Not the same

Try to follow the bizarre logic of this statement by The New York Times' David E. Sanger:

But both Mr. Bush's speech and Mr. Kerry's retort were notable for what they both omitted: any discussion of a strategy for either defeating the insurgency or disengaging from it. Some of Mr. Kerry's advisers have been urging him to describe a plan in more detail, which they say he hopes to do soon …

Kerry's "retort" — which Sanger does not take issue with because it's, well, true — was this:

"But you and I know, Americans know and the world knows — because all you have to do is see it on the evening news or read it in the newspaper — that the situation in Iraq is worse, not better," Mr. Kerry said, alluding to the string of heavy casualties in recent days. "That whole parts of Iraq are in control of terrorists, or jihadists and insurgents, that weren't before. That our troops are overextended, our National Guard and Reserve troops are overextended, and this president has not done what is necessary to fight the most effective war on terror."

Mr. Kerry said the Iraq war was "the most catastrophic choice that George Bush made," and he lambasted the president as choosing "to go it alone" in the initial invasion in March 2003, to ignore Congress and his own generals, and "to rush to war without a plan to win the peace."

So here then is Sanger's proposition:

1. George W. Bush has created a colossal, deadly, terrorist-breeding mess and a no-win situation by neglecting to have a plan for post-invasion Iraq and botching nearly every decision in the last 18 months.

2. John Kerry has not yet presented a detailed, step-by-step plan for quickly and easily cleaning up Bush's mess.

3. These two things are equivalent.

This is insane. And Sanger isn't the only reporter repeating this screwball notion. The same thing occurs regularly in discussions of the deficit:

George W. Bush has run up the largest deficit in American history — a structural, ongoing shortfall that will escalate and expand over time. But, hey, John Kerry doesn't have a magic plan for restoring balanced budgets either. So they're both the same, right?

By this screwy logic, a doctor who fails to save a DOA gunshot victim would be just as guilty as the shooter in the patient's death.

When John Kerry takes office in January he will inherit a series of extremely difficult tasks. Undoing the damage George W. Bush has done to America will demand exceptional skill, wisdom and good fortune. The man is going to have to work miracles just to keep the downward spirals Bush has set in motion from getting even worse.

It's perfectly reasonable to demand that John Kerry appreciates the seriousness and the scope of the mess he will be inheriting. And it is reasonable to ask for details on how he intends to undertake the Herculean tasks of restoring fiscal sanity and salvaging Iraq from chaos. But for heaven's sake, let's have a little sense of perspective. The lack of a final draft of a detailed clean up plan is not the same as being responsible for creating the mess while — even now, still — pretending it doesn't even exist.