Posted on 02/14/2004 9:25:22 PM PST by lilylangtree
Let's just be blunt: The North Koreans would love to see John Kerry win the election. The mullahs of Iran would love it. The Syrian Ba'athists would sigh with relief. Every enemy of America would take great satisfaction if the electorate rejects the Bush doctrine and scuttles back to hide under the U.N. Security Council's table. It's a hard question, but the right one: Which candidate does our enemy want to lose? George W. Bush.
And some conservatives will be happy to help, it seems.
Woe and gloom have befallen some on the right. Bush has failed to act according to The Reagan Ideal.
The actual Reagan may have issued an amnesty for illegals, but the Ideal Reagan would have done no such thing. So unless Bush packs freight cars full of gardeners and dishwashers and dumps them off at the Mexican border, some voters will just sit this one out.
The Ideal Reagan would have eliminated the National Endowment for the Arts; the actual Reagan proposed a $1 million increase in his final budget. But Bush increased NEA funding -- perhaps an attempt to placate people who wouldn't vote for him if he showed up in performance with Karen Finley and a can of Hershey's syrup. So angry conservatives might just sit this one out.
And if a Democrat takes office, and the Michael Moores and Rob Reiners and Martin Sheens crowd the airwaves on Nov. 3 to shout their howls of vindication? If the inevitable renaissance of Iraq happens on Kerry's watch, and the economy truly picks up steam in the first few years before the business cycle and Kerry's tax hikes kick in? If emboldened Islamist terrorists smell blood and strike again? Fine. Maybe the next Republican president will do everything they want.
Oh, sure, Bush is fine on the foreign affairs stuff, and yes, there's a partial-birth abortion law, and the tax cuts were nice, and come to think of it, Sept. 11 wasn't followed by blow after blow after blow, for some reason. The nation endures, at least at press time. But that's hardly enough. Where's that bill requiring 60-foot Ten Commandments monuments in every capitol rotunda? Let Kerry win. Teach the GOP a lesson, it will.
So both sides have elements that seem unserious about the defining issue of the day: the war. But the right's malcontents snipe from humid redoubts of Internet message boards. The left's biggest spokesmen are parading their delusions.
No less than Al Gore has practically accused the president of treason. In a Feb. 8 speech in Tennessee, Gore went on an alarming rant, performed almost in an arr-matey pirate voice. ‘‘He betrayed this country!” Gore bellowed. ‘‘He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place.”
We've been manipulated into a state of fear, Gore shouted. Really. Which administration spent most of 1998 warning us about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, only to launch some missiles and walk away? Gore saw all the intel on WMDs. Gore was part of an administration that pushed for regime change because it viewed Saddam, correctly, as a danger to the region and to America. Does Gore think we don't remember everything Democrats said about Saddam and WMDs, when they felt responsible for the nation?
As for that state of fear, well, anyone out there feel afraid of Saddam today? Didn't think so.
Gore should give this speech at the convention. Why not? Why not stand up and give vent to all the poisons hatching in the muck? Why not tell America that Bush lied about everything, that he took the country to war for reasons he knew would be discredited, just so Halliburton could make another buck or two? It's what they seem to believe, after all. The delusions of their fringe have become articles of faith for the mainstream. Bush was AWOL! Bush knew! Bush lied! Bush never flosses! Skull and Bones! Plastic turkey!
At least we'll have a clear choice in November. Bush is serious about the war. The Democrats are serious about the war against Bush.
I've never given a politician this many chances in my life. I gave one with a record similar to this(whose office also lied to me - my breaking point) a middle finger on election day. I third partied there and the dem won with 49%. I still don't regret that since he was Mr H1B-Visa.
For me, it comes down to this. If that AW ban isn't law, I'll hold my nose one more time. If it is, I just can't sell out.
Dan, you and I are on the same page. That is the one thing that he can do get my vote. He has to kill the ban. In PA, I don't believe that he has a chance anyway. I don't believe my vote will be the deal breaker that it could be in a swing state.
Bottom line - - Bush, and what he does, will determine who gets my vote.
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