Kerry as President (Earth to conservatives! Time to face reality!)

Town Hall ^ | February 28, 2004 | Herbert London

[quidnunc]

As unlikely as it may be, consider the possibility that John Kerry is the next president of the United States.  What are the likely policy shifts should this occur?  How would Kerry be different from President Bush?

Although these questions are speculative, the likely outcomes are easily predictive.

Based on Kerry’s positions expressed in the Senate and on the campaign trail his stance is known and presumably would serve to guide his policy prescriptions.

While Kerry did vote for the war in Iraq, he voted against the appropriations for that nation’s rehabilitation.  During the campaign, Kerry continually noted that this nation cannot cut and run from Iraq, but he believes the situation should be “internationalized.”  That is a euphemism for greater involvement of the U.N.

What Kerry does not note is the utter failure of the U.N. to play a systematic and coherent role in Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East.  Moreover, Germany and France, the nations Kerry contends we should have cultivated for the war effort are vehemently opposed to U.S. hegemony in the region.  And if recent accounts are at all accurate, the leaders of these nations have been compromised by financial arrangements with Saddam Hussein.

Yet this position is consistent with his impulse for multilateralism in general.  Kerry is persuaded the United States should be encouraging a world community of interests, one that recognizes the importance of alliances.

What he overlooks is that most western European states are eager to challenge America’s world dominance.  They consider multilateralism the ropes that can subdue an American Gulliver.  Without the military means to pursue their interests, European states rely solely on diplomacy, which, as the prelude to war in Iraq indicated, has its limitations.

-snip-

[rdb3]

So you really don't mind Kerry making the next few Supreme Court nominations?

[jpf]

No a chump choses the illusion of the perfect over the good.

[nopardons]

That attitude gave this nation EIGHT YEARS of the Clintons. You and your ilk are the CHUMPS and far worse.

[Triple Word Score]

I'd hate to be a soldier in Iraq sweating about this election and hearing about the Bush bashing and peacenik-waffling going on at home.

Imagine what Kerry will do to our troops. He has a score to settle. He's more than ready to accuse the current Army of war crimes against the Iraqis.

[kcar]

A chump is someone who sells out too cheaply beacuse he believes that what he's got to offer isn't worth too much, when in fact it is. Conservatives always undersell themselves, and from historical paranoia that says everyone will just ignore us again - what can we do? But self-concept is destiny: change the assumption and win.

The POTUS needs to court you, to date you. Make him work for a kiss. Gets more later if it works out.

[Howlin]

While Kerry did vote for the war in Iraq

Although the press missed it this week, Kerry stated loud and clear that he voted FOR the war in Iraq only AFTER he looked at that vote with an eye toward running for president; "as a candidate" is exactly what he said.

[Pearls Before Swine]

At the risk of starting WWV, Kerry as inept blowhard POTUS with a Republican dominated House and Senate doesn't sound like the end of the world as we know it. Maybe it would re-ignite that time-tested friend of taxpayers known as "gridlock".

Legislatively, I'd say you're probably correct. However, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the judicial area is where we'd be hurting. If you look back at the Clinton years, he didn't get to really hit his stride until his second term. It took that long to grind down the military, stuff various agencies with liberal flunkies, and poison the judiciary. Lately, it seems that its been easier to get judges to rewrite laws that have large civil effects than to get the legislature to.

[gatorbait]

At the risk of starting WWV, Kerry as inept blowhard POTUS with a Republican dominated House and Senate doesn't sound like the end of the world as we know it. Maybe it would re-ignite that time-tested friend of taxpayers known as "gridlock".

First, no guarantee this would happen.If the voters perceive a Bush loss, they'll vote with the winner. Secondly, gridlock did not work all that well in reality.Need I say more than "judicial appointments" Thirdly, this is yet another exercise in wishful delusion at best and political suicide at worst.

I remain amazed at the fecklessness of some of my fellow conservatives. Somehow winning and building upon what we have is not the real goal;it's standing on Little Big Horn principle and spitting at Sitting Bull. That's a Fools' Parade and I prefer to not march in it.

[Betaille]

"Conservatives always undersell themselves"

While I am suspicious of your intentions and everything you've said looks as though you're a plant from the Kerry campaign trying to raise anger against bush from his base, I agree with you on that point.
When Republicans run as "moderates" they LOSE(Ford and Bush 1)... When Republicans run as Conservatives they WIN(Reagan and W.). Notice that Bush's drops in the polls happened when he signed the Prescription drug bill, and when he proposed lax immigration laws. He didn't gain a single vote from either of those things, and they both p-ed off his base. When Bush used this state of the union address to list new spending proposals and loosen immigration laws, his poll numbers went down 5%, which is the opposite of what usuallly happens when a president gives a State of the Union address.

[patriciamary]

Someone should ask Kerry if he can understand English everything he voted for and now said he changed his opinion on because he thought!Thought what,he cannot understand what he's voting for.What kind of President he will make when he cannot understand or read a bill. And the public believes this garbage are we a country of intellectual morons.

[PhiKapMom]

I remain amazed at the fecklessness of some of my fellow conservatives. Somehow winning and building upon what we have is not the real goal;it's standing on Little Big Horn principle and spitting at Sitting Bull. That's a Fools' Parade and I prefer to not march in it.

That makes two of us -- I cannot believe some of what I read on here. What bugs me are the number of folks that signed on here late last fall or the beginning of the year and are so negative about Pres Bush's chances. Whatever happened to being a positive thinker? Kerry is the #1 liberal in the Senate among a bunch of liberals -- that is not going to play well in flyover country especially with Gay Marriage! MA Liberals are not trusted in a lot of the Country.

[Jimmy Valentine]

Two words: "Executive Orders"

Remember "stroke of the pen, law of the land...kind of cool"?

