Who's Fooling Whom?

"He has the answer to everything and the solution to nothing."

    - Oscar Levant (1906-1972), American musician

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Steyn gives us his two cents worth on the Democratic National Convention in his op-ed "How Dems Delude Themselves." Steyn's incisive wit always makes for an entertaining read, and this effort is no exception:

"John Kerry says he's running on his record, but, of his four decades of adult life, he's running on his four months in Vietnam. Of the other 39 years and eight months, there's nary a word..."

Steyn even pokes fun at the songs the party-planners used at the convention:

"Amid the variously labored song titles selected for the Convention--'We Are Family,' 'You've Got A Friend'--the one that struck me as most pertinent to the Kerry campaign was 'Blowin' in the Wind.' "

And opines about Kerry's choice of a campaign theme: 

The archetypal weathervane pol thinks he's got it figured out: The voters want tough talk--'strong,' 'stronger,' 'strengthen' evidently all poll-test well--but rather less action when they switch on the evening news. So Kerry's position on the war is this: 'Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response.'

Got that? If the Empire State Building's taken out, he'll certainly respond to it. Next time 'round, there won't be any mistakes about where the WMD are because they'll be in the middle of a big crater in Chicago."

Steyn believes the Dems, and especially Kerry, are still not articulating what they're for, aside from getting rid of George W. Bush. He concludes that their search for a cause "with which to rally the citizenry" seems to have resulted in something akin to self-absorption:

"There's a narcissism about the tone of this convention that cuts to the heart of the Democratic Party's difficulties: They don't believe in anything except their monopoly of goodness."

Steyn's insights and humor aside, I do think that Americans are hearing the Democrats making lots of pledges about how they're going to fix everything that's supposedly broken, but sense a disconnect between these promises and the realities of today. So far, Kerry and Edwards' campaign rhetoric seems to have failed to convince the unconvinced.

My thanks to Jessica's Well for the link to the Steyn column.