Democratic Party compassion was on prominent display in Boston, but one large group of people was left out:
Edwards spoke only hours after at least 70 Iraqis had been killed by a car bomb, a particularly gruesome new atrocity against a population liberated from dictatorship by American troops. Yet Edwards, in a speech replete with tributes to U.S. losses and sacrifices, did not mention that tragedy and referred only in glancing terms to the price that Iraqis are paying in what must be seen as a joint struggle.
Kerry — who in his unspoken subtext accused Bush of being a liar, a coward and a subverter of the Constitution — spoke authoritatively on national security, if in general terms. But he and the Democratic platform also largely neglected the fate of the people of Iraq, who are being progressively lost in the shuffle of electoral politics — as are Britain, Poland, Italy, Japan and the other nations that are helping in what the Democrats insist on calling the “go-it-alone” U.S. presence in Iraq. Kerry’s stinging shot at the Saudi royal family will also not ease his self-described task of bringing allies to America’s side if he wins.
In New York, when the Republicans gather in a month’s time, the Iraqis and the coalition partners are not likely to be ignored. The danger there will be that they will be used as props and symbols for the wisdom and resoluteness of the president. That kind of attention would be as bad as neglect. Neither party should leave the people of Iraq behind in fighting this election.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen in New York.