Tearing Kerry Down

It should be noted that, after a long, lifeless recitation of an illusory domestic policy, George W. Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican Convention came alive when the President gleefully skewered John Kerry's foolish claim to be the candidate of "conservative values." It was the pivotal moment of the speech. From there, Bush went on to his favorite topic--his decisiveness in the war against terrorism, the need to stand firm, the need to be plainspoken. For those who hadn't fallen asleep during the domestic policy trudge, this was a very effective speech--and it followed a very effective, if sometimes sleazy convention.

The message of the week was: You know where Bush stands. You can't be sure about Kerry. But that headline also came with a misleading subhead: Bush is fighting the war against terrorism, and Kerry wouldn't. It was a theme that was pounded from the very start of the convention, and it depended on a sly conflation--the notion that the war in Iraq and the war against the 9/11 terrorists were one and the same. We heard far more about Bush in the World Trade Center rubble than we did about the U.S. in the Iraqi quagmire. And when Iraq was raised, it was done in a deceptive and simpleminded way. Even John McCain, who gave the most serious foreign policy speech of the week, presented a false choice: "Our choice [in Iraq] wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat."

Actually, there were at least three choices: doing nothing about Saddam, going to war as Bush did or doubling down on the war against al-Qaeda, as Senator Bob Graham and others suggested at the time. Unfortunately, a serious discussion of the best way to fight Islamist radicalism isn't in the cards this election year. In any case, campaign politics isn't about details. It is about impressions: Bush conveys an impression of strength--and the Republicans tried very hard last week to convey the impression that Kerry is Fifi the French poodle. (Fifi debated Barney, the Bush family dog, in an allegedly comic film shown at the convention.)

The attacks on Kerry ranged from the reasonable--he certainly has empretzeled himself on Iraq--to the outrageous: Zell Miller's assertion that Kerry would take his orders from Paris. The Miller speech was the ugliest I've ever seen at a convention. It certainly trumped Pat Buchanan's 1992 "culture war" speech, in which the target was an abstract army of social liberals. This was a direct assault on the character and integrity of the Democratic nominee. And it followed a familiar G.O.P. attack pattern: like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Miller wasn't an official part of the Bush campaign. He claims to be a Democrat, and so, several Republicans told me, he was free to say anything he pleased. But Miller's speech wasn't the most disgraceful part of the G.O.P. show. That honor went to the Purple Heart Band-Aids ridiculing John Kerry's Vietnam wounds that were distributed by a past associate of Karl Rove's. It goes without saying that Rove had absolutely nothing to do with the idea--except perhaps for setting the scabrous tone of the Bush campaign.