centrist cretinism

Godless foreigners are getting nervous about a Bush victory in November. Meanwhile, David Aaronovitch assures us, along the same lines, that Republicans are real Americans even though they don’t represent whatever it is that the anti anti Americans tell us that the real America is supposed to be (and on that subject, isn’t it supposed to be a feature of pluralist, liberal types that they don’t think in essences about people and countries?).

I’ve been pretty bullish on the Democrats winning since about the middle of the year, and none of the hoo-haas and shenanigans I’ve seen over the past week in as the Martian-Americans gathered in New York have convinced me otherwise.

But Kerry does seem to be doing his best to chuck it away. He’s so close to Bush on Iraq right now there’s very little positive reason to vote for him on that issue other than the fact that he isn’t Bush. We’re told that his presence would somehow have guaranteed more international co-operation over Iraq. Is he really arguing that Chirac, Schroeder and Putin would have changed their minds just because he was there? And that this makes him a genius and Bush a fool? And that only French involvement could have turned the whole sorry mess into a success? He has a plan, though, or would have a plan, or would hire some planners, or something like that.

It looks like centrist cretinism on Kerry’s part. All that is conventional is therefore wisdom, and smart people only do things differently, they never do different things.

There’s been a lot of talk about the US election being decided by who best mobilizies their base. In other words, the winners will be those who want power most. Now millions of conscientious democrats will be voting for Kerry in the hope that he’s lying through his tombstone teeth about “staying the course” in Iraq. Demoralised in this way, it’s no wonder they’re getting the collywobbles.