On another list, George Snedeker pointed out that "one of the things that people keep forgetting is that the Dems give us Republican Presidents."
This is crucial, for to acknowledge it is to undercut the argument that this election is somehow _different_. It isn't. The election of Kerry this fall more or less guarantees the eventual election of a republican president who will be as bad as or worse than Bush. Try it this way: A vote for Kerry in 2004 is a vote for Rumsfield (or equivalent) in 2012. The principles of this 2012 president will be at least as vicious as Bush's. His capacity to implement them may well be greater.
There is not a single argument against Bush that will not apply to every republican candidate in years to come, some of whom are bound to win. The ABB position simply turns the left over to the DP for the indefinite future.
It is difficult if not impossible to predict what a given administration would do if elected -- or losing president would have done. But I'll venture a hypothesis. Had Gerald Ford won the election in 1976 (and actually some of the same arguments were made for the "lesser evil" then):
1. Reagan would never have become president.
2. Probably the C.I.A. would not have intervened in Afghanistan.
3. Bush would never have become president in 2000.
4. There probably would have been no invasion of Afghanistan (since the modern, secular regime Carter subverted would still be in power).
Those predictions are at least as probable as any of the predictions re a second Bush administration.
If this list is still around when a _really_ obnoxious Republican is elected in 2012 to follow a diastrous second term by Kerry, someone might forward this to the list at that time. (I don't anticipate 8 more active years for myself.)
Carrol