My thoughts & feelings surrounding the 2004 election were what drove me to think about doing my own blogging. So now that we're a couple of weeks past it, I'll get my thoughts out and move on from there.
Some months ago I came to the conclusion that a person could not be well informed, intellectually honest and vote for George Bush. Well, apparently, 51 percent of voters are either not well informed or intellectually honest. I keep trying to see what those in the red states and counties see in W. But as much as I can understand (though not agree with) the conservative social agenda, I don;t understand how anyone can get past all the lies & deciete surrounding the Iraq war. A cannot fathom how GWB can be seen as representling "morality" after taking America to war with a non-threatening country based on exxagerations, distortions, misdiraction and outright falsehoods.
But I do fault Kerry on some things. Here they are :
WHAT THE KERRY CAMPAIGN DID WRONG
1)
Kerry never explained, in plain simple language, his vote for the authorization of force in a way to make his anti-war stance consistent. This left him vulnerable to accusations of "the flip-flopper voted
for the war!" If I were Kerry's speech writer, here's what I would have written for him:
At that time, we were told constantly that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. It was vital for the world to determine of those reports were true, but Hussain would not allow UN inspectors in to prove or disprove his claims of innocence. The authorization for the use of force, which I and Senetor Edwards both voted for, was a message to Saddam Hussain that he must allow unrestricted inpections in Iraq, or else face military intervention.
The vote was successful. Shortly after authroization was given, Saddam Hussain caved and allowed unrestricted inpections. But before the inspecors could complete their work, President Bush chose to invade anyway! If we had allowed the inspections to be completed, we would have come to the same conclusions about Iraq WMD at the savings of more than $120 billion and more than 1,000 American lives.
2)
Not enough emphasis was on the circumstances that brought us to war in the first place. The problem with basing the campaign on what we do in Iraq from this day forward is that Kerry's position and Bush's position were essentially the same: It would be responsible to leave Iraq to the mercy of those who post beheading movies on the Internet, so we must remeain until we can be certain that the next long-term goverment of Iraq is better to its people that the previous one. This put Kerry in the weak position of arguing "I would do it better" when it is extremely difficult to be sepific on how he would do it better.
Intead, more emphasis should be placed on the pre-war sales effert. The Administration mislead the public and the world woth vague intelligence interpreted in the most threatening way possible, questionable information from questionable informants, and retorical implicaiton that Saddam Hussain was partially reposnsible for the 9/11 attacts. The question Kerry should have asked is "The next time Bush tells you we must fight a pre-emptive war, how can you know if you should beleive him?"
3)
Too much emphasis on Vietnam. Talking about Kerry's war record was always riskey because it opened up discussions of Kerry's
anti-war record, which is still a sore sport for many Vietnam veterens. Kerry may have done a better job explaining the context of some of his anti-war statements.
These are the issues where the disctictoins between Kerry and Bush really stood out. All other issues were six of one/half dozen of the other. If Kerry had done a better job with these while communicating to those who don't pay much attentiopn to current events, the election would have ended differently.
