[lit-ideas] Re: Fw: Re: [THEORIA] Bush's Lost Year
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 21:29:32 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
-----Original Message-----
From: Eternitytime1@xxxxxxx
Sent: Sep 24, 2004 6:55 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Fw: Re: [THEORIA] Bush's Lost Year
"Then I'd like Kerry to say, and believe, that his objective is to get our
troops out of Iraq asap.
Is this too much to ask of the supposed opposition candidate, or must we
choose between one guy's mismanagement of a stupid, wrongheaded war and the
other's proposed mismanagement of same? Don't even get me started on
Kerry's weak national health proposal...Or his jobs program. (What program?)"
Hi,
This was an interesting analysis of why Kerry has been losing ground. I
listened (okay, I admit it was a forced listening <wry look> and I would have
preferred not to have done...) to a conservative talk show host today who
totally was berating Kerry and on and on. Fascinating, really.
A.A. I've listened to talk radio on a few occasions. The *last* word I would
ever have used to describe them is fascinating. More like depressing,
constantly pissing and moaning about how the leftist media picks on them.
This is fascinating?
M.M. ... IF I had really thought we ought to be over in Iraq, then I would
have started from the beginning and planned it out accordingly--and made
awfully sure that the civilian world would not be in turmoil. I don't think
we
should have gone--certainly not without the sanction if not blessing of the
UN--but if I were Kerry, I would have said and would be saying that we will
not
leave UNTIL we get things in order--
A.A. That's exactly what he says. He submitted a 4-prong plan to get us out.
Why the assumption he'll just pull out? He knows that would be a disaster not
only for us but for the world. Bush is the one I'd worry who would do that.
M.M. and that there are certainly people in
the loop (probably the ones who are not listened to by Bush & Co) with
creative
ideas as to how to make this a win-win -- even now.
A.A. You can say that again.
M.M. But, I think that the following has a lot of merit in terms of what I hear
(and have been hearing all week...)...and that is the message that Kerry has
not been able to present and I do not know if he can or will. I do not think
that the American will is for us to turn tail and run home and leave a mess
behind. (Okay, *I* don't like leaving a mess behind--if I break something, I
fix it and/or replace it with something better--and make awfully sure that the
person who owned what I broke is 'okay'...but most people just don't like to
turn tail...)
A.A. People hear what they want to hear, not what is said. Kerry *never* said
anything about turning tail and running. Why does nobody question why we are
in Iraq in the first place? It had no connection to 9/11, no connection to
terrorism, no WMD, yet we're bleeding away in there, and people think it's good
enough to reelect Bush over. What am I not getting?
Quoted from below:
The reason, I think, is very simple: America hates losers. I don't mean that
John Kerry is a "loser" in the stylistic sense - though he does come off a
bit that way when we see pictures of his gangly frame in spandex bike shorts,
windsurfing or throwing a baseball.
This is exactly what I said earlier. People like a pretty face. That's why
Bush is so popular no matter how lousy a job he does.
Andy Amago
Marlena in Missouri
_http://www.realclearpolitics.com/commentary.html_
(http://www.realclearpolitics.com/commentary.html)
So how can we explain what's going on? There are lots of possible reasons:
Kerry is a bad candidate, he's running a disorganized campaign, his message is
all over the place, the Swift Boat Veterans hit him where it hurt, etc. All
of these things are true to a certain degree and they've no doubt contributed
at least in part to his decline in the polls. But I think there is something
much, much bigger.
The most inexplicable aspect of this race right now is that the President
continues to rise in the polls despite the fact that the violence and chaos in
Iraq is getting worse. Iraq has always been the defining issue in this
campaign and despite John Kerry's best attempts over the last few months to
turn it
against Bush by attacking from every imaginable angle, it hasn't worked.
Maybe that will change as the violence continues into October and Kerry
sharpens
his critique, but I wouldn't count on it.
The reason, I think, is very simple: America hates losers. I don't mean that
John Kerry is a "loser" in the stylistic sense - though he does come off a
bit that way when we see pictures of his gangly frame in spandex bike shorts,
windsurfing or throwing a baseball.
What I mean is that when it comes to the biggest issue in this campaign,
Iraq, John Kerry doesn't leave the impression with voters that he really wants
to win the war. Everything we see, feel and know about John Kerry says his
heart is not in this war, nor has it really been in any war.
So even when he tries to articulate, _as he did yesterday in New York_
(http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0920.html) , a strategy
to
fight a more effective war than President Bush, it comes across more like a
laundry list of gripes from a man who thinks the cause is already lost: "Iraq
is
a mistake and mess, and we need to do X, Y, and Z so we can get out as soon
as possible."
On the other hand, President Bush is, for better or worse, a fighter. It's
not so much that the public thinks President Bush is a winner per se, only
that they know very clearly that Bush wants to win this war, and that he's
doing
everything within his power to try to win and it.
And even though mistakes have been made and a good number of Americans are
uneasy about the War in Iraq and the direction of the country in general, when
given a choice between a leader who is committed to fighting and optimistic
about winning or a leader who exudes the attitude that because the going is
tough we ought to get going, Americans almost always prefer the former.
In 1972 nearly 60 percent of the country was against the war in Vietnam, a
war which at that point America had been fighting for almost a decade at a
cost of tens of thousands of lives. Yet the country still thoroughly rejected
McGovern's defeatist "peace at any price" platform in favor of Nixon's call
for
"peace with honor" even as Nixon escalated the war effort in the spring and
summer of the election year.
But even the 1972 analogy strikes me as inadequate, because I still think
the country is approaching this election less through the prism of Iraq as
Vietnam (despite all the focus on the candidates' experiences during the
Vietnam
era) and more with the feeling that 9/11, Iraq and the War on Terror are akin
to Pearl Harbor and World War II.
With the _beheading of hostages_
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4502649,00.html) and the
_slaughter of children_
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3636304.stm) now standard viewing on our
nightly news, it is
going to be extremely difficult for John Kerry to convince America over the
next 40 days that Iraq is separate from the overall War on Terror. Even
further, it will be a remarkable feat if Kerry can argue that Iraq is a
mistake
not worth the fight and simultaneously convince the public he is as committed
as Bush to waging an aggressive War on Terror. - T. Bevan
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