Regards,

[kcar]

That's all that I was trying to say. Not a Kerry plant - would die before casting a vote for a Democrat. But Bush/Rove have been way to clever in this campaign so far. The country is as polarized as never before (barring possibly pre-Civil War) and he's got to keep his base energized while vote-shopping the dwindling middle. There's no question Bush is vastly preferred over Kerry - hard for me to think a liberal drone from MA could even make it a contest - but conservatives have a right to cry foul when W assumes too much. Else we'd be like the black block of the Rat party - they don't see any red meat - no cabinet appointments, Senators, etc. Rats too busy courting the Hispanics who are more of a swing block.

So don't be those guys, kept on the plantation. If Bush drives the campaign the right way, he's the Man. If he deviates too far, cry foul and prepare to keep him honest.

Sorry for the misspellings last night. Betrayal on the AWB is what I fear. Assuming that doesn't happen I could be far more enthusiastic about voting Republican as early as the end of next week.

[Wolfstar]

Kerry as inept blowhard POTUS with a Republican dominated House and Senate doesn't sound like the end of the world as we know it.

Yes, actually, it would. Why? Because foreign policy is the responsibility of the executve branch. The president is our Chief of State as well as our Commander in Chief. One need only look to Bill Clinton's monumentally (if not criminally) negligent handling of this nation's foreign policy, which directly resulted in, among other things, the 9/11/01 attacks, to understand the danger Kerry (and all Leftists/Democrats) poses to all of us.

For other examples, look to the Johnson administration's ratcheting up of our involvement in Viet Nam, followed by its failure of the nerve and will necessary to win the war. Look to Carter's pathetic foreign policy which led, among other things, to the fall of the Shah of Iran, the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini and of Islamic radicalism.

George W. Bush is the only U.S. president to take the action necessary to begin to turn the tide of Islamic radicalism. In doing so, he has reasserted U.S. sovereignty and right of self defense, and basically told the "international community" (i.e., international Left) to go pound sand. (It's really why they hate him so much, in case you haven't figured it out.)

President Bush's defeat would be seen by the Left, the Osama bin Laden's of the world, and even Republican elected officials here as a repudiation by the American public of all that GWB has been able to accomplish in defeating radical Islamism and separating the U.S. from subservience to the international Left. As a consequence, a Kerry presidency would reverse all the good President Bush has been able to accomplish. Kerry's weakness would embolden the terrorists just as Clinton's weakness did. In fact if GWB is defeated this November, it would be a monumental defeat for the United States in the War on Terror.

This nation cannot afford another 9/11 or worse, a series of such attacks. But Leftists like Kerry wouldn't care, becase the Left wants this nation hamstrung, if not fully disolved.

Maybe "real" conservatives are suicidal, so they won't mind a Kerry presidency, but I'm not. For me — and anyone else with even an ounce of common sense — it's GWB all the way.

[onyx]

Crying foul? You tend to speak for his "base." His base is not the Custer Conservatives, who apparently have their own individual gripes. It is impossible to please all of the folks all of the time, but the thought of Kerry or any another democrat in the role of CIC is too serious to toss aside over other issues.

SCOTUS appointments rank number two. A Bader-Ginsberg majority will doom this country for decades.

[My2Cents]

Well-said. Electing Kerry will mean the US has tossed in the towel on the war on terror. As in Vietnam, our enemy will not have defeated us; we will have defeated ourselves (proving UBL was correct -- Americans do not have the stomach for a long commitment to eradicate the terrorists). Maybe that's what people want to do, but if so, God help us.

Also, I've pointed out elsewhere that the next President will likely make four nominations to the US Supreme Court. If that President is John Kerry, we can kiss the conservative movement good-bye, as Kerry will shape the nature of the federal judiciary for the coming generation. If Kerry makes those appointments, we'll all be dead before there's another conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

[Wolfstar]

If Kerry makes those appointments, we'll all be dead before there's another conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

True — if there ever is another conservative Supreme Court majority. After some 60 years in control of this nation's levers of power at all levels, the Left has been badly and continually burned since 1994. The hard Left never saw Clinton as one of their own, although they swallowed their pride and helped elect him twice. They thought they might finally get one of their own into the presidency in Al Gore, and that defeat was an exremely bitter pill for them.

GWB represents just about everything they oppose in government and public policy — especially as regards foreign policy. So if they succeed in actually getting a true Leftist radical (Kerry) elected this November, they will see it as urgent to turn the ship of state quickly as hard to the left as possible. A President Kerry likely would:

• Put the UN in charge of Iraq.
• Cave to North Korea, France, Germany, and the UN.
• Sign on to all the Euro-Left's schemes to "constrain" American power.
• Give up on the military approach to the War on Terror, and make it just a law enforcement problem again.
• Abandon Mushaaraf and Afghanistan.
• Let all the terrorists in Gitmo go.
• Abandon any effort to encourage the spread of democracy in the Middle East.
• Abandon the democratization movement in Iran.
• Abandon Israel.
• Further weaken, if not dismantle, our already weak intelligence services.
• Pack the courts with radical Leftists.
• Enact a bona fide blanket amnesty for illegal alients and weaken the small, but significant steps the Bush administration has been able to make to strengthen our borders.

And all of the above would just be for starters.

[jpl]

It's almost a certainty that Kerry would all but abandon the War on Terror, and the U.S. would go back to its old policy of simply crossing our fingers and biding our time until the next attack. Problem is, the next attack might be 10,000 or 50,000, or 100,000 people instead of just 3,000.

[My2Cents]

A frightening list.

[onyx]

Diito. A most frightening list. Let's keep it. I have a feeling we'll need to re-post it a time or two. :)