The presidential debates just further highlighted the differences between President Bush and John Kerry.
Bush only tries to deflect blame and scare people into voting for him. John Kerry has a plan.
During the second presidential debate, President Bush was asked to list some mistakes he had made as president. He could not name a single thing.
This is not the first time that President Bush hasn’t been able or willing to answer this question.
There are three strategies that Bush uses to deflect blame so that he doesn’t have to admit to any mistakes.
The first strategy is to deny that a mistake is, in fact, a mistake. Not thoroughly going through the inspection process before the war in Iraq and the failure of his tax cuts to create the jobs promised are prime examples.
The second strategy is to deny that the mistake ever occurred. Bush’s denial in the third debate of ever having said that he wasn’t “all that concerned about” Osama bin Laden is a classic example.
Also, just this past Monday, Bush once again tried to say that a mistake never occurred in relation to the missing 760,000 pounds of explosives in Iraq. This is despite increasing evidence that U.S. troops did, in fact, find the explosives.
The right will point to an NBC report stating otherwise, but even NBC has said that the press has misrepresented their report.
The third and most commonly used strategy that Bush uses to deny responsibility is to blame someone else.
Intelligence failures are the CIA’s fault. The floundering economy is 9/11’s fault. High health care costs are the lawyers’ fault, and so on.
President Bush is also using fear to persuade people to vote for him. The Bush campaign makes dire predictions of 9/11 type attacks and mushroom clouds if John Kerry were to be elected. They pick and choose votes Kerry has made in the Senate to make it look like the United States will become a Scandinavian-type socialist-welfare state if Kerry is elected.
The entire Bush campaign is based on a single premise: no matter how bad you think President Bush is, Kerry is going to be much, much worse.
John Kerry’s campaign is not based on fear. Anger of Bush’s failure is part of what is driving the Democrats.
But, you do not hear dire predictions of the end of the world, or the end of Democracy, from mainstream Democrats if Bush were to win.
Kerry has shown that he has plans.
Kerry has plans for health care and education – both of which will take burdens off businesses and the middle class and will help grow the economy.
Kerry has a plan for the war on terrorism and Iraq.
In fact, there are very few areas where Kerry does not have a plan. Watching the debates clearly demonstrated this.
On the other hand, one has to hunt to find any substantial new policy initiative that Bush has proposed in the debates.

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