Beheaded Americans is clearly “Wrong Track”
You know the polling question. Here’s the reason for “wrong track” in a nutshell. Safire:
Will Americans react to all-kidnap-all-the-time by being revolted at the savagery and turn to the candidate determined to wipe out the barbarians? Or will we be so revolted as to think Iraqis are hopelessly uncivilized or beaten down, and turn to the candidate who will get us out of there the fastest?
John Kerry, who has evidently decided to replace Howard Dean as the antiwar candidate, last weekend helped to magnify the terrorists’ kidnap weapon. In a scheduled commercial Kerry personally approved, just before charging that George Bush had no plan to get us out of Iraq, the Democratic campaign underscored the message Zarqawi has been sending: “Americans,” said Kerry’s announcer, “are being kidnapped, held hostage, even beheaded.” Though undoubtedly accurate, that paid evocation of horror by a political candidate is a terrible blunder….
I know that pollsters and some candidates think that logic is beyond the American people, but try this: since there is nowhere to run from savages who want you to live under sharia in a 7th century Arabian caliphate, and will cut your throat if you say no, where precisely do you intend to run to? Back to the US, so they can hit us here? Great.
And don’t give me “world opinion.” World opinion is the EU chiding Russia for Beslan, world opinion is Rwanda, it is Darfur. World opinion is sit and watch while the most brutal among us kill the most helpless among us.
I think a lot of Americans want to wake up and hear a weather report for certain parts of the middle east which says “very bright, glassy day with temperatures in the high 7000′s.” I think you’d get a nice “right track” number after that.