Well, you certainly made the Mullhas in Iran, Hezboullah, Bin-Laden group, and Yasser Arafat very happy. Congradualtions!!! Oh ! one more person that you made happy is
Malaysia's former prime minister who has urged Muslims in America to vote for US Senator John Kerry in the Nov 2 presidential election, saying President George W. Bush has been 'the cause of the tragedies' across the Muslim world. 'Vote Bush out of office,' Dr Mahathir Mohamad said in an open letter dated Oct 15 to America's Muslim community. 'It is truly an ibadah (act of devotional worship) that you perform.'

So, Mr. Drezner you had trully perfromed the "ibadah". Great!

A Middle Eastern Woman for Bush

Congratulations, Dan. The key word is the business world these days is "accountability." In Bush, we have a leader who has consistently made bad decisions and has not reassessed those decisions as the failures became apparent. In 2000, Bush promised to bring a CEO's mentality and accountability to the presidency. The obvious turth is that a CEO with Bush's record would either have been fired by his Board or faced a shareholder revolt long ago. In politics, we only get a chance to hold the president accountable once every four years... to fail to do so now would be unconscionable. You may not be thrilled with Kerry... but at least a Bush loss will send a clear message to the Republican party that they need to do better than this.

Your quote by David Adesnik sums up all of your analysis quite neatly. Me, I'm a whitebread county club kid, morphed into a business manager. I'm voting for Bush for the same reason your voting for Kerry.

I see Kerry's worldview further along the development ladder than those of Bush. How do we develop as a people to a worldview greater than that of Bush or Kerry?

How can we utilize the strengths of each worldview, and minimize the weakness of each worldview?

We have a clash of worldviews in this country and an even greater one in the world. It isn't going to be an easy decade.

"However, here's the one thing I am confident about -- a Kerry administration is likely to recognize, once the multilateral diplomacy fails, that it will actually have to come up with a viable alternative."

What leads you to that conclusion? The Clinton team's answer was to walk away and ignore the problems when diplomacy failed. What evidence in the world is there that Kerry wont pull the troops out ASAP and bury the 'stick' in the backyard? That would be precisely what his record would indicate.

Speaking of accountability, why doesnt anyone want to hold Kerry accountable for a lifetime of being a kneejerk peacenick? Particularly 20 years in the senate with a trackrecord of appeasement broken only occasionally by political expediency? I dont know what's scarier, a dove in the white house, or a dove in the white house who might decide to act tough based on poll numbers. Carter or LBJ? Either way Kerry is a danger.

My principled view is kekekekekeke exclamation point exclamation point one one one one.

Sorry. Just channeling my inner hatred for the 2004 election there.

Vote Badnarik- at least he knows he's crazy. I sure did.

Well, Drezner, I certainly hope you're right. However, I still maintain that whoever wins the election, the American people will lose.

I had believed that this was serious until I read

>And if the Kerry campaign is stupid enough to let Theresa continue to speak to the press, there's an off-chance that in a fit of pique I'll vote to deny her the opportunity to be First Lady.

That is more egregious than, for example, the photo-ops involving the faux rancher Bush himself on his Disneyland-like ranch in Crawford? You must be joking.

Praise the lord, and here's a log for that fire.

Thank you, Dan.

Basically, that's what it comes down to. I'm no Kerry enthusiast, but this country, for a myriad of reasons, cannot afford another Bush term (note: I am not saying another Republican term, I am saying another Bush term). In my view, everyone who votes for Kerry is helping me and my friends and family, and thousands of people I'll never meet, by putting Bush and his ilk out of power. Perhaps this will give the Republican party a chance to re-grasp some of what I've voted for in the past: fiscal responsibility, states rights, personal responsibility.

So, thank you.

I stopped reading Adesnik after this post in March. http://oxblog.blogspot.com/2004_03_21_oxblog_archive.html#108010533288292764

His opinion and analysis are worthless to me and I will certainly make sure EVERY ONE of my fellow soldiers knows his position and true character for future reference as he is positioning himself to be a future Assistant Secretary of Defense.

That you quote him diminishes you significantly in my eyes. You may not care. Fine.

The guys at OxBlog (Chafetz has shown himself to be someone with problems seeing reality) have shown themselves to be typical snot nosed elites who haven't done anything yet but go to school.

This country cannot afford four years of Kerry. Dems are deluding themselves into thinking he will bring back the Clinton years. Whatever mistakes you think Bush has made, I greatly fear the mistakes that a wavering Kerry will make.

But in the end, I can't vote for a president who doesn't believe that what he believes might, just might, be wrong.

Absurd, and here's the proof, twofold:

1- I don't recall your ever having called for JOhn Kerry toa dmit HE was wrong. OOf course, given he's nothing approaching a rocrd of taking strong stands unless it was America he was taking a stand against, I suppsoe you've got nothging to go for on that side of the ball.

2- You're asking people to vote for someone who doesn't really believe in what he's doing. If you don't beleive in what you're doing, how effective will you be?

Sorry, Dan, looks from here your logic is wanting. Else, you made the choice months ago, and, Sullivan- like, have been stringing this along and this is your effort to justify your choice.

It doesn't justify it, it argues against it.

I see no evidence for either the proposition that Kerry would recognize a mistake in the decion-making process, or implement decisions in a way yielding a greater probability of success. Both are statements of faith.

Kerry and most of the post-Vietnam Democratic foreign policy establishment were grotesquely wrong about the handling of the Soviet Union during the 1980s. Even in the cold light of what we now know, they have not reassessed their views or acknowledged their errors.

On implementation, we have only the examples of Bosnia and Kosovo, and it's hard to argue that either was or is a smoothly running machine. Indeed, in their own way they've been as messy as the operation in Iraq. The main difference is that we minimized our own casualties, though not those of the civilian populations.

> I'm voting for Kerry.

Someday, your children will thank you.

Daniel Drezner wrote:

So I'm voting for Kerry.

Did you really think anyone bought this “oh, I’m struggling with this decision” line of BS when it was pretty obvious in how you weighted the issues and used inconsistent arguments that you were planning on going for Kerry all along?

Color us unsurprised.

> The Clinton team's answer was to walk away and
> ignore the problems when diplomacy failed.
>
> Posted by Mark Buehner at October 22, 2004
> 12:58 PM

Prediction: If Bush wins, in four years, his supporters will still be blaming everything on Clinton.

Dan, congratulations on making the right decision.

Little nitpick: This post would have been a great lead-in to the "Tom Friedman, over here!" post. The other way round it was a bit odd.

And a prediction: More and more people are coming to realize Bush's grave mistakes. But thanks to the incompetence of the media, not enough people may actually get it by Election Day. But that doesn't mean the trend won't continue past Election Day, especially once the anti-Kerry spin machine stops churning out distractions.

Consequently, Bush may still squeak by and win re-election, but in that case (I'd give that a 50-50 chance right now), he will have record low approval levels right after the election and probably throughout his second term. Which could lead to all sorts of interesting and unexpected outcomes (e.g. a Democratic sweep of the House and Senate in 2006).

fortunately, you're not in a swing state.

I can't completely argue with those who remain concerned with Kerry. Keep in mind two points, though:

1) GOP will remain in control of Congress. This is true even
if they lose majority status in the Senate, since as we've
seen the minority in the Senate has a lot of power. This is
key since it will sharply constrain Kerry. Some of the worst
things Bush supporters here seem to fear about Kerry are
just unlikely in this scenario. This is particularly true if
Kerry doesn't correct any mistakes in his first two years,
since the midterm elections would then go sharply against
him.

2) A Bush loss gives the GOP a chance to regroup, without
Bush's baggage. If Kerry does poorly in the next four
years (and from 1) above I don't think he will be allowed to
make dramatic mistakes), then he will be replaced.

Dan's choice (which I agree with) is about minimizing
problems the next four years. It's not that either man
is a "good" choice, just that Bush has made too many
bad decisions along the way and has shown *no*
inclination to either learn from or fix them, whereas
Kerry is less likely to screw up as badly.

Despite the fact that I agree with your eventual decision... unless you exercise mind control over a hive-like collective of 10,000 voters in Florida, Ohio, or Wisconsin, it's been a lot of sound and fury.

You a man who has proven to have strength and character. If everyone would just take the time to find out the differences... I can only imagine how many more Bush supporters would change their minds. Be a Republican, that's fine. But this time vote Democrat b/c Bush has disgraced the Republican party and put our beloved country in jeopardy.

Bithead wrote:

Sorry, Dan, looks from here your logic is wanting. Else, you made the choice months ago, and, Sullivan- like, have been stringing this along and this is your effort to justify your choice.

The other logical conclusion is that all of the other posts that Daniel Drezner made about the vilification of outsourcing, trade protectionism, and his purported concern over federal spending were simply a smokescreen to give him credibility when he officially announced his decision to vote for a candidate who was objectively worse on each.

"Well, Drezner, I certainly hope you're right. However, I still maintain that whoever wins the election, the American people will lose."

I'd be remiss if I didn't STRONGLY agree. I'm voting for Kerry, but my money's on Bush to win a second term. That's another reason I don't understand why everyone's slamming Danny over his endorsement. The Dems can't get their bloody act together, and they can only pray that Republican hegemony won't be running rampant come January (This is of course assuming the courts are done with their piece).

"Whatever Kerry's policy, the decision-making process and the implementation of those decisions would lead to a greater probability of success."

What a...wonkesque view of the world. Just out of curiosity, can you point to an example of a wrong policy competently pursued leading to a good outcome? It would be nice if your example could be of something Kerry has done, but I'd settle for anything, because I'm genuinely baffled at how, say, efficiently cutting and running in Iraq would be a success if the policy of cut and run would be a distaster....unless you don't really mean "whatever Kerry's policy."

Add my "Yay, Dan!" to the chorus, if only to help counter Thorley Winston's ugly grumbling. (Go back to Tacitus, Thorley, where people with center-left opinions can simply be cut from the blog, like Trickster was. Rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, et quae sentias, dicere licet. Indeed. Maybe the blog will be renamed "Augustus," to match the statue?)

This election hasn't even been a hard choice, for anyone who's been paying attention to the facts. Kerry's no genius, but the utter failure of Bush to succeed at ANYTHING he's tried (with the possible exception of re-election?) has been amazing.

Which makes this election a test of the power of ideology, pure and simple. If Bush can win a second term after the past four years, then the republic is in serious, serious trouble. (See the evidence that Bush's typical supporters are clueless as to his actual positions.)

Whether or not Dan's vote makes any difference electorally, its moral importance is very real. Congratulations to Prof. Drezner for letting the facts influence his vote. It's a rare quality these days.

Hey Frieda, eat shit and die.

I don't believe that Kerry gets Drezners vote because of Bush's decisionmaking process, that makes no sense. First, most reports are hearsay from disgruntled insiders. Second, Bush has reversed courses on lots of issues, usually after lots of debate within the WH. Going to the UN before into Iraq, stem cells, control on the ground shifting from DOD to State, etc.

Also, decisionmaking process only is meaningful in that it allows voters to know the likely decisions to be made. Kerry has made horrible decisions as Senator, and very nearly ruined his campaign by his own horribly indecisive decisionmaking process. His decisions are simply calculated to be the most low-risk possible to reach his desired end. The Vietnam candidate, chasing Howard Dean, choosing John Edwards.

In the WoT, I question the judgment of anybody who thinks a indecisive crwod pleasing decisionmaking process is superior to a stick-by-your guns attitude, while altering tacitcs behind the scenes.

Because the decisonmaking rationale is so unconvincing, I'll guess at hidden motives. Gay marriage doesn't seem to be a big issue for Drezner, so there is no Sullivan effect. Perhaps Drezner has changed his mind and thinks that the war is a bad idea and its easier to blame Bush for the result rather than admit perhaps it was the inevitable result of any action in Iraq. I think thats whats going on with a lot of former hawks going soft. We are still in a pretty good spot considering all the risks going in. The second reason for the Kerry vote I'm guessing is that liberal pals are having the drip effect appealling to the security that comes with agreeing with the consensus among social peers, much like what happens on the SC with subpar justices.

Ah well, still Volokh and Reynolds are on the right side, and I'd much rather have those two on my side than Drezner and Sully.

Of course you realize, Dr. Drezner, that the amount of time and mental energy you put into this decisions was not rational -- heck, is Ill. even close?

The real question is Obama or Keyes.

God bless you Dan.

Thorley Winston: Right, like we all didn’t know that months ago.

Yeah, I wasn't particularly convinced by the whole act either. Kinda felt like he wanted to create the impression that it took a long time for him to be convinced when it really didn't.

Probably the first time I've agreed with you on anything. :)

"[A] Kerry administration is likely to recognize, once the multilateral diplomacy fails, that it will actually have to come up with a viable alternative."

I put Kerry's plan to internationalize the occupation in the same category as Clinton's middle class tax cut in 1992, i.e., they both know it's baloney, but it sounds good. If Kerry is elected, expect a speech in the early spring saying "I tried, but I couldn't get the allies on board, so we need to do x." What x is I have no idea. (And if Kerry really wants to be mean, he can blame W for his inability to bring more countries on board.)

If Kerry honestly believes he can get significant international support, then we're in a whole heap of trouble.

I don't believe that Kerry gets Drezners vote because of Bush's decisionmaking process, that makes no sense. First, most reports are hearsay from disgruntled insiders.

Whom else would you expect to learn the truth from? Gruntled insiders? How do you think these folks became disgruntled in the first place? With such analytical skills, Reg, you're ready for a job with the Office of Special Plans. Give my love to Doug!

There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Bush.

But pointing to Kerry's foreign policy and say he can't do any worse is questionable.

Dan accurately points out that Kerry is operating from an antiquated concept of multilateralism. However pointing to Kerry's concepts of viable alternatives we have: Promotion of human rights and labor unions! Labor unions to fight terror is certainly a radical concept. How Drum can mention this a serious idea instead of a pander to unions is a bit farfetched.

I will be interested to see if Kerry has the US Military leave Saudi Arabia as Biden threatened. I thought that the US military out of Saudi Arabia was a key objective of AQ and Kerry would accomplish that as a way of fighting the war on Terror?

I have enjoyed your reflective comments on the situations. I will say your frank discussions on foreign policy have made me consider voting for Bush more than anything else. I believe Bush's domestic policy will prevent me from voting for Bush but compared to Kerry's foreign policy, Bush is a much better alternative. And I never really wanted to invade Iraq in the first place.

But there is nothing in Kerry's distant past or recent history to suggest to me that he'll ever make a tough decision to fight terror.

I'd bet those proportional numbers for troops required in Iraq would still undershoot the mark.

In Kosovo, 90% of the population viewed, initially and for a long time after, the NATO forces as adjuncts in their liberation from Serbs. The vast bulk of the population had a feeling of goodwill towards the occupiers.

In Bosnia, things had pretty much worked themselves to a stalemate even before the NATO bombings of Serb positions around Sarajevo. There was no way the Serbs could take, or really even wanted to take the City. The held the bits of land most important to them and consolidated their hold. The Muslims and Croats were also fairly satisfied with their position for the short to midterm. Populations were ethnically concentrated, thus ensuring solid support for nationalist parties (think of it as gerrymandering, but you move the people rather than the constituency lines).

In short, in Kosovo and Bosnia, the occupiers ratified a done deal on the ground, in Iraq, the war smashed order, and the 'Coalition' forces were/are there during the sorting out phase. Indeed, the case could be made they are an obstacle to a native solution to the territories problems.

Was there any doubt that he made this decision months ago?

Look, I think it was pretty clear that Dan was going to vote for Kerry a month ago, but Dan is a thoughtful guy and a politics junkie, meaning that he wanted to be meticulous about his decision. There's nothing wrong or disingenuous with that. I wish more people would think as carefully about their vote as Dan.

Somebody with a blog needs to start a betting pool on when guys like Drezner, Sullivan, Chafetz, etc. realize Kerry was the wrong choice if Kerry is elected.

My bets:
Sullivan-changes his mind before the inauguration after realizing Bush's FMA support was really not that important

Drezner-next April, as Kerry pulls troops out of Baghdad into rural bases and reduces troop levels in half, and within his first 100 days sends Edwards out to promote his new "Fair Trade Plan" and signs new labor laws making it easier for unions to organize without elections

Chafetz & Adesknik-When Kerry has Arafat to the WH to announce the end of US aid for Israel and tells Sharon to "tear down that wall" sounding nothing like Ronald Reagan. OR when the mullahs brutally put down a student protest reminiscent of Tiannamen and the Kerry WH makes no condemnation so as not to upset our talks with them over how much nuclear materials we need to supply them for them to promise to end their weapons program.

Mickey Kaus-When Iran and NK both test nuclear weapons in 2006 within the same month of each other, he decides perhaps we needed Bush around to keep making more history rather than letting the axis of evil make it.

"Whom else would you expect to learn the truth from? Gruntled insiders?"

Bush's decisionmaking process can be seen from the decisions reached without resort to anecdotes from the losers in internal WH debates (as reported by Ron Suskind). The big decisions are stuck to relentlessly, and tactics shift according to the situation, though the changes aren't acknowledged. In making the big decisions, he usually had opposing views within the WH arguing both sides of the case. Of course the losers like O'Neill and Clark are going to say the decisionmaking process is flawed because Bush wasn't convinced by them. That they seem to be two extremely arrogant people also makes it difficult to trust their accounts of why Bush didn't go their way.

why don't you abstain, or vote third party.

I'd like start a pool on when Reg realizes he's an angry fool.

Dibs on never.

Dan,

Now that your decision is made, what are you going to do to make your belief of what is best for the nation is what our f'd up electoral process actually decides?

Wondered how long it would take for you to be declared a traitor and an Osama lover. Then I read the first comment.

Republicans (I will not sully the name of conservatism by calling them conservatives) are no longer the party of reason. I hope Bush loses for the sake of the Republican Party. This unthinking hero worship is not healthy.

I don't think anyone can conclusively rebut the "maybe my guy is even less incompetent than your guy" argument. IMHO, a vote for either of these two is a faith-based initiative.

As an aside, following the links to the Kevin Drum piece was quite fun. My favorite tough-guy rhetoric was this:

Nor does Kerry intend to shy away from a cardinal source of funding for the madrassas — Saudi Arabia. Biden in particular is prepared to confront the Saudis over their troublesome ideological adventures. "Our policy should be: Cease and desist, or we've got to figure out new relationships here," he says. "Am I going to invade your country? Hell no. Are we going to depose you? Hell no. But let me tell you: Are we going to supply the physical security for your continued existence? I don't know."

Excellent! We will force the Saudis to arm themselves and seek new allies - that'll show 'em!

And I feel a more stable Middle East already, as the Saudis look for an accomadation with the Iranians, and contemplate the merits of going nuclear since they have been asked to go it alone.

This May WaPo interview with Kerry is also timeless.

The lead:

Sen. John F. Kerry indicated that as president he would play down the promotion of democracy as a leading goal in dealing with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and Russia, instead focusing on other objectives that he said are more central to the United States' security.

Oh, and I forgot, re: Frieda's comment---

Well, you certainly made the Mullhas in Iran, Hezboullah, Bin-Laden group, and Yasser Arafat very happy.

---that the mullahs in Iran appear to have made their endorsement known:

The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.

Could be them playing us for fools, of course; they've done such a good job of that already. But look:

Iran was happy to see Bush destroy two big regional enemies — the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Iranian political analyst Mohsen Mofidi said ousting the Taliban and Saddam was the "biggest service any administration could have done for Iran."

Maybe Bush can run for Ayatollah after he loses. He's got the faith-based personality for the job, that's for sure.

Sam wrote:

Look, I think it was pretty clear that Dan was going to vote for Kerry a month ago, but Dan is a thoughtful guy and a politics junkie, meaning that he wanted to be meticulous about his decision. There's nothing wrong or disingenuous with that.

On the contrary it is disingenuous to lead on your readers by pretending to be undecided about something you had already decided on (something you and I agree Daniel Drezner had already made a long time ago). He has presented a number of rationales (finally going back to his earlier criticism of troop levels in Iraq although he has scrupulously avoided addressing arguments that there are good reasons for the level of troops we have or evidence that this was what the generals on the ground recommended) that have been challenged rather thoughtfully by many of his readers from pointing out that “divided government” isn’t the panacea for “limited government” that many would hope or that Bush’s trade record is no different from most presidents (e.g. Clinton) and objectively better than John Kerry, and ignoring a whole host of domestic and foreign policy issues in which Bush is objectively (from a libertarian/conservative standard) better than Kerry because it would contradict or mitigate against a decision to vote for Kerry.

Moreover, since the crux of Drezner’s criticism of Bush is supposedly that the later refuses to consider or address arguments that challenge his assumptions, isn’t Daniel Drezner guilty of the very thing he accuses President Bush of doing?

Drezner wasn’t being meticulous in making his decision, he was just being dishonest in trying to come up with a rationale to justify it.

Better than decisionmaking process, I think the priority of a candidate's values is a better way to choose who to vote. So how do you vote for a guy who values his hair more than supporting his baseball team?

"Bleary-eyed from watching the Red Sox past midnight and getting up before dawn to go goose hunting, John F. Kerry emerged from his armored sport-utility vehicle near midday yesterday, pumping his fist and pointing to his Sox cap--which was in his hand, not on his head. . . ."

What a joke.

You had to do it. I hope you get tenure.

Remeber, what you do in the voting both is nobody's business but your own.

Dave wrote:

I put Kerry's plan to internationalize the occupation in the same category as Clinton's middle class tax cut in 1992, i.e., they both know it's baloney, but it sounds good. If Kerry is elected, expect a speech in the early spring saying "I tried, but I couldn't get the allies on board, so we need to do x." What x is I have no idea. (And if Kerry really wants to be mean, he can blame W for his inability to bring more countries on board.)

If Kerry honestly believes he can get significant international support, then we're in a whole heap of trouble.

If Kerry really thinks that what we see on the evening news (“if it bleeds, it leads”) is an accurate representation of world events rather than just the most “exciting” portions, then it doesn’t say much for either his understanding of the world or the kind of resolve he’d show if he were ever Commander in Chief. If on the other hand (more likely IMO), he is simply trying to exploit this to get votes against Bush and is willing to undermine public support for the war to do it (much like he repeatedly dissed our allies and the Iraqis fighting and dying against the insurgents), then he’s even more despicable than many of us thought.

Welcome, depressingly, aboard. AN unenthusiastic vote for Kerry, followed by four years of loyal opposition, is the right and responsible thing to do under the circumstances. Demonstrated incompetence, antagonism toward evidence, and deceptiveness shouldn't be rewarded with re-election, if there's a basically-acceptable alternative.

We're more likely to get competent foreign policy for four years, and more likely to have a Republican Party that values responsibility and accountability and governing ability in four years, if Kerry wins now. If W wins, the Republican Party carries away the lessons that a government-growth spending agenda will be rewarded, that honesty in policymaking and competence in policy-execution are superfluous, and the intentions of those in government-- their conviction that they're on the right side, and that they sincerely want desirable outcomes-- are more important than the actual delivery of outcomes. This would be a depely unhealthy set of things for the GOP to become convinced of.

I commend your decision and believe you are making it based on very solid reasoning. Keep up the good work.

"a lot of sound and fury" - Hey, that's my department.

Speaking of departments, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that any non-tenured academic outside a law school publicly pimping for Bush is just asking to be blackballed at tenure time (even at UC). Just thought I'd drag that elephant back into the picture frame for some of you critics upthread.

"I'd like start a pool on when Reg realizes he's an angry fool."

Heh, foolish, daily; angry, never. The left has a monopoly on anger (and name-calling it seems).

Much better argument on who to vote for here:

http://windsofchange.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/3516

Bush wins because of determination. That seems much more convincing than that wus-out answer "descionmaking process." Oh yeah, fear my decisonmaking process you terrorist bastards.

A monopoly on name calling and anger? Oh, Reg, I guess you haven't checked out the web sites and comment sections of some of your fellow travelers on the right. There is plenty of name calling and anger on both sides. I used to deplore it. I don't anymore, now that I realize that people like you are the enemies of the counrty I love. So fuck you, Reg. I hope that, if Bush is re-elected, you are one of the people that dies in the resulting nuclear conflagration.

Name calling? Refer to comment one.

I'm actually more depressed about the accusations of deciding in bad faith.

"Somebody with a blog needs to start a betting pool on when guys like Drezner, Sullivan, Chafetz, etc. realize Kerry was the wrong choice if Kerry is elected."

My predictions:

-Kerry will spend more money in his term than Bush spent in his.

-Kerry will welcome Arafat back into the fold, and put the screws on Israel.

-No significant additional foriegn forces in Iraq.

-Iran will develop a nuclear weapon basically unimpeded.

-NK will demonstrate the ability to hit the US mainland with a nuke. Bilateral negotiations notwithstanding. Oh and China will fall back asleep having no place in bilateral talks.

-Pakistan will slide back towards winking at terrorism. Kashmir will explode in violence risking nuclear war.

-US forces will be withdrawn from Iraq prematurely. Bush will be blamed. To boost his hawk bonifides additional troops will be sent to Afghanistan to look for non-existant Al Qaeda. Unless they bring backhoes OBL wont be found. Anti-US/Karzai sentiment will increase with the number of forces. Bush will be blamed.

-Anti-Americanism will decline in Europe following Kerrys election. For 2 weeks. After that the relationships continue to deterriorate finally resulting in Euros realizing they didnt just hate George Bush, they hate the people that elected him. George Bush will be blamed.

Notice that almost every critical comment about Dan's choice is focusing on why he shouldn't vote for Kerry, not why he should vote for Bush.

Lots of "Kerry will do this, Kerry won't do that, Kerry will do this, Kerry will make Osama Secretary of State blah blah blah." Precious little "Bush will do this, doesn't that sound great?" or "Bush has done this and it worked out great so vote for him so he can keep on doing it."

I wonder why that is.

Drezner: well done.

Kerry bashers: how did you all become so cynical? I suppose being afraid and deluded can make one cynical.

To be fair, I suppose I can be lucid and cast aspersions, so there.

To Frieda

The mullahs? HAHAHA... didn't you know Iran endorsed Bush?

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041020/news_1n20iran.html

It's true, 75% of Republicans don't live in the real world. don't be one of them.

Oh, Reg, I guess you haven't checked out the web sites and comment sections of some of your fellow travelers on the right. There is plenty of name calling and anger on both sides.

Partially true, there is some, but far more anger is on the left and it is far more mainstream. Compare Kos and Redstate, or Instapundit and Atrios, or Drum and Tacitus. Lefties can debate unmolested for the most part on Tacitus where rightwingers get cussed out regularly on Drum, Yglesias, or here, amazingly.

"So fuck you, Reg. I hope that, if Bush is re-elected, you are one of the people that dies in the resulting nuclear conflagration."

I don't know how to respond to that. Forgive me.

"Notice that almost every critical comment about Dan's choice is focusing on why he shouldn't vote for Kerry, not why he should vote for Bush."

Yeah so what. Not much is given as to why we should vote for Kerry, in fact until the Republican convention, the only reason given was he served in Vietnam. The rest was all, Anybody but Bush.
Nothing wrong with that either. Deciding who to vote for is usually looking at the incumbent and deciding if the other guy offers more or less. It seems obvious that for anybody strongly in support of the WoT Kerry offers far far less.

Jacob Leavy wrote:

If W wins, the Republican Party carries away the lessons that a government-growth spending agenda will be rewarded,

I see, and you think that if a Democrat challenger defeats a Republican incumbent by campaigning against Social Security privatization while promising to create a new $895 Billion health care entitlement program and to spend more on social programs, that will teach Republicans they need to cut spending why exactly?

