But you know my problem Michael--the other guys offers me nothing
I'm glad you realize it. It's pathetic watching guys like Sullivan paint their wishes onto Kerry (who's been happy enough to collect their votes by sounding Presidential for the last two months), when anybody who has watched Kerry in action knows what an empty suit he is.
Look, I've lived in Massachusetts for 18 years. Kerry is a pompous back-bencher, whose foreign policy instincts mesh well with Jimmy Carter's. There's never been a use of military force he approved of, and his only concern with the military and intelligence budget was to cut it as much as possible. His main demand in this campaign is that foreign policy be run with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, which is of course impossible.
As to what Kerry would actually do in office, before I answer that, you must tell me where his course of least resistance lies, for that is the direction he will go. It really depends on who rolls him the hardest. Kerry as a politician has limitless ambition but no backbone at all. On top of that, Kerry has no charisma and no ability to charm or persuade anybody. The other politicians in Massachusetts had the cut of his jib and knew that if they simply body-slammed him if he proposed something they didn't like, he would cave. As President, I think Kerry would be like Jimmy Carter - but without the convictions.
Kerry's chief success in this campaign has been to paint himself as a blank canvas upon which the voters could project all their hopes for a) a more skillful and diplomatic continuation of Bush's policies, and b) a skillful and diplomatic abandonment of Bush's policies, and a return to the placid days of the 1990s.
I think you will notice that the two ends of this bargain cannot coexist in reality. If Kerry gets in, he will have no mandate for anything, and little support from even his own divided party. Is four years of paralysis really what you want to vote for? |
