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Jewish World Review March 14, 2003 / 10 Adar II, 5763
James Lileks
Kerry and the Dems are banking on American electorate's tendancy to forget history
"The greatest position of strength is by exercising the best judgment in the pursuit of diplomacy," he said, "not in some
trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted, but in a genuine coalition."
That would be a coalition in which French is spoken without shame. Leave aside the fact that we have been pursuing
diplomacy for six months, and that a reasonable observer might conclude that diplomacy does not wish to be caught. Forget
Kerry's suggestion that strength isn't expressed by aircraft carriers, but by a rowboat full of "statesmen" so adept at
double-talk that they can't order lunch without praising breakfast, brunch, supper and a midnight snack. Forget all that. Just
consider what a leading Democratic candidate said about Britain, Australia, and nations recently released from the Soviet
yoke: "the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted." Whores at best, corrupt at worst. Wouldn't "a coalition of the
billing" have been a tad nicer?
You take your allies where you find them. In WW2 old twinkle-eyed Uncle Joe was on our team, so we refrained from
pointing out that the man had carpal tunnel syndrome from signing death warrants. You want to turn on your friends for
personal political benefit, wait until the war is over. Is that too much to ask of a wannabe Commander-in-Chief?
In order to beat Bush in 04, the Dems need one of two things: a foreign policy failure or a foreign policy success. If the war
has nasty consequences, they'll be on record with a dozen TOLD YOU SOs. We should have bowed to the UN. We
should have let inspections continue until Saddam had nothing but a sharp letter opener, and his biological weapons
consisted some ancient takeout from the back of the fridge. We should have kept our troops in place to keep the pressure
on. Oh, and if North Korea erupts in a final spasm of stupidity and starts a war, it'll be Bush's fault for putting all our troops
in the Middle East to put pressure on Saddam, instead of piling 250,000 men in the DMZ where they could be wiped out in
a few hours of shelling. Lose-lose for the military is win-win for the Dems.
If the war goes well, and '04 sees the US in an unparalleled position to remake the Middle East, the Dems will point out
how they were on board all along --- and now that the danger's past, we must address our aching domestic needs, like a 17%
increase in Federal funding for women's college wrestling programs. Expect to hear about our old pal the Peace Dividend
the moment someone scrapes bin Laden's DNA off a Tora Bora cave wall. Game over, stand down, unclench, relax. If
things get scary and hairy in days to come, well, the nation's strategic reserve of Bushes isn't dry yet. Someone nukes
Baltimore, elect a Jeb.
It's a smart strategy, given the historical tendency of the American electorate to forget history. But our allies may not be so
quick to forgive. The Australians, for example, might recall that they stood with America because they believed we shared a
common foe. And should America need Australia again, they might recall President Kerry's dismissal: bribed, coerced,
bought or extorted.
"That's a knife," Crocodile Dundee famously remarked. Kerry would agree, and think: it'd look even better sticking out of
your back.
02/28/03: Roadmap to peace?
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