Seriously, I realize that you too made the decision to vote for Kerry months ago while keeping up the pretense that you’re doing this for some sort of phony “libertarian” rationale but the primary reason why Governor Bush became the GOP nominee in 2000 was because Republicans were still gun-shy over being blamed for the government shut down in 1995 and losing seats in Congress in the following elections. Bush was a moderate GOP governor who focused pretty much on education and “compassionate conservatism” in the form of gradually moving the Nanny State into more of an “ownership society” direction with school choice, Social Security account, health care savings accounts, getting more private and religious organizations involved with dealing for the poor, etc. – domestic priorities that most conservatives and libertarians recognize are a necessary step towards shifting the direction of government and more likely to persuade the public than saying “government is the problem” (which was the picture painted by the Dems of Newt Gingrich and the Congressional GOP).

When a candidate loses a race, the lesson he and his party usually take away from it is that the public prefers the policies proposed by the victor rather than the loser. Should Bush lose reelection in 2000 to an opponent who successfully demonizes Social Security reform while promising a new health care entitlement, importing Canadian price controls, and even more levels of spending; the message it will probably send is that Republicans haven’t been liberal enough when it comes to domestic spending issues.

By the same token, should Kerry lose to Bush this fall, it would send the message that the public isn’t afraid of Social Security reform that lets workers invest part of the FICA dollars, that they don’t want socialized medicine and are willing to look at more market-oriented options, and that they believe the best way to fight the war is to continue going on offense and fight to transform the Middle East by spreading liberty rather than returning to the false “stability” of the past.

The way I see it, if you agree that Social Security needs to be reformed before the baby boom generation begins to retire, you vote for the candidate who is campaigning on reforming it not on the one demonizing reform. If you agree that the solution to health care is market-oriented reforms like expanding health care savings accounts, speeding up the approval of generic prescription drugs, expanding the ability of small businesses and individuals to form insurance pools, and introducing competition to Medicare; you vote for the candidate who campaigns on those issues and not the one promising to import Canadian price controls and to create another $895 Billion health care entitlement. If you agreed with the decision to go into Iraq and Afghanistan but might question some of the details of what to do afterwards, you vote for the guy who stands by the decision and fights like hell to make it succeed and not the guy who sends mixed signals about his support, who disses our allies and the Iraqis who fight and die while supporting us, and who’s own Senate record is one of pacifism and appeasement.

I know what I believe in and I’m voting accordingly.

Well put; I'm of a like mind.

The merits of your decision aside, Dan, that's one hell of an opening paragraph.

Welcome to the reality-based community.

I'm surprised that you have focused almost entirely on foreign policy and none of Kerry's economic policy. Kerry's positions on trade and outsourcing are almost directly opposite of yours. While Kerry claims to be a multilateralist with foreign policy, he employs economic isolationalist principles with his international economic policies. Even the Washington Post commented, "Possibly the worst thing in the platform is its unilateralist bent in threatening trade sanctions, a move that would trigger retaliation." (“Poor Platform for Trade,” Washington Post editorial, 7/27/04). There is some irony to this because by alienating other nations economically, he will contribute to fostering the very conditions that allow fundamentalism to take root.

You mentioned Kerry's decision-making process as one factor leading to your decision. We're given a great glimpse into his decision-making process here where he clearly has based his decision on playing to worker fears about outsourcing more than any rational trade or economic policy. You talked about the "outsourcing boogeyman" which has become the unofficial mascot for the Kerry campaign where it is used as a the reason for the jobless recovery to why we didn't capture Osama Bin Laden in Tora Bora (we outsourced it to warlords).

It also seems to be a stretch that Kerry has a better decision-making process. Where have we seen that demonstrated in his 20 year career? Serving on the Intelligence Committee gave him access to much of the same intelligence presented to the President. Kerry agreed with the President then. He agreed with the intelligence estimates in the 90s. He only began to disagree when launching his Presidential bid. That's not good decision making - it is political opportunism plain and simple.

On a side note - Kerry's campaign has done an excellent job making this election a referendum on the President's four years and not a referendum on Kerry's 20 years in national leadership.

Finally, I do think that a Kerry win would also be a win for the terrorists. I don't say that lightly because this sort of argument is quickly dismissed by many as challenging their patriotism or allegiance. That is not my intention one bit. However, I do think terrorists would feel empowered with the notion that they can impact the outcome of national elections. Their belief will be supported by the elections in Spain and, should Kerry win, the election here in U.S. It gives them a green light to use suicide bombings and beheadings to cast doubt in a nation's electorate in order to bring about a "regime change." It will rewrite the strategy for combating industrialized nations. Don't take on them on directly. Instead, wait and use grotesque beheadings and disruptive suicide bombings. Keep that up long enough, and you'll be able to effect even the largest nations.

I don't know what the solution is. But Kerry hasn't presented much of an alternative.

You people crack me up. You sound like Democrats after they lose an election.

Drezner has all along indicated that his p-value for Kerry was above 50%, but that he needed to be convinced that Kerry wouldn't utterly suck (at least more than Bush). Hmmm. Isn't that why the race tightened after the debates--because some of the undecideds saw that, under pressure, Kerry came through as a reasonable, if not great, candidate.

If Bush had listened to the experts, rather than to political hacks, he wouldn't have underestimated what rebuilding Iraq would take.

As Bush should know, any businessperson undertaking a project performs sensitivity analysis, where they examine what happens under any number of optimistic, normal, or pessismistic scenarios. Bush's problem is that his administration too often only considers the optimistic scenario. In Iraq, the only scenario they envisioned was the "We'll be greeted as liberators" scenario.

It took colossal incompetence on the part of Bush to make this a close election. Colossal incompetence is what we got.

Dan, very sorry to see all the personal attacks. Such treatment should be reserved for the folks who vote based on the last negative TV ad or campaign stump they see.

I get your point that you don't necessarily agree with Kerry, but you see his potential for causing damage greatly diminished by an opposing congress.

Well, I wouldn’t have resorted to name calling if I thought rational discourse with you was possible, Reg. Hundreds of your posts have convinced me that you are incapable of listening to reason. I see no need to engage in rational discourse with you.

But I would like to try to give you some insight into the next four years if that monster Bush wins again. You see, I’m a moderate, no extremist, and I believe in rational discourse. If you don’t believe me, check out my comments in Yglesias’ archive, or google my name for a link to the blog that I had for a couple of weeks a year and a half ago. But the Bush administration has filled me with hate and anger. Yes, I HATE George Bush and his evil cabal. I hate many (not all) of his supporters. I hate YOU Reg, because you are not just a reluctant, misguided “well Bush sucks, but he is better than Kerry” Bush supporter, but you are a true believer. At this stage of the game, if one is (1) a true believer, not just a lesser-of-two evils Bush supporter, and (2) relatively well informed, as you seem to be, then one can only be a MONSTER. And if Bush wins in November, or steals the election, there will be MILLIONS of people who feel the way I do. And we will express our rage. If I ever meet you in person, I will spit in your face. Assholes like you are raping our country.

As to the substance of your post, I disagree, but, as stated, have no desire to engage you in rational argument, so I will leave the refutation to others.

Dan,
You talk about responsibility. Well, how about Kerry accepting his part for supporting the Iraq war in the first place? He has barely talked about how Bush messed it up, just how the war was wrong> I cannot vote for a man who does one thing and demands others to do opposite.Therefore, I am not voting for neither Bush nor Kerry. Both do not accept resposiblity for their decisions.

Dan, I agree: you ought to make your vote based on whatever single piece of press you read last. In your case, you read Gordon, so you're voting Kerry.

Me, I just read a great piece by Krauthammer, so I guess I'll vote Bush.

However silly this sounds, it's still probably much more logical than the voting methodologies employed by the other 99% of the voting public.

Lemme get this straight, Larry: Vote for Kerry or I, and millions of potential (ostensible loyal American) psychopaths like me will wreak vengeance on the entire land. Something like that?

Make no mistake, Larry, and for that matter Dan, I don't care who you vote for. Really. It's not going to make THAT much difference either way.

But screw you if your mouth-foaming lasts past November 4th. Don't you dare threaten--even hint at--violence should your guy lose the election. Get a life.

Dan,
Respectfully. Have you read the 9/11 commission's report. Where in it do we get an apology or even a course correction in handling international Islamic terrorism from anyone in the Clinton Admin? I'd like a page number, please.

The way I see it, mistakes of omission were made by Clinton's people, while mistakes of commission have been made by Bush's. Either way, people died who should not have. People will go on dying, mistakes will go on being made by a President Kerry. What of it?

In the end, the decisive factor for me is this: after 6 to 12 months of "testing" President Kerry, our enemies and faux friends abroad will push him into doing many of the same things Bush would have done, only we'll have lost a year in the transition and the learning process--at least. The risks do NOT, in my estimation, outweigh the benefits.

The testing followed by the dithering followed by the overcompensating use of force--that's my prediction for a Kerry Presidency. I'll pass.

First, most reports are hearsay from disgruntled insiders.

Ever occur to you they have good reason to be disgruntled? And I don't think it's "hearsay" when they actually observed it.

Larry, have a drink, okay? Chill.

The core of truth in what Larry says, underneath the implied threats etc., is that many people who love America for being the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, despise Bush & Co. for their having dragged America's good name in the mud:

Torture in Abu Ghraib

"Preemptive" invasion of a country that neither attacked nor threatened us

Legal memos prepared on demand to support the President's assertion of dictatorial powers

Casual murder of the Iraqis we claim to protect

(Newest example, from the Nov. Atlantic:

There are many stories, glossed over in official reports, of innocent Iraqis who were shredded in their cars because they happeend to drive too close to a patrol that had been bombed or fired upon. Sometimes entire families died that way.)

So this election has a moral component that hasn't been so prominent in other elections. Are we endorsing torture, aggressive war, American dictatorship, and murder of civilians? Or are we repudiating those things?

Kelli and her cohort are either okay with those things, or deny their existence, or think that there are more important, countervailing reasons to vote Bush. They doubtless think that Larry and I are as immoral as we think they are for supporting the conversion of America the Beautiful into the Evil Empire. History will, perhaps, demonstrate who was right.

Kelli,

Kelli,

Not hintng, stating for a fact.

And no, I don't expect or intend to influence your vote or anyone else's. Personally, I doubt I'll resort to violence - spitting in Reg's face is the worst I'll do. But I expect, and HOPE that millions of others will. And that we will take back our nation from the criminal cabal that has stoleen it from us.

This country cannot afford four years of Kerry. Dems are deluding themselves into thinking he will bring back the Clinton years. Whatever mistakes you think Bush has made, I greatly fear the mistakes that a wavering Kerry will make.

The American public and Congress will keep him on the straight and narrow. You can't say that about Bush. He basically does what he wants, rarely right or horribly wrong.

Somebody with a blog needs to start a betting pool on when guys like Drezner, Sullivan, Chafetz, etc. realize Kerry was the wrong choice if Kerry is elected.

I'm not supporting Kerry because he's right on most things. I hope other conservatives who are supporting Kerry are not doing it because they think he's right on most things. He is, however, much better than the alternative.

In the unlikely event you reply to this specific comment, put my name in the reply.

Dan for what it is worth, next time the government is looking for a monday morning quarterback, you'll be the go to guy.

Hope your wrong, though I wont't be reading your blog anymore, but then I again I found you through Andrew Sullivan and I don't read his screed anymore either.

Later

"Ever occur to you they have good reason to be disgruntled?"

Again, that their arguments failed to convince in the internal WH debates.

"And I don't think it's "hearsay" when they actually observed it."

It is hearsay when people like Clarke report what Bush said. Also, what anonymous senior officials told reporters, or what Powell or Armitage allegedly said to reporters, is also hearsay. O'Neill backed off a lot of claims as reported by Suskind, suggesting reporters are spinning a lot of what is said to be as anti-Bush as possible.

Welcome to the reality-based community, Dan!

Congratulations.
Here is a link to a former Republican senator from Kentucky, Marlow W. Cook, who will vote for Kerry.
http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/2004/10/20/oped-marlow1020-8060.html

"I am not enamored with John Kerry, but I am frightened to death of George Bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor a government that refuses to supply the Congress with requested information. I am against a government that refuses to tell the country with whom the leaders of our country sat down and determined our energy policy, and to prove how much they want to keep that secret, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court."

I am not a republican but if Kerry is elected I hope the republicans will take the opportunity to kick out Bush, Cheney, Perle, et al and bring back the adults like McCain. I look forward to an honest and vigorous campaign based on the issues next election.

By the way, George Tenet the other night in Michigan said that it was wrong to invade Iraq.

Oil hit a new high.

The Dow dropped 108 pts today.

Not only do I hope Kerry wins. I hope he wins by a substantial margin so the transition will be quick and clean without throwing the election into the courts.

Here is a longer list of noted republicans either endorsing Kerry or announcing they will not vote for Bush.
http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Republicans_for_Kerry_2004

The anger and obnoxious response from the right makes sense, Dan, and don't take it personal. Its not that they dislike you per se (although some do think that any vote against their guy is treason). Its that they're afraid. See, they know that if the incumbent rule is correct and in play, Bush loses. So whatever they can, they have to convince themselves that you are not a typical undecided.

But as James Zogby noted, you ARE the typical undecided. Like other undecided, you don't like Bush at all, but don't trust Kerry. Like other undecideds, you're "re-elect" number was pretty low. And like Josh Chafetz and Governor Ventura, you're coming home to Kerry as Zogby, Blumenthal, Tuxiera, and others predicted.

Now perhaps you aren't the typical undecided. After all, you are not undeducated, and the typical undecided is. But if that's an irrelevant difference, then this election is falling out of their reach, and you symbolize that. And this is why they're angry.

It's not personal.

Kerry-Edwards for a Stronger America :).

Dan,

I suppose epistemology is not part of normal Red-America vocabulary, but for those of us who understand the concept the Bush world view is extremely disturbing.

It's a dangerous world. And there are few things more frightening than realizing that your leaders live in a fantasy world where they believe what they want to believe instead of what facts and reason would indicate.

Thank you for remaining a member of the Reality-Based Community.

I'm a tad surprised. I never figured you for a Republican.

There still is time left in the election. Don't be surprised if, before your vote is cast in stone, you find that Bush is like the Sox and Kerry like the Yankees. We may be three down, but it's not over!!!

GEORGE (cont'd): Attaboy, Clarence.

Dan..."I can't vote for a president who doesn't believe that what he believes might, just might, be wrong"...but I don't think that Bush does have this kind of mental rigidity. For example: he went into office believing that nation-building was a bad idea but was led by events to undertake a nation-building task of momentous proportions.

And where is the evidence that *Kerry* is willing to consider that *he* might be wrong? Talking endlessly about nuance doesn't necessarily that one can really understand nuances, still less that one can resolve them into unambiguous decisions when action must be taken.

Clem..."I suppose epistemology is not part of normal Red-America vocabulary"...this kind of intellectual arrogance continues to drive large numbers of people away from the Democratic Party.

Iran's support for Bush? Wrong!
The pro-hard-line Iranian group has been actively campaigning for Kerry. One of the fundraiser is actually a close frined of Rafsanjani family and their main goal is to lift the embargo against Iran. Apparently they think that Kerry will do just that. The Kerry camp has identified Mr. Nemazee as having raised more than $100,000 for the senator's campaign. Last year, Aalaei married a 35-year-old recent immigrant from Iran named Susan Akbarpour, whom the Kerry campaign also lists as having raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the campaign.

In just six years since coming to the United States on a tourist visa from Iran, Akbarpour has started a newspaper, a magazine and, most recently, a trade association whose goal, she tells Insight, is to get sanctions lifted and promote U.S. business and investment in Iran.

"Susan Akbarpour was a journalist in Iran, where she was close to Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of [former president Ali Akbar] Rafsanjani," says student activist Aryo Pirouznia. "She has done programs on Iranian television praising Faezeh Hashemi, and demonstrated against pro-freedom groups in California when Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi came to Los Angeles in September 2000." Rafsanjani's daughter was a member of the Iranian Parliament until recently. Her faction, while hailed as "reformists" by pro-regime activists, has never pressed for an end to clerical rule and is widely believed to have served as a foil for hard-liners such as Hashemi's own father.

Here is the complete link to that news from an Iranian news ( http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=03&d=01&a=11)

I am not a Republican by the way. I just support Bush becuase at the end we will appreciate his effort in trying to change the geopolitical map in the Middle East and ultimatly the "little people" will benefit. My whole family lives there and I have a high intrest to see the war succeeds.

Reg: Much better argument on who to vote for here: ">http://windsofchange.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/3516

That's the trackback ping link. The link you meant to use is Armed Liberal's post here. He also finally hopped off the fence.

Of course, I'm a little bit more partial to a counter-argument that A.L. linked earlier. :)

So you're voting for Holbrooke?

It sounds a lot better than saying you're voting for Kerry. At least in my book.

Now that you've endorsed Kerry, will you reveal the anonymous Ambassador that had you on second thoughts about Kerry. Maybe you'll be receiving another letter.

next time the government is looking for a monday morning quarterback

In the reality-based community we call this accountability, you may want to look into it.

>Bush is like the Sox and Kerry is like the Yankees

Oh, come now. It's the BOSTON Red Sox, after all.

Commendable choice, Dan. I have my reservations about Kerry, too, but I think on balance there's just no way he could be worse than Bush Jr. John Mearsheimer is with you on this one, too, as I'm sure you know, already. What we need is some "reality-based" thinking in foreign policy right now, and Kerry I think will give it to us.

Hoo 2:39 "I will be interested to see if Kerry has the US Military leave Saudi Arabia as Biden threatened. I thought that the US military out of Saudi Arabia was a key objective of AQ and Kerry would accomplish that as a way of fighting the war on Terror?" Ah, another nonreality based person. I take it you are unaware of the reduced level of troops in the Kingdom. I guess you are unaware of the transfer of installations to Bahrain, Kuwait, etc. I guess you are unaware of the Bush family relationship with the Saudis and their willingness to do whatever they can to keep the Saudi oil flowing thru the fingers of the royal family. Where have you been? Just listening to Fox News??

David Foster,

I think Bush Jr. is still against nation building, look at jow screwed-up Iraq is.

That's wierd, Dan, I read the same thing and came to the exact opposite conclusion.

David Gergen just gave a talk here in the Boston area today and said Bush would be on much firmer ground if he just acknowledged what we all know to be true: Aside from intelligence failures about WMD, the biggest mistakes in Iraq have been in the post-conflict stage.

If he'd made that mea culpa and said "We didn't adequately prepare for it and things are not going exactly to plan but we know you're concerns and are going to do better," he'd be in better shape in allaying people's fears about the future.

As it happens, people are scared of both candidates.

What will a second Bush Administration be like? Is he going to try to invade Iran or North Korea? What's going to happen in Iraq? Is the next four years going to be like the last?

While Kerry as a Senator has a record of dovishness, he's never been President after 9/11 in which things changed for Democrats and Republicans alike.

Any when you look at the record of this White House and how things have been run, the foreign policy-making process appears to be broken with inadequate planning and insufficient responsiveness to facts on the ground.

The choices that have been made after the Afghanistan war have largely been bad ones -- switching from Afghanistan to Iraq, starting the military action without a plan in place for the aftermath, not enough troops deployed in the field, little reconstruction funds spent, large-scale diplomatic failure in building a robust coalition to fight and finance the war.

At some level, Republicans who are not idealogues have to acknowledge that things look bad on the ground and our options are rather unattractive. Maybe the siege on Fallujah will yield fruit as the Wall Street Journal believes, but I'm afraid that's wishful thinking.

I'm a Kerry supporter but also backed the war, and a real honest bipartisan debate would acknowledge that we're in a big f-in mess that we brought upon ourselves. I don't think the Bush team is willing to listen.

So, if you're a concerned conservative, I think you can support Kerry and know that political weakness will force him to govern as a centrist. While Bush faced down the Democrats and governed like a radical, I don't think this country wants another wild policy swing. So, the conservative choice in this election is John Kerry and that's not all bad.

(I'm with you on the what about the need to push for democratization in the Middle East. Is Kerry going to be too timid there? Who knows but Spencer Ackerman's piece in the New Republic is some cause for optimism.)

The complaining about Drezner's decision process doesn't fly. Sometimes a person's already made up their mind, but they're the last to know. Seems to me that he ought to be commended for letting his decision immerge through careful deliberation.

And don't begrudge the Bush voters' their screeching. Should Kerry turn out to be as bad as W, a heck of alot of partisan Dems like me will be screeching at the sensible ones who, in 2008, cross party lines to vote for the good of the country, and hopefully tip the balance of the election.

Good God !! Out of around $150 million or so raised by the Kerry, campaign around $100K were raised by someone who apparently thinks that sanctions against Iran don't work. I think that uniltareral sanctions against Iran (outside of military equipment) are useless. I also think economic ties might have encouraged a pro-American business class in Iran and hurt the mullahs.

[ Also, the notion that a 100K supporter will be able to decide policy is rather ludicruous]

Mark Buehner: I suppose you'll want to save that list of predictions in the event of a Kerry presidency and revisit them in a couple of years' time. I have to wonder, though; did Bush's term (and, say, stuff like the war in Iraq) unfold as you would have predicted?

I had known that Thorley Winston was a student of war, but not till now did I know he was a student of the soul. Nor that he has studied Drezner's soul and seen the disingenuousness and insincerity lurking deep within. So deep no evidence of their presence can be adduced. The power of Winston's intuition alone provides all the proof needed, and anyone can see just how much credence his conclusions deserve.

Too bad, Dan. With this disclosure, you'll never work in this town again. No more sweet jobs working on Republican presidential transitions. Oh, and do you think a Democratic administration will ever hire a libertarian-leaning U of C guy? Ha ha.

Hope you like the academy, Drezner, because public policy work is out for you.

I can't take seriously anyone (Kerry, et al) who proposes greater international presence as a solution to the mideast problems or the war on terror. The international community and the UN did nothing in Rwanda (800,000 dead), or Sudan where genocide is ongoing and the UN is having a hard even passing a resolution against the genocide. If the "international" community can't do anything about simple genocide it is foolhardy to expect them to do anything useful with something as complex as nation building.

Different peas in different pods, TJIT.

That's like saying economists make bad police officers.

Look, I want "someone to do something" about the Sudan, too. But what, exactly? It's a large desert country, with little infrastrucure, and dirt poor.

Say you send in soldiers. How many? Where do you send them? What do you tell them to do? Is their primary responsibiity protecting the millions of refugees - and how do they protect them? - or gunning down guerillas? How do they know who the guerillas are? Anyone with a gun?

Nationbuilding is more complex, but also more bureaucratic and structural, and that's what international organizations are good at.

Dan, it's principled right-of-center people like you that continue to give me hope for this country.

Thanks for twisting the knife in the backs of Vietnam veterans one more time, Danny Boy. That you could even consider Kerry a candidate for Commander in Chief speaks volumes of your own sense of ethics.

Get ready for Jimmy Carter II. Do any of you people have ANY idea what Kerry really stands for?

Yeah, the multilateralism is a dangerous pipedream (I'm German and I know that)...is that what we need at this moment in our history? I just don't think Bush is as inflexible as you make him out to be. Iraq is also just not as bad as the media wants us to believe. I think most people would have a different feeling if just 1% of the good things happening in Iraq were reported on.

I just hope you and all the other "soft" Kerry supporters don't end up deeply regretting putting that much power in this guy's hands. He really has an unimpressive and highly left-wing Senate record and what he did after Vietnam to his fellow vets is disgraceful. Maybe you ought to rethink this before we all end up with a massive Kerry hangover on November 3.

Thus wars are lost. Hopefully you won't have to correct your mistake in '08.

Tom Maguire 3:20 (as a criticism of Kerry) "And I feel a more stable Middle East already, as the Saudis look for an accomadation with the Iranians, and contemplate the merits of going nuclear since they have been asked to go it alone."

Where do you get this stuff? The Iranians are mostly Shias. The Saudis are the most virulent brand of Sunni - Wahhabi. The Wahhabis consider the Shia to be infidels. I think it's possible that the Saudi royal family would be even more at risk if they start looking towards Iran for protection. Guess you are a true Bush suporter as details don't mean anything in your black/white world.

You really want a leader who says "Follow me, I may be wrong"?

Your petty arguments do not reflect the enormity of the goal and the abundance of success.

Saddam learned the "Lessons of Vietnam" and deployed them brilliantly. We have never faced an enemy who attecked its own citizens and forced the invader to defend the population.

The world is changing. We fight an enemy unlike any we have faced before. The expections of a peaceful return to democracy did not exist in the American military planners or civilian administrators. The change has been rapid but the TV driven expectations that Baghdad would be a new Paris within 12 months is niave.

Your arguments of Kerry are intellectually shallow. Your emotions overwhelm your reason. I had come to expect better.

The key word is the business world these days is "accountability."

I keep hearing this need to hold Bush accountable for the mistakes of his administration. It's probably the only argument I find compelling about voting against Bush.

But where is the accountability for the congress critters who aided and abetted all of these faulty actions of the president? If to you, the voter, the war in Iraq was a mistake regardless of how it was handled, how do you justify voting for Kerry, who voted for this war (and voted against the "good" Iraq war, demonstrating judgement that suggests yes, you can do worse)? When do we hold congress accountable for their role in the Patriot act, the budget deficits and the like?

But in the end, I can't vote for a president who doesn't believe that what he believes might, just might, be wrong.

This is absurd. Why would you believe that what you believe "might, just might be wrong"? Who has given you any indication that any candidate for president over the past 20 years fits this mold?

If W wins, the Republican Party carries away the lessons that a government-growth spending agenda will be rewarded,

This battle was lost in 95 when Republicans, who actually had a mandate of any sort to try to cut government found themselves and the dramatic government cutbacks to be very unpopular amongst enough Americans. We were going to have a drug plan for Medicare; it was just a question whether it would be in 2003 under a Republican or 2005 under a Democrat. I wouldn't necessarily rule out a 2005 expansion of the same under a Kerry administration.

Everything Kerry knows, he seems to have learned early on as a young man...soldier, activist, prosecutor, etc. And he's been wrong all the time. Does he learn from his mistakes? Apparently not. Like others have pointed out, this basis for reasoning against Bush is terribly flawed.

Plus, it seems to me too early to say that Bush has made big mistakes that he is too stubborn or stupid to learn from. On the contrary, I think we're still on schedule.

Dan,
I appreciate the fact that you've so successfully provoked this debate--this is the most interesting and informative discussion I've come across this election. It's confirmed for me a realization that I think many of us are getting to: the old division between conservative and liberal no longer holds, as least not as the most crucial divide. I think the more crucial split is now between the moderate, pragmatic "reality-based community," and the radicals on both ends of the political spectrum. I am exposed to a lot of the radical left fundamentalist rant on a regular basis (and despise it), and I have to say that the radical right fundamentalist rant is amazingly similar. I would be amused by the absurd spy-vs-spy aspects of this ideological mirror-dance, except that it has really dire consequenses for our society. I hope after the craziness of the election dies down, we can start to work back towards the middle and stop viewing our fellow Americans who happen to disagree with us as if they were demonic criminals. Now, my friends, guess who I'm voting for, and whether I'm on the right or left.

No harsh words from me, Daniel.
All I can say is that I am profoundly disappointed in your decision. Perhaps when have you reached my age, 61, and have seen 4 wars and numerous conflicts you will come to understand that leaders do make mistakes. The great ones however learn from experience and correct them. However, if your man does win I guarantee that you and your children will experience more war than you can imagine, right here in America. A war cannot be won by a pandering opportunist without character and that is what your man is.

That was an over-analyzed piece of crap from a political science professor who, of course, has all the answers because...well, just because he's a political science professor. Have you ever lived in the real world?

