Here's The Thing

So let's concede ad arguendo (though I hasten to add -- only ad arguendo) that John Kerry has no better idea than George W. Bush of how to clean up the mess that George W. Bush and George W. Bush's national security team have made in Iraq. If that's the case, who do you want handling the next foreign policy crisis -- the team that made such a mess out of the previous one that neither party was able to put together a plan for cleaning it up, or the other team? The team that not only messed things up, but that decided the best way to deal with that fact was to lie about it for political purposes, or the other team? Clearly, the Democratic Party's national security infrastructure isn't a bunch of saints, but they haven't perpetrated a fiasco like this in about 40 years now.

What's more, even though right now Democrats don't necessarily have a ton of brilliant ideas to fix Iraq (though I do think they have some), at various points in the past before things became irredeemably screwed up, Democrats did correctly identify any number of flaws in Bush's approach. So, again, who do you want to lead the country through the next crisis -- the gang that couldn't shoot straight, or the other gang?