Monday, October 11, 2004
John "Time Warp" Kerry
I posted a comment yesterday on Roger Simon's blog to the effect that sometime in the last few days it struck me that John Kerry was stuck in the 1970s. His approaches to international relations (the UN, diplomacy, summits, ICC, Kyoto), national defense (treaties and alliances, everyone acts in concert), and even domestic issues (all wisdom and justice emanate from Washington) would be right at home in 1973. Not only are his solutions of that vintage, but what is more dangerous is that his perceptions have frozen in the 1970s as well. (E.g., that diplomacy will solve everything, even with Islamofascist death cultists who are trying to obtain chemical, biologcal, radiological and nuclear weapons; that a weaker United States is a good thing, because then our friends in Europe and Asia will have less reason to fear us.) Further evidence is Kerry's fixation on the Vietnam war.
I suggested a new nickname for Mr. Kerry: "Time Warp."
Wretchard has a different take -- he thinks the operative decade is the 1990s:
Well, OK, maybe. But the nickname still works.
The real issue is, can we afford the luxury of a 20th century thinker in a 21st century environment?
I suggested a new nickname for Mr. Kerry: "Time Warp."
Wretchard has a different take -- he thinks the operative decade is the 1990s:
When the newfangled description of terrorism as a "blended threat" is subtracted, the entire program consists of the policies of the late 1990s. Bilateral talks with North Korea. Oslo. G-8. The United Nations. Warrants of arrest. Extradition requests. Not a single new element in the entire package, except the fancy rationale. There is nothing wrong with that, any more than there is anything objectionable about a flashlight, but a more candid characterization of Kerry's proposals is not a voyage into uncharted waters so much as return to the world of September 10; in Kerry's words "back to the place we were". It has the virtue of producing known results, and suffers only from the defect that those results do not include being able to prevent massive attacks on the American mainland.
Well, OK, maybe. But the nickname still works.
The real issue is, can we afford the luxury of a 20th century thinker in a 21st century environment?
Comments:
Post a Comment
