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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
That makes Bush's reliance on Iraq a little dicey, and it underscores the need for him to conflate the tainted Iraq occupation with the more popular war on terror. The administration tried to do that before the war, stretching to create some sort of meaningful linkage between Iraq and al-Qaida. While Bush seems to have disavowed those sorts of claims, some members of the administration persist. And Wednesday's bombing in Baghdad and Thursday's attack in Basra give the administration a bit more ammunition. Saddam Hussein may not have had anything to do with al-Qaida, but car bombs aimed at civilians in hotels certainly suggest that the United States is dealing with "terrorists" in Iraq now. "Whatever you thought about the wisdom of getting into Iraq, most Americans now believe that it has become a front on the war on terror," says Marshall. "And if it wasn't a front on the war on terror when we went in, it is now."
Cheney pushed that linkage hard Wednesday, calling the war on Iraq an "essential step in the war on terror" and claiming that the Spanish train bombings "may well be evidence of how fearful the terrorists are of a free and democratic Iraq."
While some of Cheney's speech was devoted to bolstering Bush's bona fides as a wartime president, Cheney spent most of his time at the Reagan Library assailing Kerry for this record on Iraq in particular and military affairs more generally. Cheney attacked Kerry by name 25 times. He mentioned Osama bin Laden exactly once.
Delivered with a biting sarcasm that went beyond Cheney's usual involuntary smirk, the speech was the administration's most detailed critique yet of Kerry's foreign policy views. In a line of attack that will resonate even with some Democrats, Cheney criticized Kerry for his evolving -- Cheney would say contradictory -- positions on Iraq. Kerry voted against the resolution authorizing the 1991 Persian Gulf War, then voted for the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq, then voted against legislation providing $87 billion in funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Whatever the explanation, whatever the nuances he might fault us for neglecting, it is not an impressive record for someone who aspires to be commander in chief in this time of testing for our country," Cheney said.
The White House plainly sees a target of opportunity in Kerry's record on Iraq. By attacking Kerry's "nuanced" views on Iraq, the Bush-Cheney team hopes to persuade voters that Kerry is all over the map on all sorts of issues -- a finger-in-the-wind politician who cannot be trusted to shepherd the country though dangerous days.
Of course, Kerry sees similar opportunity in the administration's handling of Iraq. In his speech at George Washington University Wednesday, Kerry said the nation is "still bogged down in Iraq, and the administration stubbornly holds to failed, unilateral policies that drive potential, significant, important, long-standing allies away from us." The result: "a steady loss of lives and mounting cost in dollars to the American taxpayer, with no end in sight."
While polls suggest that going head-to-head with Bush on Iraq may not be in Kerry's best interest -- at least not yet -- there are collateral benefits to be gained. Democratic staff for the House Government Reform Committee released a report and database this week cataloging 237 "misleading" statements the administration has made to support the war in Iraq. If voters believe that Bush misled them about the need to go to war, they may also begin to question his honesty and trustworthiness on a broad variety of issues.
Kerry's campaign believes that the process has already begun. A senior adviser to the Kerry campaign told Salon this week that Bush's credibility with voters took a "body blow" when former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay announced in January that he had found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Earlier this month, Kay told the Guardian that it was time for the Bush administration to "come clean" with the American people and admit that it was wrong about the threat of WMDs. Says the Kerry advisor: "I think perceptions have changed. The president used to be seen as someone who was honest and forthright, and that has changed with the WMD issue. People are beginning to see it in other areas: the deficit, having been misled about the Medicare bill. They realize that, on all these things, there has been a tremendous amount of misleading,"
The trick for Kerry is in making the mendacity stick to Bush. Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said that Bush may benefit sometimes from the same sort of perceptions that protected Ronald Reagan: "People always assumed Reagan to be innocent by reason of stupidity, and Bush gets some of that, too," Sabato said. "People really don't think that Bush knew; they assume he simply believed what he was being told by Dick Cheney and other advisors."
Sabato thinks Bush is smarter that that. And in an odd way, it's in Kerry's interest to convince voters that Sabato's right. Recent polling shows Bush's much-vaunted reputation for honesty slipping, and that voters find Kerry -- not Bush -- the more trustworthy candidate. While Bush isn't anywhere near Nixonian levels yet, Sabato says the experience of that era may serve as a cautionary tale for this one. "In 1960, people were already calling him 'Tricky Dick,'" Sabato said. "It always caused you to think whether or not he was telling you the truth. You wouldn't accept anything he said at face value."
It will be hard for Kerry to saddle Bush with that kind of reputation, particularly since the biggest selling point of George Bush over Al Gore in 2000 was that he was a likable and honest guy. But the race is young, the campaigns are already nasty, and Kerry may just teach Bush something he missed while serving in the Texas Air National Guard: War is hell.
