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Edited on Wed Jul-07-04 02:33 PM by LiviaOlivia
GOOD CHOICE. BAD SPEECH. Talk Down by Andrew Sullivan Only at TNR Online Post date: 07.07.04 It was, I think, the right decision. John Edwards will make a great running mate for Kerry. But missed in the natural brouhaha is the actual speech John Kerry gave announcing his choice. It's perhaps the first national stump speech given by Kerry now that the primaries are long over and the national campaign is beginning. And it was dreadful. It failed on almost every count. It was tedious; it was vacuous; and it was hyper-liberal. Here's my textual criticism. Kerry: "John Edwards is ready for this job. He is ready for this job and there is something else about John Edwards that is important in this campaign and our country at this critical time. As you know, I am determined that we reach out across party lines, that we speak the heart of America, that we speak of hope and of optimism. And John Edwards will join me in doing that. As so many as so many of you know, throughout this campaign, John talked about the great divide in America--the two Americas that exist between those who are doing very well and those who are struggling to make ends meet in our country. That concern is at the center of this campaign. It is what it is all about. It is what the 35 years of my struggle have been about and I am so proud that together John Edwards and I are now going to fight to build one America for all Americans."
This is a major statement. What it says is that the Kerry campaign is fundamentally not about the war on terror. It's about economic inequality. And the premise is that an unequal country is not truly a united country. It would be hard to find a simpler expression of paleoliberalism than that.
Kerry: "As you know, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and also a leader in fighting bioterrorism and understanding the threats we face, he shares my unshakable commitment to having a military that is second to nobody in the world but also to restoring old and rebuilding new alliances that make America stronger."
Perhaps this paragraph is supposed to reassure those of us who worry that John Kerry's position in the war on terror is simply to call it off. Well, it doesn't. Notice the vapid formulation: Edwards wants a military that is "second to nobody" in the world. But the current U.S. military is so far ahead of all its competitors that the notion of its falling into "second place" is ludicrous. Who would overtake the hegemon? Germany? Russia? France? China? Please. Not for a very long time, if ever. So Kerry gets to sound tough on defense while saying something completely vacuous. Then the second plank: "restoring old and rebuilding new alliances." But for what? So far, the only actual mention of the Islamist enemy is another vacuous phrase: "the threats we face." Can you tell us what those threats are, senator? And shouldn't they determine to a great extent what our foreign policy should be? Nah. You get the impression that Kerry's notion of a successful foreign policy is almost defined by whether every ally supports it. It's all process and no point. In peacetime, this is a weakness. In wartime, it's a disqualifier.
Kerry: "And there is also a great bonus--a great bonus--in having John on this ticket. He, like me, is blessed with a remarkable wife, a strong, brave woman, Elizabeth Edwards. And Teresa and I will be proud to stand with the Edwards family, with their daughter, Kate, who just graduated from college this year, and with their two little ones, Emma Claire and Jack. And anyone who knows them, and America will get to know them, knows that this is a family that loves each other and loves America. We--we are--Teresa and I have talked with John and Elizabeth this morning. We've invited them to come here to Pittsburgh tonight and we're going to spend the evening together, have a little chance to break bread, get a chance to talk. Our families will have a chance to meet and get to know each other well. And tomorrow morning, together, we all look forward to coming out and speaking to the nation for the first time as a team that will lead this country in a new and stronger direction."
Well, that's nice for you all. And Elizabeth Edwards is indeed an impressive person. But please let us know when the group hug is over.
Kerry: "In the next 120 days John and I and Elizabeth and Teresa are going to crisscross this country and fight for the nation that all of us know that we can be. This is about fairness; it's about fundamental fairness for all Americans; it's about people being able to go to work and actually getting the ability through a week's work and a month's work and a year's work to pay their bills, to live decently, to get ahead, to be able to be fair."
This paragraph is so vapid, so empty of any meaning, it almost defies commentary. It's about "fairness." What unfairness is he describing? We don't know. But we do know that this candidate is very much in favor of people being able to go to work and pay their bills. I'm sure he's also in favor of afternoon naps, ice cream, and new cars. Then he says that his campaign is about people being "able to be fair." So now the government is not only in favor of fairness; it's in favor of fairness "ability." You can hack away at this kind of verbiage for a very long time and the weeds of blather just keep growing back.
Kerry: "This is a fight about creating jobs in America that don't pay less than the jobs that we're losing overseas; this is about--this is about having a president who fights as hard for your job as he fights for his own job. This is about once and for all ending the shame of the United States of America being the only industrial nation on this planet--and the richest one at that--that doesn't yet understand--but it will at the end of this campaign--health care is not a privilege for the wealthy and the connected; health care is for all Americans. And we're going to fight for it."
Shrummery. But important Shrummery. Notice all the "fights" and "fighting" in this speech. And look what we're "fighting" for. The key plank of Kerry's election will be Clinton's in 1992: government-mandated universal healthcare. And the current American choice to deliver healthcare primarily through private industry is "shameful." Not wrong or misguided: shameful. Again, there's a case to be made for government-mandated universal healthcare. And it's certainly a relief to see Kerry actually say something substantive. But it also highlights that the Republican charge that Kerry is a big government, moralistic paleoliberal has a good deal of truth to it.
Kerry: "This is this this is also a fight for common sense."
And it's about the future, and children, and the future of children and ... who writes this crap?
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Personal Note: He goes on and on and on. Andrew who's flatulently vapid? You are.
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