Sullivan fisks Kerry
Talk Down
by Andrew Sullivan
Only at TNR Online
It was, I think, the right decision. John Edwards will make a great running mate for Kerry. But missed in the natural brouhaha is the actual speech John Kerry gave announcing his choice. It's perhaps the first national stump-speech given by Kerry now that the primaries are long over and the national campaign is beginning. And it was dreadful. It failed on almost every count. It was tedious; it was vacuous; and it was hyper-liberal. Here's my textual criticism.
John Edwards is ready for this job. He is ready for this job and there is something else about John Edwards that is important in this campaign and our country at this critical time. As you know, I am determined that we reach out across party lines, that we speak the heart of America, that we speak of hope and of optimism. And John Edwards will join me in doing that.
As so many [applause] as so many of you know, throughout this campaign, John talked about the great divide in America--the two Americas that exist between those who are doing very well and those who are struggling to make ends meet in our country. That concern is at the center of this campaign. It is what it is all about. It is what the 35 years of my struggle have been about and I am so proud that together John Edwards and I are now going to fight to build one America for all Americans.
This is a major statement. What it says is that the Kerry campaign is fundamentally not about the war on terror. It's about economic inequality. And the premise is that an unequal country is not truly a united country. It would be hard to find a simpler expression of paleoliberalism than that.
As you know, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and also a leader in fighting bioterrorism and understanding the threats we face, he shares my unshakable commitment to having a military that is second to nobody in the world but also to restoring old and rebuilding new alliances that make America stronger.
Perhaps this paragraph is supposed to reassure those of us who worry that John Kerry's position in the war on terror is simply to call it off. Well, it doesn't. Notice the vapid formulation: Edwards wants a military that is "second to nobody" in the world. But the current U.S. military is so far ahead of all its competitors that the notion of its falling into "second place" is ludicrous. Who would overtake the hegemon? Germany? Russia? France? China? Please. Not for a very long time, if ever. So Kerry gets to sound tough on defense while saying something completely vacuous. Then the second plank: "restoring old and rebuilding new alliances." But for what? So far, the only actual mention of the Islamist enemy is another vacuous phrase: "the threats we face." Can you tell us what those threats are, senator? And shouldn't they determine to a great extent what our foreign policy should be? Nah. You get the impression that Kerry's notion of a successful foreign policy is almost defined by whether every ally supports it. It's all process and no point. In peacetime, this is a weakness. In wartime, it's a disqualifier.
And there is also a great bonus--a great bonus--in having John on this ticket. He, like me, is blessed with a remarkable wife, a strong, brave woman, Elizabeth Edwards. And Teresa and I will be proud to stand with the Edwards family, with their daughter, Kate, who just graduated from college this year, and with their two little ones, Emma Claire and Jack. And anyone who knows them, and America will get to know them, knows that this is a family that loves each other and loves America. We--we are--Teresa and I have talked with John and Elizabeth this morning. We've invited them to come here to Pittsburgh tonight and [applause] we're going to spend the evening together, have a little chance to break bread, get a chance to talk. Our families will have a chance to meet and get to know each other well. And tomorrow morning, together, we all look forward to coming out and speaking to the nation for the first time as a team that will lead this country in a new and stronger direction.
Well, that's nice for you all. And Elizabeth Edwards is indeed an impressive person. But please let us know when the group hug is over.
In the next 120 days John and I and Elizabeth and Teresa are going to crisscross this country and fight for the nation that all of us know that we can be. This is about fairness; it's about fundamental fairness for all Americans; it's about people being able to go to work and actually getting the ability through a week's work and a month's work and a year's work to pay their bills, to live decently, to get ahead, to be able to be fair.
This paragraph is so vapid, so empty of any meaning, it almost defies commentary. It's about "fairness." What unfairness is he describing? We don't know. But we do know that this candidate is very much in favor of people being able to go to work and pay their bills. I'm sure he's also in favor of afternoon naps, ice cream, and new cars. Then he says that his campaign is about people being "able to be fair." So now the government is not only in favor of fairness; it's in favor of fairness "ability." You can hack away at this kind of verbiage for a very long time and the weeds of blather just keep growing back.
