Does Kerry have an Answer? 

Does Kerry have an Answer?

In a presidential election year, it is hardly enough to say there are problems with what the president is doing and has done; one must face the question whether his opponent would be an improvement.

It's hard to be enthusiastic about John Kerry. Mickey Kaus, a Democrat, has made it clear he wishes the Democrats had another nominee. Today (or late yesterday) he says Kerry was wrong to say he'd settle for a stable regime in Iraq--not necessarily a democracy--even though this may be the simple truth for Bush as well as for Kerry.

There may still (despite everything?) be an opportunity to turn Iraq into a successful anti-terrorist initiative. Some kind of mullocracy may be OK (some mullocracies are better than others) but a full-fledged democracy would be much better. It is far too soon for Kerry to give up on this possibility, and thus imply he would give in to a coup or some other undemocratic outcome.

(Linking to an op-ed by Robert Wright in the NY Times (which doesn't quite make this claim) Kaus says: "democracy is also our only shot at salvaging a positive long-term anti-terrorist dynamic from an invasion that otherwise will have nasty blowback effects." I certainly hope it's not the only shot.)

Now Kaus has added that if Bush is in fact prepared to hand over significant control to the UN, he may be following Kerry's suggestion, and it may be working. This won't leave Kerry much of a position from which to criticize.

Even David Remnick in the New Yorker, while clearly rooting for Kerry, suggests he needs to say more. While using the word "nuances" with a straight face--something I assumed was impossible by now--Remnick says: "It falls to Kerry to disprove the conservative zealots' favorite canard: that subtlety of vision is inconsistent with strength and cogency of action."