More Idiocy from the Corner

Also, it seems to me that Kerry is "conservative" not in any ideological sense and barely in the tempermental sense. His conservatism -- as Andrew seems to be defining it -- is marked by a lack of enthusiasm for making a big fuss about anything. After all he did vote for the war and regime change (under Clinton), he simply objects to the mess caused by actually following through. In the world we are living in, such an attitude is the mark of denial, not conservatism. And, again, modern conservative foreign policy (which, contra Frank Foer, has never been as defined or uniform as conservative domestic policy) has always staked its ground on what is necessary.

That's fucking rediculous. Kerry's position has been, has always been (even before PNAC announced its little "we must destroy the middle east in order to save it" position paper) supportive of confrontation with Saddam Hussein. He's been working on international terror organizations since 1988. And he voted for intervention in 1997 and 2002. The problem is simply that the president has fucked it up. He left weapons depots unprotected. He shortchanged the troops on body armor and troop count. He used easily falsified statements to support the rationale, which turned off our allies and diminished domestic support. He's left nuclear and chemical materials unprotected for the last 18 months.

This invasion is a train wreck, and that's all laid at the feet of the Bush administration. There's no reason to think that Kerry would not have invaded if it were necessary. Though it's hard to tell in hindsight what would have played out over 2002-2003 in a Kerry or Gore administration (though Gore was, interestingly enough, more interested in military intervention in Iraq than Clinton was), but I imagine it would not have resulted in active nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea, and there's no fucking way either one would invade a country over a nuclear and chemical weapons program and then leave the precursors and materials unprotected.