I believe there are two things troubling the soul of America today. One of them is: We really do have enemies out there. The other is: We are really on the wrong track.
Whether they are watching the news from Iraq, where hooded men are sawing off the heads of Americans and blowing up Iraqi civilians who are standing in line to join the Iraqis' own police force, or they are contemplating the suicide bombings from Bali to Istanbul, or they are merely reflecting on 9/11 and the applause that attack still receives in certain quarters, nearly all Americans do feel in their gut that we really do have enemies out there.
John Kerry's most important challenge in this election campaign is to connect up with that gut fear in the American soul and pass a simple threshold test: "Does this man understand that we have real enemies?" Mr. Kerry, wrongly in my view, tried to use his heroic Vietnam War record to pass that test by implication. He did not make the sale.
In the debates, he tried to both criticize the Iraq war and to look voters in the eye and say: I know we have enemies and I will confront them, albeit in a different and wiser manner than George Bush has.
How did that go over? I believe that Mr. Kerry presented himself as an articulate, informed and credible commander in chief - but did he make the sale to the great American center? Not clear. My own free advice to Mr. Kerry is if he is unsure about this, he should drop everything else - health care, deficits and middle-class tax cuts - and focus on this issue. Everything else is secondary.
President Bush has a different problem. The threshold test that Mr. Bush had to pass was: "Does this man understand that we are on the wrong track?" Even though the situation is still salvageable, right now Iraq is a terrible mess because of the criminal incompetence of the Bush national security team, and we are more alone in the world than ever. . . .
Conservatives have failed their own test of patriotism. In the end, it has been more important for them to defeat liberals than to get Iraq right. Had Democrats been running this war with the incompetence of Donald Rumsfeld & Friends, conservatives would have demanded their heads a year ago - and gotten them.
Did the president, in the debates, answer these concerns? He barely tried. His strategy is to focus all his energy on fanning doubts about whether Mr. Kerry understands that we have real enemies, so voters will not focus on how much we are on the wrong track - with virtually no friends in the world and an Iraq that is now so insecure our own soldiers are afraid to drive certain roads. . . .
My sentiments exactly. Both candidates have a point, yet seem to be blinded to the other side's point of view. I am not convinced, as others are, that they are merely taking political posturing to an extreme and will somehow "see the light" once elected. I was looking for a hint in the last debate, some sign that they truly realized the merits of the other side's position.
Kerry failed to "make the sale" for me. The only mention he made of using troops was to criticize how Bush used them. When asked specifics on how he would do better, he mentioned: 1) Homeland security; 2) Intelligence; and 3) Building alliances. He never once discussed sending troops anywhere for any reason. In the first debate, he implied the troops in Afghanistan were a good idea, but again it was in the context of criticizing Bush's move to Iraq, not a point-blank statement that he would've sent them in. He indicated that our troops were overextended, and seemed to imply that he'd stick around now that we're in Iraq. But given his history of anti-war sentiment, it's important for him to state absolutely unequivocally when he would send troops and under what circumstances. Otherwise the question of whether he would bend to the more extreme anti-war sentiments held by a significant portion of his support block remains. All I've seen so far is "as a last resort." Sounds nice, but one person's last resort doesn't necessarily jibe with another's. Is it another 9/11? When one of those evil dictators we seem so capable of spawning takes over another nation? The threat of nuclear capability - and if so, how imminent? Or is it when the US itself has actually been invaded? If he gets this clear, he'll have a whole lot more support from the undecided category.
As for Bush, I don't even have to go back to the transcripts. He seems blissfully unaware that he's lost the broad mandate of support he seemed to command in the post-9/11 days, as the majority of us are seeing things teetering on the edge of insanity. He's lost it primarily through his inability to admit he was ever wrong on any subject for any reason. GWB, meet my friend Reality. No WMD's have been found, and they're not likely going to come up with any now. Even if you don't think you were wrong to act on the information you had at the time, you can admit that the information was faulty and the steps you've taken to correct the flaws. You can admit in hindsight it was perhaps a tad premature to declare the war over a year or so ago. Maybe even that you wish you'd checked into a few things. You can admit that we are overstretched and the economy isn't exactly as bouncy as you'd hoped. Admitting it is the first step to recovery, and it would go a long way toward adding to your constituency.
In other words, who is least controlled by the fanatics on the lunatic fringe of his respective party? Who shows some capability of standing up to the right-wing nut jobs or left-wing moonbats and taking a reasonable course through this admittedly dangerous time in history?
So it comes to this: no matter how much flak undecided voters get, how many satires on how stupid they are are written, or how many times they're called the "Most Loathsome Pond Scum Spider-Spit Person of the new American century" and told they should be "rounded up by Homeland Security and kept at Guantanamo Bay, at least though November 3, under the care of Private First Class Lynndie England and her playful band of photographers"; I stand firmly with the "undecided" group. I do care, I am very aware of the issues. Probably too aware, that's my difficulty. I just somehow shake my head and wonder if this is really the best we can do?
For the record, I will vote on election day. I hope by then one of the candidates will have come to their senses. Otherwise, I'll just have to go with what I've got, and really hope there's not too much damage done in the next four years.
Oh, and for the record, in case either of the campaigns somehow stumbles across this backwater portion of the internet: I'm not influenced by stretching the truth, yard or highway signs, elaborate photo ops, grossly exaggerated advertisements, or making faces at the other candidates. I'm dissecting every word you say quite carefully do divine your ability as my representative on this very messed-up planet. Please speak clearly, in great detail and without any outside assistance, and I'm happy to hear what you have to say. And please don't both of you insist that you really are blind to all of the other side's points, or I may have to move farther than originally planned.
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