THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Why John F. Kerry? (10/17/04)

THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

Why John F. Kerry?

Competence and common sense

by Dr. Bohdan Vitvitsky

It has been suggested by a columnist on these pages that despite the Bush administration's pro-Russian attitudes and neglect of Ukraine, we should nonetheless vote for President George W. Bush because, allegedly, Mr. Bush is very "conservative" and John Kerry "liberal." That is wrong to the point of being silly.

U.S. treatment of Ukraine and Russia may be very important to me and less important to someone else in deciding for whom to vote, but that's a matter of personal values and not really susceptible to argumentation. So let's turn to the issues of "conservatism" and "liberalism."

Most political decision-making is a matter of competence and common sense. Only those on the far left or on the far right think otherwise. Thankfully, the far left is politically dead; we are, however, subjected to such ideological nonsense from the far right, which is now ascendant in America.

The last two presidents who were liberals, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, dragged us into Vietnam. The "conservative" George W. Bush has dragged us into Iraq. Did either of these momentous decisions have anything at all to do with being liberal or conservative?

Let's take a minute to consider what conservatism is. A central insight of conservative political theory is the notion that we should rarely, if ever, pursue radical social or political change. Why? Because we will probably make things worse. Why? Because existing social and political arrangements, however imperfect, evolved over time and have at least certain positives, whereas we humans simply aren't smart enough or understand enough of the intricacies of social and political arrangements to be able to create sudden, dramatic improvements. Apparently, President Bush never learned this elementary lesson.

The Bush idea of invading Iraq to turn it into a model of democracy in the Middle East is the mother of all radical social engineering projects. President Bush and Dick Cheney told us that after we defeated the existing regime we would be welcomed with flowers as liberators and all would be well. The Bush/Cheney expectations were stunning in their stupidity and naiveté. Leaving aside momentarily whether we should have invaded Iraq, a true conservative would never, ever have dragged us into Iraq without 100 percent more thought, planning and preparation. But a bumper-sticker conservative doesn't worry about such complexities.

Iraq is an unmitigated disaster for at least three separate reasons. First, the various Bush/Cheney rationales for invasion - the supposed weapons of mass destruction, the supposed connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, and the "they'll welcome us with flowers" fantasy - have all been demonstrated to be false. Second, once they decided to invade Iraq, Messrs. Bush and Cheney were responsible for competently preparing, planning and executing the occupation. They have failed utterly, and for that our servicemen and women are paying with their limbs and lives. Third, instead of making us safer from future attacks, the invasion of Iraq has made us less so. We diverted troops and resources from Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden; our invasion of Iraq is a recruiting bonanza for Al Qaeda; and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has energized hatred towards us among Muslims the world over. This is not conservatism; this is simply incompetence.

Regarding incompetence: the overall goal of any successful foreign policy is to unite your friends and divide your enemies. It takes special incompetence to achieve the opposite. Right after 9/11 the United States enjoyed support throughout the world that continued through our invasion of Afghanistan. Today, thanks to Bush policies, we have squandered all that support: surveys consistently show we are more hated than ever before. Alienating and antagonizing the rest of the world does not make us safer in this era of global terrorism.Concerning 9/11, it is somewhat perverse that Bush has wrapped himself so tightly in the 9/11 flag. As the 9/11 Commission and former Bush aides have revealed, for the first eight months of his administration, President Bush and his National Security Council significantly reduced the amount of attention that had been paid to monitoring Al Qaeda by the Clinton administration. This because the Bush administration wanted to be different from its predecessor, and because it didn't fully appreciate the threat posed by Al Qaeda. Yet, the Bush administration did begin discussing war with Iraq even before 9/11. This makes sense?

Domestically, true conservatism has always meant fiscal prudence and balanced budgets. But the "conservative" President Bush turned a projected Clinton budget surplus of $5 trillion into a $3 trillion deficit. And all because of his stubborn, ideological insistence on large tax cuts for the wealthy (everyone supports the middle-class tax cuts). Now true fiscal conservatives and people with some common sense such as Paul Volker and Pete Peterson say we are headed for economic disaster perhaps as early as five years from now. And we should reward Mr. Bush with another four years?

About Russia and Ukraine: does it matter, forgetting for a moment our concern about Ukraine, that the Bush administration is so pro-Russian? That President Bush went out of his way during the first debate with Sen. Kerry to emphasize this on television available worldwide by repeatedly referring to Russian President Putin as "Vladimir"? Yes, it does. Although good relations with Russia, as with any other country, are to be desired, this blind pro-Russian and neglectful of Ukraine "policy" is not good for the United States. If Russia manages to pull Ukraine into its orbit, the rest of the former Soviet states will likely fall like dominoes, and the evil empire likely will again arise. This is supposed to be good for the United States?

The incumbent spent an unprecedented $80 million on attack ads against Sen. Kerry prior to the Republican convention. Then, the Bush-orchestrated convention spent most of its time further demonizing Sen. Kerry. Ask yourselves, when was the last time an incumbent, who is supposed to have a record of achievements to run on in re-election, directed almost his entire campaign to attacking the challenger? But perhaps if, like Mr. Bush, you're the first president in 70 years to lose a million and a half private-sector jobs, and you've turned a projected $5 trillion surplus into a $3 trillion budget deficit, and you have mired the country into the horrific mess that is Iraq, then demonizing the challenger might indeed make sense to you.

Contrary to the crazed and shamelessly vicious campaign of character assassination employed by the Bush campaign and extreme right-wingers against Sen. Kerry (ask yourselves, if what the character assassins said were true, would John McCain be friends with Sen. Kerry? Would Sen. McCain have said that Kerry was fully qualified to be commander in chief?), Sen. Kerry is a thoughtful and intelligent alternative to President Bush. He understands that our principal enemy is bin Laden and his gang; that it is in our own self-interest to rebuild our alliances; that rescinding the Bush tax breaks for the rich and deficit reduction are simply a necessity; and that pragmatism, rather than ideology, is the true American way. Sen. Kerry also seems a little less enamored with a certain former KGB officer named "Vladimir," and Democrats have shown themselves to be more pro-Ukraine than Republicans. For all these reasons and others, I will be voting for John Kerry for president.

Bohdan Vitvitsky is an attorney, writer and lecturer who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy.

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