Whenever a candidate can’t make his case for himself based on facts, an easy out is to start distorting his opponent. Here’s what President Bush said yesterday:
We agree that the world is better off with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell. And that stands in stark contrast to the statement my opponent made yesterday when he said that the world was better off with Saddam in power.
Wow. Who wants a president who supports brutal dictators ruling the world? Boo Kerry.
But wait a minute. Is that what Kerry really said? From his speech:
Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.
[Olliver Willis has this comparison in video format from ABC News.]
I don’t see anything there about the world being “better off” with Saddam. So where did that come from? Did Bush simply make it up?
What Kerry’s statement recognizes is the basic economics of foreign policy. Yes, there was a benefit in removing Saddam Hussein. But that’s only half the story. The benefit has come at a tremendous cost: thousands of people killed and maimed, hundreds of billions of dollars spend, and Middle East instability. In assessing a policy, you’ve got to weigh how the world is better off against how things are worse off. And in the judgment of many people, including Kerry, the benefit of removing Saddam hasn’t been worth the cost.
Sometime I’d like to see a reporter (with guts) ask President Bush if he thinks the world is better off with Kim Jong Il in power. Because I haven’t seen Bush lift a finger to remove the North Korean leader. And according to Bush’s twisted logic, if you don’t support the military ouster of a national leader, you must think the world is better off with that ruler in place.