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On a Washington street corner, he now asked me how he had done. You have a tough job, I responded. The Bush campaign has succeeded in convincing the mainstream media that the key question is, what is Kerry's plan for Iraq? Not, say, what is Bush's plan for Iraq? If Kerry is so fortunate to win on November 2, he won't take office until January 20, and the situation in Iraq could be dramatically different. Any specific plan he tossed out now could be--and probably would be--totally irrelevant at that point. Yet Republicans and echo-chamber reporters keep asking Kerry to state precisely how he would undo Bush's mess.
"I have two young daughters at home," I said to this Kerry aide. "If one takes a glass jar and throws it on the ground of their bedroom and smashes it into thousands of pieces, I don't point my finger at the other one and say, 'Okay, what's your plan for cleaning this up.'"
One has to ask why the hell the mainstream media could be convinced of something so utterly asinine. But, this is the mainstream media which, as far as I know, has yet to ask the simple question, "Mr. President - you say we need to 'stay the course.' Can you tell us what this course is?"* Media Matters has covered part of this story.
But, so far the media has been unable to hold the "I didn't do it" administration accountable for anything. There were some rumblings in the last couple of days.
As Bill Kristol said, Bush has driven us into a ditch. Subsequently, he closed his eyes put his hands over his ears and started yelling "mommymommymommy ICANTHEARYOU" over and over again.
Kerry's plan for Iraq is simple - put competent people in charge. I'm not optimistic about that, either, but it's better than having incompetent ones in charge.
*I believe someone said something similar in the comments section, but I'm not sure who or where...