Kerry and the Gift of Impunity

Over at the Nation Naomi Klein thinks that all the problems with America today are a direct result of John Kerry. Not unbitterly, Ms. Klein rips into the Kerry campaign for it's sins of omission:

In the name of "electability," the Kerry campaign gave Bush five months on the campaign trail without ever facing serious questions about violations of international law. Fearing he would be seen as soft on terror and disloyal to US troops, Kerry stayed scandalously silent about Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. When it became clear that fury would rain down on Falluja as soon as the polls closed, Kerry never spoke out against the plan, or against the illegal bombings of civilian areas that took place throughout the campaign.

Idealism isn't lost with youth or innocence, and it sometimes, oddly enough, is reinforced with an altogether naive conception of the way we desire the world to be. What bothers me, though I agree with Klein in many important respects, is her unflinching inconsistency. She simply seems to be a contrarian on all things Americana—which actually is, on second thought, consistent. There’s more:

By buying the highly questionable logic that Americans are incapable of caring about anyone's lives but their own, the Kerry campaign and its supporters became complicit in the dehumanization of Iraqis, reinforcing the idea that some lives are insufficiently important to risk losing votes over. And it is this morally bankrupt logic, more than the election of any single candidate, that allows these crimes to continue unchecked.

Kick the man while he’s down, why don’t you. She’s kicked him before, though.