Not a Serious Candidate

John Kerry talks as though he could wish the Terror War away through dint of sheer will.
Here he is at the debate two nights ago.

GILBERT: Senator Kerry, President Bush a week ago on “Meet the Press” described himself as a war president. He said he’s got war on his mind as he considers these policies and decisions he has to make. If you were elected, would you see yourself as a war president?

This should be a no-brainer.

KERRY: I’d see myself first of all as a jobs president, as a health care president, as an education president and also an environmental president. And add them all together, you can’t be safe at home today unless you are also safe abroad.
KERRY: So I would see myself as a very different kind of global leader than George Bush.

What a total ridiculous dodge. It isn’t even a dodge-worthy question.
Would you see yourself as a war president? The answer to that one ought to be obvious. Of course. There’s a war on.
Kerry is certainly free to have a different strategy against terrorism and rogue regimes than the sitting president. I, for one, would love to hear an alternate plan that doesn’t involve running away from conflict or handing responsibility over to the feckless UN. But to answer a simple foreign policy question with “jobs,” “education,” and “the environment” is enough to make me next-to certain that I can never vote for him.
I’ve tried to give Kerry some slack due to the built-in distortions of the primary season. And I will continue, at least in the short run, to do so. He’s not an ANSWER nut, nor is he Howard Dean. But on the single most important question so far he’s a big fat zero. He has no foreign policy whatsoever. He brings nothing to the table and clearly wishes the whole thing would just go away.
It won’t.
UPDATE: Stephen Green comments.