Yes Swopa, you are so right.

Welcome to the reality-based community, where secret agents on their way to Cambodia deliver hats to the candidate, where mysterious dogs fly through the air from one boat to the other, where military records are locked away to hide dishonorable discharges (later fixed by Jimmy Carter), where snowboarders don't fall down but are knocked down by f**** secret service agents, where 16-point bucks are sighted on barrier islands while crawling on your belly with a shotgun hunting, where the paralyzed are healed after inauguration, where health records detailing severe parasomnia and cancer status are locked away, and where the French and Germans care more about standing behind their ally America than billion-dollar oil-for-food kickbacks.

Some reality-based community, Swopa. How do I join your cult?

See Anderson the difference in America is some of us hate the Islamists for killing Americans and others hate Bush for not being a Democrat, talking with a Texas accent, and mispronouncing "Nuclear".

Nice to see you have your priorities straight.

"I'm not at all happy about my choice (And if the Kerry campaign is stupid enough to let Theresa continue to speak to the press, there's an off-chance that in a fit of pique I'll vote to deny her the opportunity to be First Lady.)"

Anyone who would base their vote on their personal like or dislike of the wife of the candidate is a complete ass. Last time I checked, they weren't anywhere close to assuming the presidency.

Basing your vote on emotion rather than rational thought is a very childish thing to do. Something the far-left liberals and faith-based right-wing evengelicals excel at.

It's good to know, accountability isn't for the poor. Republicans just don't like facts. They abhor the "reality-based community". The only reason Bush has any support left is cause he continues to lie, deceive, and mislead. 70% of wingnuts think there were WMDs found in Iraq and/or Iraq was responsible for 9/11 (c.f. gallup poll). YOU cant make this shit up. FACE IT, republicans are f'n idiots.

All the idiots clamoring about 9/11 and the war on terror need to STFU. One in TEN new yorkers PROTESTED AGAINST DEAR LEADER. NYC is going to vote 70-80% KERRY. The place hardest hit by terror knows what they are doing, they have a shit load of faith in Kerry. SO STOP FEAR MONGERING, aND STFU.

NYC IS VOTING KERRY. IF 9/11 CHANGED everything, than vote with NYC, or STFU and never mention the War on Terror or 9/11 AGAIN.

"Thanks for twisting the knife in the backs of Vietnam veterans one more time, Danny Boy."

You know, Mikem, I actually think that Americans have cut many Vietnam Vets a great deal of slack. The reason I think this is that every returning vet I knew (and I'm of an age where i knew quite a few) had horror stories of things they personally observed. Many of them related to rape. Most often it was a story of a very young teenage girl put into a hut and forced to give blow jobs to most of a platoon. Drug use was extremely high (the 1960s after all) and all kinds of freaky things happened. But, it was a drafted war, very poorly executed. I don't begrudge anyone healthcare services, in fact I think they should be improved, but I am sick of this pretending that the Vets were all victims, or heros, or exceptional. Many, many Vietnam vets prefer that the war not be brought up as they do not want memories of what they witnessed or what they participated in to be brought to the surface again.

Clem,

I'd like you to explain how Kerry can be a member of the "reality-based community" when he is a constant pathological liar about the most bizarre stuff -- such as the Magic Hat, Christmas in Cambodia, the flying wonder dog, hunting for deer with a shotgun by crawling on his belly, etc. etc. etc.

Jor,

I can't wait until Bush gets re-elected and worms like you dry out on the internet sidewalk, never to be heard from again.

Is everyone missing the point, or am i? The choice b/w Bush and Kerry is actually, not a choice. It is an illusion to think there exist major differences here, unless of course, we are willing to deny the relevance of Dem. & Rep. candidates going back the last 3 decades at least, none of whom represented significant change.

American presidents always suffer one or more of the following:
1. Hubris.
2. Stupidity.
3. Inability to actually change anything
4. Overwrought media image which they start believing are true

I was born in 1961. Give me the name of an American president in my lifetime who could wear the same socks as a Mandella.

Sceptical? Definitely. And while I'm at it, whatever happened to irony in politics and political commentary? It is another essential ingredient missing from American politics.

After reading many of the comments here, I have come to the conclusion that many of you, if you'll forgive me, are dumb as f***ing stumps.

anot - Give me a break with the Mandela comment. You are obviously one of these people that expects every President to be a George Washington or Nelson Mandela. Newsflash - they are actual HUMANS. They are not perfect - only the Jewish carpenter was.

All of your hyping about Iraq just makes me tired of hearing about it. It's WAR. It is not building a house of bricks. Bad shit happens in war. You can't second guess every single decision ever made. World War 2 was a monster cluster F***, and no one ever got up in FDR's grill every other day accusing him of incompetence. This war has been run so much better than any large scale war in American history. That does NOT mean it's perfect. No WAR is ever perfect. We have not lost a lot of soldiers compared with any other major conflict in HISTORY!

That is not to cheapen their sacrifice. I honor it. But get some damn perspective. I bet anot was cheering when Clinton went into Kosovo, weren't you? Gee, another newsflash: WE ARE STILL THERE AND AREN'T LEAVING ANYTIME SOON, BECAUSE NONE OF TH0SE PEOPLE CAN GET ALONG WITH EACH OTHER. Gee, don't hear you complaining about that one.

So get a grip, anot. Mandela was not Superman. By his very nature any President is a creature of compromise because that is their constituency - compromises!

Brad,

To be fair nobody is complaining about the Balkans because Americans are not dying there (well there was one recent fatality think that was about it).

Some Americans don't seem to realize the fact that an ongoing war against a vicious enemy determined to fight to the death is going to mean ongoing casualties until victory is achieved.

Did I fall asleep and miss something?

Could someone please tell me what Kerry thinks he might be wrong about?

@ Brad:

"World War 2 was a monster cluster F***, and no one ever got up in FDR's grill every other day accusing him of incompetence.

That is a fascinating point. You will find this article a fascinating read. If you read it you will find that even FDR had to endure some of what Bush is going through now.

No, Iraq hasn't been perfect but doing what we've done at a cost of 1100 dead and 9,000 wounded is a buit of a miracle. Had you told me that 1100 would die in theic conflict I'd have told you, you were a dreamer.

Kerry will never do what Bush is doing: Bush is draining the swamp of the Middle East to get to the root cause of terrorism. Under a Kerry administration this mission will ened and we'll be safe for another ten years or so.

Perfect or not Bush is the guy who understands what needs to be done in this fight. Your vote is short sighted at best.

Dan-

Don't let the others deter you from reconsidering your deliberate decision-making process. Well done- I only hope that more Americans undergo similar analysis before Nov. 2.

What's startling to me is a recent poll I saw (forgive me for not providing a link, my time is limited) that suggests a majority of Bush supporters wouldn't support the war had Saddam not possessed weapons of mass destruction nor had a clear connection with al Qaeda. I.e., these voters support the war for reasons that have been officially debunked.

This is frightening. For all of the lofty rhetoric in the right-of-center blogosphere of "the need to upend the status quo in the Middle East" or "democracy promotion", a stunning number of Bush supporters have used the same rationale for judging the war as have his detractors: they're simply using information that isn't correct.

I don't intend to suggest that all pro-war conservatives are idiots (as flawed as their reasoning might be), but this to me is a clear reason to defeat Bush: his administrations' unwavering faith in a particular version of the events becomes the basis of policy rather than reality.

Like Dan, I'm supporting Kerry for these reasons.

I see nothing in Kerry's history which would indicate a backbone. I will not get into a discussion about Vietnam inregards to his service, ie, whether he deserved his awards. But I will tell you his actions about those awards and his public display of those awards is not the indications of a warrior. None of the people I served with would ever dream of talking about the awards or some hat he carries around, what is up with that? Kerry also had some of his citations changed, some a couple of times, that is so weird. A warrior serves and then goes home.
And from the point where he left the service, Kerry does not take a stand for anything, except against the US. Votes against military programs, votes for communist in Nicaragua, against GWI, for GWII, against support bill, and there are many more. He is a politician and I use that term in a bad way. If Kerry gets elected, what I see happening is similiar to Vietnam. Kerry stated in 1971, if the US pulls out the will be just several thousand deaths, maybe. What happened, over 2 million plus deaths.
What I see happening with Kerry, is a pull out of troops, and then the deaths of millions in Iraq. That is one of the problems I have with some Americans, this is ok because americans are not dying. In Bosnia, what was the big item in the press, No Americans died. True but how many people died after the US said no ground troops and Milosevic rolled his tanks. Tens of thousands whether through direct actions or in there march to Albania or other countries as refugees. The US did not have a refugee problem in Afganistan or Iraq, people came back to their country. You state Kerry would be flexible to change and I say as an example of his flexibility, Kerry may have stopped the invasion after the first week with some of the press coverage. He is a politician. In a bad sense of the word, remember. If Kerry wins, deaths are ok, as long as it is not Americans.

As a proud seventh-generation Texan (with eight generations in NC and SC on the other side) and a formerly diehard Republican who can't stomach Bush's record of ineptitude (which, mind you, spans his entire life) for one second longer, I find it hilarious that Mr. Matthew Cromer wants to defend this charlatan in the face of all reason. Allow me, in fact, to put it into some Texas phrases, said with a hearty and unabashed twang: Bush could screw up a two-car funeral; Iraq looks like he sewed it with a hot needle and burnt thread; and I'll believe a thing he says when there's whales in West Texas.

George Bush's entire life has been a series of favors handed to him, and he's consistently failed. The rest of us have to earn our promotions, and the rest of us would be fired for the things he's done - run businesses into the ground and embarrassed people who've done him favors (not to mention created more terrorists, destroyed our great nation's integrity, and tossed away monumental opportunities for positive change). And what I find especially shameful is that he's cloaked himself in the words of religion while betraying its principles and governing for the few. Casualties don't mean a damned thing to him because he knows he'd never be one of them - those lower-middle-class volunteers just love to die because of inept planning!

Yes, sir, there's a real enemy - even real enemIES - and our president has looked firmly in the wrong direction. A vote for Bush is a vote for the destruction of America, and I feel sadly confident that those of us who would end up picking up the pieces aren't those who're voting for him now. That's nicely analogous to the fact that those who've decided to go to the wrong war and those who've planned it viewed themselves as too important to ever really serve in the military.

Congrats, Daniel, on a wise decision. Mr. Matthew Cromer, keep on absorbing those campaign ads and ignoring reality. Just do what Uncle Karl tells you; the devil's comin' round with his bill.

John, Bill, Ray D. and others:

You all --- rightly -- recognize the GRAVE DANGER posed to this nation by the election of a Kerry regime. The President and Vice President have both confirmed this in recent speeches: that John Kerry, if elected, will endanger our families and communities.

I deeply believe this is so. Doesn't it logically stand that we should do anything -- ANYTHING -- necessary to prevent this threat to our nation from coming to fruition?

I hope the Kerry Administration remembers the sacrifices of people like Dan this election, when the judgeships and the cabinet posts come up. I expect Kerry will be much more generous than a second Bush Administration would be to "Armed Liberal" and the other scared and deluded Democrats.

As far as the great success of the Iraq War and World War II: how would you compare our successes with those of the first year of WWII—for the Axis? Like them, we see our initial plans (Mission Accomplished, reconstruction costs underestimated by a factor of at least 50, Ahmad Quisling Chalabi) rendered over-optimistic by events, while the Infallible Leader forces everyone to pretend that setbacks are signs of progress and enemy desperation. Are you aware that our losses are of the same order of magnitude as Soviet losses in the first year of their occupation of Afghanistan?

"Bush wins because of determination. "

Way to go, Reg. We used to be concerned about the potential for electing mediocrity, but now we've settled for "determined." A constipated man is determined. I'm just afraid we're gonna get his bowel movement after the election. Come to think of it, that would explain the mental confusion we so proudly admire in the man.

Mathew, I was born in NYC, lived there for several years, and visit several times a year. NYC was the hardest hit by terrorism. NYC is voting against Bush by a land-slide. 1 in 10 New Yorkers protested AGAINST Bush during the RNC. If 9/11 changed everything, why are the great patriots on this board stabbing New Yorkers in the BACK. WHY?

Go ahead try and find the flaw in the argument. You can't. You are basically a republican hack on the order of Glenn Renyolds type hacktitude. That's fine.

Why do the wing-nuts hate NYC so much? WHY? Why do they give comfort to the terrorists by hurting NYC? Why?

As a libertarian isolationist who will be voting for Kerry (knowing full well he is neither), welcome to the ABB cabal. You'll be receiving your complimentary pez, doughnuts, and hunky studly Kerry calendar any day now.

Do you notice how those who are being the most hostile to Dan's decision tend to regurgitate RNC talking points to justify it? I decided that I wouldn't be voting for Bush long ago when it became obvious that he was governing only for his base and his party was perfectly happy being the party of the far right.

His recent history of fear mongering is disgusting and I realize that in fact I cannot speak meaningfully to those who support him. Why? An extensive poll announced this week revealed that the overwhelming majority of Bush supporters don't believe that Saddam might have gone back to developing WMDs soon, but in fact really did have WMDs and that we found them. They also believe that Saddam had close ties to Bin Laden and was probably involved in 9/11. What's wrong with this picture? Reality. It's just not for Republicans.

Elizabeth,

At least I am not voting for a man with a magic hat from Cambodia that he carries around in a hidden compartment in his briefcase.

"Reality-based" indeed.

And your comments about Iraq prove only that you and yours are the characterological descendents of Chamberlain, not Churchill. 750 dead in a training mission in one day in WWII, that's a clusterfuck, but you have all the perspective of an inchworm on a beachball. We're mowing down the terrorists by the score in Iraq where they so foolishly assembled into traps like Falluja, while your team squawks about how Iraq is "not about the war on terror". Whatever. Go buy some Kerry futures -- 40 cents on the dollar and falling fast.

As for your insults about my intelligence and reality connection -- I'm one of the very few folks with 4 sigma scores who realizes that doing well on standardized tests and two quarters will buy you a cup of coffee and not much else unless you have vision and commitment -- qualities so clear in Bush and so sadly lacking in your nominee (along with any particular intellectual skills other than spouting absurd gaffes in an eloquent manner). Bill Clinton, a man with far more intelligence and charisma than the current sad sack Donkey on the ticket, achieved almost nothing during his presidency other than taking credit for Reaganite welfare reform and a very fine polish of his knob.

I'll leave it with a cheer for those 80% of American soldiers who know the difference between a leader and a loser, and are voting accordingly. I'll give you a hint -- they are not voting for the man who got tossed out of the military with a DD and went crawling back to Carter to get that little episode fixed.

Bush's constituencies.

(1) 70% think Iraq has WMD or Saddam was responsible for 9/11 (see gallup poll). I.e. they are not members of the "reality-based" community
(2) 20% Are evangelical, apocalypitical christians who think the world will come to an end if Dear Leader is not relected -- c.f. David Thompson.
(3) 10% Are just idiots who hate NYC and give comfort to the terrorists -- c.f. Matthew Cromer. These idjist especially like Cambodia, because its a decade old statement that has a lot to do with the Economy, Job Loss, The War on TError, and Iraq.

"...But in the end, I can't vote for a president who doesn't believe that what he believes might, just might, be wrong....

I think you mean to say that YOU BELIEVE THAT BUSH DOESNT BELIEVE HE IS WRONG. Maybe you should read some history. This is not a public forum of logic. For Bush to come out and say that he might be wrong would put serious doubts into the minds of those he leads. Unlike the media what Bush says means a lot. Admitting defeat 1/4 way into the battle would be like Nicias leading the Athenians at Syracuse all over again.

Perhaps Kerry will be our Nicias.

Jor,

I already knew 10% of New Yorkers were fruit baskets. Many of the rest are brainwashed by your local Pravda on the Hudson. Notwithstanding, I bet Bush gets more votes in NYC than last time, and I guarantee he does in NJ, where 1/4 of the WTC victims lived and the connection to reality is much stronger.

If Kerry somehow pulls out of his campaign tailspin (new draft? slash SS benefits? Please, where's that "competence" meme, Dan?) and gets the keys to 1600 Penn. Ave. I'd suggest everyone in Manhattan get the hell out of dodge. The only thing saving you from 20 thousand kilobangs is the pant-wetting fear Bush has put into the dictators of the middle east after seeing "louse-food" Saddam pulled out of that hole. The Michael Moore party has certainly made it clear (with traitor Carter dotting the i) that middle-eastern despots have absolutely nothing to fear from their nominee, given adequate levels of vig for their buddies in Paris, Berlin, and 1st and 46 in Manhattan.

Matthew,

Actually, If i had to guess, I'd bet Bush is picking up most of his gains in Southern Jersey, which is much, much more conservative (its idealogically below the Mason Dixon line). Northern and Central Jersey, where victoms lived, is probably still voting for Kerry over Bush by 2000 margins.

And if you want to talk about desperation, I think you ought to watch Bush's Discovery channel ad with puppies frolocking in a forest AGAIN. An audience on CNN actually burst out laughing after watching the ad, flumoxing right-wing loud-mouth on the show.

BTW, I'm sure there will be gigantic celebrations in Manhattan when Bush loses.

Jor has obviously forgotten what caused most of the deficits, immediate job loss, and certainly the war on terror which we are fighting around the world today most especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's why people like Jor are called "September 10th Americans". There was also the little matter of the Clinton Bubble recession.

BTW There are more American workers today than in January of 2001, most people would call that a job gain. But then most Americans aren't going to vote for Kerry either. Also David Thompson is in favor of gay marriage -- I don't think he is an evangelical Christian.

I'm still waiting on your explanation for the magic Cambodian hat Kerry pulled out of his briefcase 18 months ago (not 10 years ago). I want you to describe how "reality-based" describes a man who makes up detailed biographical anecdotes out of whole cloth (including on the record from the Senate floor). Why are those medical records sealed? Why is that military record sealed Jor? Dan?

Presidential candidates release these records so voters know what they are getting -- except for Kerry. The MSM is self-admittedly in the tank and is unwilling to ask any questions in their rabid ABB fervor. Does it bother you that he could be lying about a recurrence of cancer? Does it bother you that he is covering up his documented parasomnia? Does he have mental health issues or a prescription for prozac? Come on, reality based means telling the truth about the candidate. What is he covering up??? Paging Dr. Drezner. Paging Dr. Drezner!

Reality Based, Reality Based, Reality Based. And you are voting for a cipher who could well be dying of brain cancer, for all we know, because he won't tell us. Who got tossed out of the Navy and is covering it up. Tell me more about "risks", Dan.

Welcome to "Reality Based". Nah, more like MTV's "Real World". All the narcissism, none of the sex appeal. Glad that Kerry's market value is 40 cents on the dollar and falling fast. . .

MC sounds a little, I don't know, *shrill*?

Thanks for the post, Matthew. Enlightening to see what fevered paranoid fantasies are circulating in the wingnut world nowadays.

If Bush loses (and the smart money is on Bush winning) when Manhattan lights up in a few years, not from fireworks but from something far more awful, I will shed tears for those who believed in the man who helped turn our military victory in Vietnam into a loss through undermining morale and determination and condemned 3 million asians to death when America turned tail and ran away, and who then elected the man who emboldened our enemies in capitols across the middle east and/or in North Korea to murder them.

I'll shed more tears for the millions of muslims who will be "genocided" after these nuclear strikes, when the American people decide that they must die so Americans can live.

Bush is the man who understands this, and is acting to bring the middle east into the modern world before it is too late. Kerry would rather declare victory and retreat to fortress America, imagining that with yet another UN resolution and international treaty our safety can be won. An utter lack of vision and wisdom -- but then again this is the man who wanted to allow Saddam Hussein to keep Kuwait and threatean the oil fields of Arabia. The man who shook hands with brutal communist murderer Daniel Ortega in exchange for "promises" days before Ortega went to Moscow and secured hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to foment revolution in Central America. Yes, exactly the leader for you and the fatuous nutjobs who picketed the Republican convention.

Yes, how paranoid to imagine that John Kerry (who never met a dictator he wanted to confront after ditching his "band of brothers" in Vietnam) might decide to cut and run. . . again.

And how paranoid to wonder if a man who suffered from cancer in the past and won't release his medical records might be suffering from a recurrence.

And how paranoid to speculate on why a man won't release his Naval records -- after obtaining a "special review" honorable discharge from a Carter "forgiveness court" six years after quitting the military. How odd to think he might have been dishonorably discharged in the sealed records.

No, if you want real paranoia, just look to the "pipeline across Afghanistan / Halliburton / 4000 Jews didn't show up for work" crowd. Your team has a corner on the market.

Dan Drezner, congratulations on joining the "reality-based" campaign. Joe Wilson and Sandy Burglar for SecDef / SecState. What was that about competence again, eh?

Dan Drezner, one more round of congratulations for voting for the candidate whose victory will embolden the islamofascists and delight the heart of Kim Il Sung. And a hearty cheer for voting for the candidate of Dan Rather, CBS News, and the mainstream media and their special effort to unseat the Republican. How gracious of you to reward such deserving fellow travellers.

Matthew Cromer -- Do you really believe 70-80% of NYC citizens along with the 9/11 widows are September 10th Americans? Are you really this f'n crazy?

There is no job gain, it is a job loss, this is a FACT. You can ignore it at your own dismay. But aapprently the experts disagree with you. Economists oppose Bush. Business School deans oppose Bush. Theologians oppose Bush. Scientists oppose Bush. Basically anyone who has a brain, opposes Bush. Conservatives oppose Bush (c.f. American Conservative, Reason, Cato, etc.) Bush's supporters, 70% of them, think Iraq is responsible for 9/11 or had WMD. If this is "reality-based", please let me know how.

If Manhattan lights up, it will be because Bush attacked a country tbat posed no threat to us instead of securing Nuclear weapons that are sitting out in the open in downward-spiraling, Kleptocratic Russia.

You continually bring up irrelevant exagerations. Kerry exagerated Cambodia, BIG F'N DEAl. No one cares when the economy is tanked and Iraq is a quagmire. Why are you so freaking brain-washed?

BTW, even though Bush was AWOL, I don't give a fuck, its irrelevant. Bush also mis-spoke and said there was going to be a draft. Bush did coke when he was at Camp David. SO WHAT. This is all irrelevant. This is the kinda crap you keep posting Matthew (except its about Kerry). It's because the important facts are against you. ITS ok though, continue living in lala-land.

On the issue of futures markets heavily leading towards bush by 20 points -- I'd have to say they are still factoring in a november surprise. This is going to be a very unpredictable race. Bush's #'s aren't so great in battleground states where the vote actually counts. Look for Bush's stock price to drop to 0.50 as we approach november w/o any "surprise".

Ugh - I've lost all respect. Aren't you supposed to be the big "outsourcing is good" guy anyway? What happened?

Dan, Three quick points: (1) Take 42 minutes to watch "Stolen Honor". (2) What is the probability that Kerry will cut and run? At least 75% (3) Will Kerry side with Europe against Israel? Of course he will.

I wish we had other choices, but we must elect Bush or Kerry. Kerry will be another Carter, only worse. The US, indeed humanity, cannot afford a Kerry presidency.

The payroll survey is fatally flawed. The household survey shows a gain.

Since you are smarter than the futures market, pay up your money. You can more than double your money in less than 2 weeks. Go for it, Mr. "reality". PS the economy now is better than for Clinton in '96. It's doing just fine. Perhaps you ought to learn some relevant skills for the 21st century if you can't find work. And every war is a quagmire to you until it is over, because you know absolutely nothing about military history.

Lying about everything is a serious character flaw and I would not think of hiring such a person as grocery cashier, much less president of the United States. Kerry is unfit to be commander in chief and it is appalling that the media is giving him a pass on the sealed medical records and Naval records.

Dan, I felt the same way about Eisenhower. I mean, these guys had what, three years to plan the invasion of Europe, and look what a hash they made of it! Omaha Beach was a bloodbath, the airborne troops were scattered all to hell and gone, and then we immediately got bogged down in the hedgerows behind the beaches. Any French child could have told our brilliant military leaders about the hedgerows, but no, they had their minds made up and couldn't adapt. I wish we'd had you around back then to set us all straight about how f**ked up Ike was...

"What happened" is a sort of mass delusion of the self-appointed cognitive elite who still believe in the conventional wisdom of the mainstream media after Rathergate.

After the Pavlovian conditioning from listening to NPR while drowsy in the morning caused Dan to associate "Bush" and "Incompetence" he has become unable to see the vast difference in competence between the Kerry and Bush campaigns, nor to understand that the direct comparison of the two campaigns is his best chance to judge the competency of a Bush vs Kerry presidency.

Bush's campaign has had the occasional slip-up (such as Bush's overly coached, under-rested, inadequately-caffeined initial debate performance) while Kerry's campaign has been imploding since August. Even the debates, Kerry's "shining" moment of the season, delivered such luscious missteps as the "Global Test", the misculated "wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time" and the hideously tasteless Mary Cheney blunder. Now Kerry is pulling out the Dukakisian "slash social security" and an incredible lie about a secret draft plan. Not signs of strength.

Matthew, you really are going to start drowning in kool-aid if you don't come back to reality -- especially in the jobs #s. Almost every economist and every business school dean disagree with you. So either you are right, or people who know what they are talking about are right. Seriously, stop getting all you info from the WingnutStandard, LGF, NRO, and Instahack. IT's bad for your health.

Matthew, if by "me every war is a quagmire too", you mean almost every foreign policy expert, every democrat, half the neo-nuts who supported this war, and a signifianct number of prominent republican senators, and the british -- then yes you are right. Seriously why are you such a f'n tool?

Matthew, Invest the farm on Bush -- go ahead. All I'm saying is he's overpriced, and a lot of statistical analysis is pointing strongly against him (c.f. mysterpollster). I'm putting the race at 50-50 personally, baring a true october surprise.

Dan, you can vote for Kerry all you want, but I would like for you to address the "competence" issue. If Kerry cannot hire and manage his campaign staff and message competently compared to the Bush team, what the heck makes you think his administration (a vastly greater task) will address issues with competence? Is it that paragon of wisdom waiting in the wings with the pearly whites and breck-girl hair, who is prepared to make the paralyzed rise up and walk?

And what is your standard for "competence" in winning a world war? Which administration merits the Drezner laurels for suitably impressing a twenty-something, wet-behind-the-ears academic in its war-fighting prowess in a war of this scale and complexity?

Perhaps it is attempting to sabotage the administration of an ally by sending your sister overseas to tell Australians that allying with the US has made them less safe, then actively campaigning for the Zapaterian opponent? Or maybe compentence means telling the interim prime minister of Iraq that he is a liar, con-artist and puppet and refusing to meet him on his first official visit to the US.

The only competence I sense in Kerry is an amazing ability to sound reasonably competent in a debate while delivering the most absurd ideas in foreign policy imaginable -- "global test", "nukes to Mullahs" along with the proposed nationalization of health care in America.

You got on board just in time Dan -- the wheels are coming off this puppy. The real "p" value is .40 and falling fast.

Gallups LV had Gore down 13 going into November.

Matthew, your ignorance of the facts, like usual is breath taking. Allawi's speeches were written by a Bush/Cheney '04 campgain operative. Are you really this stupid?

I was reading over at Instapundit that he voted for Dukakis in '88. Now, does anybody really wish Dukakis would have won?

I have a feeling John Kerry will be your Dukakis, Mr. Drezner.

Kerry's best chance is a rousing GOTV among the cemetaries of Springfield, Des Moines, and Albequerque. That's been a Democrat stronghold for sure.

