Why People Hate Politics

Does President Bush believe the war against terrorism is winnable? The answer depends on what is meant by that. Does he think Iraq and Afghanistan can build safe and stable governments to the betterment of their people? Certainly. Does he believe the United States can stop all terrorists from striking again? “I don’t think you can win it,” he told Matt Lauer of NBC the other day, immediately causing Demo-crats to accuse him of being a “flip-flopper,” the same idiotic tag Republicans have been pasting on Sen. Kerry.

Mr. Bush throughout his presidency has been accused of relying on over-simple declarations of good and evil. Now you can see why – when he does try to add subtlety, admittedly not done especially well this time, to the idea that some aspects of fighting terrorism are never finished, he gets jumped on and is forced to retreat to the simple phrases to save his poll ratings.

The day after his talk with Mr. Lauer was shown, the president told members of the American Legion, “In this different kind of war, we may never sit down at a peace table, but make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win.” President Bush has based much of his campaign on his administration’s unique ability to win the war on terrorism, so the admission on NBC was entirely noteworthy, but should have elicited a better response from his opponents.

Mr. Kerry has been hearing similar name-calling all year from Republicans so it was good to see The Washington Post yesterday compare what GOP convention speaker Rudolph Giuliani said were the senator’s flip-flops with the actual context of what was said. Speaking Monday, former New York Mayor Giuliani said Sen. Kerry had reversed course on Israel, whether he believes foreign leaders would prefer him or Mr. Bush as president and whether he is an anti-war or pro-war candidate. In each case, a simple explanation showed there was no flip-flopping by Mr. Kerry.

A related story concerns whether Sen. Kerry voted for or against the $87 billion in funding for the war against terrorism. The quote by Sen. Kerry used to slam him is, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

It sounds odd to hear that, but it’s the way Congress works: Various versions of legislation come up for votes and a senator may support one version and oppose another. In this case, Sen. Kerry supported spending the money when its funding source was earlier tax cuts, but did not support it when it expanded the deficit. It is important to note that debate over the details of the $87 billion was bipartisan and there was never a question of whether the spending would be approved.

Campaigns intentionally use these sorts of issues to attack each other because they know the public isn’t going to sort through old legislative records or past speeches to determine what actually happened. But voters seem to know when they are being misled and their frustration shows in low turnouts on Election Day. The Post story is one solution; a public sufficiently angry at having its intelligence insulted would be another.