Glenn Reynolds asks in
JAMES EARL KERRY? about what type of President John Kerry would be. He likens Kerry to Jimmy Carter and asks whether we can expect the same.
I would suggest that it will be worse. First, he will be facing a Congress more than likely controlled by the Republicans. The House is safe for them, after the 2002 Gerrymander. And if elected, his own seat will switch sides of the isle. The Democrats are statistically unlikely to pick up any seats in the Senate regardless, and may lose some. A Republican Congress is not going to take kindly to a Kerry Presidency.
Secondly, as I have commented before (
see my blog), whereas with Harry Truman, the buck stopped with him, with John Kerry, the buck stops anywhere but with him. This would lead to a very timid Presidency.
Third, Kerry shows no tendency to vere away from the Democratic practice of staffing administrations by the numbers, satisfying constituency blocks, instead of by merit. Bush has pretty much done just the opposite. One may suggest that one of the reasons that Clinton's Administration did so little in eight years was that it was filled with incompetents. Sure, there were some stronger members, most notably heading Defense, State, and esp. Treasury. But the remainder? We all probably remember the ultimate party hack, Ron Brown, running Commerce, where he extorted DNC campaign contributions in exchange for places on trade delegations overseas. Sure, some of this always happens, but never nearly as blatantly. And then there was that small time prosecutor who made her name wrongfully convicting innocents of child molestation through the use of coached small child witnesses who was served as Clinton's Attorney General. She will go down in history best remembered for Waco, Ruby Ridge, Elian Gonzales, and, hopefully, for the wall in the FBI between criminal and espionage investigations. Obviously she was too weak and inexperienced to run Justice, leaving that to the likes of Webster Hubbell, until, of course, he went to jail. My favorite was the head of the USPTO, appointed not because he knew patents (he didn't, because he wasn't a patent attorney), but solely because he was gay. He spent his tenure at the USPTO worrying about copyright issues (where he did have expertise), despite that being in the provence of the Copyright Office. As we entered the 21st Century, the USPTO stagnated in the 19th Century under his watch. As for Defense, Clinton's Administration spent its eight years spending the Peace Dividend, massively shrinking the military, but never ever attempting to redirect it to fight the next war, but rather maintaining force structures aimed at fighting a war against the Soviet Union, which no longer existed.
Fourth, John Kerry has had little real experience or training in administration, in particular, in running a large enterprise. He obviously has the typical attorney conceit that they can do anything they set their minds to. But attorney training is all wrong for running a government the size of ours. They are taught to do things pretty much on our own. They do not delegate well. There is a saying that if you want to do something right, do it yourself. Clinton bought into this, with his all night pizza parties. But the problem is that there is much too much going on in the government at any one time for this to work very well.
What is not mentioned by the mainstream media, presumably due to their biases and, also, probably due to their own lack of education, is that the MBA President, George W. Bush, is running the government fairly well. For the most part, it functions very smoothly. Part of this is due to his MBA, and in particular, to his Harvard MBA. That school, probably more than any other school in the country, teaches how to run large organizations. Running a failing small business, a successful baseball team, and then the state of Texas, also helped him hone his expertise. Kerry has none of this experience. Instead of earning his money, he has married it, twice. He has been a civil servant with little, if any, managerial responsibility, for pretty much his entire adult life. (note - I have both an MBA and a JD, and speak here from personal experience in both graduate curricula).
The inside accounts of the operation of the Bush (43) Administration are almost the opposite of those portrayed by the mainstream media. He sits around listening as his people make the arguments from both sides of an issue, until he thinks he knows them well enough. He then makes a command decision based on that, and expects his people then to execute the decision without questions. This is why Clarke was pushed out - he refused to stop arguing after Bush made a decision. Same with his original Treasury Secretary. Bush is famous for expecting and rewarding loyalty. He trusts his people to do their jobs. They wouldn't be there if he didn't. He typically doesn't second guess them, but rather trusts them. Bush is unafraid of hiring smarter people than he. As a result, much of his Cabinet is smarter. But so what? Much better than Clinton, or probably Kerry, who made sure none of them were smarter.
Fifth, much of the military already despises Kerry. Maybe not to the extent they despised Clinton, but closer and closer. Sure, he did serve in Viet Nam, but then again, he apparently wrote up his own recommendations for medals, while parlaying a scratch or so into three Purple Hearts, getting him a very early out there, having served a mere four months, compared to the usual year or so. Both of these actions were of course not available to the enlisted troops, and may not have been available to all officers, as it appears Kerry's superiors were happy to oblige him to get him out of the country as soon as they could.
But then, he came back and accused many of the soldiers in Viet Nam of committing atrocities while over there. Now he is insinuating the same about our soldiers and marines in Iraq. How do you think that makes our military personnel over there feel, as they daily risk their lives for a cause they feel worthy?
And you have to add in the 2000 election. All is well that ends well. But many, esp. in the military, still remember that it was the Democratic Party that litigated to use absentee ballot rules in Republican counties in Florida to disenfranchise service members serving overseas by exploiting the fact that these overseas servicemen were unable to fully comply with these rules through no fault of their own, but rather didn't technically comply as a consequence of their overseas service.
