Dan,

I am with you on this in a lot of ways.

I actually think I’d be *more* inclined to vote for Bush if he was more up-front about his error about Iraq. What if he said something like: “We now realize how much more carefully we need to scrutinize intelligence, especially when it is the determining factor in going to war.” Even with a caveat, it’s still possible to take responsibility: “Though the world will still be a safer place without Sadam Hussein in power, Americans must be confident in their government’s ability to make decisions about military force. I will ensure that such failures will not happen again.”

Instead, the administration has dragged their feet on everything about the 9-11 commission–from creating it, to testifying, to implementing its recommendations.

The problem is that Kerry, in my mind, doesn’t really provide much of an alternative, or at least is unreliable. His attacks on the way the Iraq conflict was handled smack of political desperation more than principled dissent. One of the major failures in the lead-up to 9-11 (in addition to the Bush administration’s lack of attention) was a Clinton administration that didn’t respond enough to the attacks on the US embassies and the USS Cole, in part because his political credibility was compromised because of the Lewinsky scandals. If only Clinton had cared less about how a real assault against Al Qaeda would look… I’m suspicious that Kerry would also be too swayed by popular sentiment.

But I do think there is an important philisophical difference between the two in fighting terrorism. The approach Kerry seems to espouse tends to see military force as a double-edged sword. Did our invasion of Iraq really start a terrorism-discouraging trend toward democracy in the middle east? Or did it just give terrorist recruiters more ammunition? Does military force destroy terrorism at its roots, or encourage it to fester?

The Bush doctrine would say that force is the only language terrorists understand, that diplomacy just invites aggression because it communicates unwillingness to fight.

Obviously, both sides are just an emphasis, not an adherance to only one approach and a rejection of the other. This, I think, is fundamentally what the difference is between the two candidates. The only problem is that I’m more inclined to believe Bush’s stance is authentically grounded in principle (even if it’s a flawed one), and I’m afraid Kerry’s actions haven’t demonstrated the consistency of position that I need to trust as genuine.

And that’s just foreign policy, and just about Iraq. Perhaps what is most upsetting to me about Iraq is that it has become such a distraction from other problems that I think are much more germaine to actual national security.

Good points about social programs. (And sorry it’s so long) ;-)