Seshmeister
03-21-2004, 02:32 PM
Sarah Baxter, New York
IT should have been a breakthrough week for the Massachusetts senator. After the Madrid bombings and continuing mayhem in Iraq ahead of yesterday’s first anniversary of the invasion, John Kerry had the opportunity to hound President George W Bush on defence and national security.
“Bring it on,” the Democrat challenger had often urged Bush. Here was his chance to engage in battle.
The verdict? He fluffed it. “Kerry’s week to forget” was one headline as his poll rating slipped back behind that of the president.
It was already clear before the week began that the Bush campaign’s growing negative attacks on Kerry’s alleged policy flip-flops and indecision were beginning to bring dividends. According to one poll, 57% to 33% thought Kerry said what people wanted to hear rather than what he believed.
Matters were not helped when he attempted to justify his rejection of a Senate bill to finance military action and reconstruction in Iraq by declaring: “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” The phrase is now starring in Bush advertisements with the payoff line “John Kerry: wrong on defence”.
Then there was Kerry’s claim that foreign leaders were rooting for him — coupled with his refusal to name them. It was embarrassing when Mahathir Mohamad, the former prime minister of Malaysia and seen by many Americans as an anti-semite, outed himself as a fan.
The endorsement of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain’s new Socialist prime minister-elect, was not any more welcome. He is viewed by a sizeable slice of American opinion as the chosen candidate of Osama Bin Laden.
After days of bruising battle on this issue, Kerry — tarred as an “international man of mystery” — conceded defeat. “It is simply not appropriate for any foreign leader to endorse a candidate in America’s presidential election,” announced Rand Beers, his foreign affairs adviser.
The Democrat candidate is recuperating from the campaign setbacks at his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry’s retreat on the ski slopes of Ketchum, Idaho. For sheer luxury and relaxation, the setting is hard to beat. The great hall is made from an Elizabethan barn, dismantled beam by beam and transported to America from East Anglia. Yet feelings are running high in the Kerry camp and tempers are short. When a secret service agent accidentally knocked him off his snowboard, the senator responded with an expletive, allegedly calling the agent a “sonofabitch”.
Friends said it was time for a rest. “He needed it as badly as anybody could need it. The best thing that can happen is he’ll sleep, relax, eat some good food and then, in a couple of days, he’ll be back firing again,” said a skiing friend.
Kerry cannot afford to stay out of the fray for long. A Bush political aide crowed: “We have succeeded in defining him as a man without steady conviction who therefore isn’t ready to be a leader of the world.”
After a quiet few months, Karl Rove, the president’s political right-hand man, is also back in action. Rove — a supreme sorcerer of electoral dark arts — boasted to a group of conservative activists that the Bush campaign was going “to counterpunch even before Kerry opens his mouth”.
A senior Bush adviser said: “You’re going to see us continue to be more aggressive.
I mean, everywhere Kerry goes, he’s not only rebutted but ‘pre-butted’.”
Support for Kerry is steadily falling. A Sunday Times poll of polls last week showed Bush leading Kerry 46.3% to 43%. The figures worsen if Ralph Nader, the independent leftwinger, is included. It was a dramatic reversal of their positions a week earlier when Kerry led Bush 48% to 44.5%.
The risks posed by the Iraqi conflict for the president nevertheless remain considerable. Fresh controversy erupted yesterday over Bush’s motives for invading Iraq, when a senior former aide claimed that the administration had considered bombing Iraq in retaliation for the September 11 attacks against New York and Washington — despite there being no evidence of a link with Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Richard Clarke, counter- terrorism co-ordinator for Bush at the time of the attacks, claims in a book that Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, complained the next day that although the administration was convinced Al-Qaeda was to blame, “there aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq”.
The violence on the ground in Iraq, which is so demoralising to American public opinion, is expected to escalate in the run-up to November’s election.
An American marine was killed yesterday by insurgents in western Iraq, bringing the US military death toll in the past year to 571. Iraqi rebels are also turning to “soft targets”, frustrated by the US-led coalition force’s ability to shelter behind blast-proof walls and in sniper towers. Increasingly this means American civilians are targets as well as Iraqis.
“The military barely goes out and when they do it is with maximum force protection guidelines,” said one former intelligence officer and consultant to the coalition provisional authority. “There have been orders to reduce military casualties and let the Iraqis do the brunt of the work.
“I have seen a new memo from Paul Bremer (head of the provisional authority) detailing the procedures for protecting personnel. They’re ridiculous. Employees are required to wear body armour in the shower.”
Try as he might, Kerry has failed to capitalise on the post-war chaos. He attempted to win support for the lack of proper protective armour for American troops in Iraq on the campaign trail last week, only to stumble over his “no” vote about the $87 billion in the Senate.
Other avenues of attack are also opening up. Last week it was discovered that the clothing manufacturer for Bush’s campaign was selling pullovers made in Burma — which is the subject of a US trade embargo.
Whether Kerry can make the most of these opportunities may depend on funding. So far he has 181 fundraisers compared with the 458 “pioneers and rangers” used by Bush.
Mickey Kaus, of Slate.com, a left-leaning magazine, has been pillorying Kerry. “It’s especially dumb to sound like a straddler during the week when you’re being attacked as a straddler,” he sniped.
“By July 26 it could be clear to everyone except about 3,000 delegates at the Democrat convention that Kerry is not cutting it against Bush, even though Bush is very beatable.”
One mischievous letter-writer asked Kaus: “Is it possible that the Republican attacks on Kerry will be so successful that Democrats are ready to abandon Kerry at the convention?” Democrats have already endured one bout of buyer’s remorse over their enthusiasm for Howard Dean’s self-destructive candidacy. They cannot indulge in a second dose.
