This is adapted from an email I sent recently:

"This may be a little disjointed, but I need [your] take to sort it. What is going on here? Hitchens has endorsed John Kerry? Did I just step through the looking glass? I...don't get it. I just don't get how anyone who's been seriously advocating an aggressive War on Terror and who sees Iraq's place in it can go that way. Sullivan [well fisked by Lileks here], Jarvis...Hitchens...I don't understand. [There's one hell of a lot of cognitive dissonance there. They clearly know Kerry is full of it on a range of issues, but then their endorsements come in from somewhere way out in left field. It seems to make no sense based on what's on the table.] The thread I'm gleaning is that a lot of these people think that Kerry will be forced to be serious on the WoT and Iraq - but that's not how it works. We don't have a parliamentary system where you lure someone into a coalition and if they don't perform you break the government and do it all over again. If he's in, he's in for four years come hell or high water and his election will be seen as a repudiation of the Bush Doctrines. It'll be seen as a mandate for the Europeanization of the WoT (and where will Israel be in that? Where will America be?).

He's said he'll increase the size of the armed forces - and promised NONE MORE for Iraq. He's criticized the money we've spent there to date and said he'll shoot for getting the troops home before the end of his term. Hell, he wants to give uranium to the Mullahs!

If he's elected it'll be time to pay-off on all that (and much, much more - make a list), not suddenly turn around, find a plan and get serious. Do they figure that the Democrats will be forced to stop being the "party of carping nonsense" once they're in power and so we'll finally have two parties that are "serious?" Like they figure the Dems will be placated and the Repubs are already on board so forward we go without one side tugging the other down...see what I'm getting at? But it doesn't work that way. The two parties put up their arguments and you vote on one or the other. One side's arguments win and the other side's are repudiated. That's how it works. There's going to be no "healing" after a Kerry victory.

I dunno...all this talk about former Leftists and Democrats switching over...are they now just getting cold feet and looking for ways to justify their votes to themselves?

Sigh..."

My interlocutor's take? Yes, "cold feet"...and business. A fear that if Kerry is elected there will be retribution for those who opposed him.

My emailer may be right and they may not be wrong, but it certainly is a dismaying thing to think about.

Update: OceanGuy speculates on why Kerry can get away with what he gets away with.