You are right than many prefer Chamberlain to Churchill when the moment arrives. No doubt about that. And I am not surprised to see the middle-east "experts" whose failed policies and Saudi sinecures brought us 9/11 are lining up to point the finger in another direction. I'm not surprised to see academic lemmings who live in the world of dream castles are voting to return to the wonderful years of the 1990s when we knew not in what danger we were. And I'm certainly not surprised for the less intelligent dictators and terrorists to openly embrace the Kerry candidacy, while the craftiest ones wisely dissemble their true lust for the candidate of defeatism, retreat, appeasement, and naivete.

"Dan, I felt the same way about Eisenhower. I mean, these guys had what, three years to plan the invasion of Europe, and look what a hash they made of it! Omaha Beach was a bloodbath, the airborne troops were scattered all to hell and gone, and then we immediately got bogged down in the hedgerows behind the beaches. Any French child could have told our brilliant military leaders about the hedgerows, but no, they had their minds made up and couldn't adapt. I wish we'd had you around back then to set us all straight about how f**ked up Ike was"

Excellent post. All this feigned rage over "incomptence" is some really trite gargage. Drenzer is just trying to deal with the pangs of cognitive dissonance.

Yes it is amazing that Allawi had native english speakers in his closest allies government help him to craft his speech. I'm sure when Bush spoke in Britain before the war he eschewed any discussion with members of the Blair government about the content of speeches before making them. After all, speakers should always refrain from coordinating with the host who invited them any of the contents of their oratory.

What a stunning revelation, at least to those whose candidate carries a magic hat around in a secret compartment in his briefcase to show to reporters in his most sentimental moments.

Jor,

That poll was taken before the DUI episode October Surprise. You guys played it great then, but I seriously doubt it this time.

Good luck coming up with a believable October surprise now that your team has spend the last 18 months sliming Bush as every possible type of villain imaginable. I wouldn't recommend sending them to 60 minutes at any rate.

In any event, your team lost that one even though you managed to trick much of the Panhandle in bagging it by calling Florida early, and even though you threw out tens of thousands of military ballots. Ain't gonna happen this time. Although I will grant you that thousands of Florida Democrats were too stupid and senile to vote correctly. I guess that's what the persistent "Social Security will be slashed" card is for -- to get the Alzhiemers dotards into the booth for one last time.

The main reason to vote for Kerry is to try to save the Republican Party.

4 more years of idealogues triumphing, with the Religious Right having handed them their victory, and more unprepared and underprepared neoconservative adventures, and the GOP will be in very very sad shape.

A party that includes Chuck Hagel, John McCain, the guy who has targetted Fannie Mae/ Freddie Mac for reform (the Congressman from Louisiana?) can find strong, sensible leadership that will further the cause of civil liberties, small government and realistic foreign policy.

GW Bush is not that man, nor is his team which has proven to be incompetent.

Let Kerry try to sort out the mess: his excesses will be restrained by a Republican House and the moderate Democrats in the Senate. The Republican Party needs to clean its own house.

Matthew -- You should be dead now, I mean you've been under that pool of kool-aid for so long, I don't know how you are breathing.

Allawi's could have gotten help from someone in the Iraq Embassy not invovled in Bush's relection campaign. Instead, he chose a Bush/Cheney '04 campaign operative. The speech, looks word-for-word from teh whitehouse.gov website. Its was an utter hack job. You really need to wake up, or go to sleep.

BTW, in the last few posts, you questioned the sacrafice of New Yorkers and the 9/11 widows. You questioned the financial wisdom of the majority of economists and many business school deans. You questioned the patriotism of leading senate republicans, the British, and half the supporters of this war. Do you have no shame?

I'm through with this witness, your honor.

Jor, consider your case dismissed for lack of a real candidate. Next time nominate a credible leader, not a mediocre pandering anti-military antiwar hyperliberal Massachusetts backbencher whose sole claim to fame is bedding a billionaire. If he's serious about defense and a low-tax free market type I'll definitely consider voting for him. I don't care for the Religious Right and I'd prefer voting for someone who supports gay marriage.

It's 4:30 here and I'm going to bed.

"your team lost that one"

Who won the popular vote?

Really stop, just stop believing the spin word for word. Try thinking for yourself. Just TRY. Everyone with a brain knows it was basically a statistical tie for all intents and purposes (even at the national level, 500k votes is probably margin of error kinda stuff) -- and the electoral college + Supreme Court gave it to Bush. If you want to declare that a "win", go right ahead, and chug some more kool aid.

Sorry John it's the Democrats who need to clean house and sweep out the Jimmy Carter / Ted Kennedy / Michael Moore axis who deliberately undermine our foreign policy for political gain.

I'm not happy about the theocratic wing of the Publicans, but that's not the existential threat we face. The threat is from the islamo-fascists and the pacifist base of the Democratic party is undermining our ability to win. They've got to be thrown out or the Democrats need to go the way of the Whigs. After that happens the Republicans will fission and we can have a more relevant party than the Donkeys from the libertarian, pro market half of the Republican base.

We don't need to become like Europe, and that is what Kerry and the Democrats stand for.

Watch this video and tell me to vote for Kerry or to trust his "plan" on rebuilding Iraq:

http://www.buttondepress.com/BostonManifesto/stolenhonor.wmv

Jor, changing the goalposts after the game as always.

This country you live in has an electoral college. That means voting strategy revolves around willing the EC. Not the popular vote.

If the goal were winning the popular vote, the principals in 2000 would have run very different campaigns and it is not at all clear who would have racked up more votes. In any event we can all be overjoyed that Al Gore did not win based on his lunacy this past 12 months.

Talk to you some time tomorrow.

Matthew, you're not going to change Dan's mind with with sophisticated arguments, just let it all out!

Dear Mr Cromer, Kerry did not attempt to "sabotage the administration of an ally". Nor did he send his "sister overseas to tell Australians that allying with the US has made them less safe". And nor did she actively campaig "for the Zapaterian opponent".

Details here for the reality based.

"I see nothing in Kerry's history which would indicate a backbone. I will not get into a discussion about Vietnam inregards to his service"

How convenient and typical of the chickenhawk cowards who cheer on war as long as it's someone else doing the dying. As a vet, I'd let the enemy shoot you if we were in the same unit since obviously you'd have never volunteered to be there and would have been dragged to war kicking and screaming after failing to win your 5th deferment. If you were injured I'd wait for you to bleed a while before calling the medic.

Nothing proves the character of a man than his conduct in war. Those of you who have never served and yet criticize a decorated vet like Kerry, regardless of your agreement with his politics...your life is worth less than a terrorist's to me. You pussies wouldn't have lasted 2 days on a swift boat and would have shit your drawers in the first hail of gunfire.

People like you are a disgrace to the troops serving in Iraq today.

You don't know how Kerry will respond, and you assume the Gordon article in the NYT is a true, and balanced report of ALL the facts.
Not a bad basis for your decision.

I'm just curious... what would the Republicans say if the Iraqis vote in the Islamic parties?

As Matthew Cromer says, the danger to America is Islamic fundamentalism.

But what happens when the democracy that Americans have fought for in Iraq chooses to put power into the hands of those who hates America?

Firstly, the decision would be the will of the voters. You can't very well reverse that.

Secondly, since it is democracy that America is fighting for, and that very democratic process produces a result that is actually against American interests, how would America react?

Thirdly, what if Bush won the election, but Iyad Allawi loses his? And the fundamentalist Islamic parties are voted into power? And they politely "requests" for American troops to leave? Would that not achieve the exact same result that the Republicans fear would happen under Kerry?

Or would the Bush administration try to remove any sort of Iraqi administration that is against America's wishes, even if it is legitimately elected?

I'm not an American, but I believe all this talk about "determination" and "who's the better war leader" and "who's more decisive" and blahness is overshadowing the important things to be considered e.g. stability in Iraq, what the result of an Iraqi election would be etc etc...

From all indications, it seems more and more likely a democratically elected Iraqi government would not be all that friendly to America...

Would Matthew Cromer care to respond?

Dan,

Here's your chance to gain a vote for Kerry. Adequately address my points here:
http://cowenjohnson.blogspot.com/
[you'll know the post] and I'll switch my vote to Kerry.

Note: I have not yet had a chance to comment on the misguided article by Michael Gordon you mentioned, so if you are going to use it in rebuttal, I'll reserve the right to respond.

Brilliant! We have now succeeded in reducing the difficult process of selecting a president to their ability to fit comfortably into an encounter group.

If only Bush had told that woman questioner in the 2nd debate: "I was wrong! (1) There were not enough troops in Iraq. (2) I should not have appointed Rumsfeld. He is not open to a more sensitive war on terror. And Europeans don't like him. And finally (3) I was wrong to invade Iraq. I was just angry about what he tried to do to my Daddy."

The superficiality of Drezner's reasoning is obvious. How the hell does he know what Bush thinks of his decisions?

As one of the commenters that recommended you go with your gut I will take some comfort that your gut and your intellect arrived at the same conclusion. Which is not to say the intervening discussion was a waste of time... very interesting and informative.

So at the end of this post you say: "But in the end, I can't vote for a president who doesn't believe that what he believes might, just might, be wrong.". And your evidence for this is? That he won't admit to the mistakes his opposition wants him to? That he won't bite his lower lip in public and say, humbly, contritely, and at a low volume (to indicate sorrow) "mistakes were made"?

He's the President Dan, in war time no less. He does not have the luxury of publicly admitting mistakes. He can't do it because to do so would embolden and arm his, and our, enemies; whether they be political opponents or war time combatants.

That's all. Otherwise, great thread!

i just stumbled on to your blog. i agree with your analysis as to voting for kerry. i am a democrat but am troubled by the choices; however, in the end i have decided to vote for kerry because of the decision making process he will use when facing difficult choices; it is one thing to be decisive--an admirable quality of President Bush. On the other,it is extraordinarily reckless and dangerous to make decisions without being willing to recalibrate them or reasses them as circumstnaces change. anyone who runs a business [i run a small company] knows that you have to be constantly willing to adjust as external circumsntaces change; the president's unwillingess to do this and to make adjustments to his decisions and his team is the reason [as apart from ideology] that i am voting for Kerry.

Dan,

I don't understand your logic. You make a good case of explaining why Bush should not be re-elected, but you fail to address why Kerry SHOULD be elected. The election is a choice between two men; instead you have done what so many others have also done and made this solely a referendum on Bush. While that is or course a very large consideration, your failure to consider Kerry's actions on all the things for which you criticize Bush is what makes your position appear very hollow.

You conclude making the point that, perhaps, Kerry's "decision makine process" is closer to your own, even if he doesn't represent the exact positions you would take. What are you talking about here??? This is the crux of your argument and you need to elaborate on it. Personally, the only "decision making process" I ever see from Kerry is one of straddling and triangulation which is hardly decision making, let alone leadership.

You are, of course, right on the overall pathetic choice we face in this election. Your Bush/CEO analogy is illuminating. If Bush were CEO he'd be fired. But there would also be a long list of qualified candidates to replace him. In our case, however, there is only one candidate to replace him, and it's a guy who has been even more wrong that Bush on almost every issue that matters.

Jess says:

"I hope after the craziness of the election dies down, we can start to work back towards the middle and stop viewing our fellow Americans who happen to disagree with us as if they were demonic criminals."

Dream on. If Bush "wins," my already extreme anger will increased ten fold. There are millions more like me. I will no longer cooperate or try to reason with the supporters of the criminal Bush.

No, he's not "worse" than Saddamn or Bin Laden in any absolute moral sense. But he is a far, far greater danger to the United States.

And I'm a moderate politically. Just think of how some of the people on the left feel.

If Bush is "Reelected", there will be BLOOD IN THE STREETS.

Happy to know that you have a brain. Surprised more don't back in the US of A (I'm living in Bangkok). I opposed the war more on pragmatic grounds than on ideological beliefs.
After spending years meditating on our failed involvement in Vietnam we go right in and blow our load like JV soccer player at the junior prom.
What a colossal failure. George Bush is an IDIOT.
War is chaos. Period. The problem is that most of the people making decisions know nothing of war. War is a LAST resort. Do we need any more reasons it is thus?
And what do you think of the influence of neocon Jews pushing Bush into Iraq? This is a taboo topic in big journalism in America but the masses will eventually learn of it. And there will be hell to pay.
And to think Bush campaigned for a Republican in Alabama in the early seventies calling the Democratic party the party of deserters. This from a man who "deserted" himself. And he's the "war" president. It's just appalling.
I'm not crazy about Kerry or his feminazi wife but at this point I'll take ANYONE but Bush.
US Grant mentioned in his memoirs about people who clamor for war being the ones furthest from it. Sound familiar?
You're a scholar of statecraft, what say you about a state's awareness of its LIMITATIONS?

Love to hear from you.

Mark

Dan,

Well, just hopefully, you and others like you will realize that what you believe "might, just might, be wrong."

You forget by the way that Bush _did_ change his policies and his view of our role in the world after the 9/11 attacks.

Kerry, according to his own words, didn't. Heck, he still hasn't apologized for his 1971 testimony calling his band of brothers baby-killers. Despite his talk about nuance, he is still the same opportunist he was before he went to Vietnam.

Sure, he'll spout off whatever a particular audience wants to hear from him, but he hasn't changed his mind at all, and his overriding guideline in policy is that America is too powerful, too influential, and our culture is too poisonous to the rest of the world.

The problem is that people like you, who really wanted to hear him professing a determination to defend this country, whatever it takes, are too willing to delude yourself that he isn't just mouthing the words. You are being gullible. Kerry is lying. I hope you don't mind joining the International Criminal Court.

I do hope your vote is all for nothing, and Kerry loses badly, but if he wins, I have a real sense of dread. And I know the Taliban would be dancing in the streets of Kandahar, if only they didn't consider dancing a capital crime.

So I hope you and some other anti-Bush voters (since you pretty much admit that is the basis of your vote) will come to your senses. But if you do start to waver in the remaining week, please don't tell us about it!

Well, if nothing else, this poorly thought out and illogically argued attempt at a justification for an obviously pre-existing decision does add to the pile explaining why no one listens to academics anymore.

Not, mind you, that said globular cluster sized pile needed adding to...

Myria

I was in the military, and, thankfully, I am too old to go back though I worry about my children. The absolute stone incompentence of Iraq should give anyone with half a brain pause to think. In April, 2003, there were less than 1000 full and part-time resistors.

Now there are 20,000. The country is going the way of Iran (something the CIA calls blowback) and this could have been prevented if the Bush administration used the MILITARY'S PLAN developed during Clinton (using the Iraqi army to secure the peace).

Instead we've got a charlie foxtrot and no chance to win. No matter how vehemently the delusions are clung too.

But that alone is not enough for me to cross the party lines (swing state) and why my Republican friends are crossing the party lines to vote against Bush.

We're against Bush because he's a misanthropic LBJ. LBJ gave this country's economy fits for over a decade with his guns & butter policies. Now we have a Presdient that is giving us guns, butter AND tax cuts.

We're old enough to remember the misery of the 1970s and the early 80s. Unemployed (even under Reagan) frequently at 7-to-9%. Stagflation. The erosionson of lifestyles. The falling apart of families as they had to become gypsies to survive. Women having to abandon the home and go to work just to stay afloat.

Dan,

Your assessment is pretty much spot-on! What worries me even more is this administration has failed to adapt to the changing dynamic of the GWOT. They are still pressing on with an outdated, outmoded view of terrorism. Meanwhile, the enemy has moved on, regrouped and is growing stronger by the minute. The longer it takes for us to grasp the reality, adjust our strategy and adapt our tactics, the greater the threat of terrorists actually scoring another deadly blow. We must have a new plan, and that will never happen under Bush, he doesn't see any mistakes, doesn't see a need to change anything. He won't even fire the fuck-ups that miscalculated and blew the entire operation. We need a change!

If the war concerns weren't enough, consider the liberal spending and the enormous deficits we are facing now. My grandkids (if I ever have any) will still be paying for this mess. Bush has spent more on discretionary, non-military, non-defense than any president in my lifetime. How does the republican party square that with conservatives?

I hate the thought, and I'll probably end-up washing my hands with bleach after typing this, but I HAVE to vote Kerry, for the sake of restoring conservatism.

"I'm just curious... what would the Republicans say if the Iraqis vote in the Islamic parties?"

In the mind of a neocon, democracy is only desirable when it is convenient and coincides with our nation's strategic interests. How else do you explain America's long history of propping up dictators and despots when we need them around while turning a blind eye to their attrocities?

Remember that Osama and his mujahideen were our allies against the Soviets in Afghanistan and Saddam was our boy versus Iran. Today? Qaddafi is our new best friend along with dictator Musharref who still refuses to relinquish control of the chief military role and actually hold elections for his position.

Democracy in Iraq is only convenient if our hand-picked puppets are elected -- if the Islamic leaders are elected overwhelmingly by the Iraqi people and they move to create a government in the mold of Iran's, don't be surprised to see the US push for some way to keep Allawi in power despite free elections. If it becomes clear this would be the case, don't be shocked if the US itself postpones elections in January for "security reasons", especially if Bush is re-elected -- this would by them time to try engineer a way to get a secular gov't in power that is pro-American, REGARDLESS of what the Iraqi people desire.

"You are, of course, right on the overall pathetic choice we face in this election. Your Bush/CEO analogy is illuminating. If Bush were CEO he'd be fired. But there would also be a long list of qualified candidates to replace him. In our case, however, there is only one candidate to replace him, and it's a guy who has been even more wrong that Bush on almost every issue that matters."

Well at least you admit Bush is pathetic.

Just remember that when Bush is wrong or lies for that matter, people die. 1100 of them so far and counting. That's what happens when you let an asshole chimp have the wheel.

Try taking off the rose-colored glasses and thinking like a non-partisan. You party lemmings can't wipe your ass for yourselves without consulting your party's talking heads, can you?

Dan: You summed up the mistakes in Iraq brilliantly--even better than Andrew Sullivan. Unfortunately, I do not trust Kerry to make it better. Every thing in Kerry's past reinforces those doubts. Will Bush learn from his mistakes? In some ways he already has. Tactics did start to change in Iraq when the trouble started, and things like not storming Fallujah in April were affected by the Iraqi interim government trying to broker a deal and the disaster of Abu Ghraib. If we can clean up Fallujah (and hopefully kill Zarqawi) and have the elections go forward--Iraq will be far better off. Bush created this mess right or wrong (I still think the decison to go to Iraq was right). Kerry was against the war and in my mind will not have the gumption to see it through if things start going to shit.

The elections in Iraq are the key for legitimacy. I am also not terribly worried about a Shiite religious figure winning the election. This is not Algeria. Iraq may not turn out to be in the short term like the Emirates or Turkey, but it is also unlikely to become theocratic Iran. A moderate Shiite religious leader in Iraq may vaccinate the country from the mullahs in Iran--and may help the moderates gain more control in Iran.

"I hate the thought, and I'll probably end-up washing my hands with bleach after typing this, but I HAVE to vote Kerry, for the sake of restoring conservatism."

Exactly. Any true conservative in the tradition of Teddy, Goldwater, and Reagan is simply aghast to the policies of this so-called "conservative" administration.

The neocons originated from disenchanted liberals of the Wilsonian breed -- hell bent on using American military power to build an empire while reshaping the entire world in their image.

What makes the neocons so dangerous is that they are extremely adept at seizing power and then re-writing the rules in order to help retain and expand on that power while discouraging attempts to challenge them. The evengelical masses are easily programmable and conveniently allergic to the democratic process when it opposes their agendas. They are ready to ignore squashed civil liberties as long as their beliefs are propped up. The ends justify the means. "Faith-based" cults are the perfect tool to prop up the neocons because they are self-sustaining and self-rationalizing in the face of any opposing facts or reality. Why? Well consider these two rules that guide them:

1) When they are right, it's God's will.
2) When they are wrong, they simply didn't have enough faith and must strive harder until they at rule number 1.

Such a philosophy is simply the anti-thesis of reason and logic. Faith by definition requires belief in the absence of facts.

In a world that is very much based on reality and facts, neocons subscribe to a very dangerous philosophy.

It's no wonder the moderate republicans who subscribe more to traditional conservatism are so torn on how to vote this year or not at all.

"The elections in Iraq are the key for legitimacy. I am also not terribly worried about a Shiite religious figure winning the election. This is not Algeria. Iraq may not turn out to be in the short term like the Emirates or Turkey, but it is also unlikely to become theocratic Iran. A moderate Shiite religious leader in Iraq may vaccinate the country from the mullahs in Iran--and may help the moderates gain more control in Iran."
-----------------------

Now that is the perfect example of what is so hypocritical about these neocon liberals today. In their obsession for nation-building pipedreams, they speak loudly of liberty and sowing democracy throughout the world, yet when it comes down to it...that's only the case as long as they get the results they want.

Well that's not democracy is it?

Suppose the Iraqis decide they want an anti-western religious state in the mold of Iran with a constitution based on strict Islamic law. If that is what the Iraqi people choose through free elections, then that is the result of the democratic process.

Unfortunately, the neocon lunatics actually care very little about Iraqi democracy. That's only a political tool to legitimize their overarching agenda.

Those who demand perfection and ease in war, who cannot take any setbacks and will not accept that mistakes are going to be made, should not wage war. They are unable to win anyway.

A Kerry victory will be seen as a rejection of an proactive defense, not a vote for more intelligent or vigorous warmaking. That is indisputable. The whole world - whose opinion is so precious to the Kerry camp - will see it that way, never mind the lunatic left of his own party. Kerry cannot escape that even if he wanted to. If he is elected, it won´t take long until the disengagement starts. Not that it will be portrayed as such. Expect them to take the Zarqawi line: hey, even the Iraqis don´t want us there. American credibility will never recover. If you think I´m wrong, just look around: many Kerry supporters among commenters do not seem to understand that the west can loose this, the rest is totally defeatist already.

A friend of mine was against the Iraq war from the beginning. His reason was simply that the Americans will never finish what they start - that they don´t have the attention span and will get out prematurely as they always do. Where does this perception (quite common here in Europe) come from? Could it be true? Power is more than having aircraft carriers and nukes. 9/11 proved that, too.

The fundamental question is whether the mess in Iraq was inevitable - thus supporting a "Bush has more gumption" argument - or whether it is largely a mess of Bush's making.

I subscribe to the theory, buttressed by the facts laid out by Dresner, that the problems in Iraq are largely Bush's fault to begin with (I simply cannot possibly imagine Kerry staffing the CPA with the equivilent of Heritage applicants).

The more broad question is to ask who "gets" the war on terrorism better. In my mind, the answer is clearly Kerry.

First, Bush and his team have repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot envision terror networks operating without the support of nation-states. They are simply wrong. We cannot afford to learn that lesson the hard way (again).

Second, Kerry understands that the most critical threat is NUCLEAR weapons. Bush continues to push WMDs. Even if Bush genuinely believed that Saddam had stockpiles of mustard or sarin gas, an invasion would not be worth it if it increased the threat of nuclear proliferation...which it has. We need a president who understands that.

Jor: "NYC is voting against Bush by a land-slide. 1 in 10 New Yorkers protested AGAINST Bush during the RNC."

According to the New York Daily News: "A Zogby poll found that almost half of New York City residents believe some in the Bush administration knew the U.S. would be attacked on 9/11 and did nothing to stop it." (http://tinyurl.com/6rmcf)

So much for the intelligence of NYC voters.

werner:

You are, simply put, an ass.

#1: I don't need lectures from the "cakewalk and flower petals" wing of the GOP on how tough war is, how there are setbacks, or how we shouldn't expect perfection. There were MANY of us who were pointing this out before the war.

We did not oppose taking out a problematic dictator per se. We simply asked the administration to justify the time and manner of doing so, in light of the OBVIOUS post-war costs/problems. And in light that we were currently fighting a war against a fundamentalist islamic terrorist network. Instead of addressing the questions we posed, the administration simply pretended that the majority of war doubters were what you call the "lunatic left" (incidentally, if Republicans had spent as much time planning post-war security/reconstruction as they did coming up with new and clever ways to insult Democrats and Western Europeans Iraq might be stable right now).

#2: Your assertion that a Kerry win will be perceived as a rejection of a "pro-active defense" is simply idiotic. There is nothing -- nothing! -- proactive about miring hundreds of thousands of troops in a guerilla war at a time when we should be stamping out Al Qaeda internationally, putting pressure on N. Korea and Iran, and keeping Russia and China honest. Which may be why Iran just endorsed Bush.

The problem isn't that Americans won't finish what they start. Your problem is that Americans actually expect a vision and a plan for achieving said vision. So far, aside from providing utterly vague statements about "freedom on the march", Bush has provided neither.

One addition to my previous post. I suggested that Iran's endorsement of Bush was due to their preference for his foreign policies. This is not entirely correct. They also clearly like that Bush employs Iranian agents, like Michael Ledeen, in his administration and leaks highly classified intel to other Iranian agents, like Chalabi.

Daniel — The people of Australia seem to disagree with you.

The people of Afghanistan damn sure disagree with you.

The people of Iraq, it seems, will disagree with you when they go to the polls; even the UN observers seem to think that will happen.

As to Kerry admitting he made a mistake: Kerry has NEVER admitted to a mistake, and you know this. He has NEVER admitted he was wrong to offer perjured testimony to the Senate in '71 or to coach soldiers to lie at VVAW rallies. Not in 30 years.

He has never admitted he was wrong to introduce legislation CUTTING the intelligence budget AFTER the first WTC bombing.

he has never admitted he was wrong to SKIP 69% of the senate votes during his tenure, and 76% of his Intelligence Committee meetings (The US Sentate: The Most Important Part-Time Job You'll Ever Have...)

He has never admitted he was wrong to vote AGAINST defending Kuwait.

In his current campaign, he has NEVER admitted to making a mistake:

He didn't fall, he was pushed.
He didn't mis-speak, his speechwriters screwed up.
He didn't smuggle home an illegal assault weapon, his aide was misstaken...

John Kerry in his public life has never admitted he was wrong about anything. It is specious of you to suggest he might start now.

"So much for the intelligence of NYC voters."

Sorry to interrupt here, but while we're addressing intelligence of voters...

Is there some underlying reason why Bush supporters prove time and again in surveys that they are just plain ill-informed, ignorant, and borderline retarded?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=655&e=26&u=/oneworld/20041022/wl_oneworld/4536965431098444910

Why else would 75% of them believe Iraq was chock full of WMDs before the Iraq war when the Duellfer report stated that they had been destroyed since 1993? Why do 75% believe Saddam significantly funded Al-Qaeda and was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks when the 9-11 bipartisan Commission and Rumsfeld said there is no evidence that exists to suggest this?

I've heard that dogs and their owners tend to look similar in some ways. Well Bush has the intelligence of a grapenut so it's no surprise that his supporters are equally daft.

I can see why so many traditional conservatives are voting for Kerry. Who wants to be stupid by association by voting for Bush?

I agree with Dan, we should give up on Israel and let the UN protect us. We have been an arrogant nation spreading freedom to 50 million people assuming that they did not live full and rewarding lives being tortured and oppressed. I also agree with Dan that raising taxes on small businesses will improve the economy and promote job growth. Unlike Bush, Kerry will not make mistakes as President and on the odd occasion that he does make a mistake, we will have a prime time news conference with graphs, management consultants and a catholic priest to hear his confession.

Plus Edwards is soooo cute!!!

As to Kerry admitting he made a mistake: Kerry has NEVER admitted to a mistake, and you know this. He has NEVER admitted he was wrong to offer perjured testimony to the Senate in '71 or to coach soldiers to lie at VVAW rallies. Not in 30 years.

Richard McEnroe:

Actually, Kerry has admitted that he would have used different words, had he testified again. He has NEVER perjured himself. He has NEVER coached soldiers to lie at rallies, and you know this.

As for the rest of your cookie-cutter Karl Rove talking points, I will merely point out that they are increasingly less convincing to anyone willijng to look at objectivee facts.

