After the euphoria
John Kerry and his advisors had better not get too cocky over their victory in the first debate. They still need to shore up their weaknesses and hammer Bush harder.
- - - - - - - - - - - -By Joe Conason
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This first debate didn't conclude the campaign argument over foreign policy, national security, terrorism and Iraq. For many voters, and especially for most undecided voters, that argument may have just begun on Thursday night. While Kerry made a better impression on those voters than Bush did, he may not have yet won their votes.
If an inept Bush struggled to score against Kerry in debate, that doesn't mean the debate revealed no weaknesses that the Republicans will exploit in the days ahead. Potentially the most significant of those is the contradiction between Kerry's denunciation of the war in Iraq as a "distraction" and "diversion" -- the "wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" -- and his declaration on Thursday night that American troops aren't dying there "for a mistake."
Instead he must offer a simple and straightforward response: Yes, the president went into Iraq the wrong way at the wrong time. But I will clean up the mess he has left us, and do so with competence and the assistance of our allies. The president misled us into a war he wasn't prepared to finish, but I will lead us out with honor.
He will also have to address himself more directly to the continuing complaint about his vote against the $87 billion appropriation for Iraq. His explanation that he misspoke won't work, and he can't keep turning it around on Bush as he did during the debate. Kerry missed the opportunity to tell Americans something that perhaps none of them know: that the President repeatedly threatened to veto that same $87 billion bill. The reasons behind that veto threat, which included protecting tax cuts for the wealthiest voters and refusing to provide medical care to National Guard and Reserve families, would almost certainly appall most swing voters. But Kerry inexplicably neglects to talk about the presidential veto threat. If the bill was so critical to protecting American troops, Kerry could demand, why did the president threaten a veto?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/10/02/debate/index.html