Joel Klein asks, "Why hasn't Kerry gone after Bush on Iraq?"

[WI_DEM]

snip:
...Why isn't he hammering Bush on his conduct of the Iraq war and the larger war against Islamist radicalism, which is the most important issue in this election? The answer is politics. His political consultants don't want him to do it. Their focus grouups tell them that the public wants an "optimistic" candidate who offers a "positive plan" rather than a "negative" candidate who criticizes the president. Of course, "every focus group in the history of the world has wanted a candidate with a 'positve plan for the future,'" says James Carville. Unfortunately, focus group members are also human beings. In a roomful of strangers, they present their most noble selves. They hate political attacks--but not really. They have obviously responded to the scurrilous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Campaign which is why he was forced to counterattack last week...

http://www.time.com/time/election2004/columnist/klein/article/0,18471,685961,00.html

[PsN2Wind]

1. Sorry but how can he?

While saying,I would have done the same thing only different.

[Jacobin]

8. You are soooo right

Kerry's IWR vote put him in a box.

[Carolina]

31. sooooo true

and since he can't/won't say it was wrong or he was misled, he forfeits a huge opportunity to go after Bush.

I always hated that IWR vote and turned against Kerry in 10/02 because of it. It still rankles, though I am back to being solidly behind him.

[Hoping4Change]

9. But that doing things differently is an ESSENTIAL fact that

Kerry campaign glosses over. Had 250,000 troops been on the ground post war as advised by Shinsaki the looting and insurgencey would not have taken root. The diasaster in Iraq is due to incompetant plannning. Kerry campaign should be ramming that fact down AWOL's lying throat.

[PsN2Wind]

15. So, are you saying

the war to remove Saddam was the right thing, only we should have used a more overwhelming force? Then we would have been greeted with sweets and flowers? I think that people don't care for being invaded even if you have more force to kill even more of them. What we call insurgents now, we called partisans in WWII and patriots in our own revolution.

[Hoping4Change]

19. Iraqis other than the Saddam loyalists would have been happy to

see Saddam gone, no question. Had the US enough force to prevent looting and establish order after the war and had the good sense to have had a real international coalition the present situation would not exist.

[PsN2Wind]

20. I may be splitting hairs here

but having your countrys leader removed by bombing the shit out of you and your country doesn't always get you the kudos you seem to think. You sound much like those "winning their hearts and minds" types from an earlier war.
We had no reason or right to invade Iraq.

[Hoping4Change]

24. My bottomline is that the US for years supported Saddam, the

Beast of Bagdad as he was referred to by Iraquis, so it was their responsibilty to get rid of him. They just did it the wrong way.

[PsN2Wind]

25. The responsibility to get rid of him

was the Iraqis. Early in the war one of the journalists mentioned that although many of the Iraqis didn't have a TV set that almost every household had a gun.
If out of the 26 million Iraqis only a handful supported Saddam, they should have been able to rid themselves of Saddam and the Baathists quite readily. Seems like they are fighting us to about a draw at this point. You buy into the propaganda of the Bush bunch and their demonization of anyone they no longer hold in favor. "Worse than Hitler" etc.

[Hoping4Change]

27. I suggest you read Robert Fisk's description of Saddam.

No one has been a harsher critic of Bush and his policies in the Mid East than Fisk. It is unconscionable that you believe that stories about Saddam are simply propaganda.

[David Dunham]

2. Exactly right. It's time to blast Bush, again and again and again.

Kerry can offer positive plans for the country AND blast Bush at the same time. Clinton did that in 1992 and WON!!

[lancdem]

28. I believe Kerry

is going to be doing more of both after the GOP convention.

[joefree1]

3. So we talk about Kerry and Bush's service during Vietnam

Then when US casualities past a thousand in a couple of weeks we return to talking about Iraq.

Bet on it.


Download the free poster/sign here:
http://ediablo.com/eDiabloGallery.html

[Malva Zebrina]

4. and, the fact that people are voting ABB

contributes also. He has us sewn up--and seems to be concentrating on bringing in the undecideds or the independents.

I am not sure if that is wise-but what do I know-it may be politically wise to his advisors, but speaking as a newbie after all these years of uninformed voting, I will say that scandals and smearing are what sticks in the minds of people who do not keep up with the issues. They also absorb the lies as truth because do not have time to research it. Believe me--it is not stupid-they are not stupid-they do not have time to sit in front of a computer or even time to sit down and read a paper in this busy world. Comes the weekend they just want to go to the beach with their family to relax.

[WI_DEM]

6. The interesting thing is that Iraq is the top issue with swing voters

too. And Bush's conduct of the war.

[bambo53]

14. Very true Marianne!

Most people I meet only repeat what they've heard on TV ads, and they're doing it now. They think it's all bullshit and all politicians are paid liars, and yet they vote, usually for what they remember.

If I tell you your pastor once killed someone, that's all you'll ever remember about him. You cannot un-ring a bell.

[gratuitous]

5. Yeah, right Joel Klein

"Please go after Bush on Iraq. We wait with saliva dripping from our lips in anticipation of bellowing that Kerry doesn't support the troops."

Why hasn't Time gone after Bush on Iraq? Why do the media have to wait for the Democratic candidate to criticize an obvious mistake? What are they waiting for? Afraid they won't get invited the chi-chi parties if they expose the Boy Emperor?

