We’re rapidly approaching that point in the election season where I feel like I’ve heard each side’s dumb-dumb talking points so often that characters in my dreams are going to start reciting them at each other any night now, but I thought these essays were pretty interesting: Michael Totten (a pro-war liberal blogger who is currently undecided about how to vote this year) has published his Hawkish Case for John Kerry, and his Liberal Case for Bush.
My question for the Kerry argument: But what if Kerry never does change his mind about this stuff? What happens then? And for the Bush argument: But how can Bush really carry out this particular (or any) foreign policy agenda for four more years, given points raised about his diminishing effectiveness in the Kerry essay.
M. said:I think Totten's essays both make really good points. (And clearly the solution is to dump both candidates and start fresh. :-) ) In the end, I think George Bush is more likely to reacquire political capital than Kerry is to become a willing interventionist, but I do wish I thought it were possible to lose Bush himself while keeping (or better yet, strengthening) the foreign policy elements of his that I support. I think his polarizing nature is going to make things harder for a long while, and carries the risk of a full reverse-course when the Presidency changes hands (be that in 2005, 2009, or later-- as we've discussed, this is a long-term strategy. Could we have effectively fought the Cold War if the Republicans had maintained their pre-WWII isolationism, I wonder?)
But I think Totten's characterization of Kerry as basically reactive is correct, and when Totten talks about this changing it's the same sort of whistling in the dark that Andrew Sullivan has made into an art form. Kerry will respond to attacks (I'd guess more in the Clinton style of air strikes and missiles than even an Afghanistan-style campaign, though I suppose he could surprise me). But I don't think we can look to him for any sort of large-scale strategy, which hands over the initiative to our opponents for four to eight years at least. And I believe him when he says he'll bring our troops home from Iraq ASAP, with consequences that will haunt us and bolster our opponents for a generation at least.
DC said.: wow, you're not kidding in calling this guy pro-war. his case in each direction consists entirely of reasons to believe one candidate might be more willing or able than the other to spontaneously invade foreign nations. i guess it's a broader single-issue to vote on than others...
I replied: His question is definitely, why should someone who supports Dubya's general understanding of and approach to the war on terrorism vote for either one of these guys? (Kerry having the vision problem, Dubya having the execution and competence problem). The correct answer is not actually self-evident.
DC replied: i'm not entirely convinced that your understanding of and desired approach to the war on terrorism, say, as you've outlined in your posts, is the same as dubya's. but i think i understand more or less what you're getting at.
it may well be, though-- and he rather argues-- that neither candidate can or will wholeheartedly pursue an agenda of "making the world safe for democracy". in which case, i guess you have to figure out which candidate's half-measures will work better...
T. responded: For sure. Although in California, my presidential vote doesn't really matter, it's an interesting case. If you're evaluating the choice entirely based on the war on terrorism, then the answer is not self-evident. However, for me, when you look at domestic issues (particularly judicial appointments and the regressive tax policy the Bush administration has been hinting about) Kerry becomes the right choice.
All in all, the pro-Kerry article definitely helps to allay my fears WRT Kerry on the war on terrorism.
Another interesting issue is congresional control. On many issues, gridlock in Washington would probably be best. Since the dems can't take the house and the senate is a toss-up, a Kerry presidency would work nicely in that respect. However, I don't know if the war on terror is something that benefits from gridlock. Even if it isn't, will the downsides of another 4 years of republican control exceed the upsides of a (somewhat) unified front on the war on terror? I don't know. The best outcome would probably be a Bush presidency and Democratic control of the house and senate, but that just won't happen this year. (Damn gerrymandering).
A. said: i didn't think his kerry case was very strong... it mostly amounted to the argument that handing responsibility for the WOT over to the administration's carping critics would serve a big steaming mug of STFU to the no blood for oil crowd.
I replied: But it's more than that, isn't it? We learned in the Clinton era that most Democrats simply lose interest in critiquing the administration on almost any issue once their man is in the office (and vice versa of course). Note the 8-year disappearance of homelessness as an urgent social issue in public discourse, or the massive indifference to the war in Kosovo. A Kerry victory would almost certainly put an end to the drumbeat of paranoia and defeatism that has dominated the left side of the aisle for the last three years, or at least relegate it to the fringe where it belongs. This would have to be a good thing. Sustaining a war against an existential threat like terrorism and Islamism is very much a matter of focus and and will.
I also think his point about Dubya's crying WMD wolf problem complicating our ability to preempt threats in the future was pretty valid. I think it is probably true that Kerry would have a great deal more credibility both at home and abroad in identifying and dealing with emerging threats than Dubya would be in a second term.
But these are only an advantages if Kerry is committed to using them, and I don't see a lot of evidence that he is. Instead, for example, one of his arguments seems to be that the mistake (or lie) about WMD in Iraq would not have resulted in war if the US had been more bound by world opinion in 2003. (Or, depending on context, Kerry alternately tries to imply that the US could have conducted diplomacy at the UN in such a way as to result in a "yes" vote on a war resolution at the UN Security Council and French, German, and Russian troops and financial assistance in the war.) But his response is not to promise to reform and improve the CIA and other intelligence agencies so that we don't have to act on sketchy information again, or to promise to always be completely truthful about presenting intelligence estimates to the public. Instead, he seems to be arguing that the US should always conduct foreign policy as if threats are imaginary, or as if the President is lying. (Because the fact of the matter is, if WMD had been found, they together with the information about Iraqi bribes to the officials of foreign governments who opposed the war would have totally validated the President's approach at the UN.)
And Kerry’s foreign policy statements at the first debate were just one completely asinine thing after another. He either doesn't know what he's talking about, or sees foreign policy as just another political issue to score points off the President about. (His completely incoherent "opposite day" approach in the discussion of Iraq/North Korea/Iran was particularly revealing, I thought). Neither possiblity is reassuring.