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Politics : Proof that John Kerry is Unfit for Command -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (14397)	10/1/2004 7:00:07 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 27181

URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005704 BY JAMES TARANTO Friday, October 1, 2004 2:36 p.m. EDT Bush and 'But'-Head John Kerry made some strong and sensible statements during the debate last night, but did you notice what the next word usually was? Here are some Kerry quotes: "I'll never give a veto to any country over our security. But . . ." "I believe in being strong and resolute and determined. And I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, wherever they are. But . . ." "We have to be steadfast and resolved, and I am. And I will succeed for those troops, now that we're there. We have to succeed. We can't leave a failed Iraq. But . . ." "I believe that we have to win this. The president and I have always agreed on that. And from the beginning, I did vote to give the authority, because I thought Saddam Hussein was a threat, and I did accept that intelligence. But . . ." "I have nothing but respect for the British, Tony Blair, and for what they've been willing to do. But . . ." "What I want to do is change the dynamics on the ground. And you have to do that by beginning to not back off of the Fallujahs and other places, and send the wrong message to the terrorists. You have to close the borders. You've got to show you're serious in that regard. But . . ." "I couldn't agree more that the Iraqis want to be free and that they could be free. But . . ." "No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to pre-empt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But . . ." "I've never wavered in my life. I know exactly what we need to do in Iraq, and my position has been consistent: Saddam Hussein is a threat. He needed to be disarmed. We needed to go to the U.N. The president needed the authority to use force in order to be able to get him to do something, because he never did it without the threat of force. But . . ." Maybe Kerry misunderstood when someone told him he needed to have the "qualifications" to be president. But it'd inspire a lot more confidence if he had followed any of these remarks with a "therefore" clause instead of a "but" one. Victor Davis Hanson makes a related point: There is a logic to Senator Kerry's flip-flopping that transcends his political opportunism: He is simply a captive of the pulse of the battlefield, without any steady vision or historical sense that might put the carnage of the day into some larger tactical, strategic, or political framework. As was true over a decade ago during Gulf War I, he contradicts himself when good news from the front makes his prior antiwar stance look either timid or foolhardy. But when the casualty rate rises or CNN is particularly vivid in airing the latest beheading or car bomb he returns to his shrill pessimism and denounces the war. This may be good politics; as Hanson notes, "in this regard, the senator is one with the majority of citizens--at least if the mercurial polls are any indication." But leadership it ain't. Kerry Wins? Maybe Not. The conventional wisdom is that John Kerry "won" the debate. We certainly agree that he performed well. In contrast with his hapless recent efforts at the convention and on the stump, he came across as poised, confident and even reasonably disciplined verbally. And he toned down the defeatism on Iraq. But in a postdebate Gallup poll, although a majority (53%) thought Kerry "did a better job in the debate" than Bush (37%), the results of more specific questions look better for the president: URL:http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2004a.html