A story where there was none: That’s the reaction of a couple of letter writers to The Post today. They comment on a recent front page story that John Kerry has accepted money from “Benedict Arnold” companies he rails about. He received $119,000 in 15 years!. Bush raises that much in 15 minutes and delivers a quid pro quo. As one writer puts it, “This is balance?”
But even Jim VandeHei writes a positive story about John Kerry this morning. Kerry must have done something big last night. Now Dems need to worry. With no opposition for the nomination, will Kerry again start parsing everything he says to appeal to centrist voters? He’ll run from being called a liberal, run from the gay marriage issue and run from abortion, gun control, etc. I think people are smarter than either candidate will give them credit for. The main issue we care about is security – secure jobs at home and security from terrorists abroad. I think most folks know that Bush hasn’t really made us any more secure from the threats outside our country. Even our friends hate us now. But Kerry needs to come up with something more than tax policy and the UN to fix the economy and our foreign relations. He needs to be honest with folks that a lot of manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back unless we’re all prepared to pay a lot higher prices for things. Just like Virginia lawmakers need to tell Virginia farmers that if they raise their children to work in the tobacco fields, they should be prosecuted for child abuse. There are a lot of dying occupations in this country. We need to birth new ones. That isn’t a cheap, easy or a quick thing to do.
Neither will be repairing our ties abroad. To do that we must exert pressure on our so-called friends and enemies alike. At the top of the list in the former category are Israel and Saudi Arabia.