Kerry's chances of internationalizing Iraq, contrary to what many excuse-making Bushies say, are quite real.

The recent book Chirac contre Bush (only available in French) shows how Chirac would have contributed 15,000 troops if Bush understood anything about being diplomatic (or even civil).

The German defense minister said they could reconsider sending troops to Iraq during the debates, signaling their willingness to reconsider.

And Bush turned down an offer to bring in Muslim peacekeepers because they would not be under American commanders.

All of these points are from articles in major newspapers-- you can find the links on your favorite liberal blog.

It's yet another example of how Bush supporters and Kerry supporters believe in different worlds. We just happen to live in the Kerry one.

Unfortunately it takes a lot longer to knock down all these lies than it takes the Bushies to invent them, and that's the only reason this race is even close.

Richard McEnroe, the people of Australia agree with Daniel. A recent poll found 54% supported Kerry and only 28% supported Bush. Link.

Congratulations to those of you who continue to debate in reasonable terms with a minimum of cussing (which, admittedly, I use myself here sometimes) and without conjuring images of American gutters choked with blood. Hint "Larry": the Feds are gonna be sniffing up your ass, and you invited them there. Enjoy!

Just wanted to add my two-cents on why New Yorkers are anti-Bush. Let's give them credit--they're not stupid (no more so, anyway, than a general cross-section of the country, and probably much less so). So why the "Sept. 10th" mindset?

Because, people, if you lived cheek by jowl with eight million strangers, half of them new arrivals to this land, many of THOSE illegally here, some small fraction of whom want you dead, the sooner the better--how are you going to cope mentally unless you convince yourself that the problem is in Washington and Texas, not in the apartment next door? If the diverse and polyglot nature of the city--while it guarantees a steady stream of good cheap ethnic carryout--is itself the threat (or at least provides the necessary backdrop for it) then your way of life is fundamentally unsustainable.

These people are whistling through the graveyard, big time. I wish it were otherwise (I have family and friends there, like most people on the planet) but that's my read on the situation.

“I said that, "I prefer a leader who has a good decision-making process, even if his foreign policy instincts are skewed in a direction I don't like, over a leader who has a bad decision-making process, even if his foreign policy instincts are skewed in a direction I do like."”

Ford spent millions on state of the art market research, polling of consumers, focus groups and came up with the Edsel. RJR did the same thing and came up with the smokeless cigarette “Premier”. Research for Pets.com with the beloved Sock Puppy showed people will buy dog food online. Everyone wanted National Health Care. A superior decision-making process tied to a bad assumption results in a ... bad product/outcome. Contrast that to Ronco’s Vegamatic, Roger Akins’ vegetable juicer, the Bowflex machine and the “Contract with America”. Good ideas brought to market on low budgets and with the first few minimal market research. Please provide contra examples.

“1) John Kerry is more likely to recognize during the decision-making process that his instincts might be wrong -- and therefore change tacks before making a catastrophic mistake;”

“2) Whatever Kerry's policy, the decision-making process and the implementation of those decisions would lead to a greater probability of success. “

Please show a decision where Kerry’s supposed “superior” decision making process has taken bad assumptions and transformed them into good outcomes. Particularly I am interested on your analysis of his superior decision making process on his announced statement of re-entering bi-lateral talks with North Korea and his refusal to consider privatizing Social Security. Look at your beautiful daughter when you type your response because Kerry is having her pay for your retirement when she is starting her career. But I will take ANY TANGIBLE EXAMPLE.

In an earlier thread I outlined the handling of the Chinese downing the Orion surveillance plane as an example of Bush’s superior handling of a foreign crisis matter. In a prior thread I promised “Democrat Dan” the North Korea example which I will post separately. Another example is Bush’s willingness to address the impending Social Security crisis before the train wreck arrives (Moynihan Commission). Please demonstrate how his “secretive” insular decision-making process on these matters is deficient over Kerry’s superior process.

“Some commenters have argued that a second Bush term would be different. However, ironically enough, the failure of Bush to reshuffle his team requires me to take this assertion.... on faith. And I can't do that. “

Bush fired his top economic team shortly after the mid-term elections. What there any advance word on that? You don’t hear talk of Powell leaving this administration like there was four months ago. You don’t hear a lot from Rummy nowadays. Read Barone’s analysis of the MSM trying to tilt the election.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_041020.htm

Why should Bush provide the MSM any ammunition before the elections? “Bush admits guilt by firing Rumsfeld.” “Desperation/Disarray in Bush’s administration with Rumsfeld’s dismissal.” Do you think these faux headlines would not indicative of the real ones? These are not faith statements but statements based on precedent and analysis. Remember how Bush signaled Colin Powell to be Secretary of State in the prior election. What signals from Kerry do you have about Holbrooke over Madeline Albright being appointed Kerry’s Secretary of State with Kerry using his superior decision-making process? After all Madeline has already danced with Kim Jung Il. Experience counts you know.

In Logic a negative does not prove a positive (Bush made a bad decision therefore Kerry would make a good decision.) The other hypothesis could be equally true. Kerry would have made a worse decision than Bush (North Korea).

Am I totally happy with Bush? No. I would much rather have Biden or Lieberman to vote for. Or even Gephardt or McCain to vote for. But we have what we have. The Democrats made their choice for the American people to chose from Bush. Are you engaging in Dusty Springfield logic? Hoping and Wishing and Thinking and Praying. Please demonstrate with solid proofs of your hypothesis of Kerry’s superior decision making ability of having bad assumptions and turning them into good policy.

Before I discuss Bush’s superior handling of North Korea let me lead off with a personal statement. I lived 3 years in Poland (1997-2000). During that time I spoke with many members of Solidarity. To a person they all say that Reagan’s 1983 speech with the words “Evil Empire” helped revitalize their spirits and hopes. At last somebody “got” it.

http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol3Issue24/Vol3Issue23Bransten.html
http://www.templetonthorp.com/en/news660

This was despite the sophisticated set groaning and rolling their eyes while sipping their expensive Beaujolais at tony soirees and summits. They said “That nuclear cowboy will end up destroying the world.” In the background, Sting sang his song “I hope the Russians love their children too.” The wall fell despite the sophisticate set “superior decision making process” of accommodation with the Soviets. After all the Soviets had the best caviar to offer at parties.

We don’t know how Bush’s “Axis of Evil” will eventually play out. It took six years after Reagan’s speech for the wall to fall. We do know that the named targets are in deep consternation about being named. Short term things look sticky but I believe that Bush’s handling of North Korea is a superb strategy vs. the prior one of accommodation and bribery (nothing necessarily wrong with bribery as long as they stay bought). For purposes of brevity I will ignore Iran.

Here is a timeline of events of the North Korea nuclear program
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2604437.stm

There are two major points to note:
• The North Koreans started to cheat with a second nuclear program in 1998 during the Clinton administration. The administration that tried to bribe them into good behavior and it failed.
• Intelligence estimates was that North Korea could have 1 to 4 bombs BEFORE they withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and got the rods to re-process.

Based on this record of failure the Bush administration refused to go down the “brain dead” policy of appeasement. Instead they looked for real points of leverage against the NK and that was the Chinese. The Chinese understandably didn’t want to get involved but I am sure that the administration pointed out that if NK went overtly nuclear then South Korea and Japan would have to go nuclear in self defense. Then Taiwan and Indonesia would need it and finally Australia. Congratulations, China you’re surrounded with nuclear neighbors and no missile defense. How does it feel? The Chinese thought about for a while and said to NK “Let’s have a talk with all of us.” The NK said no and all the sudden there were technical problems with the oil pipelines from China to NK. This went on for several weeks and NK said “OK let’s talk” and suddenly the Chinese found the spare parts and the oil started flowing again.

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=1731360
http://www.parapundit.com/archives/001083.html

Before the conference the U.S. made explicit that no pre-emptive military action would happen to NK provided they didn’t get hostile. In other words the U.S. wouldn’t bully or thump its chest thus assuaging the fears of China, SK and Japan. At the same time they didn’t reward the NK by ending all assistance to put pressure on the NK regime.

During the first meeting the U.S. held firm to NK demands and threats and insisted that they must disarm period. When they did they would be rewarded. The NK huffed and puffed and made the Chinese angry at their antics. Also at this meeting they pulled the U.S. over and whispered they had the bomb. Did the Bush administration react with panic or bellicosity? No. The response was “so get rid of them”. There was no begging, wheedling or counter demonstrations. Just calm purposeful negotiations WITH ALL PARTIES to keep them on the same page.

The first and subsequent meetings ended without grand photo ops or statements. There was no dancing or magnificent parades to watch. It’s a process that is long and difficult and disciplined. All the countries involved have to work at it which they wish they didn’t have to. It so much easier for them to sit back and take potshots if the negotiations were bi-lateral and the U.S. was proving unreasonable. Is this strategy a failure? Have the NK broken out of the box? Will the Chinese allow NK to go out of the box? How could the Kerry administration have handled it better? How has the secretive insular decision making of the current administration deficient?

You can blame the administration for it’s Iraq failure but you have to acknowledge it successes. Weighing everything over this is why I am voting for Bush. A person with the best instincts along the lines of Ronald Reagan and FDR who does the right thing even though people don’t like it at the time.

To show that I am not a tub-thumper for Bush there is one major diplomatic failure that has exacerbated the Iraq situation and that is the failure to get Turkey to approve the deployment of the 4th Division. This allowed many criminals to escape through the back door as the 3rd Division and the Marines kicked in the front door.

The situation was that Turkey had just swept away the old parties on an anti-corruption platform. Its leader couldn’t take the Prime Minister spot due to an earlier conviction of being too religious. That was being worked out. And the U.S. asked to put troops in which deeply unpopular with the Turkish people to fight a war they didn’t want based on an earlier experience in war from a “realistic” administration.

This change in government would be equivalent of the Reform party taking over Congress and the Presidency back in 1992 and asking them to vote for huge deficits spending before Perot was sworn in as president. Yet the U.S. Diplomatic Corps failed to do the groundwork. Instead the U.S. relied on waving some cash and the Turkish generals to force through a resolution . Never once did Colin Powell or Armitage go to Turkey to work the issue. This is a failure of Powell not Rummy. Did the State Department try to scuttle the war with passive aggressive behavior? I think so.

This was a tremendous failure. Should Powell have been fired?

To me it points to a major problem with one of the U.S major tools in this war on Islamo-fascism. The U.S. is not effectively presenting itself to combat Islamic ideology. The U.S. Islamic TV station is regarded as a joke. Other efforts are regarded as amateurish. This is from a nation that has Hollywood and Disney! The reason is that the U.S. is conflicted about what we are. Are we the greatest country in the world with a superior political and economic system as I believe or just another country among others? The diplomatic corps is not on board for a variety of reasons. This is just a reflection of what is going on internally, Michael Moore’s and Al Sharpton’s vision of America vs. Ross Perot and Zell Miller.

Also organizationally they are unfocused with region specific and initiative specific bureaus with the ambassadors outside the whole structure. While Wesley Clark was a presidential candidate he did an interview with Aaron Brown of CNN and he focused on this. In his opinion the State Department needed to be reformed to align themselves like the Military with one person in command of all facets of diplomacy. The same point was obliquely made in Barnett’s “Pentagon’s New Map”. I agree with this and would hope this reorganization does come to pass.

As to Kerry admitting he made a mistake: Kerry has NEVER admitted to a mistake, and you know this. He has NEVER admitted he was wrong to offer perjured testimony to the Senate in '71 or to coach soldiers to lie at VVAW rallies. Not in 30 years.

From Bush-Kerry Debates, courtesy of the Washington Post transcripts:

From debate #1:
KERRY: Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the president made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?

Looks like as public an admission of error as you could get, with 62 million viewers as witness.

Compare and contrast with Bush's response to audience member Linda Grabel in debate #2:

GRABEL: President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision, and what you did to correct it. Thank you.

BUSH: That's really what you're -- when they ask about the mistakes, that's what they're talking about. They're trying to say, "Did you make a mistake going into Iraq?" And the answer is, "Absolutely not." It was the right decision.

---

Good call, Mr. Drezner. As with you, and so many others in this election, my open dislike of George W. Bush's poor decision-making outshines anything that I could like in John Kerry.

However, I don't think there should be any guilt about having such a position. President Bush's inability to re-evaluate conditions is, and should be, the central theme in this election for all rational thinkers.

I don't see evidence for your belief that Kerry responds to mistakes any better than Bush. Kerry's multiple positions on every issue make it impossible for anyone to claim he has ever made a mistake. He finesses anti-Iraq-war positions into pro-Iraq-war positions constantly. He is pro and anti free trade.

And he has never admitted a mistake on any of those, and he changes back and forth between them regularly. I don't mind one or two changes. But to have 20 changes in position on a single topic within a very few years seems a bit excessive.

He isn't changing in response to mistake and then resolutely following through with policy competence. He is changing with political whim, which is exactly what we don't need in a leader.

Not the my 2 cents means much, but ANYONE who has even taken a cursory glance at this administration 3 1/2 year record could not in good conscience vote for a second bush term. Adding to that, I think the B/C campaign is very afraid of that this year, that many republicans will vote with their consciences and not with their party

Bush will go down as one of America's greatest presidents. The Bush Doctrine (go after terrorists on their terrain) will be like the Monroe Doctrine in importance. Dan Hruby

Bush will go down as one of America's greatest presidents. The Bush Doctrine (go after terrorists on their terrain) will be like the Monroe Doctrine in importance. Dan Hruby

KERRY: "Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the president made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse?"

Jim Tran: "Looks like as public an admission of error as you could get, with 62 million viewers as witness."

The problem wasn't how Kerry "talked" about the $87 billion, it was how he voted. This was Kerry's disingenuous attempt to cop to a lesser charge.

Space — Oh, please. There are sworn affidavits from at least two vets he coached. Kerry was even caught on film. So unless Karl Rove was running around with a 16mm back in '71, spare me.

Tim Lambert — And yet, strangely, that's pretty much the same majority they gave pro-Iraq John Howard when they re-elected him and gave him both houses as well.

The Sydney Morning Herald was THE leading Aussie publication trying to make the election a referendum on Iraq. Anyone who wants to can check that for themselves by looking at the SMH's pre-election archives and house blogs.

I say pre-election because post-election, Iraq went away faster than Stalin's pictures were torn out of Soviet history books on his death.

Another trait Kerry shares, BTW, judging by the speed with which people like Wilson, Clarke and Kos Zuniga disappeared from his website without explanation when they were exposed for what they were. "What people, where? Joe who?"

The mistakes questions are "have you stopped beating your wife" questions. Seems to me that only Bush gets asked those questions.

So you are supporting Kerry because Bush won't answer incriminating questions from a hostile press which they won't dare ask their obvious favorite.

And you call that "thoughtful?" LOL.

So far only 1 person has commented on this question:

what would the Republicans say if the Iraqis vote in the Islamic parties?

what happens when the new democratically elected Iraqi government happens to be a terrorist funding, anti-American theocracy or dictatorship?

Would that not simply destroy Bush's arguments for military intervention to create a free Iraq?

A newly free democracy that simply votes into power the very people that would stir up hate against the Americans.

Then what? How would American react?

And it would be wise not to discount this possibility. It would be most prudent to just consider it a likelihood.

McEnroe:

I don't know if you realise this, but the Rupert Murdoch owned "The Australian" and "Herald Sun" weren't exactly very keen on Howard either... and THAT coming from Murdoch owned papers... doesn't that say something about the general mood of the Australian people?

I don't think voters based much of their decision on the Iraq war, partly of which the MSM are to blame... the hyper-politicising of the Iraqi war simply made the middle-class tune out.

I believe most middle-class voters simply got to the point where they didn't care anymore about the Iraqi war, and just voted based on what matters to them the most, which was the economy.

Bravo!

Here's more amo for you:

http://www.fred.net/tds/bushfail2004.html

Just a left-of-center undergrad who appreciates what you say in your right-of-center blog. It's people like you that help keep me grounded and as bipartisan as possible.

I've been interested in reading your posts as you made the decision to vote for Kerry. The insulting comments accompanying your final decision horrify me, which is why I am de-lurking to say thank you.

Mr. Drezner, deciding who to vote for is a deeply personal process, especially in an election where there are no easy answers. Thank you for sharing your process with us. I know that I'm smarter, wiser, and better liberal for it.

So thank you, and happy voting Nov. 2.

Dan Hruby wrote:
>Bush will go down as one of America's greatest presidents. The Bush Doctrine (go after terrorists on their terrain) will be like the Monroe Doctrine in importance.

God I hope not. Personally I think that preemption is a terrible permanent foreign policy doctrine, and is ethically and practically untenable in the long term.

Some reasons why I think that the "Bush Doctrine" will not be seen as even close to importance such as the Monroe or Truman Doctrine's have been - 1) Bush rushed to war on the assurance of George Tenet that there were absolutely WMDs, and then when this was shown to be false, Tenet was kept on board, and not sacked as he should have been, and the Bush administration has backpedaled and changed their reasons for the war, rather than admitting a mistake. The previous major foreign policy doctrines of the US never opened us so up to bad decision making as that. and 2) his execution with this preemptive war has been highly suspect. See the frequent news articles of late, referring to revelations of generals requesting more troops to win the peace at the beginning of the invasion, and the questions about why of the 15 major things we should have secured immediated upon going into Iraq, we only followed through on one of them: securing the oil fields.

Bad policy + Bad execution of said policy = bad doctrine.

I have no real problem with Mr Drezner’s decision to vote for John Kerry. A man’s vote is his own. But I cannot stop myself from commenting on the genuine strangeness of this election. The war in Iraq seems to have sent normally reasonable people quite around the bend.

Consider, after all, what we are witnessing here. We are seeing in Mr Drezner a conservative who is about to vote for a man who (a) is one of the most liberal, anti-conservative members of congress (2) Betrayed his country by talking to his country’s enemies (3) is strongly protective of the unions which Mr Drezner feels are damaging the economy of the country (4) believes in higher taxes (5) believes in expansive government (6) was largely an empty vessel in the senate.

Quiet apart from this, he is aiding a man who, if elected, will confirm to the Islamists that murdering innocent people pays big dividends. For one thing is sure: despite the frenzied attempts of the New York Times to allude that old Macchiavellian Osamah really wants Bush to win, the Islamists hate Bush with a caustic, unmitigated virulence that only someone who’s incapable of reading an Arabic newspaper will deny. And the defeat of Bush will be seen as a massive victory for them.

And why is he about to do this? Because he doesn’t like the war in Iraq.

Oh, that is too bad, Dr. Drezner. I plan to vote for Bush and was hoping you would eventually change your mind. Oh well.

You know, we can't even get the physicians in my department to agree on a common way to type out pathology reports. I can't imagine how much more difficult it would be to invade a country, and then try and run things after that - in the mid east of all places. Wow. You must be a tough grader in class!

Dan, your post boils down to "Kerry can't be any worse than Bush". I'd just like to point out that the perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum.

If Kerry wins, don't say in a few years that you weren't warned.

unwise vote from an unwise man

Response to The Errant Academic, who says:
>Quiet apart from this, he is aiding a man who, if elected, will confirm to the Islamists that murdering innocent people pays big dividends. For one thing is sure: despite the frenzied attempts of the New York Times to allude that old Macchiavellian Osamah really wants Bush to win, the Islamists hate Bush with a caustic, unmitigated virulence that only someone who’s incapable of reading an Arabic newspaper will deny. And the defeat of Bush will be seen as a massive victory for them.

The reasons you give for being surprised at Dan Drezner's decision are acceptable, but the paragraph of your post that I site is not. You imply that if the Islamofascists hate Bush and not our government in general (which, I remind you, is not the case), and that their opinion counts. Also implied, is that you think Kerry will be a wimp on the war on terror. That last implication is your opinion, and you have a right to it. But the terrorists' opinions don't count, and as for Kerry possibly being a wimp, well, at least he'll be competent at the agressive military actions he does order, and he'll be able to justify these military actions to the American people.

Han,

There is no reason to respond, the radical islamists will not win in Iraq any more than they won elections in Afghanistan.

And whoever made the Michael Ledeen comment is an idiot. There is no greater opponent of the Mullahs than Ledeen.

There's a difference between publicly acknowledging one's mistakes (and I challenge you to name one presidential administration which has done this on a matter of policy - especially foreign policy - in mid-stream) and being internally self-critical so that you can adjust to the vagaries of war as they arise. I submit that there is lots of evidence that Bush has done just that - adjust. Talk of "clusterf---'s" and "planning for the peace" just betrays one's ignorance of how things really work in this messy world.

It seems the best we can hope for after > 50 years of horrendous foreign policy mistakes which made this war necessary is to "muddle through". Bush and Co. are doing that, and, given their pragmatist philisophical underpinnings, doing it about as well as can be expected.

The problem with your choice is that his every instinct is to avoid this fight, to wish it would go away, so that he can revert to being the old-leftian that lives inside his deepest soul. That is why Arafat, Zarqawi, and Al-Sadr will rejoice at his election, if it were to come to pass. That is why the citizens of Israel will not.

I will just repeat, welcome to the reality-based community. So much of the comments in favor of Bush are so unrealistic that I will ignore them.

But the Joshua Macy challange to name a single example of a wrong policy, compenetly pursued that lead to a good outome was just too good to pass up. The example is the Reagan military expansion. It was well done and contributed marginally to a good outcome, the death of Soviet communism. But, remember the Reagan military budget was smaller than every other cold war presidents military budgets except Carters, and it was just barely larger than the Carter budget. Moreover, there is no evidence that the Soviets responded to the US build-up with an expansion of its own military budget.Thus, there is no evidence that the Reagan military expansion played a significant role in the end of communism despite the meme that the right wing tries it best to create. Reagan talked a great game, but he did nothing more than continue the same policy of containment that every US President followed after WW II.

Most of the arguments i hear about the so-called Bush GWOT is about as realistic as the claim that Reagan implemented a major policy change that destroyed communism.

Oh oh what a surprise ...kidding... :)

Well for someone that seems to believe at face value most that shows up in media...and hangs since begining Bush& Co. in The Plame affair , Clarke, Uranium in Africa oops Niger. All very strange tales from begining ...
or reading the headlines that talks about a Fallujah
stand off when the body of the news, points to a diferent conclusion.

Funnilly intitled himself as "media whore" This is not surprising. The surprise, is why only now? Ok maybe be prudence and Kerry isnt helping..

Anyway looking back the Iran-Contras scandal that would have mean a vote in Walter Mondale instead of RR, after all both were against Soviet Union.
One confrontational and another for acommodation.
Mr. Drezner in practice is voting for "Realpolitik".

There is not more testimony of success of this presidency that some of top bloggers (example Josh Chafetz and Andrew Sullivan) indulge himself in not voting for Bush just because of a decision that affect maybe 1% of the US population. Even if the Bush stance will free up more gays in world than the impact of mariage act in USA.

"I prefer a leader who has a good decision-making process, even if his foreign policy instincts are skewed in a direction I don't like, over a leader who has a bad decision-making process, even if his foreign policy instincts are skewed in a direction I do like."

This continues to boggles my mind:
1) John Kerry is more likely to recognize during the decision-making process that his instincts might be wrong -- and therefore change tacks before making a catastrophic mistake;

A wrong STRATEGIC decision seldom can be corrected, feedback usually only appears after decision making process at strategic level. At strategic level correcting the course even if it's wrong initially can be perceived as even more damaging. Usually this lead to a paralasis in decision process and the Presidency bogs down. Happened in Vietnam. Neverthless you used the correct caracterisation: at this level the consequences could be CATASTROPHIC.

"2) Whatever Kerry's policy, the decision-making process and the implementation of those decisions would lead to a greater probability of success."

That´s not true , no person or entity can change so much in so tiny time span. There is organisational inertia and fear of loosing face because that has real political consequences , including getting Congress support. Also the energy of a presidency isnt infinite.
"His plan to internationalize the Iraq conflict is a pipe dream." There is no time for experiments.

David Foster writes: "And where is the evidence that *Kerry* is willing to consider that *he* might be wrong? "

Snicker. The Republicans spent millions trying to convince the world that John Kerry has a problem with flip-flopping and changing direction. And that you should vote for Bush, because he's resolute, and doesn't change his mind.

Now, they're saying that Kerry is, in fact, *just* as constant as Bush, so there's no reason to think Kerry will fix his policies when one turns out to be wrong. They're saying Kerry will be just as fixed-minded as Bush.

Which isn't much of a compliment to Bush, is it?

Come'on Republicans, quite flip-flopping.

One can only hope, Lucklucky, that English is your second language.

"And whoever made the Michael Ledeen comment is an idiot. There is no greater opponent of the Mullahs than Ledeen."

Opponent?

Well-paid tool of the mullahs is more like it.

"why of the 15 major things we should have secured immediated upon going into Iraq, we only followed through on one of them: securing the oil fields."

Because that the only way Iraq has to make money to sustain and recover the country.

While I can appreciate your concern for the lack of "admitting" a mistake, I do have to question the reason an "admission" is required. President Bush is a leader and must make overall policy decisions and conduct a war. Will mistakes be made? Of course they will and they occur in every administration and every war. What purpose would be served by an admission of an "error?" Would it give solace to the enemy? Yes. Would it cause worry with our allies? Yes. Would it serves as a club to beat on Bush through the presidential campaign? Yes.

Let's now say that Bush was worried about your image of him and he states he made a mistake. Now does he have to appologize? What if it only a small mistake? Does he now have to admit to a bigger error to please his critics? NOw that an admission is made, does he now have to resign or withdraw the troops? Personally, I would prefer a leader who bases decisions on global objectives and can tolerate the setbacks involved in combat.

@ whahhh? yes it is second. I apologise for any mistake.

Jeff Schaeper 12:38 "...there is one major diplomatic failure that has exacerbated the Iraq situation and that is the failure to get Turkey to approve the deployment of the 4th Division. This allowed many criminals to escape through the back door as the 3rd Division and the Marines kicked in the front door."

There has been some debate regarding this among military tacticians lately. For example, I just listened on C-Span to a retired general (sorry, can't remember his name, will try to google) on a panel related to the future of the military say that it was quite the blessing that Turkey turned us down. He described the mountainous terrain as so difficult that even Alexander the Great refused to cross where we were planning on crossing.

There are two reasons for Greens to vote Kerry. First, by voting for Kerry this year we become more relevant in presidential politics. We become swing voters. Swing voters matter to politicians seeking elected office. Often called moderate voters, swing voters are actually not middle voters but voters on the margins. Marginal voters who will move will be courted. While I see no panacea for the Left from a Kerry victory, I do see benefits in asserting the relevance of the Left - especially this year.

Dean's rise was a victory for the Left. Gore's series of speeches on civil liberties and the brazen lies of the Bush administration were remarkable. Kerry meeting with Nader was better than the Democratic shunning of Greens since 2000. These changes do not count as a transformation of society, but given how little power the Left has we are best realistic about how much of role we have at this time. Let’s be swing voters this year to let others know that we can help Democrats lose (in 2000) as well as help Democrats win (in this year).

But the swing voter argument is not the best reason for Greens vote Kerry. More important relates to why we usually vote Green or independent, which is to send a message about what really matters to us. I voted third party in all of the past presidential elections to send a message to the Democrats. Now I want to send a message to the Republicans.

The message is simple: Go too far and you will lose.

There are limits to how far either party can go. Bush went way beyond these limits. Defeating Bush matters because all politicians need to know that even the radical Left will back a Democrat if things go too far. Bush's radical agenda goes beyond anything any recent president has done. Not Nixon, not Ford, not Carter, not Reagan, not Bush's dad, and not Clinton come close to the hugely radical abuse of power and threat to the Republic of this president. That’s why this president must be defeated and why it makes sense for Greens to help do it.

