Sunday, August 07, 2005

Don't change horses midstream

I read the Moderate Voice pretty much daily. It's a good blog with usually well-written posts. Today, I opened it up and read about a recent Newsweek poll indicating the continued decline in President Bush's approval rating in his handling of the war in Iraq. His approval rating is currently 34% according to the poll, and the disapproval rating is a staggering 61%. He then queries what would happen had we known during election 2004 what we know now, would the outcome be any different?

I don't know that the outcome would be any different. Kerry's biggest problem wasn't that he flip-flopped - changing one's mind with new information is preferable to sticking to the same story despite ample evidence that it's incorrect. The problem was that he didn't suggest any alternatives to the current approach. This meant that we could either choose the war as we know it, or risk it all by looking at what's behind door number 2. Monty Hall made a pretty good game show host, but that doesn't translate to good president.

3 comments:

Christopher Trottier said...

That has to be the best synopsis for why Kerry failed that I have ever read.

Steve said...

Thank you, Christopher. It's always nice to hear compliments.

Bookworm said...

Correct, of course. I'll take an leader's answer that might be right (as opposed to manifestly wrong) over the possiblity that my leader has no answer at all. I spend my days driving in circles getting the kids from point A to point B. 80 miles a day, going nowhere. Fine for Mom the taxi; bad for the President.