I've written before, and I still believe it to be the case, that Kerry doesn't have to provide a detailed plan for what we should so in Iraq, that, in fact, the situation is so complex and can conceivable change so drastically before he took office that he would actually be a grave mistake to do so, since it would only give the Republicans something to hang around his neck when his plan turns out to be untenable or unsuitable, as it would most probably turn out to be. I still believe that's the case.
I've also written before, and I still think, that Democrats need to lighten up, take a chill pill, and stop beating up Kerry for not being more activist in this part of the campaign. I think that, so far, the balance that Kerry has struck between being visible and letting events play out to his benefit has been just about right, and he doesn't deserve the sense of near-panic that seems to come from some quarters of the party.
There is one thing, though, that I think the Kerry campaign should give a little more attention to, and that is providing for the people who support Bush and support the war, but who may be feeling some doubts right about now, an escape hatch, a way to allow themselves to back off of their previous commitment without forcing them to totally re-evaluate why they took that stand in the first place.
Clearly, the polls are showing that support for Bush, for his handling of the war, and for the war itself is declining, and I presume that some of the support that's left has got to be relatively soft. But backing away from one's approval is only the first step, the next step is to convince people not to vote for Bush, and the step after that is to bring them into the fold to vote for Kerry. To do that, you have to give people a way out, in order that they both save face and can make the change without having to admit to themselves that they were totally wrong to begin with.
There seems to be, amongst my fellow liberals, a certain amount of gloating about war-supporters who are now turning against Bush or the war or both. "Why should we take what you say seriously now," they ask, "when you were so completely wrong before?" Now, it's one thing to ask that question of high-profile pundits and politicians, but quite another thing to carry the same stance into a campaign in which winning the votes of as many people as possible is the ultimate goal, not being proved right, or scoring debating points. It goes back to a question I keep returning to over and over again: Is it your goal to get rid of Bush, or simply to make yourself feel better? Sometimes all we can hope for is the latter, but in this case, the stakes being so high, we really cannot afford to do anything except strive for the whole package and rid this nation of the Bush administration's mismanagement, incompetence, corruption and malfeasance for good.
Unfortunately, the way to do that isn't to shove people's faces into their mistaken positions, or to attack them as "stupid" or lacking in IQ. What possible good can it do to think of them in that way, when what they are is a precious resource that we need to do everything we can to tap?
So Kerry needs to provide a pathway for people to, slowly, at their own speed, and (apparently) at their own prompting, migrate from supporting Bush to supporting Kerry. He can't say "The war was totally and utterly wrong, a god-forsaken mistake from the very beginning, and anyone who was taken in by the phony 'evidence' that Bush provided should have their heads examined." Such a stance might be to the liking of most liberals, and may accurate reflect what we feel in our heart of hearts, but it's unlikely that anyone wavering in their support of the war is going to hear that and throw up their hands, saying "You're so right, and what a fool I've been." People just don't work that way. If they're challenged, they're most likely to dig in their heels and give the other guy the finger, in which case you've not only lost a possible vote, you've firmed up the support of the opposition.
Instead, Kerry should provide a narrative which is more along these lines: "We know that people supported the war in Iraq from the best possible motives, to remove what they saw as an eminent threat to this country, to rid Iraq of the humanitarian horror that war Saddam Hussein, and to replace his regime of terror with a stable, democratic government which would not only be better for the Iraqis, but for Americans and the rest of the world as well. Unfortunately, it's turned out that Bush lied about the evidence of the threat, and then so badly mismanaged the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq that it's unlikely that any of our goals will be met. The only thing we did right was to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but that's just not enough if we don't leave a better country behind once we leave. With so much that could have been done, if it was done right, Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney have managed to do almost everything wrong. They don't deserve your support, and they haven't earned your loyalty with their incompetence."
I'm not saying that Kerry should literally say that, such a blatant appeal would be seen through and probably rejected, but something along those lines should be the unspoken subtext of everything Kerry says about Iraq. People who have been mislead, and lied to, and who've had their trust returned with mismanagement and rank incompetence are people who can start looking around for somewhere else to go, someone else to latch onto. By letting them know that it's not their fault that things have gone so wrong in Iraq, they can safely remove themselves from their supportive stances and reposition themselves as parties who have been unjustly harmed. That's the escape hatch they need, and which Kerry should be spending a little more time providing.
absolutist
aggresive
anti-Constitutional
anti-intellectual
arrogant
authoritarian
blame-placers
blameworthy
blinkered
buckpassers
calculating
class warriors
clueless
compassionless
con artists
conniving
conscienceless
conspiratorial
corrupt
craven
criminal
crooked
culpable
damaging
dangerous
deadly
debased
deceitful
delusional
despotic
destructive
devious
disconnected
dishonorable
dishonest
disingenuous
disrespectful
dogmatic
doomed
fanatical
fantasists
felonious
hateful
heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
ideologues
ignorant
immoral
incompetent
indifferent
inflexible
insensitive
insincere
irrational
isolated
kleptocratic
lacking in empathy
lacking in public spirit
liars
mendacious
misleading
mistrustful
non-rational
not candid
not "reality-based"
not trustworthy
oblivious
oligarchic
opportunistic
out of control
pernicious
perverse
philistine
plutocratic
prevaricating
propagandists
rapacious
relentless
reprehensible
rigid
scandalous
schemers
selfish
secretive
shameless
sleazy
tricky
unAmerican
uncaring
uncivil
uncompromising
unconstitutional
undemocratic
unethical
unpopular
unprincipled
unrealistic
unreliable
unrepresentative
unscientific
unscrupulous
unsympathetic
venal
vile
virtueless
warmongers
wicked
without integrity
wrong-headed
Thanks to: Breeze, Chuck, Ivan Raikov, Kaiju, Kathy, Roger, Shirley, S.M. Dixon
recently seen
i've got a little list...
