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UNFIT:
taking the measure of a would-be commander-in-chief
WHY JOHN KERRY IS DANGEROUS FOR AMERICA
- #2-understanding the job description
- by Mia T, 5.17.04
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"When bill clinton left office, not one young American in uniform was dying in a war anywhere in this world." John Kerry |
 uspend disbelief for a minute. Pretend Kerry's dumb attempt at demagoguery is a serious pronouncement of policy.
What is Kerry's message? Is the premise true? Is the argument valid? And most important, what does this tell us about Kerry's fitness to serve? THE MESSAGE Kerry's message is implied, (a faintly outlined triptych of fallacy and falsehood, we shall soon see). It reduces to the following:
- There exists an inverse relationship between the success of a commander-in-chief and the number of soldier deaths occurring under his watch.
- By this measure, bill clinton was a successful commander-in-chief and George Bush is a failure.
- Because John Kerry would operate under the bill clinton model, John Kerry would be a success by definition.
ANALYZING KERRY'S ANALYSIS
Simply put, Kerry's analysis suffers from--to borrow from Nancy Pelosi--a "shallowness," "an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment" and, yes, critical thinking. Kerry's premise is false, and notwithstanding this, his thesis is easily disproved empirically.
FALSE PREMISE
- "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution
According to the U.S. Constitution, preserving, protecting and defending America is what the presidency is all about. From this it follows that the measure of the success of a commander-in-chief is not inversely related to number of soldier deaths that result from a commander-in-chief protecting America but rather, the number of deaths -- both soldier and non-soldier -- that are caused by a commander-in-chief failing to protect America. It is important to note that not all such deaths necessarily occur under that failed president's watch. For example, not all deaths caused by clinton's repeated failure to act to protect America from the terrorists occurred under clinton's watch, witness the 2,899 deaths on September 11, 2001, and the ever-expanding number in the seemingly endless aftermath. Achieving a low soldier mortality rate with a policy of artful battlefield-and-responsibility-avoidance is hardly the measure of commander-in-chief success. Kerry's premise is, therefore, false, and exposes both Kerry's fundamental misunderstanding of the job of commander-in-chief and the lethal danger to a post-9/11 America that a Commander-in-Chief Kerry would pose.
THESIS EASILY DISPROVED EMPIRICALLY Notwithstanding this, Kerry's thesis, itself, is belied by history. The obvious counterexamples: the presidencies of two of our most successful commanders-in-chief, Abe Lincoln, 562,130 deaths and FDR, 408,306. Even if we apply the too-cute-by-half clintonesque Kerry semantic technicality, and limit the death count to those deaths coincident with the commander-in-chief's exit, the FDR counterexample still stands.
- ASIDE: These transparent word games of Kerry and clinton derive from the same (if geographically disparate) provincial arrogance rooted in stupidity.
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- KERRY'S LETHAL DANGER TO A POST-9/11 AMERICA
Kerry's pronouncement, therefore, is more than simple... or even stupid... demagoguery. Kerry's pronouncement exposes Kerry's lack of historical perspective, Kerry's poor judgment, Kerry's critical-thinking deficiency, Kerry's fundamental misunderstanding of the job of commander-in-chief. It is a stark warning of the lethal danger to a post-9/11 America that a Commander-in-Chief Kerry would pose.
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"At the time, '96, he [bin Laden] had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America." bill clinton
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"The instant that second plane hit, I said to the person with whom I was speaking, 'Bin Laden did this.' I knew immediately. I know what this network can do." bill clinton
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"The War on Terror is less... is occasionally military but it's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation." John Kerry
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"The Bush Administration is so entralled by the idea of preemption and American military might. This is the consequence of the policy that regards legitimacy as largely a product of force and victory as primarily a triump of arms... We truly should go to war as the last resort." John Kerry
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Both Kerry and clinton fail to understand that:
- a terrorist war requires only one consenting player
- defining bin Laden's acts of war as "crimes'' is a dangerous, anachronistic, postmodern conceit (It doesn't depend on what the meaning of the word "war" is) and amounts to surrender
- preemptive action, and even more so, preventative action, serve a necessary, critically protective, as well as offensive function in any war on terror.
The sorry endpoint of the massive, 8-year clinton blunder was, of course, 9/11 and the exponential growth of al Qaeda. John Kerry and the Left will, by definition, reprise the failed, lethally dangerous clinton policy of denial and surrender. I, therefore, urge anyone planning to vote for John Kerry to rethink, to reconsider. Your children's lives, if not civilization, itself, just may depend on it.
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I'm a single-issue voter, as I guess must have become apparent. I'm not a Republican. I'm not a conservative. I'm not a very great admirer of the president in many ways, but I think that my condition is... that this is an administration that wakes up every morning wondering how to make life hard for the forces of Jihad and how to make as hard as possible an unapologetic defense of civilization against this kind of barbarism... and though the Bush administration has been rife with disappointment on this and incompetent, I nonetheless feel that they have some sense of that spirit.
I don't get that... I don't get that feeling from anyone who even sought the Democratic nomination.
I would [therefore] have to vote for the reelection of President Bush. Christopher Hitchens
Washington Journal, 6.01.04
C-SPAN
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copyright Mia T 2004
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