000 election.
So I’m a bit of an old school Democrat, and think that while the government should not tell us how to run our lives, it should certainly offer to help out people who’ve had a bad run of luck.
Kerry is far too moderate.
But he came out strong during the first debate, at least in the first third. The middle third I think W really pulled a few lines that our simlpeton cousins in red states really will enjoy.
I think the final third was perhaps a draw.
Kerry had a real opportunity on the final question: Bush did not answer the woman’s question; he could not admit a single mistake. Instead of coming out right and challenging Bush on the fact that he cuold not admit a mistake, he spat out a good bit of spin that really was as impotent as Bob Dole before viagra. That was his chance to really do Bush in. Hopefully, Kerry will get another one and not blow it.
I’m voting for Kerry not because I think he will be a great President, or even necessary a better than average. But with Kerry, I won’t have to worry about being drafted to defend oil wells. With Kerry, I won’t worry that the Chinese will have more civil liberties than New Yorkers. With Kerry, I trust that nothing worse will happen to our nation.
I’m voting for Kerry not because I expect he will make things better, but because I know he can’t make things worse. There is no better reason.
If the democrats had nominated George Washington, the Republicans would have slimed him as gleefully and desperately as they have Kerry. They might choose a different slogan, but, having no accomplishments, they must attack, and the identity of the particular opponent is irrelevant. It’s not personal–it’s business.
Think about this–how much do you know about the accomplishments of ANY senator? It really isn’t that kind of job.
But if you want to know what Kerry’s done as a senator, you could look at
http://kerry.senate.gov/bandwidth/issues/legislation.html#“
to find out in mind-numbing detail.
Here is a precis of the ‘Technology’ section (there are 15 such sections):
o …strong support of making the tax credit for research and development permanent
o …lift many restrictions on the types of products-from high performance computers to encryption software-that U.S. companies can sell abroad
o …introduced legislation designed to provide consumers with a meaningful level of protections for their online privacy
o …helped negotiate a final bill that gives electronic signatures the same legal recognition as handwritten signatures
o …the Internet should not be a tax-free haven.
George Bush’s book, “A Charge to Keep”, was written ‘with’ Karen Hughes.
There is no evidence that GWB has even _read_ a book in the last ten years, except for ‘My Pet Goat.’
SnarkSnarkSnark
I have some ideological friends who insist that 4 more years of W would be better than Kerry, because the country would be so bad off it would have no choice but to adopt radical change, whereas Kerry will just slow the inevitable. As the addage goes, you have to hit rock bottom before you can be helped.
It seems to me any remarks the candidates said are better if they are at least internally consistent. Ideally, they are externally consistent with reality
Bush, moments after praising his own vast expansion of medicare spending, asserted that Kerry’s healthcare proposal was simply wrong because government should not be in the business of providing healthcare. Kerry babbled, in the same few minutes, that (1) Iraq was a threat, (2) Iraq was not a threat. Bush at least consistently lies on this subject.
Ken,
I understand your point. But what about the last 4 years? Wasn’t that enough? We’re not doing to well right now.
Striking a balance between bad enough to polarize the voters and not screwing up our country so bad we can’t ever go back is tough.
I think for the first time since 1790, people should be legitimately concerned about a hostile continuation of the president’s second term and a complete disregard for a free and democratic process in 2008 if W wins.
This is of course, assuming there are free and democratic elections this year.
I find these election very very funny, and yet so sad at the same time. Here we have a country touting it’self as the true democracy. Democracy that should be used as a model all around the world. Yet all americans seem to have as political parties is the Elephant vs the Donkey. A bi-partite system is not close to being democracy.
And all the issues about preventing some people to actually vote, those damn electronic voting machines from diebold and the likes…
Instead of voting democrat why not vote for another party? not just one, many. Oh yes, I forgot, the population does not actually vote for the president but for reprensentatives that will elect a president.
The world wont get any better with Kerry, The US of A needs a profound change that requires that both the democrat’s and republican’s hold on political power be loosened.
