Something To Consider

The President and his party have decided to go on the offensive early. Don't believe me? Well then I'm going to personally punch you in the face.

Wait a minute.

Apparently I am no longer allowed to punch people in the face. In a surprisingly quick court action, every single person in the United States, Canada and Guam has, in a class action action, been protected by a restraining order against me punching them in the face. So instead of punching you in the face, I'm going to have to resort to quoting the New York Times.

"Mr. Cheney's speech was scathing and was the White House's most detailed and pointed criticism to date of Mr. Kerry. The vice president's delivery was notable, too, for the sarcasm within its measured tones. It was his first major policy speech of the campaign, which has begun direct attacks unusually early for a general election."

So let's all take a moment and consider what it means for the President to go so quickly on the attack. One thing it could mean is that the President is holding a pair of deuces (one called the Economy, one called Iraq) and he doesn't want to run on that hand. So instead of running on his own record, he's going to run against Kerry's.

There's a related story at the Times about President Bush's eagerness to begin the attack.

"He likes campaigning, and he likes combat," said Charles Black, a consultant to Mr. Bush's campaign. "He doesn't like sitting back and taking a lot of punches from anybody. It took a lot of discipline the last few months for him to do that. There were times when he wished he could respond, but you can't go fight nine people at once."

Mr. Bush, by all accounts, is relieved that he has finally engaged his opponent, and is happily making day-to-day campaign decisions as well as setting long-term strategy about defining Mr. Kerry."

If only he'd turn his energy towards doing those sorts of things that would give him something to run on, but I suppose you have to stick with what you're good at.