A recent Reuters headline proclaimed “KERRY SAYS BUSH’S IRAQ WAR COSTING U.S. AT HOME”. Bush’s Iraq War. It’s his war, that interloper, that election fraudster. No, Kerry didn’t say those latter names, though it’s implied. Bush stole the election, now he owns the war. His war, not his election. In fact, it’s the fact that it’s not his election that makes “his war” so painful. That’s why Kerry’s been saying he’d have done the same thing as Bush, “only better”. Well of course. The right war is the right war no matter who’s in charge. Unless whoever’s in charge defrauded the country out of a legitimate leader, then it’s the “wrong war at the wrong time.” Which is what Kerry just finished saying a few days ago. Oh, but that was after he rebuked Howard Dean for saying the same thing back in December of 2003. One thing you have to credit Kerry for is his ability to take on as many different positions on any one subject as an entire country might have. Plus some. He’s the whole unwashed masses by himself!
Kerry just doesn’t get it. This isn’t Bush’s war, even if you are against it. It’s everyone’s war, whether you want it to be or not. Giving Bush possession of a worldwide conflict is a rhetorical fallacy–political maneuvering designed to deflect the fact that Kerry has offered nothing of substance to make us believe he has a different or better plan for the troops, for the war effort, for the overseas and domestic anti-terror campaign. Saying he’ll accomplish tasks “better than Bush” is a stink that can only come from Kerry having his head up his own behind.
Which explains why Kerry has been loathe to talk to the press. He’s scared stiff the reporters, however many of them are in fact rooting for him to win, will ask him something more difficult than why he supports taxing SUV owners to death while he himself owns several. Well, he doesn’t own them, the family does. Along with those energy-hog mansions. Of course, living in the “two Americas” as he does, it’s a simple equation. They that don’t have equals what John Kerry is not.
Here’s Kerry’s “nuanced” approach to the war in Iraq: “I would not have made the wrong choices that are now forcing us to pay nearly the entire cost of this war — $200 billion that we’re not investing in education, health care and job creation here at home.”
Never mind that he fails to articulate just how he would have made the right choices, or what those right choices would be. For Kerry, the right choice is apparently any choice that both agrees with the President’s requests for action and disagrees with their implementation, as evidenced by his vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq and his vote against $87 billion funding for troop operations there and in Afghanistan. Presumably, Kerry was hoping the $87 billion that he voted against would have gone instead to health care or education or some other domestic need. This despite the fact that certain funds can only be used in conjunction with the purpose for which they’re raised. In other words, $200 billion for health care and education costs aren’t going to be borne by military funding.
Kerry has since said that Bush rushed to war instead of pursuing diplomacy. Kerry reminds us that Bush vowed to build an international coalition, but the United States was bearing the burden in human lives and financial cost. All those Brits and Aussies don’t seem to have pinged Kerry’s “Ultimate Cost Radar”. Finally, Kerry points out that Bush said military action could be avoided and then prematurely ended arms inspections. What constitutes “premature” is something only Kerry, perhaps with a little help from Clinton, could define.
Decades of sanctions, more than a year and a half of diplomacy through both US and UN channels, troops and promised monetary support from over forty countries, and yet Kerry persists in saying Bush failed in pre-war negotiation with Iraq. It’s a classic failure setup, designed to entrap your opponent regardless of what he says or does. Kerry’s a master of playing fast and loose with facts and quotes to suit his minute-by-minute needs. And when the rook comes barrelling down, much like the Swift Boat Veterans, pull a knight’s tour so that even the best move by your opponent looks like a violation. They say George Bush is a master poker player. I’d put money on Kerry being a chess man. The way he moves and thinks gives credence to Garry Kasparov’s statement that “Chess is mental torture.”
Kerry better stop thinking that this is Bush’s war and start thinking of it as the war of the nation and the world if he wants a spot in that Oval Office. He’ll inherit a host of matters that he will not have the luxury of calling someone else’s problem. Thus far, Kerry’s campaign has been most reflective of a man who is quite unwilling to take responsibility for his own statements and decisions, much less someone else’s. Can someone run a country on that mentality? Kerry seems hellbent on trying, regardless of what he says 50% of the time.