Voting for strategically is not exercising your democratic right, it’s playing to the will of a flawed system.
Save your democracy and vote something else than Democrat or republican.
> But now that I’ve seen a bit more of Kerry I find that there is much to dislike about him as well …
————-
As Michael Moore said recently during one of his Slacker speeches: Sure, Kerry and Bush both suck. YOU could do a better job than either of them. But you’re not running, so shut the f*ck up and vote for Kerry.
Radical conservatives better hope Bush loses in ’04, because if he doesn’t it’ll be Hillary in ’08.
Stephanie,
I do not know where you hail from, but until the united states switches to a parlimentary system any vote for a third party will be effectively throwing your vote away.
There is an even more ridiculous situation in the case of the current us presidential election.
If you are drawn to an overtly liberal candidate then you may vote for Nader.
There is simply no chance that Nader can make any impact on the us politcal system.
Any liberal vote that is given to Nader has been effectively taken away from Kerry.
The situation now exists where the supporters of Bush have been actively working to support Nader.
They have zero belief in Nader other than to use him against Kerry.
I have to wonder just what Nader thinks he is accomplishing, In my opinon it is the ‘ultimate corporate sellout’ that he claims he will never do.
Just my thoughts…
Oh, and my favorite part of debate part II, when Kerry attempted to ‘explain’ to an anti-abortion activist that no fetal stem cell advances had been applied to a human from the federally endorsed ‘lines’ because they are contaminated by mouse cell cultures (and by fda rules cannot be used on humans). It bounced off like birdshot on armour
Voting Kerry. Of course he’s not the ideal candidate, but such is the state of affairs in American politics where we must choose between two less than stellar selections.
Still, Kerry is the choice because change is needed:
* Bush first president since Herbert Hoover to end term with reduction in jobs.
* Stock indexes, median income down since Bush took office. Yes, I know that it’s not the president’s responsibility but the executive branch still fosters an environment that promotes prosperity or permits a stagnant economic climate to linger.
* Chilling clampdown on scientists. According to many, never before has science become politicized as it has now.
* Decision and management of Iraq invasion.
Assuming Bush and Kerry are even on Iraq with one having a proven track record of lies and stupidity and the other having far fetched ideas on how to make it better, would it not make sense to vote for the guy less likely to start another one of these messes?
As a concerned European, I have to agree with Gary (and Michael Moore): don’t vote Nader. There is no point what so ever. Instead, start your own political party with a candidate that can take votes away from the Republicans; play their game to level the playing field.
Even if the US can’t switch to a full parlimentary system, you guys should at least take to the streets and demand YOUR vote counts in presidential elections. Right now it gets turned into a vote for the other guy just because more people in the area you live voted differently and some areas, for no reason what so ever are considered to cary more weight. That is just the dumbest thing I have ever heard!
Bas,
We could well demand that the sky be colored green instead of blue and we might get there quicker than changing the presidential election to a pure popular vote. Nothing passes both houses of Congress by 2/3 anymore. Even if that amendment passed Congress, it needs to be ratified by 3/4 of the states. I think too many states benefit from this system for it to have much of a chance. Amending the Constitution has a very high bar that is seldom surmounted (the last amendment to pass did so in 1992 – it was proposed in 1789!). See http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.html
I am voting Bush. Until the Democrats get control of their left wing nut jobs I can’t deal with them anymore. If they would just lay off the full frontal assault on the 2nd Amendment they would get back millions of blue collar voters that they have lost over the prior two decades. Doing this would cause little trouble with their base (left wing nut jobs) who know that Green/Socialist/Commie = throw away your vote.
The standard technique, I believe, for wriggling out of a campaign promise is to solemnly declare that now that you are in office and have more information available, you realize that the situation is even worse than you had realized during the campaign, and therefore you will regrettably have to abandon your promise to blah blah blah. If people feel better off going into election N+1 than they did going into election N, then they are more likely to forgive whatever campaign-N promises were broken in between.
