You're political analysis is valid, and a good insight,

Thank you very much.

but it depends entirely on who considers Bush's record "baggage." The Democrats? France? Kofi Annan?

No, the kind of "baggage" I'm talking about is the fact that the list of people who have a problem with Bush is a long one. It includes the Democrats (shorthand for "half the country"), France, the UN, Germany, and a host of others; and regardless of nation, seeminly about half the world's population, including citizens of countries whose leaders support Bush, like Britain. That's one big pile of baggage! Whether it's fair or not is irrelevant; it's an albatross around Bush's neck, and thus around our necks.

Leaders who rock the boat sometimes are doing something that badly needs to be done, but people may not forgive them for it. Look at Churchill.

Yep. Churchill's the example that tickled at the back of my mind. Not that I think Bush is in the same league, but it illustrates how political decisions are made on more than the dry recitation of a record. If the record were everything, the decision could be made by an Excel spreadsheet.

I don't find what Kerry says about defense to be reassuring, since he will say anything at all to get elected, has contradicted himself many times, and I find his actual record far more instructive than his speeches.

The same could certainly be said about Bush. You've complained more than once that his actions in office haven't lived up to his campaign rhetoric.

I deleted a paragraph from the draft of my post, and maybe I should have left it in. It went something like: Why is it necessary for Kerry to demonstrate his competence with different ideas? It seems like a paradox: If you think Bush's ideas are the best available, then to the extent that his opponent promises a similar course, aren't those also good ideas? Kerry's been criticized by Democratic firebrands for not being anti-war enough, but could it just be that he's being realistic about the situation Bush has stuck us with? Maybe there's no other honorable course of action than to "stay the course" and try to make the best of a bad situation. The election's partially a referendum on whether it was wise to attack Iraq, and Bush may yet be held accountable for the past; but that's a separate issue from the question of where to go from here. In that regard Bush has done us the disservice of backing us into a corner with few options, from which the only viable exit seems to be a change of leadership.

It's not so much that I expect radical changes if Kerry's elected, but more that I simply expect things to go a little more smoothly for America. The big problems will remain, but at least we won't have the added handicap of a President who rubs a lot of people the wrong way.