Republicans are saying all sorts of things about John Kerry’s voting record on defense programs. Fred Kaplan has a piece that sheds some light on things. The Republicans must tar Kerry as soft on defense because President Bush’s best hope of getting reelected is to make Americans afraid that terrorists will overrun the country if they fire him. So Kerry must be painted as a wimpy Democrat who isn’t serious about defending the country, and believe me, the RNC isn’t going to let the truth get in the way.

That said, I’m not too happy with John Kerry today either. I heard a bit of a stump speech today wherein he promised to force companies to give workers three months notice if they’re going to be replaced by offshore workers. Nobody who has worked in the private sector would be impressed by this pledge. The way things work is that when a company needs to improve its bottom line, it often lays off workers. It doesn’t fire them and replace them with people overseas, it just gets rid of them. Then, when more manufacturing capacity is needed or a new IT project is about to get under way, when it comes time to staff up, the company decides whether to hire here or overseas. The three months notice thing just isn’t going to be effective in doing whatever Kerry wants people to think it will do.