I liked this tack:
“So I’ll be straight with you: things are getting worse. More than a thousand Americans have been killed. Instability is rising. Violence is spreading. Extremism is growing. There are now havens for terrorists that weren’t there before. And the Pentagon has even admitted that entire regions of Iraq are now controlled by insurgents and terrorists. The situation is serious – and we need a president who will set a new direction and be straight with the American people.”
What I like about it is not necessarily Kerry’s prescription. I don’t think he’s likely to resolve this any more effectively than Bush will. Most of the damage has already been done. What I like is Kerry’s challenging the Bush administration’s propensity to avoid facts, deny reality, and slime opponents as a campaign strategy. We need a debate on Iraq. We need a real thrashing out of what has gone wrong and how to put it right. We need to hold this administration accountable for its errors and arrogance and pig-headedness. Why has no one been held accountable for the WMD intelligence fiasco? Why has the Abu Ghraib shame been fobbed off onto underlings, when real responsibility for the chaos that allowed it to happen belongs in the Oval Office? What gets me about Bush is his utter refusal to take responsibility for the consequences of his own decisions. That goes for Iraq and the way in which he has squandered our fiscal future. The left doesn’t really get this because they were never that keen on the war in the first place and they do not get hot and bothered about government spending. And much of the right just echoes the party line. At least Kerry is finally asking the right questions. Someone has to.
BLAIR’S AUTHORITARIANISM: I’ll never really get America’s gun culture. Like most immigrants, I find the whole NRA subculture frightening when it isn’t funny. But I sure do respect the fundamental notion that, as a general rule, the government shouldn’t be telling people what they can and cannot own, and what they can and cannot do in their spare time. So I’m no big anti-gun person either. And when you look at Britain, you realize that the NRA isn’t the worst thing in the world. Tony Blair’s latest attack on domestic liberty is his government’s decision to ban any fox-hunting. Fox hunting is an absurd, cruel and comic activity of rural folk that nonetheless has every right to exist. What’s worse: the cops are going to ridiculous lengths to enforce the ban. The Daily Telegraph reports:
“Chief constables intend to site CCTV cameras on hedgerows, fences and trees along known hunting routes to enable them to photograph hunt members who break the law after hunting with hounds is outlawed. The controversial measure was agreed at a secret meeting between David Blunkett and the chief constables of England and Wales after the hunting ban was announced last week. Police chiefs warned the Home Secretary that enforcing the ban would cost in excess of $30 million and divert resources from front-line policing.”
Mark Steyn has great fun with this:
In Britain, Soho’s views on hunting should be no more relevant than Somerset’s opinion of gay leather bars. But they are. And those Left-wing columnists who go on about the “climate of fear” in Bush’s America ought to remember that, even in their wildest power-crazed dreams, Bush and John Ashcroft will never be able to issue a national ban on centuries-old traditions merely because they offend metropolitan taste.
Well, Bush and Ashcroft can try and foist a national ban on gay marriage; but the deeper point is that puritanism knows no politics. The desire to control other people’s lives is a universal on both right and left. And universally deplorable.
The Dish 