This is a fight about creating jobs in America that don't pay less than the jobs that we're losing overseas; this is about--this is about having a president who fights as hard for your job as he fights for his own job.
This is about once and for all ending the shame of the United States of America being the only industrial nation on this planet--and the richest one at that--that doesn't yet understand--but it will at the end of this campaign--health care is not a privilege for the wealthy and the connected; health care is for all Americans. And we're going to fight for it.
Shrummery. But important Shrummery. Notice all the "fights" and "fighting" in this speech. And look what we're "fighting" for. The key plank of Kerry's election will be Clinton's in 1992: government-mandated universal healthcare. And the current American choice to deliver healthcare primarily through private industry is "shameful." Not wrong or misguided: shameful. Again, there's a case to be made for government-mandated universal healthcare. And it's certainly a relief to see Kerry actually say something substantive. But it also highlights that the Republican charge that Kerry is a big government, moralistic paleoliberal has a good deal of truth to it.
This is [chanting and applause] this [chanting continues] this is also a fight for common sense.
And it's about the future, and children, and the future of children and ... who writes this crap?
And [applause] and I can pledge you this: John Edwards and I would never think about sending young America's sons and daughters into harm's way anywhere in the world without telling the American people the truth.
Now this is a big charge. Kerry is saying--but not saying--that the president lied to the American people when he explained on many occasions his own reasons for going to war against Saddam. So what was the lie? WMD? Does Kerry have evidence that this administration knew that Saddam had no such stockpiles and told the American people something else? Let him produce it. But all the evidence suggests a screw-up not a cover-up. Maybe the Bushies convinced themselves too easily of Saddam's arsenal. Certainly they can be criticized severely for their miscalculation. But observe Kerry's decision: not to call Bush an incompetent or a hysteric--but to call him a liar on one of the gravest matters imaginable, sending young men and women into danger. This charge is itself revealing of Kerry's political character. He's prepared to level the most serious allegations and not substantiate them. One other thing: Since the senator supported the war, he must believe that he was misled as well. A question then: On what issue did the president lie to him? Isn't a charge that grave worthy of actual evidence?
And part of that common sense is pretty straightforward. God only gave us 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. Right? But the Middle East has 65 percent. I think it's smart for America to control its own destiny; I think it's smart for us to be able to know that our security is in our hands. I think it's smart for us to know that no young American in uniform will ever be held hostage to America's dependence on oil in the Middle East. We're going to liberate ourselves.
That last phrase is an egregious slur on the liberation of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. But put that aside. How does Kerry propose that we "liberate ourselves"? Presumably, he's referring to energy independence. But surely he knows that even the most ambitious project would not end the West's reliance on Middle Eastern oil for the foreseeable future. So in the meantime, what is Kerry's policy toward the Middle East? Does he support Bush-style democratization? Or a return to the realpolitik of Scowcroft? I think the absence of any analysis of the current war in the Middle East--except that the region would be better if we didn't have to be there at all--gives the answer.
And as John learned in North Carolina and as both of us have heard all across this country, we've met too many parents who are forced to send their kids to a school that's overcrowded in its classes, that's lost its after-school programs, parents who feel frustrated that they just can't even get their kids the opportunities that parents live and die for.
Well, when I'm president and with John Edwards as vice president, I promise you this: We're going to stop being a country that's content to build a prison and spend $70,000 a year or $50,000 a year to house a young person there for the rest of their life rather than invest $10 - $11,000 in Head Start, Early Start, Smart Start--give kids a chance to be full citizens.
Again, a revealing pitch. Kerry's paleoliberal boilerplate: The only problem with education is that we don't spend enough public money on it. And if parents are "forced" to send their kids to bad public schools, the last thing you'd want is to give them an actual choice, like vouchers. And, according to Kerry, there's also a problem with putting criminals in jail, when they could have been in Head Start--and all would have been well. One obvious question: Is Kerry auditioning for a new Bush ad? Or is he just determined to throw a wrench into the difficult work that Bill Clinton did insisting that Democrats can be tough on crime and don't see all public problems as a function of not enough taxpayers' money being thrown at the issue? I'm afraid Kerry actually believes this. The NEA never found a more pliable front-man.
