i awoke this morning wondering Mmanaging Editor Joan Walsh as the cover story:
Memo to Kerry: Don't let Osama steal your thunder
God, she always gets it exactly right.
She ended the wonderful piece like this:
It was fine for Kerry to sound a "we're all Americans at times like these" note, at least in his initial public reaction. But if he keeps singing it, he's in trouble, because that's Bush's song. Americans want reassurance that Kerry will be a forceful commander in chief. There is no better way to do that in these last days of the campaign than by going after the current, hapless commander in chief. "The country we carry in our hearts is waiting," as Springsteen told us. But we won't get it if Kerry doesn't fight for it.
He better fight for it. Frankly, if he doesn't fight--and demonstrate to the public that he can fight--he doesn't deserve the office. The country does need a strong leader right now, one that it can rally around, and John Kerry talking about strength doesn't mean shit. He has to take on Bush and fight him to the mat.
The fact that that involves speech does not matter. It involves risk. That's the part people understand. It's about standing up for your convictions regardless, taking the guy on and calling him on his shit. Even when there might be an election to pay.
The irony is that you'll only win the election by demonstrating that you don't need it. That you care about the country more and are willing to flight for it.
Luckily, Salon has a new cover story now, by political correspondent Tim Grieve:
Kerry: Bush blew it on bin Laden
Praise Jesus. The opening paragraphs were such a joy to behold:
At a rally in Miami Friday night, John Kerry said Bruce Springsteen had provided the theme for his campaign: "No retreat, baby, no surrender." But then Kerry delivered a speech in which he seemed to do a little bit of both. On a day when a new videotape showed pretty conclusively that Osama bin Laden was neither dead nor "on the run," Kerry said nothing at all about the terrorist leader or the Bush administration's failure to capture him.
Saturday morning in Wisconsin, Kerry had his backbone back. At a rally on a muddy football field in Appleton, Kerry made the point that many in his party were waiting to hear from him: If Bush hadn't diverted the military's attention from the war on terrorism to the war in Iraq, bin Laden wouldn't be making any videotapes today.
"As I have said for two years now, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, and it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us," Kerry said. Instead, Bush should have relied on U.S. troops, he said, soldiers "who wanted to avenge America for what happened in New York and Pennsylvania and Washington."
"It was wrong to divert our forces from Afghanistan so we could rush to war in Iraq without a plan to win the peace," Kerry said. "I will lead the world in fighting a smarter, more effective, tougher, more strategic war on terror, and we will make America safer."
Dutton (Penguin) in early 2009. 
