You Forgot Poland

I was utterly baffled tonight after the first presidential debate to hear the beginnings of a consensus that Kerry won. That was NOT one woman's opinion of what went down. True, Bush had clearly run out of ammo by the end, and true, Kerry scored with nuclear proliferation and Kim " I like to kidnap sexy actresses" Jong Il's nuke collection. And yes, Kerry is taller. But overall, I thought that Kerry's message was confusing- that the war was wrong, but he knows what to do now, even though he never really says what that is, but it involves "allies" who seem to be imaginary - I mean, do you see France and Germany getting in on the action at this juncture? To me, Kerry keeps making the same mistake: he fails to draw an absolute distinction between critiquing the invasion and overthrow of Saddam with the reconstruction effort. You see where I am going here. The invasion and overthrow was (A) correct and (B) something Kerry supported and (C) there's not much we can do about that now, anyway. The reconstruction, even to war supporters like the NY Times' Thomas Friedman, has been a disaster. So why can't he restrain himself and evince support for the removal of Baathists and critique of the nightmare that is the reconstruction? Well, he just can't. He hammers on and on about the wrong points: that the war was wrong, that Iraq has nothing to do with Al Quaeda. Kerry himself admitted that the war was drawing Osama's wrath. We all know that Al Quaeda bombed Madrid because of the war in Iraq. In other words, it's the same old problem. Kerry can't admit that the war was just, that removing the Baathists, despite their secular inclinations, is part of fighting the war on Islamic fundamentalism in a larger sense. And he fails spectacularly to make the point he should be making: that the failed reconstruction effort is endangering us, that it is intensifying hatred of America. That if we fail to establish a peaceful democracy, our war effort will merely have contributed to the confusion and hatred in what Condoleeza Rice loves to call "the most dangerous country in the most dangerous part of the world."