Cheney v Edwards

This Monday, Kerry called Iraq "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" and said his goal was to withdraw U.S. troops in a first White House term. "I would not have done just one thing differently than the president on Iraq, I would have done everything differently than the president on Iraq," Kerry said. He called the president's talk about a coalition fighting alongside about 125,000 U.S. troops "the phoniest thing I've ever heard." Apparently, Kerry thinks that the war has consequences, and that there is a difference between doing it right and doing it wrong. Indeed, Kerry told a West Virginia rally the "W" in Bush's name stood for "wrong -- wrong choices, wrong judgment, wrong priorities, wrong direction for our country" on everything from jobs to Iraq.

It turns out that Dick Cheney also thinks the war has consequences and that there is a right way and a wrong way to prosecute the war. It therefore follows that if the two candidacies have such differing visions, the Kerry vision might well be consequencial and wrong. That adds up to dangerous. "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney told supporters at a town-hall meeting.

Kerry claims he would do everything differently, including pulling out of Iraq and claiming to be able to internationalize the war. Kerry claims to be able to bring the troops home with honor and quickly, he claims to be able to bring in new international partners. To many of us this sounds like a combination of fantasy (there simply are no available troops to replace Americans) and cutting and running. Consequential and wrong: dangerous.

John Edwards replied, "Dick Cheney's scare tactics crossed the line today, showing once again that he and George Bush will do anything and say anything to save their jobs. Protecting America from vicious terrorists is not a Democratic or Republican issue, it's an American issue and Dick Cheney and George Bush should know that. John Kerry and I will keep America safe, and we will not divide the American people to do it."

So, apparently, Kerry can suggest that Bush's policy is harmful, risky, and a distraction, which is to say that it risks harmful consequences, but heaven forbid the other guys say this about Kerry. To suggest that is an unAmerican scare tactic. Edwards may think that the Kerry/Edwards program would do that, but reasonable people might believe its harmful, risky, and dangerous. You simply can't call the other guy's policy bad without expecting him to call your plan bad.