Bush invaded a sovereign state in a war of aggression without even pretense of following international law. Bush lied to the Congress and the American people to take our nation to war. Bush used the September 11th tragedy to restrict civil liberties and to massively expand police powers. Bush used fear of foreigners to push forward a radical domestic agenda. Bush was caught leading a government that tortures and ignores human rights with impunity. Bush suspended habeas corpus, locked citizens in secret jails and challenged the basic tenets on which civil society is based. Bush engaged in massive propaganda, abused the power of the Executive, challenged our Constitutional system, violated international law and pushed an unprecedented militaristic and corporate radical agenda.

Sure, other presidents have engaged in other acts that approach those of Bush - but none have been so bold and brazen as has been Bush. He is dangerous to our Republic and to the world. And we, the far Left, must join with moderates and liberals to send a message to radicals of the radical-Right. We will not tolerate anything that approaches Bush, not now and not ever - even if this means that we'll pause from building our own Green Party. Join me in sending this message because the right to vote matters and this year we can employ our right to make a real difference for America and for the world.

Hey LuckLucky - If English really is a second language for you, your command of it is far better than my Spanish or German! I don't agree with the points you made but I am sorry to have made the insult I did. Please excuse my focusing on how you said something rather than on the point you were making. So, while I think you are wrong about Bush, I am feeling like an idiot.

It appears that American Conservative Magazine has joined you as well Dan:

http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html

The record, from published administration memoirs and in-depth reporting, is one of an administration with a very small group of six or eight real decision-makers, who were set on war from the beginning and who took great pains to shut out arguments from professionals in the CIA and State Department and the U.S. armed forces that contradicted their rosy scenarios about easy victory. Much has been written about the neoconservative hand guiding the Bush presidency—and it is peculiar that one who was fired from the National Security Council in the Reagan administration for suspicion of passing classified material to the Israeli embassy and another who has written position papers for an Israeli Likud Party leader have become key players in the making of American foreign policy.

But neoconservatism now encompasses much more than Israel-obsessed intellectuals and policy insiders. The Bush foreign policy also surfs on deep currents within the Christian Right, some of which see unqualified support of Israel as part of a godly plan to bring about Armageddon and the future kingdom of Christ. These two strands of Jewish and Christian extremism build on one another in the Bush presidency—and President Bush has given not the slightest indication he would restrain either in a second term. With Colin Powell’s departure from the State Department looming, Bush is more than ever the “neoconian candidate.” The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.

Good choice (any vote withheld from Bush is a good vote), but those who are not comfortable with Bush or Kerry, should consider voting for Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian presidential candidate. Of course, he won't win, but the winning candidate will know that there are many citizens who want a less intrusive government with lower taxes and greater civil liberties for all.

good for you daniel - you and jesse ventura.

bye bye whistleass

You are voting for Kerry because 'Bush doesn't believe that what he believes might be wrong.' Bush believed that we should have an American proconsul followed by a vote of the Iraqi people and Iraqi democracy. He decidied he was wrong in that belief and involved the UN, a Palestinian cause supporting staff member, to recommend appointment of an interim president instead, and that is what happemned.

No hard feelings whaaa?. My country is Portugal so i have a latin language. Sometimes when i forget English it's my second language it eventualy blows up in my face like today. Neverthless i am at least happy that the meaning didnt get lost ;-)

luckylucky said:

"His plan to internationalize the Iraq conflict is a pipe dream." There is no time for experiments.

What has the Iraq war been but an experiment? Don't worry about terror networks that have already killed thousands of Americans. Go in and magically transform the whole situation

If all I read about the election were the pro-Bush comments here, I'd think we all lived in Iraq, and the only determining factor in who to vote for was the war in Iraq.

I know that for a lot of you the "WoT" is the greatest thing since the Cold War. Getting worked up over another terrorist attack sure beats worrying over whether your job will go overseas, or your salary keep up with the cost of living, or you're one of the women with dangerous levels of uterine mercury contamination, or one of the high-risk people who can't get a flu shot, or how high gas prices can go. Doomsday drama trumps quotidian tedium any day.

As comforting as it might be to obsess over the terrorists under your beds, though, the fact remains that most of you live here in the good old US of A, and the biggest direct impact the "WoT' is likely to have on you is having to take your shoes off at the airport.

Maybe y'all should try taking a break from Islamophobia and think about what really affects your quality of life.

sm: Remember AlliedHQ-Europe in 2nd WWar. With population and media fully behind the leaders, common enemy fully identified and a clear mission. Even then there was (it will be big with 2004 media) problems between US,British,France Libre.

Michael claims to know what Bush's plan for Iraq is. I think he's confusing platitudinous bullshit with a plan.

This is the "Bush-Hivebrain" phenomenon where wingnuts will convince themselves that Bush thinks the same thing as they do on any topic.

lack of a clear plan and objectives has bedevilled the whole sorry Iraq fiasco from the beginning, and if Bush is allowed to remain President, it will do so to the end.

And thus it ends Dan as you join forces with those who wish Carter and Dukakis had won in the 1980s. And something tells me Kerry is a lot closer to them than to you. Enjoy carrying that water.

In regards to Matt's offering:

Interestingly enough Dan you will also be joining forces with many of those who have voted for every Republican candidate over the last three decades, but have now been turned after all this time by the miraculous ineptitude of the current administration.

Welcome.

Always an excuse avaliable for the Bush Kool-aid drinkers. Matthew Cromer thus:

Jor has obviously forgotten what caused most of the deficits, immediate job loss, and certainly the war on terror which we are fighting around the world today most especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's why people like Jor are called "September 10th Americans".

About two-thirds of the deficit comes from the Bush tax cuts, according to every survey I've seen. Economists are often in the reality-based community, and in the RBC, we don't just use 9/11 as an excuse for everything bad. Your favorite sports team lost? Don't you know 9/11 is to blame! Stubbed your toe? 9/11 is to blame! The whole world revolves around 9/11 and the father who will rescue them from the boogeyman.

Bush promised that the deficits would be "small and short-lived" in the 2002 State of the Union address. I think that shows he didn't have a clue, never has. If you need some help with timelines, Mr. Cromer, the 2002 speech came after 9/11.

Quick note to Mr. Hruby: the Bush Doctrine will go the way of the Brezhnev Doctrine, which it strongly resembles.

VoteBadnarik wrote, Good choice (any vote withheld from Bush is a good vote), but those who are not comfortable with Bush or Kerry, should consider voting for Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian presidential candidate.

I want to suggest that the most important issue libertarians and greens can work on is to get the australian voting system instituted here. My understanding is it would take a constitutional amendment, but it's worth doing regardless.

If voters could rank the candidates, then you could vote for Badnarik first and Kerry second and get it both ways. Badnarik would get all the votes that were coming to him, and it wouldn't be inconceivable that he might win. It's bad that our election style makes votes for third party candidates mostly irrelevant, that's wrong.

If I could get multiple choices I think I'd vote 1. Green 2. Libertarian 3. Democrat 4. Naderite. It ought to be set up so the only reason for a voter not to vote Libertarian is that he finds the Libertarian candidate unacceptable. If every republican who'd rather have a libertarian President could vote both....

The democrat and republican parties would oppose this because it would hurt them. But a lot of democrats and republicans would work for it. All third parties should cooperate to push it. Even if you're total enemies on every substantive topic, you are all better off with the chance to fight it out than to all be marginalised and irrelevant.

"why of the 15 major things we should have secured immediated upon going into Iraq, we only followed through on one of them: securing the oil fields."

Because that the only way Iraq has to make money to sustain and recover the country.

This is a logic problem. That is a good reason to take care of the oil -- it's worth a lot of money. Yes.

But that is not a good reason to ignore the other 14 major goals. For example, if we'd guarded the nuclear sites they wouldn't have been stolen. Etc.

And the main reason we didn't go after the other goals was we didn't have enough people to do it. And the reason for that was....

Yes you are members of the "reality-based" community which is no doubt why you think voting for a leftist Massachusetts dove fabulist is a vote for reality. Sure.

Oh, you mean like this nobel prize-winning economist?

The NY Times has finally recognized Michael Badnarikas a threat to Bush:
------------
Mr. Badnarik is the presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, which says he could “Naderize” Mr. Bush. A recent Zogby/Reuters national poll showed him tied with Ralph Nader at one percentage point each - not much, but possibly critical. Unlike Mr. Nader, Mr. Badnarik is on the ballot of every battleground state except New Hampshire.

“If we have a rerun of Florida 2000 in Pennsylvania, Michael Badnarik could be the kingmaker by drawing independent and Republican votes from Bush,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the 2004 Election Project at the Humphrey Institute of the University of Minnesota, which has been tracking third-party candidates.
-------------
Democrats should work to make sure Republicans know that they have a conservative alternative to Bush.

"Before I discuss Bush’s superior handling of North Korea"

Superior? Superior to what...actually giving North Korea the nukes for free? Ohhhh....you must mean:

1. Allowing DPRK to kick out inspectors
2. Allowing DPRK to turn off plutonium monitoring cameras
3. Allowing DPRK to break seals on 8000 plutonium rods
4. Allowing DPRK to move rods to secret location
5. DPRK announces to the world it is reprocessing rods. Bush allows them to continue.
6. Bush allows DPRK to build 1 nuke every 2 months.
7. Bush stands by as DPRK builds stockpile of nukes.
8. Bush caves in refusal to negotiate with tinhorn dictator -- tries to save face by pushing multilateralism.
9. Negotiations go nowhere because there is no military option with nuclear armed DPRK.
10. Bush redeploys troops from South Korea to Iraq in middle of negotiations -- weakens diplomatic hand.

I think this board is infested with a bunch of freepers considering how goddamn stupid half of you are. Let's see, North Korea has become a nuclear power under Bush thanks to his nation-building pipedreams in Iraq and this is a success?

You're a fucking moron. There should be an minimum intelligence threshhold for people like you to protect our democracy.

Ah you poor deluded soul. Read about what went on in Germany and Japan right after WW2. Look at Kosovo and East Germany. The Iraq war may look like a clusterfuck but in reality it's actually been quite nice and tidy compared to anything previous. That and considering that the NY times own endorsement of Kerry couldn't tell you anything about Kerry that makes him vote-worthy. They could only point out Bush's "mistakes" whether true or not.

Mr. Drezner: So you've chosen the guy who doesn't even know what he believes, about Iraq or anything else. Or maybe Kerry has coherent beliefs which he refuses to share with us. In that case, he's treating the public with contempt. Somehow you feel he'd chart a better course than Bush. Congrats on your ability to read Kerry's mind: "...a Kerry administration is likely to recognize, once the multilateral diplomacy fails, that it will actually have to come up with a viable alternative". Will Kerry have the smarts and the will (and the political support) to find and implement that alternative? How badly will the situation in Iraq have deteriorated by that wonderful moment when Kerry sees the light? If elected Kerry will have no particular mandate on Iraq, or anything else. He's simply Not Bush, which you seem to think is enough. You criticize Bush for not pursuing victory agressively enough in Iraq-has Kerry attacked Bush from the right on Iraq? Hardly. Instead, Kerry has set us up for a withdrawal, essentially arguing that Bush has screwed things up so badly success is impossible. Certainly a large p[art of the Democratic base pines for that speedy withdrawal, a base Kerry (given his probable political weaknesses) is unlikely to be able to ignore. In sum your endorsement of Kerry is every bit as incoherent as the man himself, which somehow seems fitting.

J Thomas: I want to suggest that the most important issue libertarians and greens can work on is to get the australian voting system instituted here.

Yes, it's called Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), and, coincidentally, I blogged on it today (er... I guess yesterday now).

I think there are even better alternatives, like Condorcet, but IRV would be a great start, and libertarians need to start pushing electoral reform a lot more if they want to get anywhere.

I'm most appreciative of your reasoned argument. I'm tempted to agree. Very tempted.

What distresses me is that Kerry was in Vietnam about the same time I was. We served in different area, but many died, civilian and military, in both. The atrocities he describes are lies. Did some happen? Most certainly. My Lai will never be forgotten. My Lai was an excep;tion to the common place as he described it.

I've never understood his testimony. I knew many who, like I, returned and had a variety of opinions that differed from those when we left for that place. But Kerry lied. Thousands of Americans who were there at the time knew he lied. Most of us are still around. We still think he lied.

Why he lied we don't know. I didn't then and I don't now. There are theories. There are no facts to explain it. I knew many who returned and opposed the war. The curious thing, althogh not common, is that they still would sit around and talk to their friends who disagreed.

No one I know came come from that war entirely happy about things. An the young women, high school juniors or college sophomores, who spit on us through chain link fences did little to change our minds. But doubt (and it did not exist among ALL) about its conduct, what we saw (and what was often our rationale for discontent) wasn't there. Those who opposed the war on return were as surpised by Kerry as any. That's my recollection. I did not live in isolation.

The fact that Kerry has thought to make himself a hero from a war whose circumstances he lied about, and I have little interest in the isse of medals or such, I've found extremely disturbing from Day 1, long before the varios veterans groups and blogs started to hammer him (or even existed for that matter).

Why cloak himself in something he was not? The issue isn't whether he's a hero, but why he claimed his leadership as a young naval officer as an example of his responsibility and capable to lead as President? That "leadership," his own statement that he committed war crimes (why?), are puzzling in the beginning, 1971, remain so today, and his comments seem so baffling when he turns to those circumstances as an example of leadership;

Courage often is a matter of temporary insanity. There's no other way to describe it. The greatest of fools and cowards sometimes perform acts of bravery in the short term, "the heat of battle." Moral fibe may or may not be requisite. The "hero" aspect of him, McCain, Kennedy, Eisenhower , or anyone else is not the issue. Where are the signs of leadership? Why did he lie about events? Why is he now hoisting the same banner to claim something he wasn't even at that time?

This campaign smells badly. Inane and incaccrate and simple lies, inclding major isses, are shared by both sides. But this matter of basic honesty, an issue that didn't crop up last week, has been present in the Kerry campaign since it began, well before the first primaries. Something stinks in this political race. Many things actally. But this outstinks all. I think I understand the "Swift Boat" people. Ive avoided them but they're very, very angry. They've been demonized and I understand why.

But those who've suffered and seen thier friends die in combat during a war in which theyve been pilloried, tend to be belligerent. The holiest of the holy has been ravished. What little of their self respect that wasn't destroyed when they returned (not to mention what they left behind), has come under attack once again. The ghosts are risen from the graves. And Kerry shoves it in their faces to boot. This isn't about one night or one battle. It's not about whether or not Kerry was in Camboia on Christmas eve.

It's about his generalizations and the specifics which he said before that Senate Committee. He was hand picked by Senator Fulbright who strongly opposed the war. I didn't like it then. I don't now. But Ive yet to decide on how to vote. If Bush's judgment was so bad AND it's being lied about, it's being lied about in a context where far fewer are dying. Far fewer. American casualities were bad. Those of the civilians in Vietnam were far worse.

The challenge of the Jihad? We don't know where that will lead. Two of the major suppliers to the North Vietnamese had The Bomb. We worried about that back then as well. Jihad worse? I'm the last to know the answer to that.

Too many politicians lie. There are plenty of lies to go around in this campaign. But what happened there, what he said happened when he returned, and the cloak of honor in which Kerry has tried to clothe himself to demonstrate his leadership, are more than a certain number of lies to be quantified and some numerical conclusion reached, then weighed against the other liar in the campaign.

George Bush is no Jack Kennedy. But neither is John Kerry, to quote a certain Democrat from the Bush-Clinton debate season. The character flaw, or whatever it is, runs deep.

"Read about what went on in Germany and Japan right after WW2. Look at Kosovo and East Germany. The Iraq war may look like a clusterfuck but in reality it's actually been quite nice and tidy compared to anything previous."

When you cite precedents there has to be some kind of reasonable parallel. Germany and Japan didn't have societies based on a fanatical ideological faith which glorifies matyrdom as a ticket straight into heaven. Kind of like the evengelicals, but that's another topic.

Your parallel is Vietnam and Iraq. You cannot win a popular insurgency based on nationalism as a foreign power. It's impossible because like the Vietnamese, the Iraqis will never -- at any cost -- give up their fight to oust the occupiers from their country.

Nice and tidy? Are fucking insane? We've lost 1100 troops if you haven't noticed. It's going to be 2000 by the time we even think about pulling troops from Iraq.

You're going to compare Iraq to Kosovo? I'm a veteran of the Kosovo campaign and that was a war done right and for the right reasons. That's why not a single troop died in the 84 day campaign. And if you cared to notice, we're still not out of that region after almost 5 years. But at least we STILL haven't lost a single American.

Unfortunately, we had real leaders in that campaign. Not a pack of chimps like the lot running this one.

Independent Centrist: are you trying to be funny? It's not working. You say you're a veteran of that campaign? Did you have your eyes shut the whole time because you were scared?

I did the Intel assessment on Kosovo and if you define success as getting tens of thousands of the people we were there to protect killed so the likes of you were saved the horror of being shot at, yeah it was great. On any other level Kosovo was indeed a clusterfuck of huge proportions. In fact the region is still a clusterfuck; Iraq is in most ways better off right now.

But you are correct that is was "unfortunate" we had what you consider to be "real leaders" in that campaign: they stood around bickering and BSing while innocents were dying by the village. In fact, I'd say that much worse than unfortunate, since I wouldn't trade one murdered Kosovar dog for a loser like you.

You claim to be a veteran yet you don't give a damn about the people you watched Milosevic kill while you stood by. Every Kosovo veteran I ever met was disgusted and appalled at how that campaign was run, but you seem proud of it. That makes you either a coward or a liar. Which is it?

Dan,

I really don't see why you assume that Kerry will see that his plan to internationalize the conflict is a pipe dream and adjust his course.

Getting "allied" help is the basic premise of his plan for Iraq.He has repeated this nonsense ad nauseum. He has sold it to a large section of the American public.

Do you really think he that if he becomes President he could just turn around and say "Whoops. I'm sorry. International diplomacy didn't work. Now, let's get serious about winning "the wrong war at the wrong time'"?

If he did so, do you think that he could get the people who he has convinced that there is a quick and easy way for the US to prevail in Iraq to follow him down the long hard road that he intended to take?

I am foreigner. I would hardly presume to judge the choice that you are making.But, I do think that people like yourself and Andrew Sullivan are voting for Kerry on a hope and a prayer.

You are ascribing qualities of judgement to Kerry that it is far from certain that he possesses.

Frankly,I don't quite understand why you are doing so. You have serious reservations about Kerry ,even before he has spent a day in office. Clearly you believe that, despite these reservations, you can't support Bush because of the way he has prosecuted the war in Iraq.

Whether or not one agrees with your point of view, that is reason enough to explain your vote. Why go on to declare that you are " confident ( that) a Kerry administration is likely to recognize, once the multilateral diplomacy fails, that it will actually have to come up with a viable alternative.",when Kerry has said little so far that would indicate that your confidence is well placed.

Steve

Montreal

Congragulations dan! You've made it onto Shrillblog!

I believe this blog began as a conservative-leaning site, so it's understandable that the viewpoints should skew Republican.

But it seems that the Republican talking points continue to oversimplify, and frame issues in purely black & white terms. Such as from Andy:

*You really want a leader who says "Follow me, I may be wrong"?*

I find it hard to believe that most conservatives truly hold this view, but seems that they consistently turn to such phrasing to build their soundbites.

My understanding of Kerry's message is put this way: "Follow me! In addition, I will continue to meet with my advisors to weigh our decisions, measure our effectiveness, and change course if and when necessary".

What distresses me is that Kerry was in Vietnam about the same time I was. We served in different area, but many died, civilian and military, in both. The atrocities he describes are lies. Did some happen? Most certainly. My Lai will never be forgotten. My Lai was an excep;tion to the common place as he described it.

So you're saying that Operation Phoenix didn't happen, that the atrocities were occasional mistakes and never policy?

An the young women, high school juniors or college sophomores, who spit on us through chain link fences did little to change our minds.

Did they spit on you personally? I've been trying to find an eyewitness for that and so far none have shown up.

If Bush's judgment was so bad AND it's being lied about, it's being lied about in a context where far fewer are dying. Far fewer. American casualities were bad. Those of the civilians in Vietnam were far worse.

How bad were vietnam casualties the first two years? Do you figure Bush can't bring up the iraq casualties in 4 more years of war?

This campaign smells badly. Inane and incaccrate and simple lies, inclding major isses, are shared by both sides.

Yes. What really got my attention were the lies about Saddam's WMDs. The CIA said they had no credible evidence. Cheney ordered them to find whatever they could. They came up with little scraps of single-source lies, and the administration said they had absolute proof that they absolutely didn't have. They lied to Congress about it. They lied us into war. Afterward they lied and said the CIA wrongly told them Saddam had WMDs.

If they'd come up with a good honest explanation I might have agreed it was the right war at the right time. But as it is, I'd vote for Kerry even if I thought he'd mislead us worse than Bush. Because Bush has had his chance as President of the USA.

Fool me once....

Call him disingenuous if you wish(in response to the we are not suprised comments)but I for one have been waiting for Bush to LEAD his way out of his mistakes. But unfortunatly, since the Bush team felt more strongly about painting Kerry as a flip flopper than leading the last couple months have been a major disappointment. Both parties are bankrupt demagoguery. the fact that he has chosen kerry as the lesser of two evils probably says more about his character in that he wants to participate in our system.

"I will just repeat, welcome to the reality-based community."

Spencer - How does Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story fit in your reality-based community?

"So much of the comments in favor of Bush are so unrealistic that I will ignore them."

Why? Can't you answer them?

Manley - Good point but with the Kurds holding the high ground the 4th Division would basically burst through at the plain level. I do remember the worries about keeping supplies flowing through chokepoints but work around solutions were in place.

Thanks for the comment.

Independent Centerist “Superior? Superior to what...actually giving North Korea the nukes for free?”

No - a superior strategy over the Clinton’s bribery attempt that merely kicked the can down the road. The Bi-lateral talks made it an American problem and had no leverage over the North Korea as the enrichment program proved.

Just a few inconvenient facts for you that you don’t address.

1) North Korea started its Uranium Enrichment program that was outside the plutonium program that was “locked up” in 1998. Who was president then?
2) From said program North Korea was believed to have 1-4 nuclear devices by the time the program was exposed. In other words the horse was already out of the barn, then they helped themselves to the plutonium.
3) The Bush administration turned it into a China problem which they are being forced to address. The Associated Press this Sunday reports that Colin Powell declined North Korea demand for bi-lateral talks and told them to return to the table.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=193260

4) The Bush administration has created an ipso facto soft blockade of the export of this technology using bi-lateral diplomacy with relevant players.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=193260

Not bad for a drawling simpleton buffoon.

Negotiations haven’t gone anywhere to date because the presidential election offer to the North Koreans different negotiating tracks (Kerry told them so in the first debate) and they like the rest of the world are waiting for the outcome.

Please read my post and refute my assertions with citations and timelines. I don’t respond to invective and profanity. When people resort to such tactics they have fallen into the “Crossfire syndrome”. It means that my assertions are correct and the opponent can’t face the reality.

Welcome to the real world.

To Democrat Dan:

You seem to be saying that because the opinions of the Islamists should not matter in the election, they don't matter. This I don't understand. Is there doubt in any reasonable person's mind that Kerry's defeat of Bush will be seen as a great victory for the Islamists' cause? Is there then any reason to think that they will not be emboldened, and launch even more attacks on the USA and those they hate? Is there any doubt that they will see more civilian homicide as the path to yet more success?

It doesn't matter, then, whether Kerry would be a better war-leader than Bush: his election will cause renewed attacks on the US, and increased murder of civilians.

Surely this should figure in your calculation as you decide who you're going to vote for.

I'll give you a clue. The real terrorists don't give a fuck who you actually vote for. That you
make your vote by guessing "what they wouldn't want" is already victory enough.

A political party so rotten with corruption that its only tactic is to try and scare the US population into an irrational decision has already given in to terrorism.

Even if it wasn't a gross exageration, would it be appropriate for the President to say he was wrong?

the Alternate Reality campaign marches on.

Read about what went on in Germany and Japan right after WW2. [snip] The Iraq war may look like a clusterfuck but in reality it's actually been quite nice and tidy compared to anything previous.

Andrew are you advocating to bomb Iraq like German in WW2?
Millions of Germans at fighting age were dead or wounded. There was no food,
no heating, many destroyed houses. There is no place for credible resistence in this conditions.
Adding that if it wasnt USA it will be the Russians . So Germans had every reason to be cooperative.
Even then your source Andrew? I read somewhere that the vertical pole in front of the US JEEPs was because german resistence used to put lines at neck height across roads...

About Vietnam: Communists had external support from USSR and China. If US commanders in field learn to fight and the chain of command is working there is no way terrorists(dont call them resistence they are killing mostly Iraquis) can succeed.

May be good for the discussion:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55919-2004Oct22?language=printer

Claims that the ongoing war in Iraq is mainly a matter of fighting Islamists who are motivated by some abnormal fanatical creed are delusional.

Sure, there are some people like that in the resistance. There are also various other goons and criminals. Totalitarians on the make.

But all of them are piggybacking on a much simpler phenomenon: Iraqi patriotism.

Most of those who support the resistance or at least will not turn them in to the so-called Iraqi government are people who just want the foreigners to leave.

They will fight for that goal for roughly as long as Americans would in the same circumstances.

The more you kill, the more determined they will get, and the more they will regard the so-called Iraqi government as a bunch of Vichy-style collaborators. (Actually Vichy had more support.)

I wonder why I have never seen any American commentator admit this simple truth.

If you want to beat Islamist terrorism, this ain't the way to do it.

A question for Dan and other Kerry supporters:

Suppose (as seems likely) that the first major crisis of a Kerry administration is an attack on US forces in Iraq reminiscent of the attack on Marine barracks in Beirut under Reagan which killed hundreds and sparked a rapid US withdrawal from Lebanon.

What do you honestly WANT President Kerry to do? Pull-out, or redouble efforts there? Finally, what do you predict he WILL do?

Reply with your answers here, and in 6 months, we'll have an archived record of what American voters thought they were getting and what they actually got. Or, write your answers on a sheet of paper and file it away.

We'll see who was wrong, and who has the balls to admit it in public.

Bush recognizes we are at war, and carries the fight to the enemy. He gets it right at times (Afghanistan, OIF ground war) and he gets it wrong at times (reconstruction, Fallujah).
Kerry doesn't recognize we are at war, his strongest support comes from people who believe we deserved to be attacked, and he is on the record over and over again as wrong on matters of defense.
Your desire to punish Bush for failures that every nation has suffered in making the switch between the ground offense and nation-building phases of war is irresponsible at best.
Trajic for all of us at worst.
I'm voting for someone I know at least understands the groung truth. We are at war with a group with potential numbers in the billions, that wants nothing less than the destruction of our nation, and that views attempts at diplomacy as driven entirely by weakness.

I don't see how trying a flexible plan is such a mistake.

Bush meets privately in Midland with Arthur Blessit, a traveling evangelist famous for walking long distances while carrying a wooden cross. According to Jim Sale, a Midland friend who was there at the meeting, Bush undergoes a religious conversion, accepting Jesus as his personal savior.
http://www.blessitt.com/
http://www.blessitt.com/bush.html

I guess it's more mainstream to say Billy G did the "conversion" instead of Blessitt.

I understand the desire not to vote for Bush, but you do seem to gloss over the Kerry negatives -- even on trade, a key issue for you. Why not do what a lot of us will be doing and vote libertarian...?

