Tearing Kerry Down

By Joe Klein

It should be noted that, after a long, lifeless recitation of an illusory domestic policy, George W. Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican Convention came alive when the President gleefully skewered John Kerry's foolish claim to be the candidate of "conservative values." It was the pivotal moment of the speech. From there, Bush went on to his favorite topic--his decisiveness in the war against terrorism, the need to stand firm, the need to be plainspoken. For those who hadn't fallen asleep during the domestic policy trudge, this was a very effective speech--and it followed a very effective, if sometimes sleazy convention.

The message of the week was: You know where Bush stands. You can't be sure about Kerry. But that headline also came with a misleading subhead: Bush is fighting the war against terrorism, and Kerry wouldn't. It was a theme that was pounded from the very start of the convention, and it depended on a sly conflation--the notion that the war in Iraq and the war against the 9/11 terrorists were one and the same. We heard far more about Bush in the World Trade Center rubble than we did about the U.S. in the Iraqi quagmire. And when Iraq was raised, it was done in a deceptive and simpleminded way. Even John McCain, who gave the most serious foreign policy speech of the week, presented a false choice: "Our choice [in Iraq] wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat."

Actually, there were at least three choices: doing nothing about Saddam, going to war as Bush did or doubling down on the war against al-Qaeda, as Senator Bob Graham and others suggested at the time. Unfortunately, a serious discussion of the best way to fight Islamist radicalism isn't in the cards this election year. In any case, campaign politics isn't about details. It is about impressions: Bush conveys an impression of strength--and the Republicans tried very hard last week to convey the impression that Kerry is Fifi the French poodle. (Fifi debated Barney, the Bush family dog, in an allegedly comic film shown at the convention.)

The attacks on Kerry ranged from the reasonable--he certainly has empretzeled himself on Iraq--to the outrageous: Zell Miller's assertion that Kerry would take his orders from Paris. The Miller speech was the ugliest I've ever seen at a convention. It certainly trumped Pat Buchanan's 1992 "culture war" speech, in which the target was an abstract army of social liberals. This was a direct assault on the character and integrity of the Democratic nominee. And it followed a familiar G.O.P. attack pattern: like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Miller wasn't an official part of the Bush campaign. He claims to be a Democrat, and so, several Republicans told me, he was free to say anything he pleased. But Miller's speech wasn't the most disgraceful part of the G.O.P. show. That honor went to the Purple Heart Band-Aids ridiculing John Kerry's Vietnam wounds that were distributed by a past associate of Karl Rove's. It goes without saying that Rove had absolutely nothing to do with the idea--except perhaps for setting the scabrous tone of the Bush campaign.

I have never seen a presidential campaign in which the strategies of the two parties are so different, and so dreadful. The Republican strategy is to demolish Kerry, posit the President as a man of simple strength and do everything possible to avoid a discussion of Iraq or the effects of globalization on the American economy. The Kerry strategy is to present an "optimistic" candidate with a "positive plan for the future." The Kerry consultants, who actually believe this claptrap and have zero sense of political theater, sound like a bunch of low-budget Ginzu-knife salesmen when they represent their candidate on television: We're offering you a $4,000 college-tuition tax credit and--for no extra charge--a $1,000 reduction in your health-care costs! They also seem to believe this election isn't about the most important decision Bush has made: to go to war in Iraq. Kerry's adherence to that strategy--including the robotic repetition of the words strong and values--has made him seem weak, transparent, a focus-group marionette with neon strings. Bush, by the way, used the word strong only twice in his acceptance speech: to describe the new Iraqi Prime Minister and to describe military families.

After a week of gut-wound assaults on his character, Kerry finally fired back on Thursday night, assailing Bush and Cheney for having avoided service in Vietnam and for having "misled" us into Iraq. The latter may be an exaggeration, but after the G.O.P. assault, Kerry has a right to exaggerate with impunity. Indeed, if he hopes to win, Kerry will have to do much more of that. He will have to become a version of the young John Kerry not celebrated at the Democratic Convention--the eloquent, passionate, uncoached leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War who caused the Nixon White House serious heartburn. Where did that fabulous young politician ever go, anyway?