Is the Campaign All a Sham?

Edward Luttwak thinks that if Kerry is elected, he may behave very much like Bush, and maybe more so. See his thoughts here:

"Of course many people support John Kerry for the next president of the United States for a variety of reasons - he is credible when he promises to cut the Federal deficit, for example. But to support him in the hope that he would make American military policy more doveish is absurd. All the evidence is that he will do the exact opposite."

In short, Luttwak thinks Kerry, like Wilson and Roosevelt before him, is a Democrat who promises to keep us out of war but will break his promises almost at once.

Indeed, one could argue that Bush will be less able, say, to act against Iran if it's about to go nuclear than Kerry, because of the pounding Bush has taken on the Iraq intervention. (I'm not saying we should act against Iran. Haven't analyzed it).

So we shouldn't worry so much about Kerry being a peacenik wuss, because he's lying to his base about where he really stands, and he's really a fighter by temperament.

Now there certainly is a historic bellicosity among some big-government Democrats, and until the Cold War, the conservative Republicans were anti-interventionist. As Taki argues, the 20th Century might have turned out better if Wilson had really kept us out of World War I -- and although Taki's often off-putting, he's got a point.

So if Luttwak is to be believed, this election really won't make a difference in foreign policy.

I'd like to believe him, because I think Kerry's "global test"-UN-worshipping rhetoric and the wishful-thinking namby-pambyism among his Kumbaya-singing supporters is more dangerous even than the questionable competence, indiffference to the budget, trade deficits, and government expansion among the Bushies.

I still think Nuance is more likely than not to lose, so we'll never know whether he's really somewhat sound on the war against Islamicism. Luttwak's thought, ironically, is somewhat comforting in the event Kerry wins -- he's really an inveterate liar and will fool the whole world.

I still think my ineffective vote for Bush (in dark-blue California) was the right thing to do.