Lucklucky, your fight is with someone who suggests post-war Germany was as dangerous, chaotic, and close to victory for anti-Americanism as during-war Iraq. Whether the difference we both acknowledge is because we had bombed the crap out of Germany, or because postwar Germany was reconstructed while the Democratic Party was in control, or a combination of a million other explanations, is irrelevant in showing the bogusness of the claim that we're doing as well in Iraq as we did in Germany.

You do bring up another good point, albeit tangentially. There wasn't any doubt that we defeated, conquered, and occupied Germany and Japan, which enabled us to impose new governments of our liking and dictates like demilitarization. We are (laugh now) liberating Iraq, not occupying it; we have made a pretextual transfer of nominal sovereigty. How can a liberation like this be compared to Germany? Shouldn't it be compared to postwar France or Denmark? The entire subject is revealing of the duplicitous insistence on Liberation Vocabulary (cue Zell Miller here).

God help us.

It speaks well for Kerry that the critics are mostly forced to attack him with falsehoods. Most of what I read here is warmed over bile from Limbaugh, Rove, et al. If they had some serious and true criticisms of Kerry they would have been aired by now.

Sen. McCain, John Eisenhower and many others of the right have spoken for Kerry's honor and credibility. That is not an issue. It is only Karl Rove's lies that are being spread that are the source for the attacks on Kerry.

Kerry will do fine as president. Bush clearly has not done fine. By many objective measures, the country is worse off than when he came to office. Bush will go down in history as one of the worst presidents we have every been stuck with.

Bush simply played into the hands of the terrorists. Bush magnified the terror of 9/11. Instead of calming the nation while building up our security we've had a steady stream of propaganda about how the terrorists are hiding behind every tree. Bush's presidency has been one of fear rather than one of courage. Instead of degrading the Bill of Rights he should have called attention to it. Instead of constant terror alerts he could have publicly read the Bill of Rights to fortify what we believe in as Americans.

Bush et al are a small cadre of 'true believers' who have maintained power by secrecy, intimidation and manipulation of information. They used Chalabi as an Iranian source. The office of special plans stovepiped his reports. Information of from the intelligence services was stripped of any nuances or cautions. When Bush says Kerry and the other senators saw the same information as he did that was a lie. The reports given to the senate were a worst case assessment stripped of any caveats or contradictory opinions. This is the most un-American president we have seen to date.

Iraq is a very hard case. It may not be winnable regardless of who becomes president. Allawi is clearly a puppet of the Bush administration. The Bush administration is building 14 permanent military bases and an enormous embassy. They are not planning to leave Iraq. They intend to setup permanent camp there. This will never be tolerated by the Iraqis. Iraq, in its current form, was never a free nation. It has always been a pressure cooker with the lid held in place by a strong government of one sort or another. Removing the lid will more likely result in civil war, and maybe regional war, than democracy.

I hope a Kerry victory will inspire the Republicans to clean house and find their soul again. I long for the chance to be an undecided voter because the two candidates both are good men with the ability to lead and with good ideas for preserving our environment, providing us with security and investing in America so we can look forward to a better future.

You are not, and never have been a military tactician. Civil Affairs, in military parlance, is the branch responsible for this failure.

JFK would abdicate the war in the first place, "policing" the regimes possesing/developing WMD's, allying, and coordinating with terrorists like Al Qaeda. Today, if one assumes the worste of your/Andrew Sullivan's analyses regarding Iraq, it is a flytrap for excrement associated with Islamist radicals/violent activists. That is a better place for that trap than NYC/LA.

End of discussion. I don't care what my gut says, or yours. Your analysis is not overly complicated, and nor is Kerry's, it is flawed.

Good to see that accountability still exists for some Republicans. I voted Libertarian in 2000, because I couldn't stand Gore but thought Bush wasn't sufficiently serious to hold the job. I admired the way the President seemed to rise to the occasion starting around 9/14/01, but he seemed to lose his way and then blame nobody but fate for the way things turned out. I still have doubts about Kerry, but I have no doubts that he will be better than Bush.

I'm feeling a lot of hate in this room. Perhaps we'll all hold hands and get along and call each other proud Americans the morning of November 3rd.

I see that the "Anyone But Bush" crowd is in rare form.

Dan, you decry having to take Bush "on faith," but then make the illogical leap to support Kerry. Aren't you taking "on faith" a man who has nothing to recommend him apart from some sort of nebulous, superior intelligence (you claim) that will allow him to do a better job of [everything] when you support Kerry? I've almost everything and every comment on your site since several months ago when I found you via MarginalRevolution, but the Democrat's kool-aid must've addled your brain.

Nothing you offer as justification for a Kerry vote goes much beyond, "He can't fuck it up worse than Bush." Uh, sorry, but in Kerry's own attempt at colloquial-usage: "That dog won't hunt." Kerry has a well-documented political history of doing exactly the opposite of what is good for our troops and supporting tax hikes on everybody. His tacit and verbalized philosophy is dangerous to not only this country, but democracy everywhere.

Have a nice vote.

In 2000, I made my decision based on one thing. Both candidates were shmucks.
But, Gore had at least been there with Clinton through what we call foreign policy, diplomacy, and foreign relations... all those foreign things that Texas folks call international business.
Unfortunately Bush proved what I was afraid of.
Kerry has been in DC for 20 years.
Bush has been through a traumatic four years for a dui-getting, coke-using rich kid who has the propensity for failure. His actions were no more than reactions to what was happening, and those reactions were bad ones, misdirected and single minded. The single minded get agitated and defensive if questioned just like a child who is the leader of the club house.
He had his chance to prove himself otherwise and has no glorifying record to speak of - except the one the spinners and he himself care to churn out to those who have not been tracking his political career closely over the past four years.
We need a change.
No president will be able to sit by while the country erodes. Not Kerry - Not Bush.
Either way we will survive. But who will lead us to thrive.
You can not criticize Kerry for not being able to do it unless you have a crystal ball. Kerry's record is that of a senator, not a president. Just look at which man is the smarter of the two. The more intelligent one will make the best decisions under fire.
If OUR strong president can't even keep his cool during a debate (the first one), God help us in a real world confrontation where he may have to deal with other rulers.
The rest of the world saw him react to direct questions about his record. It was embarassing.

"You are right than many prefer Chamberlain to Churchill when the moment arrives. "

Yes, the world is constantly on the brink of 1939.

After all, the situation is always like WW2, and the analogy is always appropriate. It could never be horribly abused and overused, because, well, its just not possible. There is no real-world problem that can't be solved by treating it as if it were WW2.

Dear Dan -- please consider the idea that you are an intellectual coward.
"the civilian DoD leadershop that insisted over the past two years that not a lot of troops were needed in the Iraqi theater of operations."

You claim this is a mistake. Afghanistan HAD an election; after less than 3 years.

Parts look better than Kosovo, after 5 years of NATO and UN dependency (including some recent ethnic cleansing and murders).

Iraq, under Kerry or Bush, will have elections in January, AND will have some 140 000 Iraqi Police willing to fight, kill, die -- and even kill innocent Iraqis -- for freedom. To support a gov't of Iraqis, by Iraqis, for Iraqis.

Your whole analysis is all about the US, and Rumsfeld & Bush and their imperfections (from hindsight, how terrible they were!). You claim they failed in Iraq because it's not a full Western Democracy the day after Saddam's statue falls, and there were more than 0 casualities.

OK, you didn't require Unreal Perfection ... what WAS your grading standard? 1 month? 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? (based on what?) It hasn't even been 2 years -- but where is your standard? How many did you expect would die?

Try giving your students a complicated test of 100 questions ... and NOT tell them how long they have to complete, nor what the grade will be based on.

Less than 1250 American soldiers have died -- less than half the 2500 civilians lost in WTC. Big Bush success -- should be about 95; an A. at 2500, 90, bottom A; 5000 a B; 10 000 a C.

Don't like these numbers, what are yours?

How is Iran going to treat any "ultamatum" from a Pres. Kerry?

Errant Academic -
you said:
>You seem to be saying that because the opinions of the Islamists should not matter in the election, they don't matter. This I don't understand. Is there doubt in any reasonable person's mind that Kerry's defeat of Bush will be seen as a great victory for the Islamists' cause?

No, in every aspect the Islamofascists opinions do not matter. They hate us, and that's all we need to know in that we must fight them. And I don't have the foggiest clue how a Kerry win will be either a defeat or a victory for the Islamofascists. They'll still hate us just the same. See Alan's comment just below you for some more response to your bullshit.

Kelli makes a comment to Dr. Drezner and other Kerry supporters (and I'm one).
>Suppose (as seems likely) that the first major crisis of a Kerry administration is an attack on US forces in Iraq reminiscent of the attack on Marine barracks in Beirut under Reagan which killed hundreds and sparked a rapid US withdrawal from Lebanon.

As both Bush and Kerry are under pressure to restore Iraqi sovereignty and bring our troops home ASAP, what point in the Bush versus Kerry argument are you trying to to prove with your hypothetical situation?

Regardless, redoubling our troops there would further the parallels to Vietnam. So the question is, can we learn from that mistake, get out of Iraq, and get back to the WoT?

You claim this is a mistake. Afghanistan HAD an election; after less than 3 years.

Okay, but he was talking about Iraq.

will have some 140 000 Iraqi Police willing to fight, kill, die -- and even kill innocent Iraqis -- for freedom. To support a gov't of Iraqis, by Iraqis, for Iraqis.

Which Iraqis would those be? The Shia, The Sunnis, The Kurds? It's a wonderful notion to believe in, but if its only one faction thats handling the police/governmental duties, is it so hard to imagine that the real fight over control won't happen until we are gone? Shades of ARVN?

Iraq has been the Middle East equivalent of Yugoslavia since the British left behind a cobbled together state, ruled continuously since then by strongmen and dictators. We aren't policing a Kosovo or a Bosnia here folks, what we have is Yugoslavia circa 1992, and we all know how that went. The only reason that we haven't seen a full on power play by the Shia or the Kurds in Kirkuk is that our own forces still float about like a wildcard/punching bag for various jihadist and nationalist elements to take potshots at. We can train all the frigging police we want, but at the end of the day, if even they are more likely to choose their clan over their government, then we have a longer term problem than we want to believe.

How is Iran going to treat any "ultamatum" from a Pres. Kerry?

Exactly in the same manner that they are currently greeting ultimatums from Bush; with a hearty "piss off". They know very well that we are logistically tied down in Iraq. With the power base numbers of the Shia favoring them in Iraq, they probably win either way at this point.

By the way, in regards to Iran, you might want to do some research on one of the President's leading advisors in the run up to Iraq, a certain Ahmed Chalabi.

Kerry would have to go way out of his way to undercut the security of this nation in the same way the current occupant has.

For Democrat Dan and Alan:

What can I say in response to two exquisitely argued posts, one by Alan, which I will sum up as a claim that I belong to a party "so rotten with corruption that its only tactic is to try and scare" and one by Democrat Dan, which is the most telling of all: I speak "bullshit."

I don't know what to say to such insightful, reasoned arguments. Please have mercy on me, Democrat Dan and Alan! I'm not sure I can take critiques as devastating as these.

I think I can now claim my point made. When in return to a politely disageeing posting I receive in return messages like these, I think you can reasonably claim that your opponents have no argument to use against you at all.

Isn't it interesting how quickly liberals turn to abuse? I see it all the time in my day job, for I have the same occupation as Mr Drezner. But hell, when you're on the moral highground, you have an obligation to abuse those who dare disagree with you...

It is good to see that not all Republican's have been blinded by the lies and ranting of this administration. I am a confirmed Democrat who had lost faith in the ability of any member of the GOP to think rationally. You re-affirm my faith in this country and give me some small hope that we will come out of the debacle we have been driven to by the mullahs, I mean religious fanatics, in your party.

"I'm voting for Kerry ... and this will be my last post"?

Come back, Dan! The Grown-Up Republicans need you!

[Heart,]

Quasi-Grown-Up Democrat

You live in Illinois, a blue state. So, all your gut-wrenching doesn't even matter. Regardless of how you vote, Kerry will win the state.

Take an Alka-Seltzer and quit your bellyachin'

Errant wrote, It doesn't matter, then, whether Kerry would be a better war-leader than Bush: his election will cause renewed attacks on the US, and increased murder of civilians.

Surely this should figure in your calculation as you decide who you're going to vote for.

You assume on no evidence that electing Kerry would result in an increased number of terrorist attacks on the USA. This is a prediction that cannot be tested, since to test it we would have to do the experiment both ways.

What I find interesting is the thought, suppose we had some evidence?

What if the terrorists made a video, where maybe they beheaded somebody and chanted some, and then they announced that we had to elect candidate X and not candidate Y or else they'd do more terrorist attacks on the USA....

Would your response be to tell everybody you could find that they'd better vote for candidate X?

I don't think so. I sure hope not.

And yet that's just what you're doing.

I've already said what I have to say about the election on other threads here, so I'll forebear. I just wanted to point out something odd about Dan's assurance that a President Kerry

"...is more likely to recognize during the decision-making process that his instincts might be wrong -- and therefore change tacks before making a catastrophic mistake."

I don't mean the issue of whether Kerry's decisionmaking process on foreign policy is likely to be any better than the disordered, incoherent process of the last two Democratic Presidents. No one seems to care about that anyway, as long as it is different from the way Bush does things now. I meant rather this business of Kerry changing tacks.

"Tack" refers literally to the position of a sailing ship relative to its sails. It can only have one at a time; it can't be in two places at once. A sailor in so much doubt of this that he felt compelled to change more than one tack at a time would be headed for shipwreck, or possibly a nervous breakdown. Now sailors and politicians are in very different lines of work, but it strikes me that doubt over one's true position is as highly undesirable in one line of work as in the other.

I wonder if this thought has ever occurred to John Kerry.

You have based you whole decision on Kerry based on Iraq. There are many fronts in this war. We have seen a change in many other countries including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan.

The "peace process" which called for negotiating with the likes of Arafat was a complete failure. Recall that there was disagreement before we attacked Iraq. Some suggested that we needed to solve the situation with the Palestinians before we could deal with Iraq. Others thought that Iraq was part of the Palestinian problem. The removal of Saddam and giving the green light to Israel to strike the terrorist leadership has finally reduced the terrorist attacks in Israel.

We cannot say what John Kerry's position would have been, but his affinity to support the U.N. and his concerns for the likes of France and Germany...I assume that his decision making process would have led to continued bloodshed of innocent Israelis.

Saudi Arabia has begun to fight the terrorist instead of fueling them. There is still a lot of work to be done there, but for the first time there is progress.

Pakistan has shifted it's focus from quarreling with India to fighting the Islamic militants. When Clinton left office, Pakistan was a huge worry. It was a Muslim country with nukes. The India/Pakistan friction was on the rise. Now we hear of Pakistani troops rounding up remnants of the Taliban.

I do not consider attacks on our military to be terrorist attacks. That said...we have not had an embassy blown up or attacks in this country since 9/11. This is a much better record than any three year period under Clinton. Here is a list of terrorist attacks. http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/terrorism/101/timeline.html You will notice they end on 9/11.

These are all good results in the war on terror. There are others. When I look at the total war on terror, I give Bush a pass.

Errant Academic,
Yes, I do find your argument that speculation over who the islamofascists in Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations want to win the election should in any way effect our decision of who to vote for to be completely "bullshit". I think this is completely and utterly obvious, and I've stated as much in my previous two replies to your posts, the first of which I thought was very respectful to you, and yes, in the second of my posts I was losing much patience with you.

Here's why- you said
>It doesn't matter, then, whether Kerry would be a better war-leader than Bush: his election will cause renewed attacks on the US, and increased murder of civilians. Surely this should figure in your calculation as you decide who you're going to vote for.

Surely? How? I disagree with this claim completely, and I do not understand how you can come to this conclusion.

Now, please, stop playing the victim, and explain these points of yours that you claim to be so sure of. Maybe then we can see what point it is you were trying to make that you think is won.

G said: "It is good to see that not all Republican's have been blinded by the lies and ranting of this administration."

Using verbiage I first encountered during a two year patronage of the Free Republic four or five years ago: anybody who would ever harbor an idea of voting for John Forbes Kerry is a RINO. They might be conservative, but they aren't Republican. sKerry is an anathema to any American with a Republican ethos.

J Thomas - perhaps a better, less heated, response to Errant than I had. Thanks.

Errant - a follow up:
the basis for my offense at your comments are your assumptions that you 1) know what the terrorists will consider victory or if they care who wins with regards to our elections; 2) that we "surely" will have the same criteria for choosing who to vote for as you; and 3) that based upon the terrorists opinions and this criteria of yours that we will certainly come to the same conclusion as you on which candidate to vote for.

Oh, and if you think that political abuse comes only from liberals to conservatives and not the other way around, you're mistaken. It goes both ways.

American Conservative Magazine also (very grudgingly) endorses Kerry in its upcoming issue:

http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html

"sKerry is an anathema to any American with a Republican ethos."

What's the "Republican ethos"? Based on the last few years, it seems to be using entrapment to conflate an extramarital affair into an impeachment-worthy offense; using federal agents to hunt down state legislators; mismanaging the federal budget, turning a short and shallow recession into a long, drawn-out stagnation of job growth and wages; locking Democratic members of Congress out of committee meetings and legislative votes; ignoring threats to US national security; mismanaging a war; advocating torture and hiding POWs from the Red Cross; suspending habeus corpus; ignoring the Geneva Convention; and leaving 350 tons of high explosives unguarded so it can be stolen and used to blow up soldiers and civilians.

That's quite an ethos.

Or maybe skh was being satiric?

Andrew the same reasons that made Germans unable to resist were the same reasons that only made possible to make elections in 1949 - 4 years after the occupation begining. At this time the "puppet" Adenauer was probably being removed of Koln mayor position by the British after he was put there by the Americans. Adding that it was an western country without a religious and ethnic devides and many americans were of German origin. Yes the security in Iraq is a problem but it isnt right now the only gauge to check the success or not: What strategic achivements the terrorists have achieved?
For example Italy survived to more than 10 years of terrorism and Mafia that killed thousands. That didnt stopped the economy or the increase in well being. We make our judgements based in a bomb that pops up here and there, but Baghdad is a city with 5 millions of persons.
Saying that a bomb represents the failure is like saying that this webcam in Baghdad means that all is rosy and perfect.http://www.foxnews.com/video2/bagCam.html

I hope you are only going to vote once. LOSER

Critical thinking needs to be applied in many circumstances. The process has been intriguing, the conclusion is applauded.

Being a hard vote to win (even with reservations) is, in some ways, what it is all about. Everywhere.

Let's hope Kerry is up to it.

Democrat Dan,
Your answer to my questions calls to mind Kerry's answers in the debates: skirt the central issue and run like hell in a direction you are more comfortable in. But, hey, I give you points for trying.

It's pretty clear that you believe personally that should the scenario I outline--a Beirut-style massacre of US forces in Iraq--come to pass early in Kerry's administration, we should (however quickly and ignominiously) flee the scene. No points for courage, there, but a few for honesty.

You infer that Bush is likely to do much the same anyway (on the basis of what? a wafer-thin Novak column from September?) so what's the dif? Timing and perception. No small things, I'd add. Everything, really.

For one thing, in the unlikely event that a reelected President Bush encounters such an attack, his ONLY response could be massive military response. Kerry gets to choose, stand or flee. To do the former would be to enrage supporters like you, which would render his entire four years a wilderness expedition unlike any taken by a recent president. Why would he do that, just for the sake of doing what is best for the long-term interests of the country and the world?

I'm with Errant Academic here--Kerry supporters need to accept that a vote for their guy almost guarantees a vicious "testing" period of bloodshed. Bush, with his lack of nuance and clear record is unlikely to draw such fire upon us, at least not in the early days of his new term.

I personally don't want to find out what deeper stuff John Kerry is made up, certainly not like that.

More "reality-based" Kerry:

http://www.redstate.org/story/2004/10/25/14723/354

I bet Kerry actually believes he met with the security council at this point. Repeat the lie enough times. . .

Kelli,
My apologies, I missed the point being if it happens "early on" for your beruit-like hypothetical. No, I most certainly wouldn't want Kerry (or Bush for that matter) to rush out of Iraq merely in response to such an attack, and further, I'm sad to say that I think the pressure from republicans in the event of such an attack would make it difficult to maintain any schedule for pulling out that he might have, thereby drawing out our occupation further. That would be sad, but I concede that that's probably how it would play out. Even more sad, that this has became a part of the war on terror because, we made it so. So yes we have to stick it out a while longer, but we've got to cut our losses at some point, and change to a strategy that the American people are behind.

As for your support of Errant:
>I'm with Errant Academic here--Kerry supporters need to accept that a vote for their guy almost guarantees a vicious "testing" period of bloodshed.

Well, call me stubborn, but given the long term and systematic planning that we've seen thus far with Al Qaeda, if there is any "testing" period of bloodshed it is probably being arranged now, without knowing who will be the victor of the election. In other words, people such as yourself will be interpreting the attacks as reaction to a decision that wasn't reached yet at the time of attack planning. It can't be done, as it is pure unsubstatiated speculation.

Dan:

Congratulations on your choice! Like you,
I will be voting for the stupider candidate.
I don't think Intellectual ability means
as much as the ability to work well with others.

So, to hell with the fact that Pres. Bush
is brighter than Sen. Kerry. I'm voting
the guy that the members of UNSC want to
win.

Cheers!

Does Kerry in fact have a decision making process? Has he shown the ability to reach a decision and stick with it? (adjust to events on the ground and maintaining the same overal policy is markedly differnt than turning your policy 180 degrees).

While there is no doubt that some number of additional troops would have been useful, its not clear a) where they would come from (we seem hard pressed to even manage a troop rotation now) and b) its not clear that a large number of additional american troops would bring more stability vs more targets

And many of the decisions (or lack of) are in hindsight easy but at the time difficult. For instance, the dissolution of the Iraqi army. Would the Shia south and Kurds in the north accepted the same Army to enforce a peace that Saddam used to oppress them? As yesterdays troop ambush showed, there are still elements within the ING against us; one can only imagine how many more there would have been had we left the original army inplace.

To my thinking, the three large errors we made were a)not preventing looting initially, b)not getting local elections going faster, c) not leveling Faluja last fall.

You're delisted. Goodbye.

ah, so it boils down to the old "can't admit he made a mistake" line. alas, "John Kerry is more likely to recognize during the decision-making process that his instincts might be wrong -- and therefore change tacks before making a catastrophic mistake."

isn't JK also more likely to recognize changes in the political landscape (i.e., "the wind"), and to blow hither and thither and make any sort of victory impossible? isn't it distinctly possible that he's entirely TOO easily swayed off course?

the bush critics fundamentally driving the "pull out your eyes, apologize!!" chorus are the ones who opposed the whole iraq endeavor from the git-go. they're out to portray the whole effort and all the reasoning behind it as a "mistake". which is why I find it terribly disheartening to hear people who two years ago thoughtfully advocated putting saddam's feet to the fire now joining the "mistake" chorus.

the greatest geopolitical weakness of the US is its political process. wouldn't you agree that's our achilles heel? a modicum of national self-doubt becomes opportunistically inflated into the full-throated roar of loyal opposition. it's how our system works (indeed, how it was designed to work). but what a juicy target for those who wish to throw us off course! john kerry looks to me like the poster boy for this great national weakness of ours. I'm not saying he represents their interests, but there's good reason everyone out there in the world who wants to see america weaker also wants kerry to win this election.

greg at belgravia dispatch does a pretty good job pointing out instances where the bush administration HAS changed course. I will readily grant that many of those course-shifts have been far more subtle than they ought to be, and many that need to be haven't. of course, it should be easy to see how that political system of ours binds his hands, and also how that pressure WILL ease post-election in a second bush term. but as I read BD's list of instances where the bush team has changed course in iraq, I can't help thinking...thank GOD he hasn't changed course on THE decision (implementation of the bush doctrine, writ large) the defeatist mistake-niks want to take him down with. I just don't know how you, or anyone, can trust kerry not to waver on that question. if he DOES waver, then we're right back EXACTLY where we were on 9/10.

Well, I can say that I am saddened that you will vote for Kerry, but I do respect your decision, and will still stop by the blog. But I do still have some questions:

1. How can you reconcile Kerry's protectionist fear-mongering on outsourcing with your own enlightened knowledge of how the phenomenon really works?

2. How can mishandling the war in Iraq lead you to vote for Kerry? Granted, Bush folk has flubbed up the war in Iraq. However, don't you believe that with NATO training Iraqis, and the UN stating that elections will be held on time, it makes sense to (forgive me for this) "stay the course"?

3. What aspects of the Kerry approach towards winning the war on terror are compelling (or even comprehensible) enough to merit a vote?

In the end, it boils down to security for me. Kerry has failed over and over to convince me that he has what it takes to defend America. Bush isn't much better, but I'll give him another four years.

Claudio
a fan
www.therightwingconspiracy.org

I don't mean to be looking too far ahead, but I'd really like to see some recognition after the election is over of how dispiriting, even degrading a spectacle this campaign has been, how much it resembles the campaign four years ago in that respect, and what this suggests about the changes required in how politics is conducted in this country.

Yes Dan, because you are not voting the same way I am, I will no longer read you. I am not interested in anything that doesn't entirely agree with me. I am a childish fool who cannot bear criticism nor the questioning of my values or ideas.

Why can't you just do what I want all the time? Is that really too much to ask?

again.
I see the complaints and agree with many of them regarding Bush. But, again, the assumptions given to Kerry are based wholly on hope, and a person must deny reality to make them.
When has Kerry shown he will admit a mistake? When?
His record shows that he would be just as unlikely as Bush to admit a mistake. He runs his campaign, and refuses to change strategy, until absolutely forced to. Then he only makes minor changes, long enough, to return to his original strategy.
He has never admitted his vote on Gulf War 1 was a mistake? his Vietnam activities were a mistake? That he was wrong about his ribbons/medals.
What in kerry's history would show he would admit a mistake? Nothing at all, sorry, but that is his record.

Zathras,

You make an excellent point about the campaign and it's reflection of the country. I'm wondering how much of this is the politics of the campaign ("how politics is conducted in this country") and how much it reflects the end of the Cold War?

Now, I'm fairly young, so bear with me as I can only personally remember 8 presidencies. From what I can tell, the campaigns have always been politically ugly (remember old Ironsides, Andrew Jackson, and guy named Adams?) full of lies, damn lies, and more recently statistics. But the presidential campaigns I remember in the late 70s and early 80s were all "rally around the flag, capitalism, and anti-Commies!". Then came the Bush/Dukakis bruha, where we kinda ignore the Soviets. In 1992 election we came back to it a bit since the Russian Gov. had fallen. But by 1996, you'd think we'd never had a Cold War.

But now...well the great threat if fairly complex (see all the differing histories of the last 4 year on this comment section alone). So complex that a dominant meme about it and our role in in hasn't appeared. Sure, we won the Cold war but we immediatley launched into a new culture war. The binding american idenity of the last 50 years is kaput.

So what binds a country together when communism is gone? Terrorism, for a while, did that. But the biggest, baddest country in the world is more then capable of taking a couple knocks from Terrorists. And although we continue to fumble the ball when it comes to nation-building and long-term anti-terror strategies, we're doing ok short term, such that the home office in Sioux City Iowa isn't Falluja. Is it globalization? Well, we have a very high standard of living and the largest consumer economy in the world so unless you're being downsized or drive an SUV you're feeling not so great economically, but nothing like say poor Sudan. Or is it just the idea that it is the US against the world?

I think that's what's making this a drag-knuckle, scum sucking, politics of hate election. You see now if the opporuntity to redine the American identity in a globalized society were we are the hyperpower. In other words, right now we have nothing to fear but ourselves. Who ever wins this culture war in the US is going to end up setting the stage for this era of American history.

