Presidential race is on the low road

4 August 2004

John Kerry's hopes notwithstanding, this campaign will not be a high-minded debate over principles.

In his acceptance speech last week, Kerry made a plea to the president. Let's take "the high road," he said. Let's "make this election a contest of big ideas, not small-minded attacks."

Those are noble sentiments. Of course, they came right after Kerry implicitly called George Bush a liar (Kerry promised he would not "mislead us into war"), accused Dick Cheney of "conducting secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws" and blasted the attorney general for not "upholding the Constitution of the United States."

You see my point. If Kerry couldn't refrain from personal attacks even as he was asking his opponent to do so, it's hard to imagine that Bush won't respond in kind. And he will.

For good reason too. A campaign of principles can only be conducted when the two opponents actually disagree on principles. But - at least when it comes to foreign policy - Bush and Kerry do not. Instead, the "big idea" of this campaign essentially amounts to the notion that Bush is incompetent. He managed the process wrong, he acted hastily, he made tactical mistakes, he relied on bad information and he tried to do things on the cheap. And Kerry's promise to the American people is that, unlike Bush, he'll get it right.

Perhaps he will. But in getting it right, Kerry will still be advancing the same basic set of policies. Consider, for example, terrorism and the Iraq war, two subjects on which Democrats dwelt throughout their convention.

Bush's terrorism policy rests on the idea that we bring the fight to them, aggressively attacking terrorist strongholds in foreign lands (as happened in Afghanistan). One could imagine Kerry advancing a different doctrine, for example, one that stressed homeland defense and a disengagement of the United States from trouble spots around the world. The notion, advanced by many, is that by meddling in the business of other nations, the United States has encouraged terrorism. By withdrawing and concentrating on issues within our own borders, we make ourselves safer.

Nevertheless, that's not Kerry's position. Instead, he and other Democrats turned their convention into an extended session of bellicose chest-beating. Rhetorically, at least, Democrats made it clear that, like Bush, they too would have gone after al-Qaeda - and specifically, that they would have gone into Afghanistan.

The same is true of Iraq. The White House offered up two reasons for the U.S. invasion. One, preemptive war, boils down to a policy of get them before they get us. The second rationale relates to human rights and the idea that the United States, the world's only superpower, has a moral obligation to depose dictatorships and bring about democracy wherever it can. (Related to that is the belief that a newly democratic Iraq would exert a calming effect on the Mideast.)

Does Kerry disagree? No. By voting last year in favor of armed intervention, he made it plain he accepts the doctrine of preemptive war. And his refusal to take back that vote now - even knowing that weapons of mass destruction weren't in Iraq - suggests that he also buys into the idea of the United States as the world's policeman. His emphasis isn't on getting out of Iraq but rather, as he says, "winning the peace" (Kerry supported similar U.S. intervention in Bosnia, Haiti and Kosovo, by the way).

How about multilateralism, a point stressed by the Democrats? Isn't that a difference in principle? Hardly. At least as articulated by Kerry, it's a difference in tactics. Kerry argues that getting other nations to work with the United States gives us more credibility and can help reduce our costs. Yet Kerry also says that by seeking other nations' assistance, he's not ceding the right of the United States to act unilaterally. In other words, we will work with other countries as long as they do what we want. Otherwise, Bush-like, we'll do it on our own.

Add it up and Kerry's foreign policy is a lot like the president's. This should come as no surprise; Howard Dean made just that argument throughout the primaries.

Yet while many leftists disagree with Kerry, his foreign policy should appeal to moderates who like Bush's interventionist ways yet are unhappy with how things have turned out. In effect, Kerry is saying, we had the right idea but the wrong commander in chief. In that circumstance, Trump-like, the people should fire him and hire someone better.

Not surprisingly, Bush, like any employee called inept, will disagree. He'll fire right back, challenging Kerry's sincerity and abilities. The campaign will devolve into a down-and-dirty battle over intellect, skills and competence. Far from Kerry's wish that he and Bush "respect one another" and take the "high road," the next three months will be a low-minded reality.