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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (482995)	10/28/2003 8:21:09 PM
From: Victor Lazlo	Respond to of 769667

Moroney: Kerry's war plan assures his defeat By Tom Moroney Tuesday, October 28, 2003 Four suicide bombers in 45 minutes, three dozen dead, 200 wounded -- yesterday was the the bloodiest day in Iraq since we've been there, and John Kerry, presidential candidate, is out there trying to explain how he was for the war but against the money for the postwar. Is there any doubt as to why this fellow is having trouble on the campaign trail? His people might argue his message is complex, not tailored to the sound-bite coverage of this primary campaign. But Kerry has put himself in a box that could cost him everything. At the latest presidential debate in Detroit Sunday night, that lethal ambiguity of his once again came shining through. And, once again, he used the uniform he wore in Vietnam to help his cause. "Well, Joe," he said, responding to a relentless Lieberman, "I had seared in me an experience which you don't have, and that's the experience of being one of those troops on the front lines when the policy has gone wrong." Take that, Joe. There is a great irony in these Iraq problems Kerry has: Americans, by various margins, no longer view Iraq as the top issue. Listen to Howard Dean, the wily frontrunner who has endured a pounding from the others and still maintains a lead. Dean basically gave up the push on Iraq weeks ago and has moved on to the economy and jobs, and what Bush has or hasn't done for both. By contrast, October is almost over, and here's Kerry still stuck in a muck and mire of a political battlefield that is becoming irrelevant. To the charge that he left our troops unsafe by voting against the $87 billion Bush package for Iraq and Afghanistan, Kerry said in Detroit: "What we did was vote to protect the security of our troops in the long run by making clear how to do this." Oh, really? It is clear now that Bush went into Iraq on pretenses he thought that he could sell but never expected he would have to prove. What's also clear is that the postwar effort is being slowed by this president's choice to go it alone for so long. And as opponents make clear in each of these debates, Kerry's response to both is clearly not resonating. He is stuck; he has fallen and can't get up. Maybe Lieberman's hardest shot came when he threw Vietnam right back in Kerry's face. "What do we look back and wonder about our time in Vietnam? We didn't support our troops. If everyone had voted the way John Kerry did, the money wouldn't have been there to support" them. There was an obvious and even transparent tone of pandering to the war crowd in Lieberman's barb. But what was Kerry' response? The New York Times said he "visibly stiffened." So much for hardball. The problem is simple. Kerry has staked out a position that he does not defend, a position I would suggest he cannot defend. That is, if you are against the way Bush is handling postwar Iraq, you don't withhold the money. You use your influence in the Senate and your bully pulpit in the campaign to change it. Kerry talks about changing it. He talks about that a lot. And that's the problem: it's all talk, and rather vague talk at that. To be fair, primary campaigns with so many running do not offer much room for complexity. And so maybe Kerry's arguments are too complicated to get across at the debates. So I looked on his Web site, where campaign staffs are always telling me to look for the real scoop. And here's what I found: Kerry's four-point plan for Iraq. Ready? (1) Increase overall troop strength, (2) train Iraqis more rapidly, (3) lay out a clear plan to the public, and (4) more quickly provide basic services such as electricity. I'm no fan of the Bush administration, but is there a single high-level Bushie who would disagree with any of that? If Kerry is committed to this dangerous position of his (for the war, against the postwar) he better start finding some new language. Hit Bush and hit him harder, for example, about the lack of international help. Slam him for the apparent self-interest his team shows in reaping the rewards of the invasion, e.g., Iraqi oil. Don't abandon the postwar. Work to change it. Can the candidate find his voice on this and raise himself from the muck and mire? Time will tell, but time is running out. metrowestdailynews.com