The consensus is that the Kerry-Edwards campaign has let Bush-Cheney define the debate over the past few weeks, and allowed Kerry’s fitness to lead to become the question. They hit first, which sucks, but it gives Kerry an opening to fight back and with great ferocity. I say, call Bush’s own competence into question by saying what everyone already knows loud and clear — Bush is an intellectual lightweight, who can barely grasp the enormity of what’s going on around him, and it’s this unsuitability for handling the weighty issues at hand that have led us so far astray.
Mush Mouth Strikes Again
We saw this in evidence most strikingly earlier in the year, when Bush gave a dismal state of the union address and a poor interview on Meet the Press; the man cannot think on his feet, and it’s only within the artificially safe and meticulously orchestrated context of the Republican National Convention that he’s able to appear clear-headed. His recent assertion that the war on terror can’t be won, a rare attempt to broach nuance, is a good example of his inability to draw a mental map of the challenges that lay before us.
And, for comic relief, the Kerry campaign should make the most of every one of Bush’s abundant verbal gaffes, including yesterday’s gut-buster: “Too many OB-GYNS aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.” (See it in QuickTime.) I mean, really, we shouldn’t have to settle for this kind of oratorical pedestrianism when it comes to the highest office in the land, should we?
What I’m talking about is engaging the Bush-Cheney campaign with something closer to the tactics they use so wantonly: the willingness to paint the opponent in a reductive, grossly oversimplified light. Kerry is often accused of being a slave to nuance, but he’d better disabuse himself of that habit immediately. This is a fight, a real fight — the most important one of his career and one of the most important of my lifetime — and it’s nasty but only going to get nastier. I expect John Kerry to rise to the challenge and hit back hard and with great precision, and I know I’m not the only one. It had just better happen soon.
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