Instapundit draws our attention to this post at Silflay Hraka:
“For those now experiencing the onset of apoplexy, I have a question. The Bush team that led a righteously angry America into Afghanistan and Iraq has, in the space of a year, managed to horribly tarnish the reputation of the United States in the eyes of her own people. Should GWB win re-election, is it at all realistic to expect that he will have the political capital needed to expand the conflict to Iran, Syria, North Korea or anywhere else should it become necessary? No matter what George Bush does, no matter how long he remains President, about half of America will oppose him, and a significant minority will do so at every turn.
On the other hand, if John Kerry is elected President, and those who now say they support the War on Terrorism continue to do so–even though they might disagree with some of strategies deployed to fight it–then on this question at least the country will be united to a degree not seen since the halcyon days of the late 90s.”
Fair enough. But Bigwig doesn’t address the misgivings that many in the country have about John Kerry. First, regardless of how one may feel about Clinton’s presidency, it’s hard to dispute that Mr. Clinton’s relationship with the military was, shall we say, strained. Will Kerry’s be better? Cf. John Moore of Useful Fools for a review of how quite a few vets feel about Mr. Kerry. Also remember that quite a few of the men that Mr. Kerry was slandering in the 1970’s are the general officers in the Pentagon today.
Second, Mr. Kerry’s history of equivocation has left quite a bit of room for conjecture on what he would actually do as president. Bigwig does have an answer to this:
“If Kerry is elected, it’s not like Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky will be suddenly be in charge of foreign policy, any more that Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson are now. American troops are in Iraq and the Middle East, and there they will remain, no matter which man is elected in November. Whether Kerry or Bush is elected in November will have little effect on our relationship with Israel.”
Once again, fair enough. But Mr. Kerry is asking us to do something unprecedented in wartime: to replace an incumbent president. So it seems to me quite fair for us to ask him to do something unprecedented as well. Why doesn’t Mr. Kerry announce whom he will appoint to the key foreign policy, military affairs, and national security positions in a Kerry administration? This would enable us to get a much better feel for the possible policies of such an administration.
It’s not just the man at the top of the ticket. It’s the team he’ll put into place.
It’s possible Kerry would have a strained relationship with the military – but could it possibly be more so than Bush’s?
How Kerry conducts policy will, of course, be far more important than possible past offense at what Kerry said after Vietnam.