COOL! A British View of JOHN KERRY (from The Observer) [View All]

[liberalpragmatist]

Great article -- shows how avidly people overseas are watching us and hoping that this country does the right thing.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1143402,00.html

The Vietnam vet will win

No candidate has more relevant personal experience or better policies than John Kerry, the man who'll beat Bush

Will Hutton
Sunday February 8, 2004
The Observer

(snip)

It is testimony to the profound dominance of conservatism on the American national consensus, with the noxious charge of not being patriotic that is levelled by Bush against any critic, that the best way any liberal voice can fireproof himself against such a charge is to play the Vietnam vet card. As Kerry says, in order to be heard about the rollcall of domestic issues that concern ordinary Americans, any Democratic presidential candidate has to get past the security issue; being a decorated Vietnam vet offers Kerry the passport.

So now for one safe-ish forecast and one risky prediction, which I wish I had written last May when I first met the Kerry camp. Kerry is going to win the nomination to be the Democrat presidential candidate and I think he will go on to beat George Bush. American democracy may have its grievous defects - the role of money, the grotesquely gerrymandered congressional districts, the low turnouts and all the rest - but it still retains a core functionality.

Bush led his country into an illegitimate war for trumped-up reasons; the consequent morass is already costing more than $100 billion, many American lives and profoundly compromising US and Western interests. In a democracy, you pay for such fundamental misjudgments with your job and Bush will pay with his.

(snip)

Bush will certainly narrow the gap with a blitz of what will be some of the nastiest political advertising yet sanctioned in the US, but I still think this is an election the Democrats can win.

Which is where Kerry's experience in Vietnam is so vital; he can argue for the importance of legitimacy in fighting wars, of being on the right side of the moral argument and of the need for genuine international coalitions without being cast as another draft-dodging liberal; indeed, he can hurl back that charge with interest.

(snip)

...Blair is a liability to the progressive tradition on both sides of the Atlantic ... a damning indictment. If the Democrats want him to be silent, then silent he'd better be. We want Kerry as President, too. (end of article)