And when you're the biggest, baddest dude on the block your indentity plays a huge role in shapping the rest of your world. After all, we still talk about the Han and the Romans a millenia later. Heck we identify with them!

So another way to think of it is this - whose American do you want to live in - George Bush's or John Kerry's? Look at the American identity they are both claiming to represent. Look at the principles of that identity and compare the reusults of those principles. That's what this is about.

c.

First, Dan, your board wouldn't let me post twice due to "Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content" I tried substituting S-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-t for european and it wouldn't let me. Whoa - are we being censored by neoconvervative economists?

ok, back to regular programming

*polemic warning*

taking up the thread of my comments to Zathras, here's my polemic on American Idenity in this election:

As for me, well, I'm glad Dan is seeing the light. I think George Bush's America is an uglier, frankly more Soviet place then John Kerry's. Sure Kerry is suggesting some economic policies that look european, but frankly are Pro-US(everyone else protects domestic business and consumers during a downturn, why not us?). George seems to think that no taxes while spending is feasible; as a person with credit cards, I wish it was. And yah, Kerry's going to be less evil overlordish on the allies, so they can help pay for things, and that has some people who read only The Prince and not the Discourses worried. I'm not. We've got the biggest stick, so we can go back to that uber-Republican T. Roosevelt and speak more softly. What I don't see is John Kerry turning the FBI, CIA, and local law enforcement into branch of the KGB or opening star chambers in the US Virgin Islands. Bush has already started us down that path where I'm supposed to look suspicously at my neightbors everyday, spy on my friends, and consider free speech a threat to national security. Oh, and I'm not to complain when Miranda goes bye-bye and American citizens are deported to monarchies and facists regimes to be tortured and imprisoned. Sorry, but the folks back home gave that up when the Germans invaded France and I thought we in America gave it up in 1776. My forefathers (literally) fought a world war, and gave blood for throughout the Cold War to destroy regimes that promote those princples and policies. That America -- Truman, Eisenhower's, Kennedy's, and Ronald Regan's America -- gave blood, sweat and tears. And the man who has been our first citizen for four years is throwing away their vicotry and undermining those principles at this moment.

c.

I have said it before and will say it again now...we will look back on the "Bush-screwed-up-the-post-war-in-Iraq" crowd with scorn before the end of this decade.

In time they will be viewed as the reactionary, lemming-like, crowd that they are. Picture a functioning representative government in Iraq within the next 5 to 7 years (probably within 5) and then imagine how absurd the current talk will seem about how the US could have reached that goal more easily than it will have by then if it had only "planned" the post-war better. When placed within its proper, and non-histrionic, historical context the shallowness of such arguments - like those offered by Mr. Drezner - will be clearly revealed.

It is sadly pathetic that this nation has to suffer from the damage done by these pseudo-intellectuals and there utter inability to fairly analyze, or even comprehend, the long range picture.

The 'dogmatism' of Bush vs. Kerry's 'realistic' approach may be the most absurd meme ever to decide an election. This line of reasoning even convinced Dan Drezner to go for Kerry.

Kerry's dogmatism lies in his faith in international institutions, and it is every bit as absurd as the variety exhibited by Bush. His foreign policy proposals are not realistic at all, they are belief in the power of Democrat pixie dust not only to involve other countries, but to make their contributions significant enough to be noticeable after they, mesmerized by Kerry's charm, violate the wills of 98% of their respective populations.

He is no less an ideologue than Bush domestically:

Reimportation of drugs from Canada to reduce costs here - pixie dust.

Government insurance to 'fix' healthcare in the US - pixie dust.

Protecting us by inspecting every single container that crosses into our country - very expensive pixie dust.

I am very concerned that we may be starting down a dangerous path of association:

First we had the notion that regulation of economic affairs is 'progressive', so that if one favored progress, one must surely favor regulation.

The new version appears to be that liberalism is 'realistic', while conservatism is 'dogmatic' or 'evangelical'. I would expect Brad deLong and Matt Yglesias to make this sort of argument. The rest of us should know better.

I thought that kind of mushy thinking was beneath you. Guess I was wrong. Oh, well, my blog list just got shorter.

Dr. Drezner:

A little while ago, Kerry came up with yet another one of his many "nuanced" responses on the issue of Iraq, saying something along the lines of "I would have done just about EVERYTHING differently." This apparently prompted Bob Woodward, no raving fan of Bush to say the least, to try to get Kerry to be more specific. According to this past Sunday's Woodward article, however:

"In August, I was talking with Kerry's scheduler about possible dates. On Sept. 1, Kerry began his intense criticism of Bush's decisions in the Iraq war, saying "I would've done almost everything differently." A few days later, I provided the Kerry campaign with a list of 22 possible questions based entirely on Bush's actions leading up to the war and how Kerry might have responded in the same situations. The senator and his campaign have since decided not to do the interview, though his advisers say Kerry would have strong and compelling answers."

You can read the rest of the article here (free registration required):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55919-2004Oct22?language=printer

Your decision to vote for Kerry, the way I see it, is basically one in favor of the "devil" you DON'T know. Very puzzling, I must say.

" .. a Kerry administration is likely to recognize, once the multilateral diplomacy fails, that it will actually have to come up with a viable alternative."

Don't worry Dan, it won't fail. Kerry will sacrifice Israel to win points for Iraq. According to Holbrooke: "He [Kerry] has said already he would start intense talks with the allies . . . and he would reach out to the moderate Arab states. He'd put more pressure on Israel, Syria, Saudi Arabia above all."

Our European and ME "alies" want to crush Israel more than Iraq. An unstable Iraq is not in their interests, and they want Sharon's head on the wall more than anything else.

Want to know who to vote for? Then try understanding 9/11. That's where we begin. Do you understand the motivation for those attacks?

Was it because everyone hates Americans? No, relax. This wasn't "everyone" it was a miniscule group of underfunded extremists. So why would OBL lead his group to make such an attack? Here's what OBL could be sure of:

1) post 9/11 he would be hunted and likely killed
2) post 9/11 security would make it far more difficult to successfully attack the US homeland again
3) sentiment in the middle east could actually be swayed to be PRO American out of sympathy
4) neither the American economy nor the American will would be seriously impacted by the attacks

So this guy, an intelligent strategic thinker, plans for 2+ years for an attack that would accomplish exactly what? He did it because there was a chance he could provoke the US to use a sledgehammer to kill a fly. The bigger the retaliation, the more likely that innocents in the middle east would be killed - giving OBL millions of anti-American crusaders.

9/11 was clearly designed for this purpose. It was the most audacious attack one could conceive. Imagine the defeat OBL must have felt when Colin Powell calmly outlined the plan for an international coalition to remove the Taliban. That's it? No nukes? No jailing of Muslims stateside? No human rights atrocities? Damned Americans didn't take the bait.

Enter George W. Bush: the man who spotted a tasty piece of bait and started drooling. With a 90% approval rating, buzzing with popularity, he figured he could slip in a "regime change" and the American public wouldn't even blink. And they didn't. They were bruised and beat up emotionally by 9/11. They were scared and they turned to their president to protect them.

So bombs dropped. Troops were deployed. The optics from OBL’s cave couldn’t have been better. Superpower USA crushes oil-rich Muslim country that was never even a threat. No respect for the country, culture, or way of life being destroyed. Anyone who fights back is “an insurgent”. Wouldn’t you fight back? Civilian casualties soar. America gets control of massive oil reserves. No way OBL could have predicted this exactly, but it gives him what he wanted. The US war on Iraq successfully completes the objectives of the 9/11 attacks. America is attacking the middle east without any good reason. Mission accomplished!

Bush gave OBL the retaliation he was hoping for. Now it’s your turn to remove George Bush.

I've been scrolling these comments to see how many times the missing 380 tons of weapons (really, really dangerous weapons, in fact) gets mentioned. Twice, if my count is correct. So I assume that this will just reinforce Dan's view (I think correctly) that the Bush crew are not only dangerously inept--they are criminally inept, with the possibility that any terrorist attack on the US soil, and every attack on US troops in Iraq, will now likely involve weapons looted from known sites in Iraq because these bozos couldn't be bothered to take anyone else's advice. And, for all we know, many of the US military casualties suffered to date could have been easily avoided if these guys had done their job. The question now is, will this change anyone's mind about whether these people are indeed competent to "make us safer?" Who can make that argument with a straight face now?

Actually, while I agree with a lot of your critiques, I don't share the same optimistic view that Kerry will do any better than Bush in the decision making process. In fact, I am concerned that having to essentially start from scratch, the Kerry team will end up repeating mistakes we have already made and fail to heed lessons already learned.

What, so you are asserting that 3- and 4-star generals are "Bush's crew?" Even though to attain that rank, a person has to be in the military upwards of 30 years? I've heard asinine conspiracy theories, but that one takes the cake. Are you leftists so delusional and desperate that you'll glom onto ANY bad news about the Iraq war and use it to indict Bush of incompetence? Apparently so.

The people responsible for this particular SNAFU will pay for it, just as the responsible parties in the Abu Ghraib "scandal" did. I'll take wagers that your irrational belief that the CINC's responsibility for everything that the military does wrong down to the platoon level will change should a Dimocrat get (s)elected to the Oval Office. I can just imagine Saint Kerry (may the gods have mercy on us) would get a pass on something of this magnitude.

Congrats. You and Paul Krugman should get together and have an "I Hate America!" party. Yee-haw! ANYONE BUT BUSH!!! Yep, I can imagine that'd be a blast.

Thank ya Jesus, you finally made a choice. I don't even read your blog and have been aware of your narcissistic agony for, well, seems like ages. Clearly, the world was waiting on your pronouncment and suffered with you. I know I did. I think you will be very happy with your choice like a big boy should. You and Kerry have a lot in common.

jj

>

Kerry would have a decision making process.

Bush is too ideologically rigid to really deliberate on alternatives to his "gut."

I am saddened but not surprised to hear of your decision to vote for John Kerry. I suspect that your decision was actually made some time ago, but that you have enjoyed the attention you received as an "undecided" blogger.

It's been a long time coming and I've been there afore ye. Welcome to the winning side.

I don't mean to be looking too far ahead, but I'd really like to see some recognition after the election is over of how dispiriting, even degrading a spectacle this campaign has been, how much it resembles the campaign four years ago in that respect, and what this suggests about the changes required in how politics is conducted in this country.

The central problem here is that large blocks of voters are living in alternate realities. There are a lot of people who get most of their news from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. And there is very little overlap between that news and the news that some others get from non-US sources over the internet. And I expect there are a lot of others; there are probably people who get most of their news from Common Dreams or MoveOn.

These people are living in totally different worlds as far as headspace goes. They each think the others are completely loony, but there are so many of them they're actively dangerous; they can't just be committed to psychotherapy and rehabilitated. Or on the other side, there are too many to put in concentration camps. The economy would tank.

Then there are the various skeletons in closets that have been locked in until 11/3, safely after All Hallows day. If Bush wins those can be locked away again at the cost of a whole lot of cynicism on everybody's part. If Bush loses it's going to be Halloween all year. We might get a deeper investigation of Enron, one of Abu Ghraib *and related cases*, a thorough review of the conduct of the war with particular emphasis on Rumsfeld's actions, then there's the WMD question as reported by actual CIA agents, etc. Bush's health records even. Whatever the executive arm has access to. And the result will be deeper splits in the public, because the people who get their news from Fox and Limbaugh will hear completely different reports.

I can hardly wait for some outside factor to intervene, because if we go to long without that the country is likely to split into at least 4 parts.

As far as changing how politics are conducted, I'd like to switch to Instant Runoff Voting as suggested above by fling93. If it was safe to vote for third party candidates in addition to your preferred major party candidate, then leading candidates who directly do negative campaigning against each other hurt themselves and help the other candidates. Too much of that and a third party candidate could win. It might improve the campaigning some in addition to its other benefits.

Actually, when I wrote the post quoted above I was thinking primarily of the institutionalized, permanent campaign, the people who get their living serving that institution, and the dominant influence they have on almost all major politians of both parties as well as most of the mainstream media.

I am not exactly surprised that not many people would see the permanent campaign as a cause of the degraded state of politics in this country. Surely, though, if your concern is polarization the influence of a large and well-connected group of people for whom polarization is not only desirable but necessary must be considered.

wufnik

Drudge is now reporting that those weapons were gone when the embedded journalist from NBC arrived with an army unit the day after libearation. So who is inept?

Maybe that will teach you and John Kerry to jump on anything the NY Times writes.

David Adesnik nicely sums up why I have never trusted George W. Bush and cannot imagine voting for him.

Mark: Who am I to argue with Drudge? Fortunately, I don't have to; his claim has already been discredited by the Associated Press.

EvanstonDem:

It appears that it is the AP story that is now being discredited ... by CNN and NBC, no less. Here's the link:

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/26/iraq.explosives/

George Bush scares me silly. From the moment he came into office and started changing environmental policies, to driving the country ever further into debt, up to the current debacle in Iraq. He is dellusional and he is in office for one reason, to pad the wallets of the rich.

John Kerry isn't a great option. But God help us all if Bush stays in office and keeps running us down the path to financial collapse and escalating war.

Drezner complains about the f**up of not having enough troops on the ground after the invasion. But if the American people realized that we would have needed all these troops, say 500,000, maybe they would not have been so enthusiastic about the war in the first place. Maybe Drezner would not have been so enthusiastic either, knowing that we would have needed at least that many troops.

Ughhhhh . . . I think I might get sick. Kerry has proven to be a pathological liar. Time and time again he has lied for no apparent reason other than the fact that he tries to make himself more exciting.

Socialized healthcare? Don't want it.
Rolling tax cuts? Stupid idea that will cause a loss of jobs.
Makes decisions based on polls.
Lied about Christmas in Cambodia
Lied about the magic hat
Lied about meeting with the entire UN security council

Sorry to see you make this mistake Dan.

Too many words -- too little logic. What you lack are the services of a good editor. You really need to tighten that copy. You ramble. A writer you're not. To finally pick your canidate this late in the process proves you're only a wannabe. Maybe mom cares, but we don't.

Surprises me that those that suppport change of command dont factor:

1-what that change can do troops morale

2-adding the conflitual, to say the least, relation of J. Kerry with military,

3-military strong polls for Bush.

4-lost time building a new administration (3 month lost ?)

I think you have made the wrong decision but, I hope you are right about Kerry.

You are younger than me (by a lot of years) so I suspect that what Kerry did regarding Vietnam doesn't hit you at all the way it does me.

I might have gone for him if he had admitted his mistakes and apologized. But he hasn't. And I don't believe he will.

Buried at the bottom here, with no one to see it is the way that ONLY Kerry can get us out of Iraq and leave Iraq in decent shape.

It is obvious that the only stable solution is a federal state in Iraq, such as exists in Switzerland. For this to happen, Turkey and Iran have to agree to a Kurdish canton. There is already amazing progress toward this (the Kurds and the Turks are talking and the Kurds have agreed to give up any claims on any Turkish Kurds.), but the key is that Turkey gets into the EU in return for agreeing to a Kurdish state in an Iraqi federation. France is REALLY opposed. Kerry is the only one who can get France to step back from its opposition.

Eli, you're talking pre-election.

Pre-election, wingnuts won't admit that they even want us out of iraq. They won't admit that until Bush actually does it. Until then, you're arguing that Kerry will get us out of iraq and somehow leave iraq in decent shape, while they figure that Bush will destroy the insurgents, bring a full democratic government, get all the surviving iraqis to love us, keep permanent bases that we can use to threaten and eventually invade iran and syria, buy the iraqi oil at our price or send it to europe or china at our (different) price, and kill the large majority of international terrorists who will go to iraq hoping for a chance to fight us there. They will claim that by getting us out of iraq Kerry would accept defeat when he could have had a true complete victory.

Failing a catastrophe there's no way to prove them wrong in less than 5 years. We have already proven wrong the first plan that said we'd have most of the troops out of a peaceful iraq in 6 months. But the plan that calls for victory in 5 to 10 years can't be disproven so easily. It might seem implausible given the public data, but even then wingnuts posing as military officers can claim that there is plenty of secret data that would show us that we're winning handily in iraq and they'd show it to us if only it wasn't classified. It's important not to let the enemy know. And the reason the enemy shouldn't find out how badly they're losing is also classified, of course. ;>

Given the alternate reality they're living in, there's no way to argue it logically. They won't agree we should get out of iraq unless they see Bush getting out of iraq. Then they'll argue that it's the best possible thing, and if we don't have all the benefits we should have gotten from the invasion it's because of democrats and liberals and people like that.

As a lifelong Republican it pains me to have to vote for Kerry, and since I live in California I will probobly not have to vote for him since its already well known that our electoral votes are going to the Democrats, since this state is overun by liberals.
However if I lived in a swing state I would have to bite the bullet.
I just cant believe nobody has been fired over this Iraq debacle.
Not one single person, even Mr. slamdunk was allowed to quit.
If I was Bush I would have peoples heads on a platter.
I keep hoping he will redeem himself and recognise mistakes made and fire these idiots that got us into this mess.
But it seems he is either too proud or really isnt in touch with reality, either way its very dangerous traits in a leader.
In this countrys time of need, we need somebody like Reagan, a tough conservative with a brain.
But what do we get?
Clown A or Clown B, the next likely failure or a proven failure, great choices.

The history of war shows that "plans" are virtually impossible to make with ominiscient prescience and even harder to stick to once on the ground. This war compared to ever other we have ever undertaken has on the one hand alot of miscalculations and errors in it's execution like all past conflicts yet to a smaller scale and on the other hand has gone so much better at this stage of the war than any other we have ever undertaken.

Iraq is something that even in hindsight it's dishonest to insist that the people that believe in the noble and mighty undertaking are absolutely wrong on. Just as saying that Kerry would have executed better given a different sequence of decisions or never having gone the world would be better off are nothing but pure and dicey speculation. I respect differences of opinion on whether or not this was the best stategic move in the war on terror or not. However, to look away constantly from the benefits that have already come from this action is to not want the president to have been right about any of it.

The fact that the terrorists are congregated in the very spot where our troop are concentrated vrs. on our shores, the fact of Lybia's change of heart, the fact that we can acually have diplomacy with and around Iran and N.Korea and they know we actually have teeth at the end of the day, the Afgan model election that falls nicely before the Iraq election to herald it's optomistic possibility, etc, etc, etc...Even if you think it was a mistake, now that we are there, you think Kerry is the guy to finish it?

If it were Gephardt or Leiberman I would respect your decision. But the number one liberal in the Senate? The guy that wouldn't vote for Gulf War I? The guy that said while it was happening that the Torra Bora strategy was the best one to protect our guys and now uses it as a political sledge hammer against the Commander in Cheif. Huh!?

You are going to reward Kerry whose record is far less worthy of rewarding because of Monday morning QB'ing on decisive action that even the greatest future seeing sage would have known would by it's very nature result in the law of no good deed going unpunished and the law of man's best laid plans, etc.. because the problems would happen no matter what. Nothing that is great and visionary comes without cost especially when dealing with the only now obvious variables that would leave even the best planners feeling out of control at many points along the way? Was WWII any different. I really do believe that with today's media and the impatience of and the best not to be bothered with it all mentality of today's modern westerners WWII could not have been won.

I'm just not getting the Kerry vote at all.

Obviously, this war has something in it for everyone, which is I guess everybody can see what they want in it and I think what you see in it is far more revealing than anything.

See, EjectEjectEject.com and read the Mark Steyn columns over the last few weeks. If that doesn't get to you - you are irretrievably lost.

Oh yeah.
The same Kerry who insists that Clinton's bilateral talks with North Korea were successful and should be used again, not just with N. Korea but with Iran.
But Drezner and Sullivan, especially Sullivan say that Kerry "talks tough". lol

Reluctant bush supporter here, wish I could vote for someone I believed in, instead of against someone Im more scared of.
My wife is reluctantly voting for Kerry,so
its a bit interesting, but I still respect her for it, because she can see his faults all too clearly.
The only ones who are enthusiastic about their canidates are closed minded people, who swallow everything the Rush Limbaughs, and Jesse Jacksons of this world, spoon feed them.
Regardless of what Bruce Springsteen says, Kerry is a horrible canidate, anyway you dice it.
He may do a better job than Bush, just perhaps, but it would be more due to luck than talant.
A liberal east coast lawyer/politician, with a secret plan to save us all, and cut our taxes to boot.
Great, sighn me up.
And for you Limbaugh types, get a clue.
Bush was a great president for the first two years, maybe one of the best, but then he started this insane invasion of a country that had nothing to do with sept 11, and no stockpiles wmd's. The last 2 years has been a spectacular failure.
He gambled everything on this wreckless adventure, we lost our allies and our prestige, were losing our soldiers daily, our economy is at a record defecit 415 Billion in the hole, and according to sir stubborn, he hasnt made any mistakes, perhaps this was the desired outcome, remindes me of Bagdad Bob, there are NO Americans to be seen, theyre slaying themselves at the wall of bagdad!
Its easy to see other peoples lies, but is it as easy to see them when it is the guy you support?
We are going to hand these terrorists a victory that we didnt have to give them, dont kid yourself, this is our next Vietnam.
Iraq was not part of the war on terror until we invaded it, unfortunatly now it is.
These neocons have hijaked the Republican Party and theyre leading us to ruin.
In the old west, when Indians would attack the pioneers, the best defense if caught in the open, was to circle the wagons, and even undesirables were defended, because they werent the Indians outside the perimiter.
Thats whats going on in the conservative movement right now.
If you worship the ground that Bush walks on, than you must look at a real conservative patriot at theamericancause.org , or type Pat Buchanan in a search engine for his website, he also is supporting Bush, but
he is intelligente enough not to swallow all the BS, and you Fanatic Kerry fans go there at your own risk.

I know you'll probably discount this, but in my estimation the logic behind Bin Laden's tape is that it's pure rational opportunism. He sees a chance to make the argument, should Kerry win, that he has influenced the mighty Americans. And who does this help him with? Why, his Arab constituency, that's who. So, if you vote for Kerry you've essentially agreed to back his wager, by lending your weight to making it pay off. The cost of that is lives.

And that, alone, would be enough to convince me to vote for Bush... were I inclined to go the other way.

Weren't you the guy who wrote about the profundity of FDR's logic concerning the accusation that he intended to cut off Japanese access to oil? That is, he knew the perception by the Japanese would probably lead to war, and he also knew the perception was false, but in the end he knew that "correcting" the perception would have sent an even more dangerous message of weakness to the Japanese... and would not have reduced the odds of war one bit. The damage was done. Correcting it in a manner consistent with perceptions of good intentions would only make things worse.

What the enemy, and particularly the enemy's supporters and fellow travelers, believe is of no small importance... even if it's wrong or based on a misperception.

Will Bush change? In the scheme of things, does it matter that much? So we stagger across the finish line with broken toes and fingers... It's a lot better than not reaching the finish line at all. Why don't you plan on investing some energy to move the administration in the right direction, rather than wrangle about whether he deserves your confidence? Isn't your volition worth something?

And moreover, you know that Kerry will anti-inspire the military. There'll be no reconciliation there. Whatever they've done out of pure devotion to this President, which is a great deal, will not be done under Kerry. That's a far more important component than the ability of the leaders "check their assumptions."

Moreover, Kerry will second-guess the military in the manner that nearly all recent Democrats have followed. The notion of giving them an objective, and then allowing them to achieve that objective in whatever way they deem feasible is simply foreign to this professional dissenter. He'll "meddle" in things far above his competence level. About this, you need not guess or speculate.

Sorry Daniel, but I just don't think you've thought this through. You need to take another look, before casting that vote.

Sophist wrote, He sees a chance to make the argument, should Kerry win, that he has influenced the mighty Americans.

This is why he says he doesn't care who wins the election?

Here's another view about bin Ladin's logic: He saw that this was the time he could get the most listeners and readers for his message. He was not at all in favor of Kerry, and his taunts against Bush are no more than I'd expect for someone who announced he'd get bin Ladin "dead or alive" and who has utterly failed to do so for 3 years.

What the enemy, and particularly the enemy's supporters and fellow travelers, believe is of no small importance... even if it's wrong or based on a misperception.

This is true. At this time America's most important enemies are the neocons and their fellow-traveler wingnuts, and we have no chance of beating our external enemies until these have been defeated. It will be a long hard struggle.

Why don't you plan on investing some energy to move the administration in the right direction, rather than wrangle about whether he deserves your confidence?

Because Bush has given every indication that he is not open to influence outside a small circle that we are not part of.

Moreover, Kerry will second-guess the military in the manner that nearly all recent Democrats have followed. The notion of giving them an objective, and then allowing them to achieve that objective in whatever way they deem feasible is simply foreign to this professional dissenter. He'll "meddle" in things far above his competence level.

Rumsfeld was the one who scrapped the TPFD. THe army had a logistics plan they've refined over generations, and he threw it away. He was the one who promised in public that the generals would have all the troops they wanted -- all they had to do was ask. But they didn't ask, which proved they thought they had quite enough. You figure some democrat would do worse than Rumsfeld?

[rant on]As far as I'm concerned, the Republican party is finished. They gave us Bush for 4 years and they haven't even apologised! They even tried to *do it again*! Whatever it used to mean to be Republican, it doesn't mean that any more.

And as far as I'm concerned the Democrats are nearly finished. They were running against Bush and they gave us a candidate who has less than 60% of the voters preferring him! Against Bush! All it takes is to be better than Bush, the lowest bar in american history. And the Democrats give us a candidate who doesn't have a landslide. There are even reasonable people who aren't absolutely certain he'd be better. This is absurd! Whatever it used to mean to be Democrat, it doesn't mean that any more.

We have two old corrupt parties that have no real connection to voters. They just pass out pork. They're open to being taken over by crazies with batty ideologies. They're both a waste of paper.

I'm going to vote for Kerry because it's my patriotic duty to vote against Bush. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if in 8 to 12 years both parties are gone. I don't know whether I'll be part of the Green wing of the Libertarian party or the Libertarian wing of the Green party. But what we have now cannot stand and will not stand.[rant off]

Anyway, if you think Kerry is that bad, this is a perfect year to vote for a third party. If I thought Kerry was as bad as you think he is, I'd vote for Badnarik.

Eight Marines killed today, but dont worry because the missions almost accomplished, after all Rumsfeld told us its not an insurgency, theyre just a bunch of dead enders.
The hell with Iraq, bring our boys home!
The whole country aint worth a bucket of piss, much less one single American life.
I served in Vietnam in 68 and part of 69, and this feels like dejavue, we also were winning according to those MFing politicians, but those bastards never lost one drop of blood in that hellhole!
The bravest advocates of this war are those who have no idea what its like to see your buddys after a firefight all mangled, brains leaking out of their skull, or grown men crying while they lay dying.I didnt protest the war when I got home, maybe I should have, but I was too numb to care about anything, I couldnt relate to people properly who didnt experience what I did, so I retreated into my own world.
I dont begrudge Kerry for his antiwar protests, even though I wont vote for him for other reasons, but it really angers me when he gets called a traitor because he opposed the war in which he fought in.
We lost over 52,000 men and eventually got humiliated in front of the world, and what benefit did we get?
Answer me that simple motherfuckin question!
Vietnam has been a communist country for twenty years now, and the world didnt end, were not fighting Charlie in the streets of America, infact we now buy our tennis shoes and cheap clothes from over there, so what did it all mean in the end?
Serve first,murder other human beings,and watch your brothers get murdered in front of your own eyes,live with death as a constant shadow, peer into the very darkest and evilest corner of the human heart, in your enemys, and yourself, experience the absolute horrors of war firsthand, then you can have the right to be a armchair warrior.

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