That’s a defeatist attitude, Gun Nut, how _unamerican_! 😉 I am not sure how many states benefit from this (or think they do); elections are now so close that it is as likely to benefit either, isn’t it? It probably won’t make that big a change, but it is the right thing to do as a vote is a vote and should be counted as such.
They are 100% right on the second amendment. First of all, as far as I know, it was based on being able to take up arms agaist the goverment like you did to the British. Fair enough, but unless the Michigan Militia gets their hands on some M1 tanks and those zippy new F22s, I think it is safe to say this is now a moot point. “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns”, am I the only one in thinking that that would make it easier to spot and trial criminals?
Truth is crime went up under Reagan and Bush Sr. and down under Clinton. Yet somehow, W seems to take credit for falling crime based on figures from early 2001. That was during his presidency, so it must be because of him. Eh? Just like the the WTC attack was Clinton’s fault because Bush had been in office for only 18 months. (But Clinton was also responible for the first WTC bombing, not W’s daddy, because it was on Clinton’s watch, he’d been president for three whole weeks!)
Don’t get me wrong, in every succesful politician, there is a lying, cheating bastard. But I can’t believe the lying, cheating and bastarding that comes from your Republican party. I mean, making a perfectly good president lie about something any man would initialy lie about and which is so personal it has nothing to do with his abilities as president with the sole goal of impeaching him over the lie? How low can you go? I can’t believe those guys have any credibility left with you, or any American. It’s just pathetic.
What I don’t understand about the Kerry campaign is that it would be so easy for him to answer Bush’s “You were for the war, then against” to say: “Well, I was for it based on your doctored ‘evidence’, it turned out there was no evidence, let alone actual weapons, so now I am against”. Or: “You voted against funding to support our troops” could be answered with: “No more money means no more war and bringing the troops home, I voted in their best interest”. Yet somehow, these arguments don’t appear. (or the media decides not to show them) Is there something I don’t understand here? Where I come from, admitting you were wrong and then doing the right thing is a sign of strength, not weakness and keeping on saying you were right while everyone knows you were wrong is political suicide. Is this guy actualy trying to win this election?
Naum refers in his comment to the Hoover administration, which I find interesting.
I’m reading “The Crisis of the Old Order,” Arthur Schlesinger’s history of the 1920’s in the U.S. leading up to FDR’s election in 1932. There are many parallels between the drift of the times then and now.
Calvin Coolidge (Hoover’s predecessor) and Hoover were the men of business, and Coolidge even said “The business of the American government is business.” Yet strictly business-style approaches to the times were woefully inadequate in the face of the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic depression. Yet Hoover stubbornly stuck to the ideas and methods that brought him to the office, paving the path for a return to progressive government with FDR’s New Deal. (This paints the argument with broad strokes, but this is a blog comment, not my thesis!)
George W., also a man of business, has stubbornly stuck to his ideas, whether it be linking Iraq to Al Quaeda or cutting taxes while increasing spending (a very unbusiness-like approach). His results have ranged from mediocre to dangerous, depending upon your outlook and the particular situation.
The primary difference between Hoover and Bush Jr., however, is that Hoover was arguably brilliant, a world-class engineer and nationally recognized as a man of ability and substance prior to attaining the highest office in the land. Hoover’s downfall, while reflecting a lack of vision or imagination, cannot be blamed on a lack of ability or effort. George Bush has, in my opinion, failed to achieve due to possessing the trifecta of poor and undeveloped vision, lack of intellectual curiosity and ability, and feeble effort.
Bas and Gunny,
I listened to a webcast (perhaps Neal Stephenson?) regarding encryption a few months ago that made a completely dead-on analogy. It was directed towards the use of extremely large keys for encryption, and cross-applied to the gun ownership issue, but it applies to many different facets of our personal lives.
The analogy started out by comparing using extremely large keys to encryption (like 2048 bit) to having a picket fence in your front yard that had a single picket that stood 100 feet tall. It may stop somebody from appraching in that one direction and give some amount of confidence (gee, that’s real BIG), but it would be effectively sidestepped with very little effort (think Maginot line).
