Having it both ways -- Bush on Iraq
It may seem like stating the obvious, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Iraq is going poorly, no, disasterously, by any measure I read. Bush has no apparent plan to wind down and get out. Kerry hasn't grabbed the momentum in a more positive plan. But its Bush's war, and he can't run from it.
So we get Bush, as I have opined earlier, wearing the rose colored glass for the most part and, like a 50's audience watching a 3-D movie, hoping to get the rest of the audience to put glasses on too. He brags about the achievements and the prospects. To his dismay, in my view, the bad news is getting out much faster than it did in Vietnam. Bush has 42 more days to hide it -- Kerry to expose it -- as he will inherit it anyway he might as well prepare the ground.
But Rove knows its Bush's war and its going badly, and the American people, not to mention the rest of the world, know this too. So in order to head off Kerry getting the benefit of those who feel like a change is needed, he must slur Kerry. Not directly in the worst terms, yet, but by proxy. So we have Cheney and Hastert both saying that not only is Kerry a wimp, but that Al-Quaeda wants him to be elected. Later they back off the rehtoric just enough to slide past the SCLM reports. But the impression is clear, and it is only the first impression that seems to matter with the public (withness the Rather/document mess).
I'm still working on a positive Kerry approach that gives him an advantage on the issue, but we all know how easily anything he says seems to get spun by Rove -- something which Kerry has not effectively countered to date. So I tend to feel that hammering Bush's negatives on Iraq needs to be the way to go. If only Kerry can find as effective a way to slime with a smile as junior.
Iraq is going poorly, no, disasterously, by any measure I read. Bush has no apparent plan to wind down and get out. Kerry hasn't grabbed the momentum in a more positive plan. But its Bush's war, and he can't run from it.
So we get Bush, as I have opined earlier, wearing the rose colored glass for the most part and, like a 50's audience watching a 3-D movie, hoping to get the rest of the audience to put glasses on too. He brags about the achievements and the prospects. To his dismay, in my view, the bad news is getting out much faster than it did in Vietnam. Bush has 42 more days to hide it -- Kerry to expose it -- as he will inherit it anyway he might as well prepare the ground.
But Rove knows its Bush's war and its going badly, and the American people, not to mention the rest of the world, know this too. So in order to head off Kerry getting the benefit of those who feel like a change is needed, he must slur Kerry. Not directly in the worst terms, yet, but by proxy. So we have Cheney and Hastert both saying that not only is Kerry a wimp, but that Al-Quaeda wants him to be elected. Later they back off the rehtoric just enough to slide past the SCLM reports. But the impression is clear, and it is only the first impression that seems to matter with the public (withness the Rather/document mess).
I'm still working on a positive Kerry approach that gives him an advantage on the issue, but we all know how easily anything he says seems to get spun by Rove -- something which Kerry has not effectively countered to date. So I tend to feel that hammering Bush's negatives on Iraq needs to be the way to go. If only Kerry can find as effective a way to slime with a smile as junior.
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