Richard Bennett

I really like Mark Steyn:

The one thing the Democratic Party owed America this campaign season was a candidate credible on the current war. The Democrats needed their own Tony Blair, a bloke who’s a big socialist pantywaist when it comes to health and education and the other nanny-state hooey but believes in robust projection of military force in the national interest. John Kerry fails that test.

Says it all, doesn’t it?

Link via Roger L. Simon, who thinks that Kerry’s lies about being in Cambodia are an “impeachable offense in advance.”

Hate plays an increasingly dominant role in American politics, and Jeff Jarvis doesn’t dig it:

This is why I try to give the administration at least a chance; I don’t want to pile on — and that’s a problem, too. There is plenty to criticize in this administration! But I fear that others who have wise and well-founded criticism are shying away from joining the mob. As Weiseltier puts it: “There are many good reasons to wish to be rid of George W. Bush, but there are no good reasons to wish to be rid of intelligence in our public life.”

But there’s good news: To go up against Bush, Democratic voters did not select an opposite — Alien v. Predator (Bush v. Dean); they selected a bore. There may be little to love in John Kerry but there is little to hate. It has been said that he’s another Carter (or, I’d say, Ford). Maybe what we really need is a president who bores us and that’s the choice we have this fall.

The descent of the radical left into unvarnished hate is one of the more disturbing trends in our politics, and sadly much of the right seems to be following them.

Swift Boat Vets for Truth aren’t taking the Kerry/Edwards lawsuit threats lying down. They’ve assembled a damning response to Kerry’s charges, which you can see at Captain’s Quarters. You should read it and make up your own mind, as I’ve done.

Now that Kerry’s following Michael Moore’s wishes and bashing the president for sitting still and thinking for a few minutes before rushing into action on 9/11, it’s appropriate to check into what Sen. Kerry did:

In an interview with Larry King on CNN, July 8, 2004, Sen. Kerry was asked where he was the morning of September 11th. Here is part of his response:

Kerry: “…And as I came in [to a meeting in Sen. Daschle’s office], Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid were standing there, and we watched the second plane come in to the building. And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table and then we just realized nobody could think, and then boom, right behind us, we saw the cloud of explosion at the Pentagon…” (emphasis added).

It should be noted that the second plane hit the World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m., and the plane hit the Pentagon at 9:43 a.m. By Kerry’s own words, he and his fellow senators sat there for forty minutes, realizing “nobody could think.”

So what’s good for the goose isn’t sauce for the gander, once again.

H/T Tim Blair, More Flopping from Mr. Flippy

Vietnamese in U.S. and Vietnam Differ in Support of U.S. Presidential Candidates:

In a Cali Today poll, 90 percent of Vietnamese Americans said they would vote for Bush, and only 10 percent said they would vote for Kerry.

…and apparently Vietnamese in Vietnam prefer Kerry.

Zev Chafets thinks Kerry is in a no-win situation:

John Kerry is not a bad man. He probably wouldn’t make a bad President. But he is a bad candidate in a terrible situation. He represents the wing of the Democratic Party that is imbued with a sense of its own moral, intellectual, cultural and social superiority. In short, he is the standard bearer for the unbearable.

It does seem increasingly likely that Kerry will lose, and I suspect the main reason will actually be a poor organization. He’s used to campaigning in a tiny state with only one media center, where he can sit at home and tinker with his message until he gets it just right, and then spring it at the last minute. That strategy won’t work in a national campaign, especially now that he’s up against the Big Boys.

Fortunately.

But that being said, Kerry doesn’t stir any anger in me, and in many ways a Kerry presidency wouldn’t be all that bad. Sure, he doesn’t get the fullness of the Islamofascist threat, and he’s a tool of the radical left, and his supporters push all kinds of junk science just like Clinton’s, but at least he’s not a hothead like Howard Dean. But while there’s not much to hate or fear in Kerry, there’s also not much to love, so I believe he’s going to have a hard time getting his people to the polls on election day – they’re going to burn out before then, and probably just take an extra shot or another reefer instead of bothering with the whole complicated business.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus sees the same problems with Kerry:

The problem is that it is Kerry who has to wage that “successful fall campaign”–and what the convention may have told us is that voters, despite agreeing with the Dems on all sorts of matrixes, don’t find Kerry personally appealing even when they see him give a good speech. At least not appealing enough to vote for him. That bodes ill for Democrats this fall, no matter how well Kerry has “set himself up.”

In essence, Kerry’s just not a regular guy.

UPDATE: According to the SoxBlog analysis, Kerry’s not very bright either:

…we can reasonably infer that Kerry did not get in to Harvard Law. And that?s remarkable. Given his family connections and his post graduate work both in the war and later protesting it, his admission should have been a given. The only thing that would explain Kerry not getting into Harvard would be that he performed dreadfully at Yale. Indeed, he would have had to perform at a level that would have raised the prospect that he couldn?t handle the work at Harvard. His efforts were probably so weak, they could even be described as sub-Bushian.

I’m reminded of the New Yorker article about how hard Al Gore worked to appear bright, and wonder if Kerry hasn’t employed similar techniques. Frankly, that Teresa person doesn’t appear to be any prize herself; saying silly things in five languages isn’t nearly as impressive as saying sensible things in one.