Neal went on to compare this to to single-issue voters that focus on things like gun ownership (abortion, tree hugging, yada yada) and how they are gaining a false sense of security because they have identified one or two ‘needs’. These ‘needs’ can then be easily identified and used to gain large blocks of voters. Of course, there is a pretty good chance that these ‘needs’ aren’t even relevant (nod to Bas on the M1’s and f22’s) and that there is a vast list of more pressing needs (like my kids taking care of my old ass when there is no social security available).
The speaker went on to suggest that for both digital and personal peace of mind a person would need to build a well thought-out picket fence that had clearly identified the available (or reasonable) threats and developed adequate ‘pickets’ to place in front of them.
The republican party has been particularly effective at defining a limited set of ‘threats’ and ‘pickets’ to feed to their supporters. Personally, I think that they are manufactured and set out like a magicians piece of flash-paper. They keep your attention while you get your pocket picked. Pity me, but I cannot help but feel a little disappointed when a friend starts harping about gun control, I feel a little embarrased for them.
Republicans are really very good at the Spin, and the Conservative Media loves eating it up.
Look at any of the 24 hour news channels for a few minutes. Each day, dozens of conservative pundits get on the air and are there with their message of the day – talking points distributed by Karl Rove or his people.
On the other hand, Democrats and their sympathizers can’t stay on message.
Organized labor gripes about Bush’s anti-labor movement.
Enviromentalists stammer about his policies destroying the earth.
Women’s groups shout out about abortion or women’s right to choose or glass ceilings.
So at the end of any given day, the Republican message has been repeated maybe 100 times – five times an hour on every 24 hour news channel, on the 5 O Clock news, during the news magazines, ect.
Meanwhile, the Democrats and their friends in labor, the environment, and dozens of other splinter groups are all spouting about their message.
In the end there are 5 snipes at Republicans on women’s rights. Another 5 about labor. Another 5 from environmentalists. NONE of these messages are heard because compared to the one homogenous voice of Karl Rove repeated dozens of times, the Democratic message is simply lost.
Democrats and their supporters need one message and need to stick with it. Unfortunately, everyone wants to move their own agenda,and in so doing, all of them are are lost in the media quagmire.
I feel overwhelming compelled to write. First to Iraq… W. is totally right about one thing and that is the fact that you can’t get other countries to join you when you have already declared that you don’t believe we should even be fighting this war, and it hurts our troops morale, it hurts our allies, it hurts the majority of Iraqi’s (who want a free Iraq), and it gives a foothold to the terrorists who seek to disrupt the effort. So even if W. now believes differently, I believe he is smart enough to realize that there are grave consequences for saying otherwise right now. There is no feasible way for Kerry to make a huge impact on what is going on right now. The terrorists in Iraq are stepping up their efforts for 3 reasons: 1 – to continue to destabilize the area (attempting to keep Islamic fundamentalism as the guiding force in the region), 2 – they have found some countries (Spain and the Phillipines) responsive to their tactics, and 3 – they hate W. almost as much as Michael Moore does and having him lose the election would certainly delight them.
As for going to Iraq in the first place. If I had been president during 9/11 (which by the way, was less than 8 months from Bush taking office — not 18 like our misinformed European friend has said), and I had all of the worlds intelligence services (CIA, British, Germans, Russians, etc…) agreeing that Iraq still had WMD’s, I think I would have taken the threat very seriously too. Because I would not want to sit through watching thousands more people get killed because I failed to act. In this instance, our hindsight is 20/20 and Kerry is attempting to capitalize on that.
But Kerry’s record in the Senate is his downfall, he has proven to always be on the wrong side of foreign policy. He came back from Vietnam and openly testified about the evils of our own troops (which was used against those still in the field), he opposed Reagan’s policies, he opposed the first Gulf War (despite the fact that Bush Sr. had built a larger coalition and had much stronger UN support BEFORE even going in), he has repeatedly spoken out and voted against many of the weapons programs in use to today.
