The Death of Shame(The Platform of the Democrat Campaign)

The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest

Vol: 29 Issue: 10 - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - Plain Text

Special Report: The Death of Shame

I probably spent more time trying to come up with the column title than I
will in the course of writing it. There was a time in America when truth
counted, and those who lied were held accountable. It's true, honest! And
it wasn't that long ago, really. Oh, there've been celebrated exceptions
to the rule -- Teddy Kennedy in 1969 for example.

Kennedy drove his car off the Chappaquiddick Bridge with young Mary Jo
Kopechne sitting beside it. Kennedy escaped, left Kopechne to drown, and
then waited several hours before reporting the accident to police
(presumably so he could sober up) and got away with it. But he was a
Kennedy at a time when America was crazy with grief over the
assassinations of John and Bobby and Kennedys could do no wrong.

In any case, the exception proves the rule. Richard Nixon lost the
presidency over a lie. It wasn't the Watergate burglary that toppled
Nixon, it was the subsequent coverup.

Gary Hart's presidential campaign was ruined when he was photographed on a
pleasure boat with a woman who was not his wife. That was even too much
for Democrats in the pre-Clinton era.

The Irangate investigation was about whether President Reagan knew the
details of the arms-for-hostages scandal and lied about it. Although
Reagan didn't lie, several of his subordinates did. Reagan took
responsibility, but it was his honesty that saved his presidency.

George Bush the Elder lost his bid for re-election because he made and
then broke his famous promise; "Read my lips . . .no new taxes." The
Democrats campaigned on and won because of that famous lie.

Something snapped in America during the Clinton administration. Truth
became secondary to partisanship. Suddenly, lies didn't seem to matter as
much. There were the endless series of scandals in which it was obvious to
the public that Clinton lied, but no hard evidence to prove it. Clintonian
tactics kept moving the bar on truth, a bit at a time, until "truth" hung
on somebody's interpretation of the meaning of the word 'is'.

It seems that, from that time forward, the American people have come to
expect the Democrats to lie, while holding Republicans to an exaggerated
standard of truth.

A perfect example is 'the president lied about Saddam's WMD.' By any
standard, the word 'lie' cannot apply if Bush believed his intelligence
reports and those of the rest of the world. The ONLY way 'lie' fits is if
Bush had personal knowledge those reports weren't true. How would he get
that personal knowledge that nobody ELSE in the whole world had?

All the European states, including France and Germany, Russia, Canada as
well as almost every Democrat in Congress, have said at one time or
another that they believed Saddam had WMD. They were all quoted publicly
saying so.

Clearly, the Bush administration is not being held to the same standard of
truth as afforded Democrats. In fact, there is no standard of truth of any
kind in evidence here.

At best, one can only argue logically that Bush made the same mistake as
everybody else did, which isn't a 'lie' unless EVERYBODY was lying,
including those making the charges against Bush.

That isn't a partisan defense of George Bush. It strains logic to assume
Bush would have knowledge nobody else did, including his own intelligence
services. That is what it would take before one could logically argue that
ANYBODY lied except Saddam Hussein.

Al Gore's insane performance in which he all but called Bush a traitor (in
fact, he did -- he said Bush 'betrayed our country') stands out as a
another example of the death of shame in America. It was filled with
shameless lies; Gore said Bush had planned the war with Iraq before 9/11,
suggesting that Bush was deceitful.

Since regime change in Iraq was official US policy since 1998, you can bet
that the Bush war plan for Iraq was modified from the Clinton war plan for
Iraq that was in place before Bush even ran for office. And since Gore was
Clinton's VP, you can bet Gore knew it. Shameless. And Gore got a huge
roar of approval.

John Kerry has built his campaign on opposing the war and belittling the
Bush administration. Kerry's statements before Congress when the Clinton
administration was about to launch Operation Desert Fox indicate that if
he was president, he'd have done exactly what he criticizes Bush for.

"(Saddam Hussein) cannot be permitted to go unobserved and unimpeded
toward his horrific objective of amassing a stockpile of weapons of mass
destruction. This is not a matter about which there should be any debate
whatsoever in the Security Council, or, certainly, in this Nation," Kerry
said, according to the November, 1997 Congressional Record.

He went on, "While we should always seek to take significant international
actions on a multilateral rather than a unilateral basis whenever that is
possible, if in the final analysis we face what we truly believe to be a
grave threat to the well-being of our Nation or the entire world and it
cannot be removed peacefully, we must have the courage to do what we
believe is right and wise."

Hmmmm. According to Kerry in 1997, Saddam's objective was to amass a
stockpile of WMD. And there shouldn't be "ANY DEBATE WHATSOEVER in the
Security Council" or "this Nation." over the issue? We must have the
"courage to do what we believe is right and wise" even if countries like
France disagree with us? Shameless.

Terry McAullife, head of the Democratic Party, called President Bush AWOL
during his time in the National Guard. John Kerry now belittles service in
the National Guard as somehow less patriotic.

I am not going to blindly defend Bush's service or argue that his family
connections didn't play a role in his early discharge. I do remember when
I was in the Marine Corps, there were lots of guys getting what we called
'early outs' as the war in Vietnam wound down. At about the same time,
1973, Bush got an 'early out' being discharged 8 months short of his
six-year obligation.

