Oooh, do you still have the nasty rebuke? Can I read it? I loovve nasty rebukes.

Chappaquiddick? Chappaquiddick? Christ almighty. We're still on Chappaquiddick?

Honestly.

Agreed, Mr Adesnik should probably not have mentioned Chappaquidick - if only because it's given you a pretext, which you've characteristically seized upon, to avoid addressing just how monstrously stupid Ted Kennedy's statement is. Even if you believe that four more years of Bush is to be feared, to say that it's the *only* thing to be feared goes beyond hyperbole into dementia. (It's also demeaning to the memory of FDR, but that's a side issue.)

Huh?

I wasn't even paying attention to the Chappaquidick rip. I was focusing on the first comment, the cheap crack about the greatest danger to America. I see I might have been a bit clearer. Look, Americans are being targeted by radical Islamic groups, like A.Q. This is very dangerous. The main form of direct control Americans have over their safety from this threat is by choosing someone who can best protect them. George Bush has shown absolutely miserable judgment in protecting Americans from this threat, judgment so bad that four more years under his leadership really is absolutely terrifying given the nature of the threat. That, on top of so much else that is deplorable about the Bush administration, is what is so frightening. And that, on any plausible reading of Kennedy's words, is what Kennedy was saying in the lines quoted by Adesnik.

Adesnik deliberately misunderstands what Kennedy was saying in order to make a cheap crack which reminds us, once again, of the widespread view that Democrats have all their priorities wrong in the war on terror, that they don't take it seriously, etc. etc. etc. It is a cheap crack because it depends on an obvious misreading of what Kennedy meant. It is a crack to which Adesnik has no right because it is the Bush administration that is woefully unserious about responding effectively to terrorism, and because Adesnik has spent the last four years for the most part giving what modest support he has been able to muster to that ineffective response. Support for the Iraq War is the worst offense here.

Now, we can debate the humanitarian merits of the Iraq War, but I have grown weary of debating its merits as a means of addressing the threat from radical Islamic groups. I learn from the comments section that I am addicted to cheap shots. But I thought I had discussed at some length on this site my views about the much greater priority that Pakistan ought to have received in U.S. foreign policy, the need to see countries like Iraq within the broader context of nuclear proliferation in general, the pressing need to stabalize Afghanistan, etc. etc. etc.

The people who are still holding on to the view that the Iraq war was a wise step in the long struggle to address the threat from radical Islamic groups may not find much more at this site to engage them. For the most part I am tired of that debate. Really, at this point is there anything that would convince you, if you aren't already convinced? I want to move on to debating with elements of the left that seem to me to have gotten things wrong. I hope that in a few months I will be taking shots at Kerry's administration, and participating in a left-center debate about the wisest course for the U.S. to take in the world. There is a lot of work to be done, because if George Bush is obviously a massive failure, the right direction to go from here is not at all obvious.

Anyone who looks at the Bush administration with his eyes open at this point looks on with eyes wide open in horror. The last four years have presented us with a series of mistakes made and opportunities not taken. Adesnik was only making a joke, but the joke is a profoundly annoying one because it embodies so much of what is wrong with his foreign policy instincts. I'm glad now I didn't post anything excessively nasty. The feeling passed quickly enough, and my ambition of running a clean motherfuckin' family blog with clean motherfuckin' language is still alive.

OK, forget Chappaquiddick then: if you say you weren't commenting on that line, we have to take your word for it.
But then what remains in Mr Adesnik's post to get upset about? Kennedy says that the *only* thing we have to fear is four more years of Bush: even a committed Democrat should be able to see that that is a grossly simplistic statement, and to wish (granted, somewhat unrealistically) that political debate could be focused on facts and issues rather than on personalities. You then say that we have to fear four more years of Bush *and* the threat from al Qaeda (though it's still a mystery whether these are the "only" things we have to fear). In other words, even you, with your - how can this be put politely? - bias against Bush and bias in favour of Kerry/Kennedy, cannot defend what Kennedy said, though you make a valiant and wordy effort to appear to be doing so.
You also evade the bigger question: just how different would a Kerry administration be? It would help if you could set aside your preoccupation with personalities - which, among other things, leads you to write misleadingly about "Bush" when you mean "the Bush administration" - and focus on those enduring features of the US political system that make policy continuity much more likely than any radical break (other than in rhetorical terms).

