Originally Posted by Yoda
I'll give Kerry the edge overall for his consistency. He remained collected and quick on his feet, and only made one real blunder that I can recall ("pass the global test").
That struck me as a blunder in terms of presentation, but not of substance. Were you thinking mainly in presentation terms?
By using that little punchy phrase, he wasn't able to qualify it as being about gaining consensus where consensus is necessary (and played into Bush's traditional response of 'the-US-needn't-consult-others-concerning-it's-own-security' [despite the lack of evidence of a threat to the US
])
It's this tricky-to-communicate strategy that he could've done with 'sound-biting' a bit more effectively (although he hit on a lot of the issues afterwards). It's especially tricky to communicate, tho, in the face of Bush's deliberately simplistic/black-and-white presentation of the issues. (Kerry fell into that presentation trap again when he said 'There's a right way and a wrong way to deal with Saddam' - to my mind he should have said 'There are right ways and wrong ways...', and that Bush chose one of the wrong ways. That way he wouldn't have fallen into the trap of appearing to be against everything Bush has done on that score - i.e. his prefered approach would've involved invasion too etc, and resolute stance post invasion.
That's the advantage of the Bush admin's approach and presentation. It's been simplistic and inflexible while using the 'war' on 'terror' to make it seem that all its actions
must be good. (And Bush loves to spin it that way. i.e. the... 'We're fighting terror - i'm going to keep fighting terror - how can that be wrong?' spin he loves so much).
As Kerry pointed out, that kind of dogma on its own is no guarantee of being right
Originally Posted by Yoda
Bush's primary achievement was in highlighting Kerry's utterly convoluted stance on Iraq.
Most of these apparent contradictions are resolved if you look at his general stance (which is shared by just about all the [non-pacifist] objectors to war-in-this-way
).....
Originally Posted by Yoda
He says Hussein was a threat that needs to be disarmed, but actually doing so is an unncessary diversion. A diversion he'll bring more allies in to help with.
He says it's only a diversion if done in such a way that resources are drawn away from other key areas in the fight on terrorism [Afghanistan etc]. IE The unilateral way which spread unsupported US forces too thinly. That is what Bush has done. (We can argue about the whys/hows of him not gaining multilateral supprot on the other thread Yodles
- There's still much to discuss
)
Originally Posted by Yoda
The world is better with Saddam gone, but it's also less safe.
Has he actually said that the world
is better, or just that removing Saddam is the right thing to do (so long as we don't lose sight of more pertinent/wide-reaching terror issues along the way)?
Originally Posted by Yoda
It was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, yet he'd still vote for it knowing what he knows now.
That, i must admit, is the perplexing one. And the one i'm gonna try and track down on that damn montage of his stances that i still haven't watched...