Telling it Like it Isn't

Jim Skillen at the Center for Peace and Justice has a piece on the election wherein he makes these remarks:

Do you want to know what kind of president George Bush will be during the next four years? Look at his record; read reality; and then ask how well his words square with that record and reality.

For Senator Kerry one should take a different approach. He has no presidential deeds to evaluate. Listen carefully to his words, his promises, his proposals. If the promises remain general and vague; if the tax-and-spending proposals don't quite add up; if the security and foreign affairs strategies don't seem likely to yield more safety and international justice over the next decade; if he relies as much on Bush-bashing as Bush relies on Kerry-bashing, then assume that Kerry will be that kind of president.

Mr. Skillen's advice needs a little clarification. First, it's simply misleading to say that Kerry has no presidential deeds to evaluate as if there were no relevant record at all upon which a voter can base a decision on Mr. Kerry. He has spent almost twenty years in the Senate and, on those occasions when he has shown up, has cast votes. There is plenty of record there for voters to contemplate. Mr. Skillen doesn't mention it because unless those who take the trouble to discover how the Senator has voted over the years are pro-abortion, pacifist socialists Kerry's record is likely to alienate most of them, including, one hopes, not a few of Skillen's own readers.

The biggest untold story in this campaign, in fact, is Senator Kerry's senatorial record. The media aren't going to publicize it, of course, because they know it would swing the election to Bush, and the Republicans, for some unfathomable reason, haven't made much of an issue of it either except to cite the Senators chronic tergiversations on Iraq.

The second point on which Mr. Skillen allows his ideological preference to cloud his judgment is when he suggests that Mr. Bush has "relied on Kerry-bashing". It's not clear whether he means to imply that Bush himself has engaged in this behavior, or whether he means to suggest that Bush is relying on others to do the bashing. The latter interpretation is more charitable toward Skillen because it merely makes him look silly, but it is less plausible than the former.

If Skillen is indeed stating that it remains to be seen whether Kerry will rely on others to do the bashing of the president, then we must conclude that Mr. Skillen must have been sequestered in a cave for the last two years during which time Kerry's surrogates have been flaying Bush with the most odious charges and allegations imaginable.

Assuming he hasn't been on a two year retreat somewhere, Skillen must mean that Bush himself has been taking cheap shots at Kerry and that we should watch to see if Kerry responds in kind. If so, Skillens' claim is simply false. Bush has publically said nothing about Kerry except as it pertains to his record throughout this campaign. He has been extraordinarily gracious to his opponent in praising his dubious military record and has refused to attack Kerry personally. Perhaps Mr. Skillen can offer us a counterexample or two, but it's doubtful. Unless he can, however, his assertion above that Bush has engaged in some ignoble political chicanery slanders a man whose conduct in this campaign should serve as a model for politicians everywhere, and Skillens' insinuation to the contrary, therefore, is itself a disreputable cheap shot.

Thanks to Derek Melleby via Byron Borger for the Skillen article.