Kerry & Edwards Continue to Bury Themselves
Who are these bozos? Are they trying to throw the election away? And if so, why isn't it working?
Read what Kerry told New York Times Magazine:
"'We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,' Kerry said. [my emphasis] 'As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.'"
If Kerry meant that we must defeat terrorist organziations and their state sponsors "so that terrorists are not the focus of our lives," I would have no problem with the senator's comments. But that isn't what he said. He said, "We have to get back to the place we were..." - meaning the Clinton years, when gathering threats were ignored (if not aided and abetted) and American national security policy was a gigantic indulgence in lands of make-believe, letting wishing make it so, and clicking our heels together and saying, "History is over, history is over." It is the most candid display yet of the Democrat challenger's September 10th mindset, and once again gives the lie to his conniving bluster about "hunting down the terrorists and killing them." The truth is he would quit the GWOT, abandon Afghanistan and Iraq, bring the troops home, and restore the former "anti-terror" policy of playing cops & robbers.
And inestimable thousands more Americans would die. Don't think so? Read Charles Krauthammer's Time column:
"The late 1940s and '50s were so pervaded by a general fear of nuclear annihilation that the era was known as the Age of Anxiety. That anxiety dissipated over the decades as we convinced ourselves that deterrence (the threat of mutual annihilation) would assure our safety.
"September 11th ripped away that illusion. Deterrence depends on rationality. But the new enemy is the embodiment of irrationality: nihilists with a cult of death, yearning for the apocalypse — armed, ready and appallingly able.
"The primordial fear that haunted us through the first days and weeks after 9/11 has dissipated. Not because the threat has disappeared but for the simple reason that in our ordinary lives we simply cannot sustain that level of anxiety. The threat is as real as it was on September 12th. It only feels distant because it is psychologically impossible to constantly face the truth and yet carry on day to day.
"But as it is the first duty of government to provide for the common defense, it is the first duty of any post-9/11 government to face that truth every day — and to raise it to national consciousness at least once every four years, when the nation chooses its leaders.
"Fearmongering? Yes. And very salutary. When you live in an age of terrorism with increasingly available weapons of mass destruction, it is the absence of fear that is utterly irrational.
"The '90s are over. It's not the economy, stupid. It's Hiroshima — on American soil. If that doesn't scare you, it should."
"But" Lileks hits it out of the park:
"Tony Soprano doesn’t take over schools and shoot kids in the back. The doxies of the Bunny Ranch don’t train at flight schools to ram brothels into skyscrapers.
"A nuisance? A nuisance? I don’t want the definition of success of terrorism to be 'it isn’t on the rise.' I want the definition of success to be 'free democratic states in the Middle East and the cessation of support of those governments and fascist states we haven’t gotten around to kicking in the ass yet.' I want the definition of success to mean a free Lebanon and free Iran and a Saudi Arabia that realizes there’s no point in funding the fundies. An Egypt that stops pouring out the Jew-hatred as a form of political novacaine to keep the citizens from turning their ire on their own government. I want the definition of success to mean that Europe takes a stand against the Islamicist radicals in their midst before the Wahabbi poison is the only acceptable strain on the continent.
"Mosquito bites are a nuisance. Cable outages are a nuisance. Someone shooting up a school in Montana or California or Maine on behalf of the brave martyrs of Fallujah isn't a nuisance. It's war.
"But that's not the key phrase. This matters: We have to get back to the place we were.
"But when we were there we were blind. When we were there we losing. When we were there we died. We have to get back to the place we were? We have to get back to 9/10? We have to get back to the place we were? So we can go through it all again? We have to get back to the place we were? And forget all we’ve learned and done? We have to get back to the place we were?!?
"No! I don’t want to go back there. Planes into towers. That changed the terms. I am remarkably disinterested in returning to a place where such things are unimaginable. Where our nighmares are their dreams.
"We have to get back to the place we were???
"No! We have to go to the place where they are."
Amen, brother. Amen.
Meanwhile, the pretend warrior's first mate was getting drilled by Tim Russert on Press the Meat this morning. As Matt Margolis live-blogged it, there was none of Senator Opie's emblematic oily-slickness, calculated glibness, or animatronic funhouse grinning. Instead what we got was scowling, frowning, and barely repressed irritation as finally a member of the Democrat ticket was confronted with tough questioning from an interviewer that wasn't two notches below undergarment-throwing on the fawn-O-meter. And Edwards had no answers beneath the same lame, tired, wheezing, discredited sloganeering and talking points. No details, no elaboration, no depth. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. He even tried to blame Bush for Franco-German unwillingness to take post-Saddam Iraq off our hands, which is like blaming Simon Wiesenthal for the Holocaust because he had the temerity to hunt down and capture Adolph Eichmann.
Margolis concluded that, "Edwards did not leave that interview in a better position than when he left." Hell, I'm more than a little dumbfounded that he did the interview at all. You can be double-damned sure Kerry won't be doing any remotely like it. After the way Debate #2 went for him I'd wager he'd try to get out of the third if he could.
And yet he's only two points down in my polling composite.
Something's gotta give here - either Kerry's election chances, or the collective sanity of the American electorate.
Is it possible to hold one's breath for a little over three weeks?
