Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Just let Kerry be...something else

I read Just let Kerry be Kerry and think, haven't I heard this before?

At each and every turn, the Democratic candidate's dweeb team of advisers, now reinforced by a rescue squad straight from hell, tries its best to make its candidate look like he's saying one thing while he does something else. The adviser team heretofore led by Bob Shrum, a longtime loser (7-0 in bungled campaigns), is now bolstered by John Sasso, the distinguished adviser to the ghastly 1988 Dukakis presidential bid. That was the campaign in which Dukakis's brainy advisers tried to make him more appealing to the masses by having the Massachusetts governor put a helmet on his head and poke it up out of a tank. People are still laughing at that one. And it was the year of another great moment in the history of political campaigning: The late Lee Atwater, in his most unforgettable moment, lobbed the Willie Horton grenade into the Dukakis bunker.

......Thirty-five years later, the same Kerry, now a senator, again answered the call of the nation and his president, and voted to support the war in Iraq, accepting the president's statements that it was in the interests of our national security to attack. So did most of Congress, convinced that Saddam was a monster and a liar who was secretly amassing weapons of mass destruction. When Kerry, like numerous others, discovered this not to be the case, he opposed Bush's policies and started calling it the wrong war at the wrong time. He publicly stated there was no easy way out, that we would have to craft an international approach through the U.N., perhaps run by NATO, and in this way gradually disentangle ourselves. This is not a flip-flop. It is a careful, judicious, moderate way forward proposed by a man who knows about war. So let Kerry be Kerry. Whatever happens, please let's not have another Dukakis.

Politicians, particularly Democrats trying to replicate Clinton's capture of the center, are always threatening to just let it all hang out. *

Well, by all means. Perhaps the problem is he is being Kerry. This is a guy who always hedges his positions so he can sell them to a home and national constituency. This is not so unreasonable for a Senator with Presidential aspirations. And it's why his votes are accompanied by lengthy qualifying speeches.

Which Kerry will get the modified limited hang out?

UPDATE: George Will weighs in on the Senate albatross:

Kerry also is a casualty of nuance-itis, which is a kind of house mold prevalent in the north wing of the Capitol. Senators -- unlike governors, who often sharpen issues -- are forever blurring things to manufacture legislative majorities. Partly for that reason, senators rarely become president.

* It turns out Gore letting it all hang out is kind of terrifying.

Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at September 15, 2004 10:34 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links