[TheFarseer]

7. He can't

because he was "pro-war" Of course anyone with over half a brain knows that we would not have invaded if almost anyone else were president including John Kerry. Just goes to show how many half-wits there are out there. He can say all he want that we didn't do it the right way, but that's totally lame. The only right way was to not bring it up in the first place. That's why I think Howard Dean would have been a better candidate minus the media piling on him and doing everything they could to kill his candidacy. Or if Kerry would have said if he knew the intellegence was bad, he wouldn't have voted for the war. So many missed opportunities for the dems this year. It's almost as if we're trying to lose. For that matter, it's almost as if bush is trying to lose. I hope we can shape up and come out of this OK.

[Malva Zebrina]

18. those who voted to give Bush the go ahead to do what he wanted

were mindful of the constant sneering and anti-American accusations going around. Certainly they would have been attacked by Bush as such if they voted against.

Getting together and voting "no" as a block would have been a strong display of power by the Democrats--it did not happen--we saw no leadership there from Tom Daschle-we saw lack of conviction, lack of party loyalty and lack of concern for the American people and their country-in the same way we saw the black caucus skunked by their own party after the stealing of the election. It was political of course to vote to give a maniac a free hand to do what he would with us-further, I wonder how many figured and voted "yes" just in case Bush was successful and further I wonder how many voted "yes" because they actually did want to grab the oil in Iraq for the USA. It was a mistake to jerk the American people around like that,I think, for many of us, knowing we must vote for Kerry to get Bush out, are not exactly doing so with a trusting or joyful heart the way we should be.

We still see little support for Kerry from them--in all of this, relative silence from the pink tu tu guys.

Beats me--I have lost a little faith in this system.

[TheFarseer]

23. I'm positive he voted for it........

just in case it was successful. What kind of a jackazz would you have looked like if it was successful and we found all the weapons and a nuke program and the Iraqis were holding hands and singing "we are the world, we are the children" and the oil was flowing and gas was 99 cents a gallon and turns out Osama had been locked in a pay phone outside Basra this whole time and Mullah Omar was a short order cook in Najaf. I suppose hind sight is 20/20, but it turns out(I think) to have been the wrong vote for political purposes. So what's my point? I don't know. I guess we all severely underestimated this undertaking.

[Cocoa]

10. I'm tired of all these pundits examining Kerry's campaign

how about some questions for the Bush campaign, for example where the hell is Cheney?

Isn't it weird that he's completely absent?

[stellanoir]

11. Patience. . .

I'm hoping he's saving his powder. All that really matters is what transpires in the last two weeks before the election. The rest is mere hyperbole.

We have yet to endure the tedious RNC, the debates, see what happens on the ground in Iraq, then we can fire.

I wish a lot of the DU ers could coordinate a massive e-mail outreach program for the last 2 weeks of October. . .but I know. . ."it's like herding sheep."

[WI_DEM]

13. if he is waiting until the last two weeks of the election

I'm not sure that is a wise strategy. But Klein is correct, imo, about one thing--Kerry was forced to respond on the Slime Boat Ads because they have been working. If they weren't he wouldn't have started a major counter attack.

[lancdem]

30. The ads were certainly a distraction

but the Zogby state polls out today show Kerry doing very well, so I don't know what polling effect it has had, if any.

[jab105]

29. herding cats...

n/t

[Feanorcurufinwe]

12. There is another reason - Kerry's plans don't fit on a bumpersticker

Kerry talked at length about 'the larger war against Islamist radicalism' in this speech -- anyone want to try to extract any useful soundbites out of that?

[THUNDER HANDS]

16. what can Kerry say about Iraq

It's a tough thing to argue. He knows he was wrong to vote the way he did and even though he's consistent with his message, you can tell his heart isn't into defending it.

[Monte Carlo]

17. I think Bill Clinton said that Kerry should run like Iraq is stable...

... the economy is in a good recovery, and that Osama is dead (or something to that effect).

The line stuck with me. I think there's definitely something to it.

[WI_DEM]

21. He should run like there are no issues at all?

That doesn't make sense since the economy is not in a full recovery, Iraq isn't stable and Osama isn't dead and is still on the lam.

[Monte Carlo]

22. I think that's why Kerry's running like he is.

If I had to take a guess, I'd say it's because Bush controls all of those things in a political sense.

If Kerry started asking 'Where's Osama?', Osama could _miraculously_ end up being captured or killed the next day, making Kerry look very bad.

With Iraq and the economy... perception is the key. We live in a country where 50% thinks we found WMD's in Iraq. The GOP friendly media in this country is very powerful, and I'm not just talking about Fox and Rush Limbaugh; I mean CNN and the networks. Endless stories about the Iraqi soccer team, rising GDP, and other such fluff stories could also make Kerry look very bad.

EDIT: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/207772p-179170c.html

"Among the disclosures from Bill Clinton's revival tour was a little-noticed morsel in the Boston Globe noting that Clinton has advised John Kerry to "campaign as though Iraq was stable, the economy was going great guns and Bin Laden was dead ... concentrating on selling himself."

Arianna goes on to call this the worst political advice since Dukakis' campaign, but I must disagree.

[Zhade]

26. Because he can't? Because he supports the occupation?

Well, I guess he could go after the way b*sh "fucked up" the illegal occupation of another country while stealing its oil and treasure and installing 14 permanent military bases...

:eyes:

Say, what IS Kerry's position on those 14 military bases? Anyone know? I'm guessing he supports leaving them there, or at least hasn't discussed them - but if I'm wrong, please smack me down on this (I'd LOVE to be wrong).