Politics

[tagryn]

I liked this one by Tammy Bruce: Why Democrats Should Vote for Bush. Her reasoning, and that of Armed Liberal at Winds for Change, parallel mine fairly closely right now. The election remains very much a case of Morton's Fork for me, though.

One thing I am certain about: I'm ready for the election to be over. Actually, I was ready for that three months ago.

UPDATE 2:23 PM: Here's another in the same vein, by Jane Galt.

UPDATE 10 PM: And in fairness, I found some of the rationales for Kerry presented by Slate's contributors to be persuasive in terms of Bush's weaknesses. But I also agree with Dan Drezner that their endorsements of Kerry were extremely lukewarm as a whole.

Comments

[erikred.livejournal.com]

Tom, do you really think the Kerry is a "Pacifist Internationalist"?

[tagryn]

Hi Erik,

Internationalist? Yes. One clear message from Kerry's campaign is the need to "reconnect" with the world community. Well and good - like Bruce I'm tired of the USA being hated worldwide - but exactly how he would translate that into action & what the limits on that would be remain vague to me (the statements on his website didn't help), which IMHO is one of the big failings of his campaign.

Pacifist? Nah, that's too strong a word; Kerry isn't Kucinich. Kerry's record in the Senate isn't exactly encouraging on defense, though, and his declaration in the 1st debate of his intention to cancel the bunker-busting-bomb program didn't help his image as a guy who'll be strong on defense.

I liked Kerry/Edwards' message of pursuing Iraq & the WoT more effectively, Gnu knows there's lots of room for improvement in the current team's conduct of both. However, I needed to hear many more specifics on how and why what they're planning to do would work better, and I never got that sufficently from them to convince me.