Cheney saved his best barbs not for Saddam Hussein but for John Kerry, portraying the Democratic presidential contender as a weak and unsteady leader who would put the country’s security at risk. “He speaks as if only those who openly oppose America’s objectives have a chance of earning his respect,” Cheney said, an allusion to Kerry’s comment that foreign leaders have told him they want to see President Bush George W. defeated.
Kerry’s comment that foreign leaders want Bush to lose in November coincides with a recent Pew survey of global attitudes revealing anti-Americanism on the rise in the wake of the Iraq war. Substantively, the way Bush has trampled the Atlantic alliance has set back global cooperation that was a half century in the making. But politically the remark was a mistake. Americans don’t care what foreign leaders think. They wear it as a badge of honor when the weak sisters in the alliance get their skirts ruffled by Bush’s Lone Ranger style.
This is a critical stage in the campaign. The voters barely know Kerry, and the Bush campaign is racing to define him in a negative way before he can define himself. A 30-second ad calling Kerry “wrong on defense” began airing this week. An earlier ad claimed Kerry would raise taxes by $900 billion. The Associated Press reported that Karl Rove–Bush’s campaign Svengali–boasted to a group of conservative activists meeting in Washington, “This is just a taste of what we’re going to give him.”
Kerry knew this was coming. “Bring it on,” he said so often it became his battle cry. Well, now they’ve brought it on, and what is Kerry doing? He’s going on vacation in Idaho, leaving behind the festering story of his unholy bond with foreign leaders. “Before long they’ll be calling him Jacques Kerry,” says a Republican strategist. “It’s only a matter of time.”
The cable networks also had a grand time airing over and over Kerry’s response to the Bush attack that he didn’t support the troops in Iraq because he voted against the $87 billion the administration requested to reconstruction. “I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it,” Kerry said. That’s Senate-speak, and Kerry better shed it if he wants to win the election. Voters can’t grasp the contortions of casting a preliminary vote conditioned on an amendment that would have paid for the war with Bush’s tax cut, however high-minded that might have been.
If the election is fought on national security, Bush has the edge. Even if events on the ground in Iraq are not going well, Republicans enjoy a 20-point advantage over Democrats when it comes to keeping the country safe. Kerry thinks his strong suit is foreign policy. But the Bush campaign is ready to pounce on any misstep. “I just want to shake [Kerry,]” says a Democratic Senate aide. “[He’s] got to be disciplined.”
Meanwhile, the administration’s deception about the cost of its Medicare prescription-drug plan gets drowned out by Kerry’s mistakes. Tom Scully, the Bush appointee who headed the Medicare office, says he was just joking when he told the chief actuary that he’d be fired if he released to Congress the real cost of the prescription-drug plan. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has ordered an investigation into the incident. This reveals a depth of duplicity and mendacity by this administration that could prove its undoing.
Nor has the lesson of Spain been lost on the Bush administration. What ultimately did in the Spanish government last week was its arrogance and deception. The public watched the aftermath of those terrible Madrid train bombings on television, and they could see for themselves that the scale was radically different from the Basque-separatist attacks they had been dealing with for decades. When the government insisted for three days before the election that the attack was the work of homegrown terrorists, Spanish voters concluded the government was lying. That has obvious implications for the White House. “If Bush is defeated, it will be because the American people decide he’s not the straight shooter they thought he was,” says a top aide to a Senate Republican.
Kerry can’t reveal what a foreign leader tells him in confidence. What would that portend for him as president if he couldn’t keep a private conversation private? But the Republicans show no sign of letting up, suggesting Kerry might be making it up or worse, conspiring with America’s enemies to get Bush out of office. “I’m a little surprised they’re stooping to that level rather than having their slimy henchmen do it,” says a Democratic strategist, adding, “I’m also concerned it may work.”
The harsh tone of the attacks this early in the campaign indicates that Bush is willing to drive up his own negatives in order to raise doubts about Kerry. The good news for Kerry is that he fights better when he’s behind, and the way things are going, he’ll soon be behind.
