Is Kerry Rope-a-Doping Bush?

Bush is famously "with us or against us". It's black and white, right or wrong. Kerry is famously nuance. What is is unless it isn't, in which case it very well may not be.

An important question is: which message attracts the most voters?

Bill Safire quoted Bush roundly mocking Kerry during Debate 2, asking in reference to world summits in Iraq: "'And what is he going to say to those people that show up to the summit? 'Join me in the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place'?'" (Bill was arguing that Bush won the second debate, because "pro-Kerry people declared it a draw". Ain't necessarily so that everyone is disingenuous, Bill).

That's not an effective argument for Bush, failing to convey in his one-side-of-the-guilliotine-or-the-other form of argumentation, that there are principles behind words. It's not inconsistent to say we should never have entered this Iraq war, while working hard to do something to bring it to a responsible end, and repairing our shredded alliances while doing so. Just as it is not inconsistent to say we absolutely should have invaded Iraq, and screw those who would stand in our way. Of course, those two positions are inconsistent with each other.

You see the problem here? Bush is mistaking someone who disagrees with him for someone who is wrong. Bush doesn't get that there is a battle of principles, here. As such, it's not a convincing argument to simply ridicule the opposition. You have to make a case that their principles are wrong.

There, I can't help him. The country is coming around to the view that Iraq was not a well-justified war, it was launched for reasons other than what Bush said at the time, and it's making the country less safe, rather than more safe. Black-and-white ain't doing it for us.

Because Kerry can very credibly go out and say, "Join me in *fixing* the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place." That would definitely make us more friends than Bush's approach, would ease the burden of Iraq on our troops and our tax system, and invest more countries in the outcome in Iraq than the US and England.

(Poland quit the place last week).