Juan Cole's reply to Bush
Okay, I know that because I'm traveling, I'm hopelessly behind the curve of the US news cycle. But I just read Juan Cole's elegantly argued response to Bush's really lame 'Meet the Press' appearance Sunday, and wanted to get the link up here.
I'm thinking that a smart Dem-- and particularly one with a strong record of military service*-- should be able to take on this sad little president we have right now, and WIN.
* Okay, I'm a Quaker and I oppose all wars and military ventures. But I respect that Kerry, despite being a member of the upper class who could easily--like W-- have found a way to evade active service in Vietnam times, did not take the easy way out... Plus, the journals he wrote during and after that service, as revealed in Douglas Brinkley's new book on him, show him to have been an unusually astute and esnsitive observer of the coarsening effects that the military life was having on everyone involved in it.
Today, by the way, is the Democratic primary back home in Virginia. I cast an absentee ballot for Dean before leaving home, and don't regret doing so. Dean has played a magnificent role by pushing the whole party to confront Bush openly on the war issue.
Kerry just came out against gay marriage, a move which seems to me to be very well-calculated. He knows that Democrats are fighting mad about Bush, and will vote for anyone to get Bush out of office. So I imagine he's counting on the Democratic base holding their noses and still voting for him, while he manages to keep courting the swing voters.
This comes as no surprise, after his vote for the war powers resolution. I was in a delegation who went to his office asking him not to support the vote, and we heard around that time that the office was being deluged by letters, faxes, emails and other delegations asking him to come out against the war. All to no avail. Conventional wisdom had it at the time that he would vote for the resolution because of his contemplated run for the presidency.
Kerry may have it right. I told his aide, with whom our delegation met, that if Kerry voted for the resolution, I would do everything I could to see him defeated. And now, I am eating my words, because I would rather have a cynical politico in office with at least some of my shared opinions... or, heck, a yellow dog, for that matter....than Bush.