Additional reporting: Mitchell Prothero, Baghdad
IT should have been a breakthrough week for the Massachusetts senator. After the Madrid bombings and continuing mayhem in Iraq ahead of yesterday’s first anniversary of the invasion, John Kerry had the opportunity to hound President George W Bush on defence and national security.
“Bring it on,” the Democrat challenger had often urged Bush. Here was his chance to engage in battle.
The verdict? He fluffed it. “Kerry’s week to forget” was one headline as his poll rating slipped back behind that of the president.
It was already clear before the week began that the Bush campaign’s growing negative attacks on Kerry’s alleged policy flip-flops and indecision were beginning to bring dividends. According to one poll, 57% to 33% thought Kerry said what people wanted to hear rather than what he believed.
Matters were not helped when he attempted to justify his rejection of a Senate bill to finance military action and reconstruction in Iraq by declaring: “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” The phrase is now starring in Bush advertisements with the payoff line “John Kerry: wrong on defence”.
Then there was Kerry’s claim that foreign leaders were rooting for him — coupled with his refusal to name them. It was embarrassing when Mahathir Mohamad, the former prime minister of Malaysia and seen by many Americans as an anti-semite, outed himself as a fan.
The endorsement of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain’s new Socialist prime minister-elect, was not any more welcome. He is viewed by a sizeable slice of American opinion as the chosen candidate of Osama Bin Laden.
After days of bruising battle on this issue, Kerry — tarred as an “international man of mystery” — conceded defeat. “It is simply not appropriate for any foreign leader to endorse a candidate in America’s presidential election,” announced Rand Beers, his foreign affairs adviser.
The Democrat candidate is recuperating from the campaign setbacks at his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry’s retreat on the ski slopes of Ketchum, Idaho. For sheer luxury and relaxation, the setting is hard to beat. The great hall is made from an Elizabethan barn, dismantled beam by beam and transported to America from East Anglia. Yet feelings are running high in the Kerry camp and tempers are short. When a secret service agent accidentally knocked him off his snowboard, the senator responded with an expletive, allegedly calling the agent a “sonofabitch”.
Friends said it was time for a rest. “He needed it as badly as anybody could need it. The best thing that can happen is he’ll sleep, relax, eat some good food and then, in a couple of days, he’ll be back firing again,” said a skiing friend.
Kerry cannot afford to stay out of the fray for long. A Bush political aide crowed: “We have succeeded in defining him as a man without steady conviction who therefore isn’t ready to be a leader of the world.”
After a quiet few months, Karl Rove, the president’s political right-hand man, is also back in action. Rove — a supreme sorcerer of electoral dark arts — boasted to a group of conservative activists that the Bush campaign was going “to counterpunch even before Kerry opens his mouth”.
A senior Bush adviser said: “You’re going to see us continue to be more aggressive.
I mean, everywhere Kerry goes, he’s not only rebutted but ‘pre-butted’.”
Support for Kerry is steadily falling. A Sunday Times poll of polls last week showed Bush leading Kerry 46.3% to 43%. The figures worsen if Ralph Nader, the independent leftwinger, is included. It was a dramatic reversal of their positions a week earlier when Kerry led Bush 48% to 44.5%.
The risks posed by the Iraqi conflict for the president nevertheless remain considerable. Fresh controversy erupted yesterday over Bush’s motives for invading Iraq, when a senior former aide claimed that the administration had considered bombing Iraq in retaliation for the September 11 attacks against New York and Washington — despite there being no evidence of a link with Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Richard Clarke, counter- terrorism co-ordinator for Bush at the time of the attacks, claims in a book that Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, complained the next day that although the administration was convinced Al-Qaeda was to blame, “there aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq”.
The violence on the ground in Iraq, which is so demoralising to American public opinion, is expected to escalate in the run-up to November’s election.
An American marine was killed yesterday by insurgents in western Iraq, bringing the US military death toll in the past year to 571. Iraqi rebels are also turning to “soft targets”, frustrated by the US-led coalition force’s ability to shelter behind blast-proof walls and in sniper towers. Increasingly this means American civilians are targets as well as Iraqis.
“The military barely goes out and when they do it is with maximum force protection guidelines,” said one former intelligence officer and consultant to the coalition provisional authority. “There have been orders to reduce military casualties and let the Iraqis do the brunt of the work.
“I have seen a new memo from Paul Bremer (head of the provisional authority) detailing the procedures for protecting personnel. They’re ridiculous. Employees are required to wear body armour in the shower.”
Try as he might, Kerry has failed to capitalise on the post-war chaos. He attempted to win support for the lack of proper protective armour for American troops in Iraq on the campaign trail last week, only to stumble over his “no” vote about the $87 billion in the Senate.
Other avenues of attack are also opening up. Last week it was discovered that the clothing manufacturer for Bush’s campaign was selling pullovers made in Burma — which is the subject of a US trade embargo.
Whether Kerry can make the most of these opportunities may depend on funding. So far he has 181 fundraisers compared with the 458 “pioneers and rangers” used by Bush.
Mickey Kaus, of Slate.com, a left-leaning magazine, has been pillorying Kerry. “It’s especially dumb to sound like a straddler during the week when you’re being attacked as a straddler,” he sniped.
“By July 26 it could be clear to everyone except about 3,000 delegates at the Democrat convention that Kerry is not cutting it against Bush, even though Bush is very beatable.”
One mischievous letter-writer asked Kaus: “Is it possible that the Republican attacks on Kerry will be so successful that Democrats are ready to abandon Kerry at the convention?” Democrats have already endured one bout of buyer’s remorse over their enthusiasm for Howard Dean’s self-destructive candidacy. They cannot indulge in a second dose.
Additional reporting: Mitchell Prothero, Baghdad