As for evangelicals saying that abortion and gay marriage are more important than Iraq or the economy, my answer would have to be yes, essentially they are. If you really believe that abortion is murder, then there are far more innocent lives being lost in the US than Iraq. And the potential of overturning Roe v. Wade (thus allowing states to decide whether to allow abortions) obviously could save millions of lives. So certainly, an evangelical should consider it important. As for gay marriage, if you believe that emphasis and recognition of traditional marriage (as has been recognized for thousands of years) is essential to encouraging strong and stable families (yes I realize that the divorce rate is high but legalized gay marriage hasn’t proven to help that trend in countries that have done it) then certainly you would consider this an important issue.
But I (as well as the other evangelicals I know) am also seriously concerned about economic and other domestic issues. What troubles me is that, if elected, Kerry has some built in tax increases. Bush’s tax cuts all have expiration dates (many within the first four years). Seeing how Kerry has voted against all the tax cuts, why would choose to sign off on ANY extention to any of them? He could just claim that it isn’t fair or benefits the rich too much and vetos it. Boom! A tax increase that hits me (an under $200K a year middle class guy). Things like 529 college savings plans are also set to expire (2010) and attempts to extend that could severely impact my efforts to save for my son’s education.
As for other economic issues, it is inconceivable to think that following Kerry’s plan we’d have any sort of budget fix. There hasn’t been a single time in the debates where he has actually suggested spending less on anything. Aids in Africa (“The President has promised $X million, which they haven’t totally delivered, but I think we need to double that), Education (“The president has underfunded that… we need to double the spending…”), Iraq (“we need an additional 40,000 troops there or even take the Iraqi’s out of the country to train them”), law enforcement, environment, security, fire departments, the list is never ending. None of these have seen cuts under W., yet the criticism is that we’re not spending enough. The big whopper is healthcare. At least W.’s plan with Medicare leverages some privatization to keep things from getting as bogged down. Kerry said in the debate about his socialized medicine plans “the government will have nothing to do with your healthcare, you and your doctor will make all the decisions…” Boy that sounds good, but wait! The government WILL have something to do with it, the government will be paying for it. And who will write the checks? Why another new beauracracy of course with more government employees. And what happens when we realize we’re spending too much? We can’t go back then. We will have already slipped too far down the slippery slope of socialized medicine.
As for W. being stupid, that’s an interesting theory that seems to run around a lot. But just getting some C’s in school and having slightly less speaking/debating ability than some other folks sure isn’t much proof. Even watching Nancy Pelosi’s daughter’s (Alexi) piece “Journey’s with George” shows some definite style and mental capabilities beyond the average. Anyway, enough with the “pig headed, ignorant, stupid, dumb, puppet of Karl Rove” comments. I swear some people are basing their entire political opinion on having watched Farenheit 9/11. Geez.
Scott wrote: “George Bush has, in my opinion, failed to achieve due to possessing the trifecta of poor and undeveloped vision, lack of intellectual curiosity and ability, and feeble effort.”
Maybe. MIT’s Peter Senge says (paraphrase) “all decisions reflect a personal agenda”. Followed by “…any readily apparent problem is really just the tip of a hidden, massive problem” and “complex problems require complex solutions” etc etc.
Until “somebody” discovers “what-exactly” is GWB’s personal agenda, we will never know if he is a genius or an idiot.
Now, it could be that GWB is simply not doing what 51% of the voters want him to do, and that will cost him the election.
This leaves us with an interesting paradigm… Maybe the “perfect president” gets 50.1% of the vote which allows him to get re-elected, while executing the greatest percentage of his own (non-mainstream) personal 1st-term agenda (genius). If this is the case, GWB, if re-elected, will go berserk in his second term (disaster). Given this risk, knowing first-term performance (evaluated by my own metric), I say Throw The Bum Out!
PS>> The above from a (formerly) die-hard Republican.
…Germany hints they will send troops “if conditions were to change”. Says John Kerry’s summit proposal is “very sensible idea”.
“The situation in Iraq can only be cleared up when all those involved sit together at one table.”