Siaw,

Oh give me a break. It's one bloody line in a political speech. It's not a good line, or a clever line, or a witty line. It will not find a place in the Oxford Collection of Twenty First Century Speeches. But neither is it monstrously stupid or demented - unless you're determined to read monstrous stupidity into it. I took myself to be providing a gloss of the line that any listener who didn't have it out for Kennedy would have been able to supply. It's like you're calling MLK a liar because he didn't actually have an actual dream about racial harmony the night before the big speech. Or like you walked up behind FDR and suprised him by saying "BOO!" and then declared that there was one more thing besides fear that he was obviously afraid of, the big hypocrite, pretending to be only afraid of fear and all. I mean, really . . . .

As for the bigger question, I'm not sure that failing to address it in a comment on a comment in the blog is really an evasion. Let me say that I look with trepidation to a Democratic administration. They'll surely screw a lot up. I mean, just look at my recent post about Kerry - I'm opinionated, sure, but do I really strike you as a straight party man? I intend to come at the Kerry administration, from the left, with both guns blazing. What I am confident of is that they couldn't be worse than Bush. Kerry didn't have the courage or the wisdom to stand up to Bush as he led the country to war, but I also doubt that he would have led the country to war - to that war - in the first place.

At any rate, the Adenik comment - which I am glad to announce I have finally put behind me - was annoying mainly because of the context. If you supported the war for humanitarian reasons, I have a separate beef with you. If you supported it as the best way of handling the threat of Islamic radicalism, then you were wrong - badly and obviously wrong - on the most serious issue facing the country. OK, so people make mistakes. But at least have the decency to refrain from snarks about people on the grounds that they're unserious about the Great War on Terror. You gotta earn that, baby.

As for personalities, I pay Bush the complement of holding him ultimately responsible for his own administration. But I do agree with you that there are long-term structural features - I would call them "problems" - with U.S. foreign policy that will make for more continuity between administrations than I will (hopefully) be happy with. (Indeed, one of the things I'd like to do more on this blog is to discuss those problems, especially problems with the political centre of the country that I find wrongheaded - instead of explaining for the nth time why Bush has to go. If you're tired of that, well, so am I.) But Bush (and gang!) is a much worse variation on the old themes.

As I said, I'm past arguing about that. Or at least, I'm past arguing about that until someone can explain just exactly what it would take to convince them that Bush didn't deserve another four years. If the wreckage of the last four years isn't enough, what could I possibly tell you that could change your mind? I'm only a blogger. I don't have magical powers. I can't give you any more sense that you already have. And if I'm wrong, then I'm so wrong I'm probably past the point of rescue too.

“It's one bloody line in a political speech. It’s not a good line, or a clever line, or a witty line”: Exactly. So why bother with trying to interpret it at all, let alone put a weight of interpretation upon it that it can’t really bear? Which is why the analogies with MLK and FDR are just irrelevant. Their speeches helped to bring about major changes and repay re-reading: Ted Kennedy's haven’t and don’t.
“do I really strike you as a straight party man?”: No, not at all - hence the mystery of why you’d want to rush to the defence of that burned-out volcano Ted Kennedy, rather than just say that *both* he and Adesnik - on these occasions, if not others - were indulging in cheap shots instead of addressing the issues. At least Adesnik’s was funnier, and less derivative.
But that’s enough about all that (maybe more than enough). It’s good to see that you take the point about long-term structural continuities in US policy - though not only foreign policy - and intend to do future posts on the subject. Have a good weekend!

I think that bloody pulp lying there was a horse once . . . but it's hard to be sure.