While much of the blog world is still busy parsing the language of the most famous Presidential Daily Briefing ever and debating both the veracity of Condi Rice and the White House’s level of engagement, a few contrarian pundits are looking ahead and asking critical questions of the Kerry camp.
The indefatigably liberal Kos cuts Kerry no slack, asking “Why is Kerry running?”
As for clues, Kos says, “I’ve got nothing.”
The lack of a detailed Kerry plan for tackling the Iraq crisis is on Andrew Sullivan’s mind too. Sullivan links to his editorial in the Sunday Times of London, where he writes, “[Kerry] has yet to articulate a compelling alternative to Bush’s resolve. Again, when asked last week what his own current policy would be, he responded: ‘Right now what I would do differently is, I mean look, I’m not the president, and I didn’t create this mess so I don’t want to acknowledge a mistake that I haven’t made.’ That’s a non-answer. But a non-answer tells you a lot about what a real answer might be.”
Max B. Sawicky conjures up the Woodrow Wilson era and writes that John Kerry “really has an easy time of it now.” “While that marvelous Bush ‘War Cabinet’ is sucking wind, he can dance around the country with bromides about internationalization, the U.N., etc. He can equivocate about how many troops we need, and for how long. … He doesn’t have to actually run the Iraqi occupation and take responsibility for its progress,” Sawicky observes.
And at the New Republic Online, Noah Scheiber agrees that it’s time for Kerry to provide some specifics on a plan for Iraq, but dismisses the suggestion that Kerry has some kind of moral obligation to do so as “just ludicrous.”
(Apparently, it hasn’t yet occurred to befuddled bloggers what is abundantly clear to seasoned campaign operatives and reporters: With the status quo in Iraq shifting abruptly week by week, any candidate coming forth now with a detailed plan for the Iraq of January 2005 is setting himself up for instant obsolescence.)
Finally, the funny folks at ScrappleFace offer their own version of Kerry’s newly-released “Misery Index.”
–Susan Q. Stranahan
Susan Q. Stranahan wrote for CJR.