KERRY WOULDN'T HAVE LIBERATED IRAQ, BUT THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT

By the way, as a side point, I haven't undergone any great conversion to Jeffersonian principles in my endorsement of Kerry over Bush. I am still quite queasy about Kerry's willingness to err too much against the use of military force in the war on terror. But I am getting a bit tired of reading pundits who seek to define this election as fundamental clash of ideas with respect to the War on Terror. If it were that simple, I'd be voting for Bush, whose abstract positions on the use of military force and the role of democratization in combatting terror I agree with far more than those of Kerry. But an election is not simply a referendum on a competing set of ideas - it is also about the people who are charged with executing their visions. And after 4 years it is obvious that Bush and the people around are both disingenuous about many the values they advocate, incompetant in translating these values into productive policy on the ground or both.


So the question isn't is the world safer without Saddam in power, which noone seriously disputes. Nor is the question either is the world safer with Saddam no longer in power through Bush's war in which the candidates vigorously disagree about. The real question is who is going to manage the mess we're in at the present for the next for years? The answer for me is Kerry. Kerry may not advance the strategy of defeating terror through expanding freedom in the Islamic world - but at least he won't like Bush has, through his strong embrace and weak execution of these ideas - discredit it.