The Media's Hopes

Ryan Lizza's article in The New Republic perfectly points out the MSM's attempts to push Kerry back into the race for President. As was anticipated by many, the MSM wants to engineer a comeback for Kerry by putting out articles saying that his campaign is turning the corner, and things are now getting better. Lizza tries desperately to try to convince his readers that Kerry's NYU speech on Iraq was "the strongest and most effective he has delivered in this campaign." Of course, he is then confronted with the unpleasant fact that the speech was "descriptive rather than prescriptive"; another way of saying that it was all rhetoric with no plan. Yes, Kerry accused the Bush administration of every evil imaginable, with the explicit goal that "[T]o the extent voters are pessimistic about Iraq's future, Kerry can be optimistic about his." In other words, Kerry wants more soldiers and civilians to be killed in Iraq because that helps him. And as a letter from an Army Captain in Iraq posted at Captain's Quarters makes clear, Kerry's speeches of gloom and doom promising withdrawal, encourage the insurgents to commit more depravities and discourage our troops.

I also wonder if Senator Kerry realizes that he is partially responsible for the recent upswing in violence. This, by the way, is not speculation... this is straight from one of my interpreter's mouth.

When Senator Kerry said that, if elected, he would pull us out of here in four years, the insurgent leadership had a rousing round of celebratory automatic weapons fire. The insurgents can easily hang out another four years, taking 10 casualties here, 3 there and they know it. And they know that a massive upswing in violence with resulting casualties will make President Bush look really bad and increase the Senator's chances of election.

The only prescription that Kerry did have in his speech was that he would bring in more allies - meaning, presumably, France and Germany. Of course, as Mark Steyn points out this is inane simply from any logical and factual standpoint.

But I can't see the message itself - "We're losing anyway, so I'll surrender faster" - having much appeal to the American people. "We must make Iraq the world's responsibility," he says. But, if it's an American quagmire, why should anyone else get stuck in it? Even if Kerry's deft nuanced touch with the Franco-German outreach is as effective as he insists it is, it's asking a lot to expect them to pick up the slack for what he calls "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time". "Why, Jean, you're right, mon brave," Mr Chirac will say. "Your men have died in vain there. It's only fair that ours should, too." And, even if you accept the dubious logic that Franco-German troops would be less provocative to Baathist dead-enders than Anglo-American ones, has Kerry done the math? Say there are 140,000 US troops in Iraq when he takes office. He announces plans to bring home 10 per cent within two months. By what stretch of the imagination does he think the French and Germans are capable of producing 14,000 troops to replace them?

Kerry's plan is simple: stability, no matter how dangerous or murderous, is preferable to taking a chance to improve the lives of millions and change the very malfunctioning dynamics of the Arab world that produced the terrorists in the first place - withdraw into fortress America, and hope we aren't hit again.