John Kerry deserves credit and thanks but owes better explanations than in his acceptance speech.

July 30, 2004 #01: Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire™
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John Kerry deserves credit and thanks but owes better explanations than in his acceptance speech.·

One could not consider John Kerry's service to our country and proven physical courage without feeling admiration and gratitude. In his acceptance speech last night, Kerry tried to convey to the country at large that he has resurrected the Scoop Jackson/John Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party. It such were to be the case, it would be to the shock and objection to a large portion (if not a majority) of the Democratic power structure upon which he must depend and to which he is loyal. It's a power structure exemplified by activists who booed a genuine Scoop Jackson/John Kennedy Democrat (Joe Lieberman) during the primary.

One could theorize that if he were to become President and thereby potentially become unshackled from the Left that he would actually govern as a Scoop Jackson/John Kennedy Democrat, but his history in the Senate exposes the tenuously speculative nature of such theory. His proven instances of genuine physical courage, coupled with the history of his political career, make it seem more likely that he is one who possesses physical courage yet lacks the insights and judgment for political leadership in the executive branch. There is a dramatic difference between one's ability to make instantaneous (often illogical) decisions to take actions exhibiting physical courage on the one hand and making executive decisions requiring vision and foresight on the other. See "Kerry versus Kerry versus Kerry." Great lieutenants can make terrible generals. Great tacticians can make terrible strategists.

Kerry's fond of describing his way of analyzing problems as "intellectually nuanced," but his inconsistencies and equivocations make it seem more likely that his political decision-making process exhibits indecisiveness and equivocation born of an insatiable desire that no judgmental decision could in hindsight be deemed flawed. These qualities may be excellent for legislative responsibilities but not for executive, political decision-making such as the Presidency requires-- especially in the post-9-11 era in which we have little, or no, strategic margin for error. If Kerry sincerely believes that the current war on terror makes combat experience a sine qua non qualification for the presidency, why did he not pick Wesley Clark for his combat experience from lieutenant to general as his candidate for a vice president most qualified to assume command of the war on terror if the unspeakable were to happen to a President Kerry?

Kerry said to American military personnel that he would never commit them to war without a plan to "win the peace." If he were to have applied the same logic to his decision on whether to steer his swift-boat into gunfire to save his crewmate, he would have declined to do so for lack of a guarantee that he'd be able to successfully take his entire crew out of danger and into safety after rescuing his crewmate. He made the "right" (though perhaps illogical) decision because the circumstances forced him to make a decision without worrying about the margin of error. What he fails to understand about the post-9-11 world is that 9-11 deprived us of the luxury of the kind of margin-of-error analysis that Kerry now says he would have applied in dealing with Saddam Hussein.

Other than Kerry's naked assurances that if he were President he would "restore" cooperative attitudes on the part of our "allies" (translate: France and Germany), he utterly failed to offer any persuasive reason for any rational person to believe that France and Germany would be more likely to send their soldiers to die alongside American soldiers under a President Kerry than under President Bush. Indeed, the only rational basis for assuming France and Germany would be more "cooperative" with a President Kerry than President Bush would be to assume that Kerry would in fact do what he nevertheless says he would not do-- i.e., yield some measure of decision-making on U.S. national interests to France and/or Germany and/or the United Nations. This would not be because he would want to disserve U.S. national interests (he's obviously at least as patriotic as any and more patriotic than most); rather, it would be because he's afflicted with a sincere but misguided faith in "internationalism," the United Nations (a "democracy" of dictatorships), France and, to a lesser extent, Germany.

If internationalism were to be what Kerry perceives it to be, given what France, Germany, Russia, China and the U.N. knew (and what they also believed) about Saddam Hussein in 2002, they would have done the same in 2002 as they did in 1991-- i.e., unequivocally supported removal of Saddam (from power in 2002 rather than merely from Kuwait as in 1991). Given what "internationalism" knew and believed about Saddam Hussein's commitment to being a power with WMD and given what "internationalism" knew about the historical patterns of sworn-enemy dictators (such as Stalin and Hitler) forming temporary alliances of convenience against common enemies, enlightened internationalism would have considered permitting Saddam to remain in power after 9-11 to be incompatible with the interests of civilization in minimizing the risks of a dictator such as Saddam covertly collaborating with his otherwise sworn enemy, Usama bin Laden. In reality, the very forces of internationalism in which Kerry has such great faith were working actively behind the scenes to support Saddam and undermine U.S. plans to topple him. Why? They were frantically trying to preserve the economic rewards they were reaping through illegal deals with Saddam's regime.

Finally, in an example of remarkably transparent disingenuousness, after accusing Bush of having "mislead" the country into war by not having "told the truth" in doing so, he addressed "directly to George Bush" a proposal that each of them "show respect for each other" in the remainder of the campaign. In other words, "I am free to smear you but you must respect me." While implicitly but speciously accusing Bush of treating him with disrespect, Kerry obviously is unwilling to rebuke Ted Kennedy, Kerry's most enthusiastic supporter, for Kennedy's patently hateful attacks on Bush. (See also "One America's Two John Edwards."; See also "Teddy Then and Teddy Now" and "AlJaTeddya.")

Kerry the Ungenuous*

I'm Kerry addressing the nation
to proudly accept nomination
to run against Bush,
and so I must push
my role in heroic salvation.

Moreover, I'll stoop to imply
that Bush sent our soldiers to die
preventing Saddam
from making The Bomb
on strategies founded on lies.

And then after smearing his name,
I haughtily call him by name
to urge him to show
respect and forego
exposing my flip-flopping game.

Of course while I smugly condemn
his ads on my flip-flopping binge,
I can't muster courage
to even discourage
Ted Kennedy's hatefulness binge.

Regarding respectful campaigning, Kerry, like John Edwards (here), can talk the talk but won't walk the walk-- otherwise, they would forcefully and unequivocally condemn the hatefulness of attacks on Bush by their most prominent supporters such as Ted Kennedy (here, here, here, and here, for examples). Although it's conveniently forgotten by the media, Bush did forcefully and unequivocally condemn the hateful attacks on McCain in the infamous South Carolina primary.

*This is poetic license for lack of genuine sincerity-- i.e., a semantic close cousin to disingenuousness.

--Jim Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.

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