Elliott Abrams
Steven Abrams (Kansas BofE)
David Addington
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson
Roger Ailes (FNC)
John Ashcroft
Bob Bennett
William Bennett
Joe Biden
John Bolton
Alan Bonsell (Dover BofE)
Pat Buchanan
Bill Buckingham (Dover BofE)
George W. Bush
Saxby Chambliss
Bruce Chapman (DI)
Dick Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Richard Cohen
The Coors Family
Ann Coulter
Michael Crichton
Lanny Davis
Tom DeLay
William A. Dembski
James Dobson
Leonard Downie (WaPo)
Dinesh D’Souza
Gregg Easterbrook
Jerry Falwell
Douglas Feith
Arthur Finkelstein
Bill Frist
George Gilder
Newt Gingrich
John Gibson (FNC)
Alberto Gonzalez
Rudolph Giuliani
Sean Hannity
Katherine Harris
Fred Hiatt (WaPo)
Christopher Hitchens
David Horowitz
Don Imus
James F. Inhofe
Jesse Jackson
Philip E. Johnson
Daryn Kagan
Joe Klein
Phil Kline
Ron Klink
William Kristol
Ken Lay
Joe Lieberman
Rush Limbaugh
Trent Lott
Frank Luntz
"American Fundamentalists"
by Joel Pelletier
(click on image for more info)
Chris Matthews
Mitch McConnell
Stephen C. Meyer (DI)
Judith Miller (ex-NYT)
Zell Miller
Tom Monaghan
Sun Myung Moon
Roy Moore
Dick Morris
Rupert Murdoch
Ralph Nader
John Negroponte
Grover Norquist
Robert Novak
Ted Olson
Elspeth Reeve (TNR)
Bill O'Reilly
Martin Peretz (TNR)
Richard Perle
Ramesh Ponnuru
Ralph Reed
Pat Robertson
Karl Rove
Tim Russert
Rick Santorum
Richard Mellon Scaife
Antonin Scalia
Joe Scarborough
Susan Schmidt (WaPo)
Bill Schneider
Al Sharpton
Ron Silver
John Solomon (WaPo)
Margaret Spellings
Kenneth Starr
Randall Terry
Clarence Thomas
Richard Thompson (TMLC)
Donald Trump
Richard Viguere
Donald Wildmon
Paul Wolfowitz
Bob Woodward (WaPo)
John Yoo
guest-blogging
All the fine sites I've
guest-blogged for:
Be sure to visit them all!!
recent listening
influences
John Adams
Laurie Anderson
Aphex Twin
Isaac Asimov
Fred Astaire
J.G. Ballard
The Beatles
Busby Berkeley
John Cage
"Catch-22"
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke
Elvis Costello
Richard Dawkins
Daniel C. Dennett
Philip K. Dick
Kevin Drum
Brian Eno
Fela
Firesign Theatre
Eliot Gelwan
William Gibson
Philip Glass
David Gordon
Stephen Jay Gould
Dashiell Hammett
"The Harder They Come"
Robert Heinlein
Joseph Heller
Frank Herbert
Douglas Hofstadter
Bill James
Gene Kelly
Stanley Kubrick
Jefferson Airplane
Ursula K. LeGuin
The Marx Brothers
John McPhee
Harry Partch
Michael C. Penta
Monty Python
Orbital
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
"The Prisoner"
"The Red Shoes"
Steve Reich
Terry Riley
Oliver Sacks
Erik Satie
"Singin' in the Rain"
Stephen Sondheim
The Specials
Morton Subotnick
Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
Bullshit, trolling, unthinking knee-jerk dogmatism and the drivel of idiots will be ruthlessly deleted and the posters banned.
Entertaining, interesting, intelligent, informed and informative comments will always be welcome, even when I disagree with them.
I am the sole judge of which of these qualities pertains.
E-mail
All e-mail received is subject to being published on unfutz without identifying names or addresses.
Corrections
I correct typos and other simple errors of grammar, syntax, style and presentation in my posts after the fact without necessarily posting notification of the change.
Substantive textual changes, especially reversals or major corrections, will be noted in an "Update" or a footnote.
Also, illustrations may be added to entries after their initial publication.
the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
If you read unfutz at least once a week, without fail, your teeth will be whiter and your love life more satisfying.
If you read it daily, I will come to your house, kiss you on the forehead, bathe your feet, and cook pancakes for you, with yummy syrup and everything.
(You might want to keep a watch on me, though, just to avoid the syrup ending up on your feet and the pancakes on your forehead.)
Finally, on a more mundane level, since I don't believe that anyone actually reads this stuff, I make this offer: I'll give five bucks to the first person who contacts me and asks for it -- and, believe me, right now five bucks might as well be five hundred, so this is no trivial offer.
