rick -- so this week he is for the war -- lol -- the tower of babel -- and from the NYT ===================== Suddenly it was realized what was missing. A theme! A slogan! The muses were mobilized to find that motto, which would give shape and precision to the cause. Over the weeks "A Better Set of Choices" begat "Safer, Stronger and More Secure," which begat "The Real Deal," which begat "Change Starts Here," which begat "Let America Be America Again," which begat "Hope Is on the Way."
OP-ED COLUMNIST Kerry's Cast of Thousands By DAVID BROOKS
Across the wine-dark sea they come, honing Kerry's message. They come from Harvard, K Street and the studios of CNN. "Once more into the breach!" they cry, as they join the conference call of thousands.
Look at them, these great, unhuddled masses, yearning to wear White House badges. They are consultants, flacks, spinners, strategists, Knights of the Palm lunch table. And yet they come as one, from all corners of the Democratic world, to figure out what John Kerry, age 60, should believe and say.
Into the valley of hope ride the 600, the inner ring of Kerry confidants. A year ago, there was just a small and hearty band. There was the campaign manager Jim Jordan. There was Gibbs, Cherny and Mellman. But under their reign, the message was not honed. The candidate did flounder. The quest for a Kerry conviction was not fulfilled.
And so the great accretion began. The call went out to pollsters, wonks and wandering wordsmiths to come gather and fill the void of Kerry's core. Brave souls emerged from the Land of Ted - the Kennedy brigades led by Cahill and Cutter are now abetting the mighty Shrum.
Boldly they rode and well, into the morass of Kerry's mind. Through the thicket of equivocations they ventured, across the paradoxical plains of Kerry's prose - all in the quest for a conviction.
Policy committees gathered. Of domestic policy councils there were 37. Of foreign policy councils, 27.
And in each of these councils resided faculties and think-tankers by the score. On the justice policy task force there were 195 members, lawyers brave and strong. On the economic council, more than 200 economists did search for a conclusion. When these groups did meet, so long was the line of approaching Volvos that it was visible from outer space.
Yet still the message was not honed. King Kerry still did equivocate, hedge and reverse. Of flip-flops there were more than a few. He still did Velcro his principles upon the cathedral door, and change them by the hour.
The apparatus grew again. Elmendorf from the Land of Gephardt was hired, along with Lackey from the House of Edwards. Teams of de-equivocators gathered. And still the fog spread.
And so the age of nymphomottomania did begin. Suddenly it was realized what was missing. A theme! A slogan! The muses were mobilized to find that motto, which would give shape and precision to the cause. Over the weeks "A Better Set of Choices" begat "Safer, Stronger and More Secure," which begat "The Real Deal," which begat "Change Starts Here," which begat "Let America Be America Again," which begat "Hope Is on the Way."
Night and day the serial sloganators did work. And the seasons did turn and the conventions did come and go. Kerry's speeches were shortened, and parts of his life were edited out of his story (adulthood, for example). And yet there was still wailing in the House of Kerry for the message was still unhoned.
Kerry himself pinpointed the problem. Of advisers, there were not enough! So this month yet more were brought in, mostly from the camp of Clinton. There is McCurry, Lockhart, Carville and Begala. There is Greenberg and Wolfson.
And so it came to pass there are no swing voters left, because they've all been hired by campaign Kerry. They form a great and mighty leviathan, dedicated to the proposition that John Kerry should believe in something. The flow chart is as clear as can be. Sasso reports to Lockhart, Devine, Sosnick, Cutter and Cahill, while Cutter reports to Devine, Mellman, McCurry, Shrum and herself - except on weekends, when Devine reports to Mellman and Sosnick and Cahill reports to McCurry and Sasso. Lockhart handles strategic response, McCurry daily response, Cutter tactical response and Cahill metaresponse.
Vast is the empire crafting Kerry's creed. Immense is the army of Michelangelos trying to sculpture the melted marshmallow of Kerry's core. And the seasons do turn and the polls do shift and the rending of garments gives way to the sunshine of hope and back again.
And tumultuous is the cry of the strategists, and loud are the furies of the campaign, but in the center there is a silence. For in the beginning all was vacuum and a void, and while all the king's horses and all the king's men do build this grand and mighty structure, the sound of their hammers echoes limitlessly in the hollow within.
