Monday, August 23, 2004
Courage
Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute teaches many useful lessons, one of which is: "Don't fully trust anyone until he has stuck with a good cause which he saw was losing."
Frontrunning is easy. Standing up for what you believe is right in the face of opposition and near-certain defeat is not.
There was much talk on pro-Kerry blogs and websites this past weekend about how Kerry is courageous while Bush is not. Example: "[H]ad [Bush] been possessed of the moral fiber and sense of duty of, say, John Kerry . . ."
Yet I struggle to recall one instance where Senator Kerry has said about any issue, "I don't care what the polls say. This is what I believe."
The problem with Kerry is that he seems to want to agree with all sides of every issue, e.g. "I voted for it so I could vote against it" on a military spending bill. By contrast, you may disagree with him but you cannot argue that Bush's opposition to embryonic stem cell research is based upon opinion polls.
Kerry's many contradictory positions on the Vietnam War were summarized by tart-tongued Bob Dole on Sunday:
Mr. Dole also sought to put the focus as much on Mr. Kerry's antiwar activities as on his war record, noting testimony Mr. Kerry gave to a Congressional committee in 1971.
"I mean, one day he's saying that we were shooting civilians, cutting off their ears, cutting off their heads, throwing away his medals or his ribbons," Mr. Dole said. "The next day he's standing there, 'I want to be president because I'm a Vietnam veteran.'"
With regard to political impact of the Vietnam issue, Posse Incitatus has it right in his "Kerry damage assessment":
Kerry has baited the trap himself. His constant "Let's talk about Vietnam. Let's compare my record to that of Bush" only makes things worse. ...
[Now Bush can say] "Why are you running on four months in Vietnam. What have you done since you got back?"
Kerry will then be forced to address his Senate record, or turn the topic back to Vietnam. If he includes so much as one reference, it will be Bush who gets to say "Enough about Vietnam already. I thought you wanted to talk about something else."
As far back as Kerry's acceptance speech after the Iowa primary, Kerry's service in Vietnam was held up as THE REASON to vote for the man. Now the ball is back in Bush's court. If the Kerry camp is suffering from its image as wishy-washy, the word that first comes to mind with the Bush administration is arrogant. Kerry agrees with everybody while Bush seemingly listens to no one.
President Bush and his team seem to resent being asked to explain anything to anybody. President Reagan had both the courage of his convictions and the willingness to defend them, in his own handwriting. Team Bush needs to ask for America's vote, not demand it, at next week's GOP convention.
|posted by Jim on 5:31 PM|
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