Guess I'd better go gargle....
Read what Kerry told New York Times Magazine:
"'We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,' Kerry said. [my emphasis] 'As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.'"
If Kerry meant that we must defeat terrorist organziations and their state sponsors "so that terrorists are not the focus of our lives," I would have no problem with the senator's comments. But that isn't what he said. He said, "We have to get back to the place we were..." - meaning the Clinton years, when gathering threats were ignored (if not aided and abetted) and American national security policy was a gigantic indulgence in lands of make-believe, letting wishing make it so, and clicking our heels together and saying, "History is over, history is over." It is the most candid display yet of the Democrat challenger's September 10th mindset, and once again gives the lie to his conniving bluster about "hunting down the terrorists and killing them." The truth is he would quit the GWOT, abandon Afghanistan and Iraq, bring the troops home, and restore the former "anti-terror" policy of playing cops & robbers.
And inestimable thousands more Americans would die. Don't think so? Read Charles Krauthammer's Time column:
"The late 1940s and '50s were so pervaded by a general fear of nuclear annihilation that the era was known as the Age of Anxiety. That anxiety dissipated over the decades as we convinced ourselves that deterrence (the threat of mutual annihilation) would assure our safety.
"September 11th ripped away that illusion. Deterrence depends on rationality. But the new enemy is the embodiment of irrationality: nihilists with a cult of death, yearning for the apocalypse — armed, ready and appallingly able.
"The primordial fear that haunted us through the first days and weeks after 9/11 has dissipated. Not because the threat has disappeared but for the simple reason that in our ordinary lives we simply cannot sustain that level of anxiety. The threat is as real as it was on September 12th. It only feels distant because it is psychologically impossible to constantly face the truth and yet carry on day to day.
"But as it is the first duty of government to provide for the common defense, it is the first duty of any post-9/11 government to face that truth every day — and to raise it to national consciousness at least once every four years, when the nation chooses its leaders.
"Fearmongering? Yes. And very salutary. When you live in an age of terrorism with increasingly available weapons of mass destruction, it is the absence of fear that is utterly irrational.
"The '90s are over. It's not the economy, stupid. It's Hiroshima — on American soil. If that doesn't scare you, it should."
"But" Lileks hits it out of the park:
"Tony Soprano doesn’t take over schools and shoot kids in the back. The doxies of the Bunny Ranch don’t train at flight schools to ram brothels into skyscrapers.
"A nuisance? A nuisance? I don’t want the definition of success of terrorism to be 'it isn’t on the rise.' I want the definition of success to be 'free democratic states in the Middle East and the cessation of support of those governments and fascist states we haven’t gotten around to kicking in the ass yet.' I want the definition of success to mean a free Lebanon and free Iran and a Saudi Arabia that realizes there’s no point in funding the fundies. An Egypt that stops pouring out the Jew-hatred as a form of political novacaine to keep the citizens from turning their ire on their own government. I want the definition of success to mean that Europe takes a stand against the Islamicist radicals in their midst before the Wahabbi poison is the only acceptable strain on the continent.
"Mosquito bites are a nuisance. Cable outages are a nuisance. Someone shooting up a school in Montana or California or Maine on behalf of the brave martyrs of Fallujah isn't a nuisance. It's war.
"But that's not the key phrase. This matters: We have to get back to the place we were.
"But when we were there we were blind. When we were there we losing. When we were there we died. We have to get back to the place we were? We have to get back to 9/10? We have to get back to the place we were? So we can go through it all again? We have to get back to the place we were? And forget all we’ve learned and done? We have to get back to the place we were?!?
"No! I don’t want to go back there. Planes into towers. That changed the terms. I am remarkably disinterested in returning to a place where such things are unimaginable. Where our nighmares are their dreams.
"We have to get back to the place we were???
"No! We have to go to the place where they are."
Amen, brother. Amen.
Meanwhile, the pretend warrior's first mate was getting drilled by Tim Russert on Press the Meat this morning. As Matt Margolis live-blogged it, there was none of Senator Opie's emblematic oily-slickness, calculated glibness, or animatronic funhouse grinning. Instead what we got was scowling, frowning, and barely repressed irritation as finally a member of the Democrat ticket was confronted with tough questioning from an interviewer that wasn't two notches below undergarment-throwing on the fawn-O-meter. And Edwards had no answers beneath the same lame, tired, wheezing, discredited sloganeering and talking points. No details, no elaboration, no depth. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. He even tried to blame Bush for Franco-German unwillingness to take post-Saddam Iraq off our hands, which is like blaming Simon Wiesenthal for the Holocaust because he had the temerity to hunt down and capture Adolph Eichmann.
Margolis concluded that, "Edwards did not leave that interview in a better position than when he left." Hell, I'm more than a little dumbfounded that he did the interview at all. You can be double-damned sure Kerry won't be doing any remotely like it. After the way Debate #2 went for him I'd wager he'd try to get out of the third if he could.
And yet he's only two points down in my polling composite.
Something's gotta give here - either Kerry's election chances, or the collective sanity of the American electorate.
Is it possible to hold one's breath for a little over three weeks?
Guess I'd better go gargle....
posted by JASmius at 7:37 PM
<<< Home