Nebraska GOP red has shade of anger By John Aloysius Farrell Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~28203~2409731,00.html Washington - When it comes to presidential politics, there is no more reliably Republican state than Nebraska. In the course of the past 50 years, it has edged out Indiana, Mississippi - even Utah - as the deepest swath of red of all. The emerging streak of anti-war sentiment in the Nebraska delegation to Congress, therefore, is downright noteworthy.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., seethed last week as he cross-examined administration witnesses at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Hagel, a decorated U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam, said he is deeply skeptical about the claims of progress that President Bush and his advisers have made about Iraq. The Nebraskan compared "this mess" to the U.S. failures in Vietnam.
"We are in deep trouble," he warned.
Hagel chided "all these smart guys who got us in there (to Iraq) ... all the smart guys who said how easy this was going to be and who reassured us not to worry."
The topic of the hearing was a package of $87 billion that Congress approved for Iraq last fall. Sen. John Kerry voted against it, and Bush often cites that vote when arguing that Kerry can't be trusted to keep the U.S. safe.
But while the Pentagon and its contractors have run through their share of the $87 billion, the administration has failed to spend much of the $18.4 billion earmarked for rebuilding Iraq's economy.
Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana - another dependably red state - chaired the hearing.
"Of the $18.4 billion the Congress appropriated for Iraq more than 10 months ago, only $1.1 billion has been disbursed," Lugar said. "This is an extraordinary, ineffective administrative procedure. It is exasperating."
As conditions in Iraq deteriorate, the administration now wants to shift $2 billion of the unspent money to pay for military and security costs.
Lugar chastised the "blithely optimistic people ... the
dancing-in-the-street crowd" in the Bush administration who assured Congress that casualties and costs would be low and that U.S. troops would be met as liberators.
"Now," said Lugar, "the nonsense of all of that is apparent. The lack of planning is apparent."
Lugar read aloud from a letter he received from a Marine second lieutenant serving in Iraq.
"My guys never fail to step up to any challenge," the lieutenant wrote. But "this war is one that cannot be won by Marines and soldiers. The only thing we can do is to keep a lid on it and buy time. We chase the mujahedeen around and, in doing so, catch and kill a few.
"In a society with no jobs, a faltering economy and little or no infrastructure, there is plenty of incentive to fight," the lieutenant wrote. "The incentive needs to be removed."
Hagel joined Lugar and the panel's Democrats in endorsing the lieutenant's sentiments.
"The military is not going to ultimately win Iraq," said Hagel, who then drew on a phrase from the Vietnam War. "You don't win the hearts and minds of the people at the end of a barrel of a gun.
"This is how we get ourselves into trouble: when we delude ourselves," said Hagel, referring to administration assurances that great progress has been made. "Of $4.2 billion designated for water and sanitation, $16 million has been spent; ... of $786 million earmarked for health, $2 million has been spent. It's beyond pitiful. It's beyond embarrassing. It is now in the zone of dangerous."
The Senate hearing came midway through a month in which, after a summer of political fancies, the reality of war has returned with a vengeance to the nation's capital.
August was among the costliest months of the war, and the pace of casualties has accelerated in September. The White House admits that a gloomy CIA intelligence estimate warns that Iraq may collapse into civil war. The Pentagon acknowledges there are now swaths of Iraq under the control of terrorists and insurgents.
Before he retired Aug. 31, Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter, who represented eastern Nebraska for 13 terms in Congress, sent an extraordinary letter to his constituents.
The prewar reports of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction represent a "massive intelligence failure," Bereuter wrote. And "the inability of the administration to clearly establish a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam (Hussein), despite the intimations of various administration leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney, is no surprise."
The war is "a mistake," Bereuter wrote. "The cost in casualties is already large and growing, and the immediate and long-term financial costs are incredible."
There is little chance the president will lose Nebraska's five Electoral College votes this fall.
But if Bush can't convince Nebraska Republicans that he's fighting the right war against terror, how will he fare in battleground states?
It may be a sign his Iraq policy, and his re-election hopes, are indeed in deep trouble
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