According to Senator McCain he is voting for Bush because he showed great leadership when at ground zero he put his arm around the fire-chief and announced to the enemy we’re coming. Dramatic as it was, and admittedly the country was unanimously behind the President, this is insufficient reason to vote for one on the basis of one day. After all, three years have gone by and what was done in that time is the criterion for casting a vote. McCain further said that whether in agreement or not what the President says he means and the voter can take those words to the bank. This is peculiar thinking — though not, I suppose, coming from one with an eye on the White House in ‘08 — that doesn’t allow for assessing the wisdom of the President’s words, let alone the consequences. McCain himself has been highly critical of the president’s decisions and impels one to suspect that the senator cut a Machiavellian deal with Bush.

But two months from planting the seed of resolve at ground zero, the invasion of Afghanistan was an introduction to faulty thinking and a telling clue to his failure to do what he says by truncating that war before the region was thoroughly secured. Little did anyone at the time realize his short-span attentiveness had been switched to Iraq. Moreover, he did not even learn from the flimsy effort at Tora Bora and other pockets of resistance: he simplistically set out to conduct another war and again underestimated the enemy, despite advice to the contrary.

Had Gore or Clinton conducted a war in this sloppy manner, the public would be up in arms. But because Bush looked so good with the bullhorn and arm around the chief, and later in his flight suit on the aircraft carrier, substance doesn’t matter. Give me a break!

Copyright © 2004 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: September 23, 2004.

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