Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis notes that while the GOP convention is guarded by 37,000 cops a force he says is twice the size of the Canadian army the candidates are wasting time debating the wrong war.
As this strange spectacle unfolds, the Bush and Kerry campaigns are arguing furiously about the 30-year-old Vietnam War -- at a time when the U.S. is losing the wars it is now waging in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Neither candidate has advanced any cogent or realistic plan for dealing with these military-political quagmires. Bush keep intoning meaningless platitudes like "we've got to stay the course." But at least he has been consistent about Iraq, even though consistently and disastrously wrong. Kerry keeps shifting his position, and has seriously damaged his credibility by trying to be both pro-war and anti-war at the same time.
Perhaps they'll get around to the real issues post-convention. But don't count on it.
Meanwhile, Bush the optimist appears to have become a pessimist on the "war on terrorism":
I dont think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.
This is the same president who has been telling us confidently for the last three years that we can prevail and that we will prevail, no matter what it takes. Now, instead of turning them into grease spots on the sand, it sounds like we're going to subject them to peer pressure. Can you imagine what the president's supporters would be saying about Kerry had he uttered those words? Wimp; appeaser; friend of the terrorists; why does he hate America so? Bush performs one of those flip-flops he so derides in others and
nothing. Where's the outrage, war hawks?
I view Bush's acceptance of a minimal level of reality as a step forward for him. Not a big enough one to make me want to vote for him, but progress at least. He ought to get out of the White House more often. Permanently. Of course, for that to happen Kerry needs to start acting like he deserves to live there.
Well, we've got two months.
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