This article in today's Washington Post, in which reporters Dana Milbank and Jim Vandehei, though stopping short of calling Bush's ads lies, at least call them wrong and/or misleading. (Hey, it's a start, and they come right up to the edge of calling Marc Racicot a liar, too.) More telling, they report that three-fourths of Bush's ad buys are negative.
The point here is that Bush has got nuthin' - that, in effect, these ad buys are an admission by the campaign that they have no positive message to offer beyond the macro-theme of "a steady leader in times of change." (To which I respond to Kerry's campaign, try this: "We need to change leadership to steady these times.")
I mean, what can Bush say? He can't talk about the deficits; or the costs of his Medicare prescription bill; or his flip-flop on steel tariffs; or his giant unfunded education mandate, NCLB; or his defense of agribusines subsidies; or his caving on the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (the language of the GOP bill now permits civil unions which, save for needless constitutional tinkering, is basically the same policy position as most of Dems04 candidates). And so on.
Surely the president wants to avoid talking about Iraq in his ads or on his campaign website. And as Bob Novak also points out in his column today, Bush dare not mention Afghanistan either, where his support among the military there is fading as that war descends into a neglected failure.
So what's left? John Kerry: Evil-doer. To invert the Beatles' mantra from four decades ago, the Bushies prove that "all you need is hate."
Anybody else catch WaPo editorial page editor Fred Hiatt's barn-burner of a column today? Remember, Hiatt has been a cheerleader for Bush's foreign policy, lending it a "moderate" imprimatur for years now. The general incompetence and the Abu Ghraib scandal in particular (especially the administration's reaction to it) have got him exercised.
Bush could have responded differently. He could have embraced the heroes such as Spec. Joseph Darby, who sounded the alarm; William J. Kimbro, the Navy dog handler who refused to sic his dogs on prisoners; Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who wrote an honest report. He could have apologized to the people of Iraq, appointed an investigator from outside the chain of command, pledged to abide by the Geneva Conventions. Instead, he opted for a Nixonian strategy of damage containment, and a summer of piecemeal disclosure.
Who pays the price for the president's dishonesty? Soldiers such as Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli and his troops, who, as The Post's Scott Wilson reported last week, are out in Baghdad's slums, fighting insurgents one hour and fixing sewers the next. The prison scandal and the administration's failed response haven't doomed those efforts, but they've lengthened the odds. They've given aid and comfort to the enemy.
Why Hawks Should Be Angry is a must-read, brimming with the righteous anger of the betrayed believer. The last line is priceless. Speaking of the Bush administration, he writes, "They've given aid and comfort to the enemy."
