Haiku Politics

In John Kerry's op-ed column today in the New York Times, he once again illustrated why he was hopeless as an opponent to Bush last year. In the column, in which he critiques the Bush administration policies in Iraq, he manages not to say the one thing that should be said--namely, that it was wrong to go to war in the first place. This is a continuation of his "I can manage this war better than Bush can" rhetoric during last year's campaign for the Presidency. This is also consistent with his continuing caution and hesitation and--dare I say it?--flip flopping--over the Downing Street memos. At first, it appeared that he was going to join in on the growing criticism of Bush as a result of his decision to "fix the intelligence". But then, essentially, he has backed off, having said virtually nothing on the subject.

Last year, Kerry, as the leading politician of the Democratic Party establishment, offered no principled antiwar alternative to Bush's war in Iraq, and now he continues to muddle the issue. In the above cited op-ed column, he offers a proposal for getting out of Iraq that smacks of Nixon's "Vietnamization" plan for a gradual withdrawal. 30 years after we left Vietnam, and John Kerry is reviving the Nixon doctrine!

Posted by The Haikuist on Tuesday, June 28, 2005 at 9:08 AM | Permalink