The one question John Kerry should ask about George W. Bush

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Society
September 16th, 2004 • 7:34 am

Things are not looking too good for the Democrats’ candidate in the 2004 US presidential election at this point. Poll results show that Bush is leading by 7 to 10 percentage points. The low blows about Kerry’s involvement in the Vietnam War appear to have done their job, regardless of how shameful and unfounded they were. Kerry and his campaigners seem unable to strike back with the same force. Bush’s numerous gaffes and overall inanity seem to actually endear him to the American public, instead of having the expected effect of embarrassing them. No matter how badly things go in Iraq, his standing doesn’t seem to be affected, even though he’s the main person responsible for the mess. The self-righteous Christian right seems to have taken over. In a word, things are not looking good for John Kerry.

The prospect of another four years of Bush, Cheney and Co. is scary indeed. What could be done to avoid it?

Since criticizing Bush’s own lousy military record, or the results of his four years in office, or the deception and lies of his administration doesn’t seem to have the desired effect, I can only see one way that Kerry could put Bush in a tricky position. And that is by asking the following question:

The key theme in your platform is “leadership”. You claim to be the one who’s best equipped to lead America in the next four years. I believe that one of the key qualities of a great leader is the ability to recognize one’s mistakes. Is there anything you’ve done in the past four years that you will recognize was a mistake?

If there is one key problem with Bush’s so-called leadership, it is the fact that he appears totally unable to admit that he ever made a mistake. He talks and behaves as if he was above that. As if he was immune to making errors. As if he was guided by God in all his actions and could not be wrong. That’s not leadership. That’s megalomania. And it’s about time the Kerry camp started attacking him on this very issue.


2 Responses to “The one question John Kerry should ask about George W. Bush”

  1. David says:

    Great question.

    Another one about leadership might be: why do you follow the advice of only certain experts in your administration and not the advice of others? And why is the advice that you follow, and action you take so consistently wrong?

    I think someone ought to do a poll – or hold a contest – to help Kerry with his cross questioning, for the best question to ask Bush during these debates.

  2. Pierre Igot says:

    David: I sure hope that Kerry doesn’t need a poll or contest to help him with his cross-questioning! If he and his team need such help, then things are definitely not looking good for November. Kinda reminds me of what happened here in Canada in June during our own elections. Paul Martin was being attacked for having been the Minister of Finance responsible for all these cuts to the health care system, etc. — and he appeared to be unable to defend himself by stating the obvious, which was that these cuts were what the Canadian public wanted at the time! The Chrétien/Martin team was elected three times in a row precisely because they were successful in eliminating the country’s deficit. And Martin could have also argued that, had he not made these cuts, however painful they were, things might have been much worse and much more painful today.

    To me, the fact that Martin was unable to retort with these obvious arguments was a clear sign of political weakness — and I was not surprised that he only got a minority in parliament. I am afraid that a lot of people were disappointed by him, and I seriously doubt that he’ll get elected again.

    If Kerry doesn’t “wake up” and start hitting back with very obvious questions such as the one I suggested above (or yours) — then I am not sure he’ll gather enough support to win this election.

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