Morning-after round-up

Since this might not get a lot of airtime, you might be interested to know that on March 1, 2001, Zell Miller called John Kerry "one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders - and a good friend." It's posted on Zell's own Senate website. Talk about flip-flopping!

Andrew Sullivan has an interesting analysis, with a compelling image: Compare Angry Old Dixiecrat Zell, ranting about past wars, making smears and spewing hatred, with Barack Obama, "a post-racial, smiling, expansive young American, speaking about national unity and uplift." Who would you rather side with?

Other interesting reading:
The LA Times, on the myth of Bush as a decisive leader. Did YOU know Mr. Decisive-and-Resolved was on track to be the only President since James Garfield never to veto anything? (And Garfield was assassinated after only a year in office!) Overhauling Social Security, establishing a Homeland Security department, campaign finance reform, steel tariffs, the 9/11 Commission, all areas of indecision, waffling, or dare I say it, flip-flopping.

Slate has an article detailing Kerry's defense votes. Well worth reading, and repeating.

"Claiming that he opposed a list of specific weapons systems has an air of plausibility. On close examination, though, it reeks of rank dishonesty."

See also this analysis and this one at factcheck.org, and this one at snopes.com. Long story short: he voted against a complete Defense Department appropriations bill one year, not specific weapons systems, and overall voted more often FOR Defense bills than against. Oh, and maybe someone should tell Zell that Dick Cheney cut the Apache helicopter, when he was Secretary of Defense.

Finally, check out the text of Kerry's speech to the Foreign Legion yesterday. In case anyone needed proof of who was really grappling with the serious issues of defense yesterday, and who was just having a temper-tantrum. An excerpt:

No one in the United States doubted the outcome in Iraq or how swiftly the war would be won. No one. We knew we had the best trained troops in the world and, true to form, they performed magnificently, and we are all proud and grateful.

But the certainty of winning the war placed the most solemn obligation on the civilian leadership of this country to make certain that we had a plan to win the peace. The Army chief of staff, General Shinseki, told Congress we would need several hundred thousand American troops to win the peace and do the job properly.

His candor was rewarded with early retirement and his advice ignored, sending a chilling message throughout the ranks of the professional military.

By dismissing the State Department's plan for postwar Iraq and proceeding unilaterally, the civilian leadership simply did not put the mechanism in place to be able to secure the country.

They were unprepared for the looting, insecurity and insurgency that burst out with the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.

They failed to secure Iraq's borders and so allowed thousands of foreign terrorists, Islamist militants and intelligence agents to penetrate and destabilize postwar Iraq.

Amazingly, they had no real plan for postwar political transition.

All of this happened despite clear and precise bipartisan warnings from Congress and regional experts.

Then as the challenge grew around our troops, the civilian leadership failed to respond adequately; failed to share responsibility with NATO, the greatest alliance we've ever built; failed to share it with the U.N., which also offered assistance; failed to share reconstruction or decision-making as a way of inviting others to shoulder the burden; and failed to provide the security on the ground necessary for postwar reconstruction.

They rushed and short-changed the training and equipment of the Iraqi police. They failed to recruit enough experts in language and culture of the region and used those that they had ineffectively.

The civilian leadership made a decision to disband the Iraqi military completely, so there was no internal structure to maintain order. They chose consciously to put an American instead of an international face on the occupation; failed to prepare for a large number of prisoners; and most significantly, failed even to guard nuclear waste and ammunition storage sites, despite the fact that weapons of mass destruction was their fundamental reason for the war.

And some of the weapons that we didn't guard are the very weapons being targeted at our troops today.

As a result, today terrorists have secured havens in Iraq that were not there before. And we have been forced to reach accommodation with those that have repeatedly attacked our troops. Violence has spread in Iraq. Iran has expand its influence and extremism has gained momentum.

I guess none of that matters, though, because George W. Bush is resolute and determined, and Won't Back Down!

(Really, the Kerry speech is worth reading, and the soundbites don't do it justice. There's more, including specifics of what Kerry would have done differently, starting in Afghanistan. And it puts last night's RNC speeches in perspective.)