One of the best arguments I've read for voting for Kerry ...

... and it comes from BigWig, a member of the right side of the blogosphere.

For those now experiencing the onset of apoplexy, I have a question. The Bush team that led a righteously angry America into Afghanistan and Iraq has, in the space of a year, managed to horribly tarnish the reputation of the United States in the eyes of her own people. Should GWB win re-election, is it at all realistic to expect that he will have the political capital needed to expand the conflict to Iran, Syria, North Korea or anywhere else should it become necessary? No matter what George Bush does, no matter how long he remains President, about half of America will oppose him, and a significant minority will do so at every turn.

On the other hand, if John Kerry is elected President, and those who now say they support the War on Terrorism continue to do so--even though they might disagree with some of strategies deployed to fight it--then on this question at least the country will be united to a degree not seen since the halcyon days of the late 90s.

I've been thinking about this lately as well. I frankly don't know that Kerry could fix the mess that Bush has put us in. But I know that Bush will make it worse. Thus, the only alternative we have is to throw our lot in with Kerry and hope for the best.

This post even contains (backhanded) praise for Clinton:

Even while Clinton was urinating onto the body politic he enjoyed the support of the people within it. Even the most ardent Republicans, people whom Clinton infuriated the way George II infuriates Michael Moore, admit that if he had been eligible for a third term he would have won it despite everything--meaning that he would have been President on 9/11, that he would be president...now.

Assume for a moment that Clinton would have made the exact same moves in the War on Terror in his third term that George Bush has in his first. Would Slick Willie's America be nearly as divided as the one presided over by Bumbling George?

I think we all know the answer to that. Despite his 2000 campaign rhetoric, George Bush is a divider, not a uniter--alienating otherwise natural allies with his stands on issues such as stem-cell research, immigration, free trade, federal spending, privacy, energy policy and yes, even gay marriage. That's why he's stuck in a dead heat with one of the limpest dishrags the Democratic Party has nominated since the last time they drew from the poisoned well of Massachusetts.

Now Clinton--there was a uniter. The man kept the support of the country through years of independent counsel investigations, an extra-marital affair and impeachment hearings. George Bush, on the other hand, can't even get 50% of the American population to say that ridding the planet of one of the most brutal dictators in history was a good idea in retrospect.

People may not have liked Clinton as a person like they do Bush(*), but even at the lowest point in his presidency, people still trusted Clinton's leadership more than they do Bush's now. How many people realize that Bush, on the day Saddam's statue fell, had lower approval ratings than Clinton did on the day he was impeached?

(* though I have heard that recent polling shows that Bush personal approval has started to plummet)