"Putting words in his mouth" - The Washington Times: Commentary - May 10, 2004 talks about how John Kerry is blaming his speechwriters for his apparent flip-flop on Benedict Arnold CEOs.
I would suggest that this trait of John Kerry's of blaming others for anything negative, should disqualify him for the Presidency in the views of any intelligent voter. Harry Truman said that the buck stops with him. But with Kerry, it stops with anyone but him.
This isn't of course the first time that this has occurred. I have spent the last couple of ski seasons working speeder control as a volunteer at a ski area. Mr. Kerry blamed a fall riding in Idaho on one of his Secret Service agents. But snow boarders ride facing to one side, and have a big blind spot on the other side. Advanced riders learn to compensate for it. Beginners and intermediates are invariably unaware of it, and are dangerous until they learn to compensate. I was wiped out by a rider this winter for this, and almost knocked down a couple of other times. I have seen video of him riding, and he is not that skilled. Far, far, more likely, he just didn't see the Secret Service agent due to his own lack of experience and ability.
The result, I suspect then, of a Kerry Presidency would be an extremely timid administration. Anyone taking any chances whatsoever would be assured that if it failed in any way, or ultimately became unpopular, Mr. Kerry would not stand by them, but would hang them out to dry. Risk takers would be loathe to take positions. The government is bad enough in this regard normally, and would get significantly worse.
For example, there would be no Donald Rumsfeld as SECDEF. Despite his recent bad press, he has brought great intellect and enthusiasm for change to the Department of Defense. When he came into office this time, our military was stuck still fighting the Cold War. We still have a significant force imbalance for facing the changes of today and tomorrow. We have far too many heavy armor and artillery troops, and not enough light troops and those, such as MP and Intelligence troops, needed today for Iraq and Afghanistan. Note that the troops recently accused of atrocities are reservists, because that is where our MPs, etc., currently predominate. Another example are up-armormed Humvees. The military assumed that Humvees would be behind our own lines, and thus there was little need for the up-armored versions. Because of that, a number of our troops have been killed or injured in attacks that wouldn't have harmed them as badly, if they had been riding in the up-armored version.
Secretary Rumsfeld thinks out of the box. He is working as hard as he can to instill this in our military. But the military is notoriously conservative about change. It always has been. It continually fights the last war, not preparing for the next one. But what should you expect, since the commanders grew up in the older specialties? MP officers rarely make general, and even then, typically don't rise from there. Just witness the howls when the Crusader artillery vehicle was cancelled. It would have been useful against the Soviet Union in Europe, but would be useless facing today's challenges, esp. since it wouldn't be able to deploy very quickly. Without a Rumsfeld, we would probably be still trying to build such an obsolete weapon system.
Obviously, Defense is not the only place where change is necessary, and where conservatism and resistance to change would harm our country. Mr. Kerry himself has shown himself to be timid to the extreme, refusing to take any firm stands, rather flip-flopping in the wind. His administration would be of the same type.
