The Loss of Context, Pt MCMXXXVIII

John Kerry has a big interview in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, and predictably, the Bush campaign has done us a favor by nicely distilling its 10,000 words down to one: "nuisance."

Let's put it in some context by hearing from the next Secretary of State:

Even Democrats who stress that combating terrorism should include a strong military option argue that the ''war on terror'' is a flawed construct. ''We're not in a war on terror, in the literal sense,'' says Richard Holbrooke, the Clinton-era diplomat who could well become Kerry's secretary of state. ''The war on terror is like saying 'the war on poverty.' It's just a metaphor. What we're really talking about is winning the ideological struggle so that people stop turning themselves into suicide bombers.''

I don't think anyone could have put it any closer to my views. And Kerry followed them up:

"You have to understand that this is not the sands of Iwo Jima. This is a completely new, different kind of war from any we've fought previously... I think we can do a better job,'' Kerry said, ''of cutting off financing, of exposing groups, of working cooperatively across the globe, of improving our intelligence capabilities nationally and internationally, of training our military and deploying them differently, of specializing in special forces and special ops, of working with allies, and most importantly -- and I mean most importantly -- of restoring America's reputation as a country that listens, is sensitive, brings people to our side, is the seeker of peace, not war, and that uses our high moral ground and high-level values to augment us in the war on terror, not to diminish us.''

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. ''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

It's so clear that, when someone says "We have to get back to the place," that he's talking about a time in the future. But of course, the Bush campaign immediately jumped on it, saying things like "John Kerry thinks the war on terror is a nuisance!" No, idiots, he thinks we have to fight it so it BECOMES a nuisance! There's an enormous difference there. It assumes that the war can be won, that it's not an endless threat (which the GOP likes, because they can then perpetually scare the electorate). It assumes we can actually make a difference.

Charles Pierce had it in Altercation when he said:

There's nothing worse than C-Plus Augustus with a new catchphrase.  He takes it out back and chews on it and plays with it and tosses it up in the air, and he'll run and go fetch it from dawn until dusk, or at least until Karen Hughes' brawny arm gets tired.  Which is why we are all going to grow quite sick of the word "nuisance" between now and election day.  Of course, what Kerry meant was that fighting terrorism needn't necessarily involve ramping up unreasoning fear every time your poll numbers begin to tank.  But "nuisance" will get tossed around like "global" was.  I don't believe any campaign ever has depended as much as the Avignon Presidency does on every voter being either a) as fundamentally duplicitous as Enron Ed Gillespie, or b) as willfully uninformed as the candidate himself.

Indeed.