Why I’m not trying to rationalize a vote for Bush
This is somewhat in response to Tim’s post here, and somewhat in response to his long-ago call for a defense of a Kerry vote, one of which I’ll be casting. (Don’t even think of trying to talk me out of it.) . . .
Tim, you too, like Sullivan, are a self-professed one-issue candidate. Obviously — put down that finger — it’s a much more pressing issue. Yet, as we all acknowledge, this here War On Terrible Stuff/Iraq Occupation is going to be with us for many years to come. I hope you’re looking forward to being a one-issue voter for at least three, maybe four more presidential elections.
Personally, I can’t do that. And honestly, even on that issue, I don’t see the strength of the arguments for staying with Bush. You folks consider him strong on terrorism, despite the fact that he underfought our most important campaign and went into the optional one with too few troops and no plan.
Although semi-successful in Afghanistan (there is no more Taliban, sort of), he went in with one hand tied behind his back, apparently feeling that the full force of American military power should not be used on the organizations that brought about 9/11. No. Better save something to shock and awe Saddam Hussein. As a result, Osama may well have slipped away from a not-so-tight noose at Tora Bora.
Okay, so we went to Iraq. Say whatever you will about whether it’s a good idea; Bush has handled it abysmally from day one. It has been arrogantly and foolishly underplanned, underallocated, and riddled with scandal.
Yet there we are, and we are there to stay. Kerry would not change that. On the ground, in Iraq, any difference between how Bush is running things and how Kerry might run things would be slight, if measurable. Kerry might even improve the situation — at least Iraqis don’t (yet) associate him with prison torture. Going a step further, any appreciable effect of our great Iraq experiment in the Middle East as a whole, and on terrorism in particular, will be very slow to come. Let me step back and see if I have it right:
1. Iraq becomes beacon of democracy
2. Middle East despots pressured to reform
3. Reform germinates and spreads among despotic regimes
4. Middle East emerges from dark ages
5. Islamist terrorism dwindles and dies
It’s a long chain of dominoes, folks. Something that can only come about on the order of decades — just look at step one. Do you honestly believe, when it’s all said and done, that the choice of who is president from 2005-2009 will have made any discernible difference?
Presidents inherit projects like this and carry them on. But these kinds of undertakings have their own momentum; who you have in the driver’s seat is not going to really matter in the long run. In 1961, JFK said we oughtta go to the moon. Eight years later, with the man long dead, we finally did. In 1968, Nixon said he’d get us out of Vietnam. Seven years later, and a year after he had resigned from his second term, we finally did.
Kerry isn’t saying a word about leaving Iraq, and he won’t. So seriously, don’t throw your vote away because you believe it will make a difference on this one issue. Or are you voting for Bush because he wants us to go to Mars?
