Why Kerry Is Right About Iraq

In today's WP, Fareed Zakaria explains Why Kerry Is Right About Iraq. Zakaria quotes Louis Gerstner that "strategy is execution" and agrees that Bush's execution has been unforgivable with disastrous consequences.

"Was toppling Hussein's regime a worthwhile objective? Bush's answer is yes; Howard Dean's is no. Kerry's answer is that it was a worthwhile objective but was disastrously executed." I agree with both Dean and Kerry.

"Bush's position is that if Kerry agrees with him that Hussein was a problem, then Kerry agrees with his Iraq policy. Doing something about Iraq meant doing what Bush did. But is that true? Did the United States have to go to war before the weapons inspectors had finished their job? Did it have to junk the U.N. process? Did it have to invade with insufficient troops to provide order and stability in Iraq? Did it have to occupy a foreign country with no cover of legitimacy from the world community? Did it have to ignore the State Department's postwar planning? Did it have to pack the Iraqi Governing Council with unpopular exiles, disband the army and engage in radical de-Baathification? Did it have to spend a fraction of the money allocated for Iraqi reconstruction -- and have that be mired in charges of corruption and favoritism? Was all this an inevitable consequence of dealing with the problem of Saddam Hussein?"

John Kerry: Courage, Judgment and Intellect

Thomas Oliphant describes John Kerry's grit in this article from The American Prospect. He singles out two constant themes - "that encouraging and rewarding work as a government priority should dwarf rewarding wealth, and that combating international terrorism and promoting America’s interests in a dangerous world are tasks that require allies." I buy that.

Even The Fox Poll Goes Negative

And at PollingReport.com here is the first Fox poll showing Kerry beating Bush!

How Kerry Can Win

In 1969, Kevin Phillips wrote "The Emerging Republican Majority" and he was right. But he now explains How Kerry Can Win in The Nation. Phillips recommends courtship of the "unbase" and suggests that "to win this election decisively, John Kerry is going to have to feel the same outrage that Howard Dean felt."

"Republicans...have been successful in thinking strategically since the late 1960s. From 1968 until Bill Clinton's triumph in 1992, Republicans won five of the six presidential elections, and even Jimmy Carter's narrow victory in 1976 was in many respects a post-Watergate fluke. The two main coalitional milestones were Richard Nixon's 61 percent in 1972 and Ronald Reagan's 59 percent in 1984.

The two Bushes, notwithstanding their dynastic achievement, represent the later-stage weakness of the coalition, which would have been more obvious without the moral rebukes of Clinton that were critical in the 1994 and 2000 elections. In the three presidential elections the Bushes have fought to date, their percentages of the total national vote have been 53.9 percent (1988), 37.7 percent (1992) and 47.9 percent (2000)--an average of 46.5 percent. Keep in mind that in 1992, Bush Senior got the smallest vote share of any President seeking re-election since William Howard Taft in 1912, while in 2000, the younger Bush became the first President to be elected without winning a plurality of the popular vote since Benjamin Harrison in 1888. The aftermath of 9/11 created transient strength, but the essential weakness of the Bushes was palpable again by mid-2004. "

Going Negative. BIG TIME!

Go to the Bush/Cheney website and see their new television ad linking John Kerry and Hitler. Click on "This is not a time for pessimism and rage" to see for yourself. I am not making this up. Can they sink any lower? You bet.