I see that on his site Andrew Sullivan says that “Kerry’s recent attempt to make the fiscal case against the Iraq war almost comically awful.”
I don’t know specifically what Andrew is talking about. But I assume it’s a recent soundbite I heard in which Kerry said something to the effect that all the money that’s been poured down the Iraq rathole could be going to improved education, prescription drugs and the rest.
If that’s what he was referring to then I have to say that I really agree. This is almost a parody of a Democratic response. And I think it entirely misses what is really at issue with the voters who are potentially in play in the election.
The key with the Iraq war isn’t how many dollars have been spent but on what has or hasn’t been achieved. And this way of framing the issue entirely misses that.
There is a clear message behind all of President Bush’s responses to these sorts of critiques. And it runs like this: ‘Sure, I probably wasted a lot of money over there. But there were guys over there who wanted to kill you. And you know what? I killed them first.’
Framed in that way, President Bush wins that argument. Hands down.
Very few voters want to shortchange security for higher cost of living adjustments or more teacher training.
The key is that President Bush has blown vast sums of money (actually way more than $200 billion) and managed to make us less secure than when he started. He’s spent that much money to purchase us a prize our most determined enemies would have gladly paid that much for to put in our lap.
