I wish I had seen more than just a few minutes of excerpts from Kerry and Edwards' joint appearance with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes last Sunday, but what I did see made me quite uncomfortable. After literally hanging on each other for the past week in a weird show of, uh, unity, they then proceeded to make a show of independent-mindedness in their interview. It was, indeed, logrolling in our times.
John Podhoretz saw something else in their interview ---something that Kerry is going to eventually have to explain without resort to these truly ridiculous claims that what we need is more "internationalization" of the War for Iraq:
John Kerry has finally spoken the words that make the November election an unambiguous choice. On "60 Minutes" on Sunday night, according to the official transcript released by CBS News, Kerry said: "I am against the -- the war."
He tried to qualify them, to fudge them a bit, but no matter. The words are now out there and can't be taken back.
The possible future president of the United States opposes the war in Iraq now being fought by 130,000 American troops.
But will you hear Kerry call for withdrawal? No. Will you hear why, exactly, our efforts there have been a mistake? No. Is there any chance that he will elaborate upon his call for more internationalization with greater specificity? No. It's all a joke. He doesn't feel the need to offer any alternatives because he knows that the war, however bloody and costly it has been, has been waged to win us the influence in the Middle East that we have long needed. We are there because it is the first step that has to be taken to transform the Arab world.
The essence of Kerry's strength as a candidate to those whom he expects to support him is that he is not George W. Bush.
Pathetic.