Friday, April 30, 2004
Kerry, Starting to Cohere?
John Kerry just finished giving that speech at Fulton College in Missouri, the site of Winston Churchill's deservedly famous Iron Curtain speech, and what one can only hope will be Dick Cheney's deservedly infamous partisan and decidedly not statesman-like speech on Monday, which attacked Senator Kerry as a candidate who has what it doesn't take to be President, those famous troubling opinions about national defense and America's place in the world.
Senator Kerry and his campaign staff are to be congratulated. It was an impressive speech that took full advantage of one of those pregnant campaign moments sometimes handed to you by your opponent; Kerry and staff appear to have understood the dynamics of the moment, and executed the exact right response superbly.
The setting was perfect; Kerry couldn't have asked for more if it had been set up with the precision of a convention moment, but without that deathly lack of spontaneity. The audience wanted to hear from Kerry and let him know it.
And Kerry came through. This was a political speech about what needs to be done to change the failed course we are pursuing in Iraq. It was billed as John Kerry on Iraq and it did not disappoint, all the more so because his bearing and delivery were that of a statesman. No shouting, no direct attacks on the current administration, but a comfortable awareness that the failing nature of our current policy in Iraq is a given that most people accept. And Kerry avoided making the corollary mistake of sounding too grim, too comfortable with our failures there; it will take a special kind of propagandist to find any gloating in this speech, not that the slackers that hang out at a certain corner won't rise to the challenge.
Kerry presented a measured optimism that there is a way out of Iraq other than being driven out by Iraqis themselves, or by merely declaring either victory or defeat and simply leaving. Yes, there was no major policy proposal that he hasn't mentioned before, but this speech fleshed out his position, contextualized it, and answered, with appropriate indirection, the winger meme of the week, already taking hold among the SCLM, that there is virtually no difference between the Kerry and the Bush position on Iraq.
Before I continue, let me be clear, there were many items on the agenda of many of us on the liberal/left axis that we are waiting to hear Kerry say that he continued not to say on this occasion, and one or two phrases that make many of us shudder with distaste that he did say, like "staying the course," that one, mercifully, only once, and largely to make a point about its inadequacy as a description of what needs to be done.
My own greatest worry about Kerry's positions thus far has been what I consider to have been a straight-up mistake he made in appearing to back Bush's embrace of Sharon's so-called exit plan. So I was grateful that he made no mention of Israel or the Palestinians. I still believe that we can change Kerry's mind, "we" being those of us who support him, are raising money for him and working on his behalf. I plan to speak to that possibility in a weekend post. For now, I hope it will be sufficient to caution all of us not to do the work of the wingers for them. Without getting into the policy specifics in the speech, to be addressed in later posts, this was a speech that I think most of us ought to be able to live with, and not entirely unhappily. More needs to be fleshed out. But nothing Kerry said is inconsistent with the kinds of policies most of us think are essential to get us out as early as possible from an American occupation that is, in itself, the chief impediment to both stability and some form of democratic governence for the Iraqi people.
All three cable news networks carried the speech. CNN and MSNBC offered very little post-speech commentary. On Fox we were given Eleanor Clift and some columnist from the NYPost; Clift had a similar take to mine; this was a major step forward for the campaign, Kerry looked and sounded like a President, and one who knew what he was talking about. The NYPost hack had to reach to fit what we'd all just seen into one of the cliches the right has been hawking this week, and he contented himself with observing that Kerry lost an opportunity by not attacking the President's policy more specifically in order to differentiate himself from that policy, in other words, he should have behaved like Cheney, so that we'd have an easier time making the point that there is no real policy difference between the President and Senator Kerry, which leaves those only those questions of "character," like the President's steadfastness and Kerry's squishiness, to argue about. That's how they want to frame the Iraq question. Kerry went some way in reframing Iraq as a policy difference. Or so it seemed to me.
I have much more to say, and other bloggers I want to link to, but I'm writing this one on the run, so I'll leave it here.
Let us know what you think about the speech?
UPDATE From alert reader Zappatero, here's a link to the video at CSPAN. Anyone got a transcript?
Senator Kerry and his campaign staff are to be congratulated. It was an impressive speech that took full advantage of one of those pregnant campaign moments sometimes handed to you by your opponent; Kerry and staff appear to have understood the dynamics of the moment, and executed the exact right response superbly.
The setting was perfect; Kerry couldn't have asked for more if it had been set up with the precision of a convention moment, but without that deathly lack of spontaneity. The audience wanted to hear from Kerry and let him know it.
And Kerry came through. This was a political speech about what needs to be done to change the failed course we are pursuing in Iraq. It was billed as John Kerry on Iraq and it did not disappoint, all the more so because his bearing and delivery were that of a statesman. No shouting, no direct attacks on the current administration, but a comfortable awareness that the failing nature of our current policy in Iraq is a given that most people accept. And Kerry avoided making the corollary mistake of sounding too grim, too comfortable with our failures there; it will take a special kind of propagandist to find any gloating in this speech, not that the slackers that hang out at a certain corner won't rise to the challenge.
Kerry presented a measured optimism that there is a way out of Iraq other than being driven out by Iraqis themselves, or by merely declaring either victory or defeat and simply leaving. Yes, there was no major policy proposal that he hasn't mentioned before, but this speech fleshed out his position, contextualized it, and answered, with appropriate indirection, the winger meme of the week, already taking hold among the SCLM, that there is virtually no difference between the Kerry and the Bush position on Iraq.
Before I continue, let me be clear, there were many items on the agenda of many of us on the liberal/left axis that we are waiting to hear Kerry say that he continued not to say on this occasion, and one or two phrases that make many of us shudder with distaste that he did say, like "staying the course," that one, mercifully, only once, and largely to make a point about its inadequacy as a description of what needs to be done.
My own greatest worry about Kerry's positions thus far has been what I consider to have been a straight-up mistake he made in appearing to back Bush's embrace of Sharon's so-called exit plan. So I was grateful that he made no mention of Israel or the Palestinians. I still believe that we can change Kerry's mind, "we" being those of us who support him, are raising money for him and working on his behalf. I plan to speak to that possibility in a weekend post. For now, I hope it will be sufficient to caution all of us not to do the work of the wingers for them. Without getting into the policy specifics in the speech, to be addressed in later posts, this was a speech that I think most of us ought to be able to live with, and not entirely unhappily. More needs to be fleshed out. But nothing Kerry said is inconsistent with the kinds of policies most of us think are essential to get us out as early as possible from an American occupation that is, in itself, the chief impediment to both stability and some form of democratic governence for the Iraqi people.
All three cable news networks carried the speech. CNN and MSNBC offered very little post-speech commentary. On Fox we were given Eleanor Clift and some columnist from the NYPost; Clift had a similar take to mine; this was a major step forward for the campaign, Kerry looked and sounded like a President, and one who knew what he was talking about. The NYPost hack had to reach to fit what we'd all just seen into one of the cliches the right has been hawking this week, and he contented himself with observing that Kerry lost an opportunity by not attacking the President's policy more specifically in order to differentiate himself from that policy, in other words, he should have behaved like Cheney, so that we'd have an easier time making the point that there is no real policy difference between the President and Senator Kerry, which leaves those only those questions of "character," like the President's steadfastness and Kerry's squishiness, to argue about. That's how they want to frame the Iraq question. Kerry went some way in reframing Iraq as a policy difference. Or so it seemed to me.
I have much more to say, and other bloggers I want to link to, but I'm writing this one on the run, so I'll leave it here.
Let us know what you think about the speech?
UPDATE From alert reader Zappatero, here's a link to the video at CSPAN. Anyone got a transcript?
