Constrained by Reality

Andrew Sullivan finally makes it official and comes out for Kerry. I usually agreed with Sullivan on matters of the Iraq War, but ultimately I found his vacillation on it tiresome. Frankly, if I was a gay man, I'd have a hell of a time endorsing Bush after what's been said and done. But Sullivan bravely labors to push his Kerry endorsement into line with his own strong pro-Iraq beliefs.

[Kerry] has said quite clearly that he will not "cut and run" in Iraq. And the truth is: He cannot. There is no alternative to seeing the war through in Iraq. And Kerry's new mandate and fresh administration will increase the options available to us for winning. He has every incentive to be tough enough but far more leeway to be flexible than the incumbent.

So it's the familiar "constrained by realities" argument. It's one I've made, not in endorsing Kerry, but in reconciling myself to his likely election. Megan McArdle, however, is having none of it.

The idea that we should trust Kerry, even if we think his previous foriegn policy instincts have all been bad, because he has nothing to gain from failing to pursue Al Qaeda, makes little sense. Surely George Bush had nothing to gain from failing to suppress the insurgency in Iraq, and yet his administration still hasn't done so. This argument seems to fall into the partisan assumption that if Kerry fails it will be out of malice. But most people who think that Kerry isn't the right man for the job think he will fail not because he wants to, but because he's fundamentally wrong in some way in his national security strategy.

Similarly, it doesn't strike me as very logical to imply that Democrats have abandoned national security issues, and then suggest electing them anyway as a way to force them to "take responsibility" for national security, any more than I would employ a drug addict in a pharmacy on the theory that this would force him to "take responsibility" for enforcing our nation's drug laws.

As Instapundit would say, "ouch."