SAY WHAT?
Take a look at this bit from James G. Lakely's story in today's Washington Times:
The president has charged that if Mr. Kerry had his way in the run-up to the war — waiting long enough to allow inspectors to reveal that Saddam Hussein had no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons — the Iraqi dictator would still be in power.
Mr. Kerry disputed that argument, saying the lack of such weapons would have eroded Saddam's ability to retain control of the country.
"If you don't have weapons of mass destruction, believe me, Saddam Hussein is a very different person," Mr. Kerry said. "That's what kept him power. And I believe Saddam Hussein would not be in power."
He seems to be suggesting that weapons inspectors would have concluded, definitively, that Saddam did not have weapons, and that once that happened, someone would have deposed Saddam. Uh, who?
If Kerry said this, it is obvious that he is truly out of touch with the issue and mainstream America. How can anyone, no matter the party or ideology, believe that Saddam would have be overthrown by anyone. The Iraqi people would have never known that WMDs were not found.
This has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard Kerry say. G
BUSH UP 10 IN WISCONSIN?
An ABC News poll finds "Bush leading Kerry by 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters in Wisconsin, with 1 percent for Ralph Nader. (Nader is on the ballot for now. Excluding him it's a similar 54 percent to 44 percent Bush lead.) Among the broader group of all registered voters, it's 50 percent-44 percent-2 percent with Nader, and 51 percent to 45 percent without him."
Also interesting: "Despite Bush's lead in the presidential race, incumbent Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold holds a 51 percent to 45 percent advantage among likely voters over construction executive and former Army officer Tim Michels in their race."
NBC POLL - SMALL LEAD FOR BUSH
I hear through the grapevine that the NBC-WSJ poll coming out tonight has Bush up 50 to 46 among likely voters, up 48 to 45 among registered.
UPDATE: The specifics are out. I cannot believe the guys at The Note were talking about this poll like it was good news for the Kerry campaign. It's obviously better to be down by three or four than to be down double digits, but these results shouldn't be a reason to break out the party hats among Democrats. Some of the trouble spots for Kerry:
For example, he has just a 48-45 percent lead among women voters. By comparison, exit polls from 2000 show that that Gore won the women's vote, 54-43...
Fifty-four percent of respondents say that the campaign doesn't have a message, or that they don't know what a Kerry-Edwards team would do if elected. That's compared with just 36 percent who believe the campaign has a message. Conversely, 68 percent say the Bush campaign has a message, while just 23 percent think it doesn't.
I hear that the additional data released later tonight will reveal that when Kerry supporters are asked whether they're voting for Kerry and Edwards, or against Bush and Cheney, 36 percent say they're for Kerry; 51 percent say they're against Bush.
For Bush supporters, 77 percent say their vote is a vote for Bush, only 14 percent say their vote is a vote against Kerry.
THE TRIBUNE ACCUSES KERRY OF 'CHANNELING DEAN'
The editors of the Chicago Tribune offer a surprisingly tough editorial on Kerry's shifting views on the Iraq war. The title is "Channeling Howard Dean." An excerpt:
Kerry gave little definition to the change of course he represents. He did, though, say: "We could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years."
That's the kind of specificity that different listeners hear in different ways. Appreciative Americans might fairly conclude that Kerry wants to bring our boys and girls home. Other groups — nervous Iraqi citizens awaiting democracy, the vicious insurgents who plague them, and the coalition forces serving alongside U.S. troops — might fairly conclude that the Democrat who would be president is primarily interested in getting the heck out of Iraq ASAP.
Bush, too, says he wants to bring the troops home. But he is — as he has been for three years — steadfastly committed to defeating terrorists, challenging the governments that give them succor, and projecting democracy as broadly as possible in the Middle East as a step toward defanging Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.
Kerry, by contrast, speaks less ambitiously about fighting "our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists." A logician devoted to this nation's long-range security — not just to making today's problems go away — might conclude that Kerry's goal is necessary but by no means sufficient.
Elections are approaching in both the U.S. and Iraq. Officials in both countries have said that terrorists could escalate their violence in order to break the will of Americans and Iraqis alike.
It will be interesting to see how Americans react to Kerry's bleak prognosis. One crucial task will be to make sure he doesn't come across as a prospective commander in chief who, having long defended his war authorization vote, now thinks insurgents have made the fight too tough.
Because, when he delivered that speech in Des Moines, Kerry also eviscerated Howard Dean for having been "all over the lot" on Iraq: "One moment he supported authorizing the use of force, the next he criticized those who did."
NOTE: The Chicago Tribune has rarely, if ever, supported a Republican candidate for any office.
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