“Someone who blinks when things get hard is not the right person to win the war on terror.” That’s President Bush’s communications director, Nicolle Devenish, in this morning’s New York Times.
Now, maybe Bush doesn’t blink. But we know that the current president, “when things got hard” on 9/11, sat with a dull, vacant stare for agonizingly long minutes in a Florida classroom before waking up to the fact that he was commander-in-chief and the nation was under attack. And we know that Kerry fought in Vietnam, led troops in combat and saved comrades’ lives. Who would you rather have guarding your back?
But look how effectively the Bush team has cemented its message: Kerry is a wimp. That’s what this whole campaign has been about: Karl Rove’s sick but smart strategy punched Kerry in the groin with the Swift Boat Veterans’ lies, then used Kerry’s failure to punch back hard to demonstrate that the candidate has no guts. If he can’t protect his reputation, goes the subtext, how will he protect your children? (Josh Marshall applied the crude but accurate label of “bitch-slap” to this psychodynamic.) Depressingly, this neanderthal logic actually appears to be working: NPR reported this morning that “soccer moms” are turning into “security moms,” as Bush makes some inroads among female voters normally thought to lean Democratic.
Kerry really has only one big opportunity left to change the tide of this campaign: At Thursday’s debate, he needs to get in President Bush’s face. Since Bush has chosen to make this a showdown over the candidates’ masculinity, Kerry should take off the gloves. The Bush campaign has outrageously reframed all criticism of its failed policies as “aiding and abetting the enemy”; it has scandalously declared that if the nation elects Kerry, we’ll get the terrorist attack we deserve. This president has forfeited the decorum that normally prevails between candidates. Kerry should feel no obligation to civility.
For the sake of the country and the world, I hope Kerry and his advisers are preparing debate lines something like this:
“Mr. Bush, after 9/11 your job as president was to protect this nation, and you’ve failed. You didn’t bring the World Trade Center attackers to justice. Bin Laden is still on the loose, and the Taliban still operate in Afghanistan. Instead, you led the nation into a war on Iraq on false grounds. You botched the war, and thousands of Americans and Iraqis have died and are still dying because of your mistakes. In a time when America should have been a beacon of justice to Iraq and to the world, you allowed our troops to torture enemy prisoners. Despite all these mistakes, not a single official in your administration has ever taken real responsibility for them.
I know what responsibility means, Mr. President. Do you? I didn’t ask my daddy to find me a safe berth away from the fighting in Vietnam. I know what it’s like to have people’s lives depend on my split-second calls. I’ve made the choices that won battles and saved troops’ lives. Have you?
You’re a failure, Mr. President, and the only way this country can get back on track is by putting you on the unemployment line.”
I’m no speechwriter, but it seems to me that Kerry has nothing to lose and everything to gain by being blunt — by showing he’s not afraid to face Bush down. Bush is at his best following a script, and he’s at his worst when he’s confronted by the unexpected (like in that Florida classroom). Kerry ought to rattle him with the facts.
They can keep the angry demonstrators far away from Bush’s speeches. They can jack up the polls with deceptive ads. But, so far at least, they can’t stop the opposition candidate, if he has the requisite nerve, from speaking the truth on live television.
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