It wouldn’t surprise me that a President Kerry could get more from our allies than President Bush ever did. Thats not a high standard of achievement, I know.
Well, Steven.
First, you are right, 8, not 18. My bad. Still a lot more than Clinton’s 3 weeks and doesn’t take away from my point on Republican spin.
My missinformed American friend, those intelligence agencies always stated “they may have those weapons, we just don’t know”, they never said with certainty he had them, that was just Tony’s and W’s interpretation. Inteligence agencies said they were not sure and Hans Blix couldn’t find any, that is proof enough for me he really didn’t have them. And when Bush says Tony, Silvio and Johny are his allies, he is right. What he fails to recognize is that the vast majority of their combined 100+ million citizens are, in fact, not.
As for AIDS in Africa, you’ll be pleased to know your goverment’s insistance on enforcing sneakily granted patents to the drugs companies for work done mostly by the goverment that make the drugs needed so expensive will mean that most of your tax money to fund this will go into the coffers of your friendly local pharmaceuticals. (Although, this is a US issue in general, not related to the Bush/Kerry debate)
Kerry was against Gulf War one. But did you realise Colin Powel was against as well? He pressed for more sanctions instead of starting the shooting on (if I recall correctly) Jan 16th 1991. So holding this against Kerry is, well, not quite reasonable. As for his stance on the Vietnam war, he was the perfect person to do this, he knew, he has been there. This “don’t say anything bad, it will hurt our troops” is the greatest piece of crap I have ever heard! The best thing to happen to the troops can be to end the war and bring them home, and the only way to do that is to be critical of them being there in the first place.
Goverment funded medicare: this is the best way to do it! If you privatize it, all you will do is replace a goverment burocracy with near-monopolized companies that need to make a profit. The only way to fight healthcare cost in the US, in my humble opinion, is to clamp down on profiteering by the insurers and providers and to limit malpractice suits.
$200K/year and you call yourself middle class? Middle class in my mind is 50K per year. 200K is just plain old rich. Careful not to drown in your own self pitty, mate.
Bas, I said I made LESS than $200K. Actually, I make only the slightest more than what you consider middle class (which by the way is very inaccurate depending on what part of the country you live in). The fact is, democrats in this country have held the “evil rich” bar much lower than 200K in past. But regardless, jacking up taxes on folks who make more is just plain class warfare. Plus, raising taxes on those $200K+ folks not only hurts the small businesses that file that way, it takes money straight out of the economy. It’s the classic argument of who ever got a job from a poor person. You take that extra 3% back and it comes right out of the hands of auto workers, waitors and waitresses. And it the money goes into the inefficient government.
Don’t even get me started on the Vietnam thing. You clearly have a screwed up picture of that issue. And you certainly don’t have to meet with the N. Vietnamese in Paris in 1971 to work towards getting our troops out. Treason!
And no, involving the government has NEVER shown to truly improve the cost of ANYTHING. It transfers cost and it increases cost. When has involving the government ever really clamped down on profiteering? It may shift it around but the government is NOT the way to go. We need to fix the framework (Tort reform being highest on the list) and approach it from the standpoint of fixing the game board rather than moving the pieces around for the players.
Steven,
How can you talk about less taxes when we have such high deficits and a national debt that consumes 30% of our federal budget just to pay the interest of it? I believe the national debt is very manageable until Reagan took office. Then it became a huge problem. And people like you talk about less taxes? Do you fix your credit debt problems by charging more to it?????
Please tell everyone what threat Vietnam posed to the United States? Id love to hear. John Kerry VOLUNTEERED to go defend our country, went overseas and learned that our country was not threatened and saw only that people were dying for nothing. Spin all you want, THATS WHAT HAPPENED.
As far as Iraq, the weapons inspectors continuously reported that they couldnt find any WMD. Which David Kay reported. Also the same thing that was reported again. So you are wrong about that. A great deal of people worldwide didnt think Saddam had WMD and did not think Saddam was any threat.
And finally – did you actually see F911?
