The Art of Politics

Emptying The Glass

Bush sees the Iraq glass half-full, Kerry sees through a glass darkly...

In comments from the Rose Garden, President Bush and Iraqi PM Allawi both re-iterated strong support for the effort in Iraq, both in the decisions to topple Saddam as well as stridency to stay the course and overcome current difficulties. Senator Kerry clearly is seeing things differently, and with the Republicans firing back, is exposing a weakness in his new campaign tactics on Iraq.

The problem Kerry has is not that he sees things going badly in Iraq, or points out problems and issues for criticism - this is valid from any part of the political spectrum. Kerry's problem politically is that he doesn't transition his criticism to any positive vision or outcome for America or Iraq.

American voters may not like the way things are going, and may be willing to listen to someone say they'd do things differently, but it must be toward a positive end. Kerry unfortunately doesn't spell out a positive end, other than an end to bad news. His argument that he would be more effective diplomatically in getting other nations to support our actions in Iraq may be altruistic lip service, but it'd at least be palatable to voters if it was toward a noble end - but to Kerry, it's simply so we can pull our troops out. It's not so we can defeat terrorists and bring hope to Iraqis and to the entire middle east, it's not so we can defeat terrorists and further the advance of human liberty, it's simply so we can hurry up and return home to Fortress America.

Listen to Bush talk about Iraq - he talks about freedom, liberty, elections, schools, democracy. Listen to Kerry talk about Iraq - misleading, mismanaged, dangerous, dire, wrong. There is no good end in Iraq when you listen to Kerry's words. Rather than offer a new vision to support Allawi and the new Iraqi government by doing things differently than Bush, Kerry chops Allawi off at the knees as nothing but an apparatchik. If there is a word American's hate, it's defeat, but defeatism is the cause celebre at the Kerry Campaign, and it may make time with the base inclined to want to beat a hasty retreat, but not to those who may want a fresh approach on Iraq that doesn't involve a white flag.

Kerry can see the glass as half empty, but he has to stop seeing Iraq as through a glass darkly...

Posted by MEC2 at September 23, 2004 11:11 PM