It is with no small amount of visceral distaste that I link to a post on the National Review's site, especially when I'm not going to flame it, but I have to admit, Jonah Goldberg's piece on John Kerry is pretty good.
Laugh line:
… and despite enormously impressive hair; he is near the bottom in all the important rankings of serious candidates.
And when I say near the bottom, I mean if he claws his way up a bit, he'll be at the bottom.
Smart line:
[In 2004,] Democrats figured Kerry was the most "electable," forgetting that electability is often cover for spinelessness and, in voters, is usually based on the hope that someone else will like the guy even if you don't.
I don't think Kerry was spineless so much as muddled, but I sure did hate that "electability" aspect of the 2004 primaries. I mean, I know we're all (blog)pundits now, but still. Hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils in the actual election, but vote your conscience in the primaries.
Of course, I don't agree with everything Goldberg has to say in his piece. For example:
In 2008, the election won't be a referendum on President Bush …
Will, too!
Pardon that schoolyard response, but the 2008 election will be nothing but. Every Democrat will have plenty to say about how we need to fix all of the damage that Bush has done. The eventual nominee will doubtless attempt to portray his or her Republican counterpart as right out of the Bush mold. And every non-right-wing voter who isn't enamored of the Democratic nominee will frequently be thinking, "Bush's party or the other one?" Right up to the moment of truth in November.
It's kind of funny to watch Goldberg trying to plant this seed already, that his side has nothing to do with W (anymore). You know how much he's sweating. Absent a miracle in Iraq or a Republican candidate that I can't think of, the election of 2008 will be all about his boy George.
And rightly so.
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