In any case, Bush was a fighter pilot. It is only marginally safer to fly
a fighter when nobody is shooting at you than it is when somebody is. Bush
was rated by one of his commanders in his fitness report as being among
the top 5% of fighter pilots he had ever commanded.

And since Bush's unit wasn't deployed to Vietnam, should Bush have just
jumped in a fighter and deployed himself?

In 1992 Kerry defended Bill Clinton from accusations by then President
George Bush Sr. of draft dodging, remarking that "We do not need to divide
America over who served and how."

That same year Kerry stated before Congress, "Mr. President, you and I
know that if support or opposition to the (Vietnam) war were to become a
litmus test for leadership, America would never have leaders or recover
from the divisions created by that war."

But now, for John Kerry, service in Vietnam IS a litmus test. Kerry came
home from the war and became one of its greatest critics. He participated
in creating the 'divisions' cuddling up to the likes of Jane Fonda. Now he
campaigns on Bush's lack of service in Vietnam and he gets wild cheers
from his adoring crowds. It is utterly shameless.

Something snapped in America -- I can't pinpoint exactly when, but it was
somewhere towards the end of the Clinton administration. The 2000
Election was the earthquake that started several years before as tiny
cracks when America decided to compromise on truth as long as it paid off.

Clinton won reelection on the campaign slogan, "It's the economy, stupid!"
Probably the only truth to come out of his administration.

In any case, Election 2000 was when shame breathed its last in American
public life. Al Gore phoned to concede the election to Bush, then later
rescinded his concession to try and win the White House by legal
maneuvering.

"Every vote should count . . . except those military absentee ones that
won't break for me." "Hey, is that chad dimpled?"

After eight years of defending the former president's right to lie,
('everybody lies about sex') it seemed there were two truths about
everything, and the only truth barometer was party affiliation.

The Democrats are inventing new 'truths' by the hour, dropping them like
bait and waiting to see which get picked up. Nobody is calling them down
on them. The mainstream media repeats them breathlessly, mindlessly . .
shamelessly.

No lie is too big to swallow, as long as it results in the defeat of
George Bush. It's because the majority of Democrats are more concerned
with beating Bush than with choosing a presidential candidate who actually
cares enough about the country to take a firm stand on the issues
Americans care most about.

They just want to win at any cost, so it doesn't matter to them if they
end up electing someone who might well do a worse job of running the
country than they perceive Bush is doing.

This is no defense of Bush -- he has truly disappointed me on a number of
occasions, but the fact is that what he says now is pretty much the same
as what he said all along. (If he's a liar, he's at least consistent)

In many ways, its become a spiritual battle between Christianity and
cultural Christianity. Between Christians like George Bush and Christians
like John Kerry and Howard Dean. About abortion, same-sex marriages, the
role of religion in public life, and moral responsibility before God.

"Now the Spirit SPEAKETH EXPRESSLY, that in the LATTER TIMES, some shall
depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of
devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a
hot iron;" (1 Timothy 4:1-2)

The death of shame.

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This is a truly great piece! I wondered when someone was going to tie the end times into what is happening today. I think the earthquake happened with the Monica thing. Thanks for posting this.

It seems that, from that time forward, the American people have come to expect the Democrats to lie

Well, duh. It's their stock in trade. Their complicit friends in the news media too, all the way (down) to the New York Times. They lie. They lie as a matter of routine. There was an old Soviet Union joke, I am told, that played off the names of their two main papers: "There's no news in 'The Truth', and there's no truth in 'The News.'"

There are honest and respectable Democrats (and Democrat politicians even) but they are precious few and, it increasingly seems, the exception.

Democrats are by now completely at ease with lying to achieve their goals. Not just the elected ones, but the army of supplicants who put them in office. They've learned to live with it, and have acquired a taste for it. There should be no holds barred in our dealings with them, but we continue to treat them as if they followed the same moral code as we do.

Clinton won reelection on the campaign slogan, "It's the economy, stupid!"

Probably the only truth to come out of his administration.

No, not really. The Bush economy was in recovery early in '92, long before Slick took office in January, 1993.

Can you spot the 'worst economy in 50 years?"

"Democrats are by now completely at ease with lying to achieve their goals. Not just the elected ones, but the army of supplicants who put them in office. They've learned to live with it, and have acquired a taste for it. There should be no holds barred in our dealings with them, but we continue to treat them as if they followed the same moral code as we do."

The Democratic Party has become what it so professed to hate just four decades ago: Communist. The Dems employ and practice PRECISELY the same tactics used by the Communists. The radical leftists of the 1960s and 1970s have become the leaders of the modern Democratic Party. The next American Civil War will be fought by the lovers of freedom and the American Republic on the one side, and the ideological and hate-filled misfits of the Left on the other side. The two sides are so polarized now that that fight is inevitable.

I really hate to say it, but I do agree with you. The areas of common agreement just get smaller and smaller. The perceptions of reality diverge more and more. At some point, it becomes impossible to peaceably co-habit in the same society. I hope we are both dead wrong on this.

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