Olmert A Chilling Example of Democrat Leadership

From Sea to Shining Sea ^ | 8/22/06 | Purple Mountains

[PurpleMountains]

I am afraid that the incompetence of the left-wing Olmert government in Israel is a chilling foretelling of what might happen if a liberal Democrat is elected president in this country in 2008. Under Olmert’s misguided tutelage and penchant for thinking one can reason with terrorists, Israel’s army was allowed to decline in training and equipment, and a peacenik was appointed Defense Chief of Israel with disastrous results.

[NonValueAdded]

1000% correct It is an important lesson that we're bound to ignore :(

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

By constantly changing his mind about tactics and strategy, (reminding us eerily of President Jimmy Carter and the disaster in the Iranian desert in 1979), Olmert guaranteed failure of the Israeli mission and the imposition of a ceasefire . . .

What this also reminds me of was the debacle in Somalia under the leadership of President Clinton and his hapless Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, who refused to support American soldiers taking fire – soldiers who had been placed in an impossible situation through the incompetence of the Democrat President and his defense secretary. The soldiers ended up dead.

What this should also call to mind is the feckless Johnson Administration, which first hyped the Tonkin Gulf incident into a causus belli, escalated US commitment to Vietnam to 500,000 troops, then dithered. Including on-again off-again bombing halts, evicerating political support for the mission all the while.

In the past half-century there have been five Republican administrations - Eisenhower, Nixon-Ford, Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush43. And six Republican Secretaries of Defense - Wilson, Laird, Weinberger, Cheney, and Rumsfeld - and Cohen. All served honorably and left office with their reputations intact.

In the past half-century there have been three Democratic administrations - Kennedy-Johnson, Carter, and Clinton. And three Democratic Secretaries of Defense - Robert S. ("I knew we wouldn't win in Vietnam") McNamara, Brown, and Les Aspin. None of them left the military in better shape than they found it, and Aspin resigned in recognition of his own incompetence - to be replaced with a Republican senator.

It is to the point now that Democratic presidential candidates should have to

1. Make a recruiting pitch to American youth for the armed forces, and

2. Name a shadow Secretary of Defense so we will know what the Defense Department would look like under his/her administration.

Failing a convincing performance in those two tests, it is only rational to assume that under any future Democratic administration the Department of Defense would be a disaster. Again.

[bmwcyle]

Liberalism and socialism is a cancer in the Jewish community.