Let Dick Debate; Let W be President
Questions & Observations blog
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Posted by: Dale Franks
Dick Cheney did pretty much what George W. Bush should have done last week. Finally, someone bought up Mr. Kerry’s 20 years of senate votes, and Mr. Edward six years of doing...whatever it was he was supposed to be doing but wasn’t while serving as senator.
Bringing up Kerry’s 30-year history of anti-intelligence, anti-defense policy positions is vitally important. Anyone--except perhaps George W. Bush--can look good and presidential in a 90-minute debate. But words speak louder than deeds, and Mr. Kerry’s history has been one of, as Mr. Cheney said, being on the worng side of practically every foreign policy issue the country has faced during his public life.
Mr. Cheney was calm, collected and distinguished. Mr. Edwards was better prepared than I thought he would be, and despite his inability to answer the questions that were asked from time to time, he used the format well, saving his money shots for the 30-second re-rebuttals where Mr. Cheney would have no chance to respond.
The debate struck me as being more serious and more substantive than the previous week’s debates between the presidential candidates.
On the whole, though, I thought the VP gave much better than he took.
UPDATE:
Kerry Campaign Manager Mary Beth Cahill made two very telling statements tonight in her tour of Spin Alley, both of which should give voters pause.
First she said that Bush and Cheney don’t have a plan to get out of Iraq, but John Kerry does. Well, that’s as may be, but that’s the whole problem with Mr. Kerry’s plan. Its primary goal is to get out of Iraq. Stabilizing the country, leaving it relatively secure, bequeathing it some sort of democratic governance, all of those goals run a distant second to the goal of withdrawing from Iraq, Beginning, as Mr. Kerry himself said last week, in six months. That’s Mr. Kerry’s whole problem. Victory is not his goal. Leaving Iraq is, and that couldn’t be clearer.
Second, when asked about Mr. Cheney’s Characterization of Mr. Kerry’s voting record in the senate, she said, essentially, «well, that’s all about the past. We don’t care about the past. It’s the future that’s important.» The only more cynical formulation for an answer to that question was one given several years ago by former California Governor Jerry Brown, who replied, "That was then. This is now."
The trouble though is that actions speak louder than words. Mr. Kerry may say any number of things while running for president. But his past record--and it stretches back for three decades--speaks volumes about what he’d actually do as president.
In his famous speech before the Virginia House of Burgess on the eve of the Revolutionary War, Patrick Henry said, "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past." John Kerry’s votes in the Senate on innumerable matters of policy are not irrelevant to his qualifications for the presidency. I’m sure the Democrats would like to pretend that Mr. Kerry’s public record doesn’t matter. For his part, Mr. Kerry is doing his best to avoid speaking of it.
But it does matter, because it tells us all we need to know about his inclinations when dealing with the use of American force. And those inclinations are precisely the wrong ones needed at this time.
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