“When has involving the government ever really clamped down on profiteering?” I am sure it hasn’t, because they haven’t gone far enough. What needs to be done is make university near-free, so doctors don’t spend 100K+ in training, meaning big loans and big wages to pay it off. Pay the income of people dissabled by malpractice so they doctors don’t need to insure against multi-million dollar suits. Then you say: right, insurers, this is all you are allowed to charge. Which will make the insurers have to say: listen up doc, I am not going to pay you more than x for that procedure, take it or leave it.
Don’t say it doesn’t work until you _really_ try it, and clearly, the US has never really tried.
Go back into the history books to the French revolution, THAT is clas warfare. Making someone who is sponging off paying their employees no health benefits and only minumum wage pay a little more tax over money that only goes to luxury items and services to help out those less fortunate is only fair.
Bas and Louis,
I doubt that you will be able to talk any ‘sense’ into S Wilcox, His mind is made up, he has driven his five, mile-high, picket fence stakes into the ground and he is more than happy crouching behind them and calling everybody else idiots.
I think that the right-wing has been very successful in turning, seemingly, rational people to this point of view in these ways:
1. Many popular religions do not require any true experience of compassion, but rather depend on blind faith.
2. A large portion of the american public has no direct experiences of the abuses of corporations against individuals (I _have_ held my dead child in my arms and had the culprits try to blame it on me, have you?).
3. With neither direct experience, nor the compassion to feel for the experiences of others, everything is easily painted as ‘welfare layabouts’, ‘ambulance chasing profiteers’ and ‘race-baiting politicians’.
4. By painting every form of government ‘safety net’ as ‘waste’, it is easy to identify the potential savings by eliminating this waste.
5. The middle class, while dreaming of potential affluence, are easily tricked into believing that tax relief for the wealthy will be good for them, someday…
Anyways, this is how I see it. I have had many co-workers that have been rabid right-wing, clinton-hating, racists (white, black and otherwise). It has never been worth my time to confront them, rather to help them to reach some form of personal growth that allows them to see beyond their (hidden desires) and propaganda that they are fed.
Cheers!
I just find it strange that you jump on something like this instead of the larger issues discussed. What do you expect, Kerry to NOT say he has a plan? Didnt other things in the debate scare you more? What about when Bush was asked point blank if he made any mistakes in his first four years – he did not mention a single one and he launched into a defense of his Iraq mess! Bush does not learn from mistakes, I cant think of anything more dangerous in a world leader than that.
MAKE THE DIFFERENCE!!
From electoral-vote.com:
From The Los Angeles Times: “Nationwide, at least two polls in the last week showed that newly registered voters favored Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry by double-digit margins. The Massachusetts senator holds an even greater lead, the polls found, among voters 29 and younger… The conclusion is that the new voters and younger voters favor Kerry by a large margin, but historically they don’t actually bother to vote. If they do this time, it could make a big difference.
Come on people––your vote is essential!
THERE’S STILL TIME TO REQUEST YOUR ABSENTEE BALLOT in many states if you are registered to vote!
It’s easy; it’s online.
Absentee Ballot information online:
http://www.rockthevote.com/rtv_primaries.php
GET TO THE POLLS AND VOTE ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND!!
Please e-mail this information to all of your friends!
AND VOTE FOR KERRY!!!!
Your future depends on it!
VOTE FOR KERRY!!!!
Re: I think that the right-wing has been very successful in turning
Bigger ramifications:
NYT’s article, “Wiring the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy” at
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/magazine/25DEMOCRATS.html
George Lakoff’s articles on framing at
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research?Contributors=George+Lakoff
How the GOP Took Control of the White House, the Senate, the House,
the Judiciary, State Governorships and Legislatures at
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/04/1620244
I just want to say in behalf for us youths who think what really happend to this great country of ours, us electing Bush has only brought many families in pain and in sorrow for all there sons and daughters lost in this pointles war in Irag, Why cant he be the one with the Ak47 fighting saddam , just to impress his fuking father, Its time for revolution agaist this Fuker president you bastards elected, If i get snipped tom. you all know becouse i told u to fight.