So I ask you over these next days as we build this team and as we go forward in this race, we've got four months, four months, and I have you, you, right--you bet we do.
And that's exactly the point that I want to make. Every generation in American history--think of your parents and your grandparents and go back and read your history books--every generation has had a chance to contribute to who we are as Americans.
I love that condescension: Go read your history. And what would you find? That "every generation has had a chance to contribute to who we are as Americans." Duh. And when would that not be true? And how could that not be true? Kerry has the capacity to say something absolutely banal and to believe he's superior for saying it. It's a gift, I tell you. A gift.
Teresa, who came from East Africa, a dictatorship, to become American and know the passion of being an American, who saw her father vote only for the first time when he was 71 years old, understands, as we all do, the blessings of this great country of ours.
Now we know that Kerry really is a Scrowcroftian: The answer to foreign dictatorships is for people to leave them.
But what makes this country great is our ability to come together like this in a square in a city and talk with each other and build a movement that rights our future.
Can someone please pass a law forbidding politicians from saying the phrase: "What makes this country great is..."? It's a signpost for the bleeding obvious and, in this respect, Kerry doesn't disappoint. The important thing is to attend political rallies. Sheesh.
We have the ability to be able to do these things. But we have to go out and make it happen.
Make what happen in this great country of ours? More rallies? More ability to be fair? Fewer criminals in jail? More alliances? More money for public school teachers? More common sense? At this point, the listener might be growing a little overwhelmed by the possibilities.
I [applause] I learned the great blessing of this country years ago when I fought for it. And I came together on a small boat in the jungles of Vietnam with five other guys from places as diverse as South Carolina, Arkansas, California, Iowa, Massachusetts. And you know what? When we were on that boat, folks, nobody worried about bank accounts and schools and backgrounds and religion. We covered for each other; we worked together; we were literally all in the same boat.
And what we need is a president who understands that there aren't people who are powerful and special interests that you take care of in this country. We're all in the same boat. And when I'm president, we're going to have a country that reflects that; we're going to have a president who fights for all Americans, doesn't divide them; brings people together to solve problems.
The boat. Oh, God. You can feel this metaphor emerging relentlessly from the depths like that "bridge to the future" that Clinton and Gore kept building and building and building. Maybe we should just surrender in front of it now. But the boat that Kerry was originally in was in a war; and the point of the boat was to take that war to the enemy. It was not to have a group self-esteem session. Who is our enemy today? What happened three and a half years ago? Who is trying to annihilate Western civilization? Kerry doesn't know and he hopes we've forgotten. But the boat sure is nice.
I pledge to you that while we may be older and grayer now, those of us who served, we still know how to fight for our country and we're going to fight for our country.
Translation: I fought in a war and George Bush didn't. Therefore all criticisms of my foreign policy are an assault on my patriotism. Back off, Republicans.
Langston Hughes was a poet, a black man, and a poor man.
Three reasons Kerry likes him.
And he wrote in the 1930s powerful words that apply to all of us today. He said, Let America be America again; let it be the dream that it used to be for those whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, for those whose hand at the foundry--something Pittsburgh knows about--for those whose plow in the rain must bring back our mighty dream again.
The use of this Langston Hughes line is now familiar. Like that boat, we're going to hear it again. But it's also vacuous. Does he mean that America is now not America? Or that the people who support the president are somehow un-American? Can you imagine the fuss if Bush said such a thing? But the wonderful thing about this passage is Kerry's unerring tin ear. For the first time in this dreadful speech, we actually get some poetry. So Kerry puts his clumsy boot in it with that priceless "something Pittsburgh knows about." What's poetry without a little pandering, after all?
We've come here today to put a team together that's going to fight to bring back America's mighty dream. We're going out of here today to let America be America again. Let's go out and make it happen together.
We're going out of here to fight for a mighty dream that will let America be America. If you know of any rallying cry more flatulently vapid, please don't let me know.
Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at TNR. |
