February 10, 2004, 8:52 a.m.
Kerry Do-Nothingism
On issues foreign and domestic, inaction is the message.

By Seth Leibsohn & Shaun Small

Recently, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry has made much use of his stump line, "George Bush has made America weaker militarily by overextending our forces, overstraining our reserves, driving away our allies, and running the most arrogant, reckless, inept and ideological foreign policy of modern times."

Senator Kerry has offered his own prescription by saying the following about the war on terrorism:

"But it's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world — the very thing this administration is worst at...and I think this administration's arrogant and ideological policy is taking America down a more dangerous path. I will make Americans safer than they are."

This — aside from the attempt by Senator Joe Lieberman, who tried to save the Democratic party from its recrudescent affair with McGovernism, and who, for this attempt, had to drop out of contention — is now Democratic-party boilerplate: Promote better intelligence and law enforcement, downplay military solutions, and criticize the current administration. Once in a while a candidate will also promise more safety. And this theory of fighting terrorism is exactly why we have a war on terrorism in the first place — why terrorist organizations could plan our demise, bring about the death of 3,000 Americans, and use tyrannous host-states to train and finance themselves.

We can agree we need a better intelligence system in this country. But we need this because intelligence has been downgraded over the years by the John Kerrys of the world — and their predecessors. We forget, too easily, there was near-universal certainty we would be hit again after 9/11, and soon. Just how much safer would Senator Kerry make us? How much safer could he make us? It's worth remembering: When we treated terrorism merely as a law-enforcement problem — and not law enforcement as one of several tools to fight terrorism — al Qaeda was building, training, and planning. Since we've treated terrorism as a war problem, we have not been hit again.

We paid a heavy price for our previous lapses in judgment. We cannot afford to put our head in the sand and pretend that if only John Kerry were president, if only we treated terrorists as criminals, we would not be at war and we would be safer — the world would be a better place. That is not a foreign policy or even a plan of action. It's a recipe for disaster.

Today the terrorists who continue to plot against the U.S. are massively disrupted. Before President Bush took decisive action, the Taliban ran Afghanistan freely. Today, it is, for the most part, history. Saddam Hussein had hid terrorists, tortured dissidents, thwarted U.N. inspections, paid off suicide bombers in Israel, and attempted to assassinate a former U.S. president. Today, he is in prison. Arafat was given White House credibility, hugs, and taken seriously. Today, he is an anathema. Libya was conducting business as usual. Today, it is negotiating various forms of international surrender. Not a bad record for "overstraining," "reckless," and "arrogant."

As for taking America down "a more dangerous path": more dangerous than what? Than before 9/11 when terrorists were planning and plotting? Or is it more dangerous now that they are running and hiding? If we were to calculate true danger, we can't think of a better description of it than, in wartime, voting for a resolution to authorize force; then claiming you did not understand what you were voting for; then voting against the requisite aid to support the troops and the country we were liberating. That is not merely dangerous — it is truly reckless.

In stark contrast to the angry, and often disingenuous, rhetoric characterizing much of the debate on national security, John Kerry has been remarkably reticent on the issue of Social Security — perhaps the greatest economic policy issue of our time. Keep in mind in 2003, combined outlays for Social Security and Medicare stood at nearly $745 billion — over one-third of all federal government spending, or 6.9 percent of GDP. By 2014, spending for these two programs is projected to swell to 42 percent of all federal outlays, or 8.4 percent of GDP.

This issue is only projected to get worse over time largely due to the fact that we are facing a demographic iceberg once the baby boom generation begins retiring in less than a decade. If we act now we can still right the ship and avoid an economic disaster. However, our window of opportunity to transform Social Security is limited. If done correctly, and soon, we can transform Social Security for the 21st century without resorting to draconian tax increases or benefit reductions. For Social Security, as in national security, leadership requires that we not sit idly by while storms gather on the horizon. Leadership requires courage, judgment, and action.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to find any Democratic presidential challenger willing to say the words "Social Security," let alone provide a policy stance on this most important issue. In the South Carolina presidential debate the only argument Kerry could muster against the president on Social Security was that "this president wants to privatize Social Security, which will in fact make it more at risk than it is today." Aside from the mischaracterization, all Kerry seems capable of saying about this issue boils down to mere platitudes.

In his "Compact with America's Seniors" Kerry says "the greatest generation seniors should be able to count on Medicare and Social Security, on affordable prescription drugs, on quality options for long term care." You will find nothing else on Social Security in that compact. A nice statement, now what's the policy, we ask? Evidently, for John Kerry, in regard to Social Security, as in national security — do nothing.

Whether John Kerry is talking national security or Social Security the words may be different but the pattern remains the same: attack the president, equivocate and obfuscate your own record, and on the most important economic and national-security issues facing the nation put your head in the sand and pretend problems do not exist. We live in serious times and we need serious leadership. Senator Kerry, however, if taken seriously, prescribes a "do-nothing" presidency. This, however, is a time for action.

— Seth Leibsohn and Shaun Small are, respectively, the vice president for policy and the senior policy analyst at Empower America.