When George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency in 2000, he promised to be “a uniter, not a divider.”
Four years later, unity is scarce, not just in America, but also around the world with many of our allies. The chief culprit for this lack of unity is not hard to find. A successful but largely unilateral invasion of Iraq (yes, Britain stood with us along with a few other stalwart or opportunistic friends) has evolved into a messy, democracy-building, police action that threatens to increase regional and worldwide volatility while tying up U.S. military resources.
On the domestic front, our efforts to fund the war and rebuild Iraq while aggressively cutting taxes have combined to balloon the budget deficit to a record $413 billion. Just as in Iraq, we do not appear to have a serious exit strategy in place that would allow us to reduce the debt and stop the financial bleeding that is darkening our children’s future.
Through it all, Bush clings to a dangerous image of infallibility. While he is clearly resolute in his leadership style and commited to success in Iraq, we can’t understand why Bush and other administration officials won’t admit to miscalculations in Iraq, even though they are obvious, even to leading Republicans in Congress. Perhaps they think that if they don’t see a problem, they can’t be expected to fix it.
Change is needed, and John Kerry presents a credible alternative.
Kerry is an intelligent leader with a high capacity for nuance. He understands the complexity of issues, resisting the simple answers Bush often espouses.
On the international front, he argues for building broader and stronger coalitions, much like the one Bush’s father put together before the first Gulf War. Critics say Kerry would cede U.S. control over its own security, but we don’t buy that. Sensible and effective use of U.S. power will gain support, as we saw after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when most of the world united in the effort to fight al-Qaida and overthrow its government sponsors in Afghanistan.
Bush squandered that support by following what now appears to have been a pre-determined path toward an invasion of Iraq, a path his father avoided because he couldn’t see where it would end.
Iraq wasn’t a front in the war on terrorism, but Bush made it one by rushing in after over-selling questionable intelligence that Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to U.S. security. Democrats, including Kerry, agreed with the intelligence assessments, but it was Bush who incessantly spun incomplete findings into concrete proof.
Today, Bush insists that had he known last year what he knows now, he would have done the same thing. Some may see that as resolve; we see it as dangerous stubbornness. Bush continues to paint a rosy picture of Iraq’s future, despite last month’s intelligence assessment that prospects for stability there are bleak.
Domestically, Kerry would roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, a step toward fiscal responsibility. We’d prefer fewer new spending initiatives than Kerry is proposing, but Bush’s alternative isn’t working – the rate of job growth he said his tax cuts would spark hasn’t materialized. Bush has funded these tax cuts with money borrowed from future generations, hastening a crisis for Social Security and Medicare. His goal to make those tax cuts permanent will only make things worse.
Locally, electrical customers fleeced by criminal market manipulation have gotten no help from an administration that refuses to hold Enron and others fully accountable for their misdeeds. A Kerry presidency would mean new appointments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has the authority to rectify past wrongs.
Bush says voters can’t trust Kerry because he changes his mind too often. We’d prefer a dose of flexibility to stubbornness and arrogance. Bush’s record doesn’t justify a vote of confidence. It validates a vote for change.
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