Posted on 09/25/2004 8:29:30 PM PDT by FairOpinion
As the polls suggest John Kerry is losing ground against President Bush, he and his new campaign handlers (most of whom are re-treads from the Clinton presidency) have reportedly decided on a novel strategy: Staking out just one position on the war in Iraq. After months of embracing every position from damn-the-torpedoes and no-price-too-high-for-victory to parroting Howard Dean's wrong-war, wrong-place, wrong-time formulation, the emerging party line is, as senior Kerry advisor Richard Holbrooke's put it, "Iraq is worse than Vietnam."
In other words, the Democratic candidate has evidently decided to run against the conflict in Iraq by arguing it is even more screwed up than the last war that became hugely unpopular, Vietnam. He is betting (not unreasonably) that the situation on the ground there will get uglier in the next six weeks. His latest incarnation will position him to draw support from swing voters who decide, in the end, they would rather cut-and-run from the "worse than Vietnam" quagmire than stand and fight. And, evidently, John Kerry wants them to know that he is the man to do it — and with good reason.
To be sure, the man who "report[ed] for duty" at the Democratic Convention in Boston was determined to harken back to a different phase of his formative Vietnam experience. Then, it was all about medal-winning combat service and turning the boat into an attack. He and his surrogates insisted that his service as a Vietnam War hero better equipped him than President Bush to win the war on terror, including in Iraq.
In remarks on Monday, moreover, the Senator continued to hedge his bets a bit. He still talks euphemistically of "supporting the troops" and making "the right choices" in Iraq. And he blithely promises to "internationalize" the conflict, as though the key to doing so is not our success in restoring order and stability, but rather a new president's diplomatic savoir faire.
Still, the Democratic candidate now sounds eerily like that other Vietnam-era Kerry — the angry young man who, after leaving the theater, launched his public career less on having fought the war than his role in swiftly ending it. In New York on Monday, he declared: "Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight."
Of his earlier anti-war persona, Sen. Kerry has lately said he regrets causing pain to comrades by sweepingly accusing them of war crimes. To date, though, Sen. Kerry has expressed no remorse whatsoever for the cumulative effect of his testifying, demonstrating, medal-throwing, book-writing and other anti-war agitation: the United States' abandonment of the people of South Vietnam to brutal enslavement by their Communist enemies to the North. Not only is he unapologetic about his contributions to the cutting-and-running that produced that tragic result; now he appears to hope it will be the credential that will put him in the White House.
There is, of course, a profound difference between the Vietnam War that John Kerry helped the United States to lose and the ongoing conflict in Iraq. The United States could — and did — walk away from many of its friends and allies in Southeast Asia. The result was pretty awful for them, but of no grave strategic consequence for us.
It is the height of irresponsibility to think that a similar prospect awaits us if the United States once again follows John Kerry and abandons Iraq to its fate. Turning the Iraqi people over to the tender mercies of Saddam Hussein's loyalists, Saudi- or Iranian-backed Islamists and/or foreign fighters of other stripes will not simply ensure their country remains a festering sore in the Middle East. It will guarantee that we are subjected to a vastly intensified war wrought by emboldened terrorist enemies with global reach.
Senator Kerry has accused President Bush of getting everything wrong about the war with Iraq. More objective observers and even Mr. Bush's admirers can discern aspects of the conflict with which to find fault. And yet, on the single most important decision — whether or not to go to war in the first place — the President made a tough call, one with which Mr. Kerry at the time (and for years before) ostensibly agreed.
The United States and the world could not safely allow Saddam Hussein to wriggle out of sanctions, secure fresh infusions of funds from around the world, end the no-fly zones, expand his sponsorship of terror, return to his ambitions to have and to wield weapons of mass destruction and, quite possibly, act on his stated desire for revenge against America for Operation Desert Storm.
Given the diplomatic trends at the time — notably, the insistence of France, Germany, Russia and China (the countries Senator Kerry implies he will be able to get more help from on Iraq) that Saddam be let out of his "box" — the only way to prevent such a dangerous outcome was to act preemptively, together with such allies as would join us. It took vision and guts for President Bush to do so. It will take nothing less to make sure the resulting liberation of Iraq comes out right.
While Senator Kerry would have us believe otherwise, it does not take particular vision or guts to respond when the going gets rough to the popular sentiment to cut and run. It did not during Vietnam. It will not now. God help us if we fall prey once again to the "leadership" of someone who made that mistake before and who would have us make an infinitely bigger one now.
I am sure there will be a series of last minute attempts to dishonor our President. The Democrooks know no shame. I do know that he will lead us for the next four years in some of the most turbulent time in US History. I pray it will be George Bush. God bless him!!!
And proves how incredibly desperate the Kerry campaign is. Kerry and his type see only two kinds of wars. One is Vietnam that drags on seemingly forever and the other is Desert Storm which we win in a few days with minimal casualties. They are clueless about war and how to win it and how things never go as planned. Kerry is the last man on earth we want to place in charge of our military. He won't know how to use and it will certainly weaken it.
"But, there are a whole lot of Americans who are not rational..."
I can vouch for that, I know some of them!
Sure, Bush created the hurricanes to keep Kerry from campaigning in Florida. ;)
Actually, Kerry caused the hurricanes by keeping the air conditioning in his wife's mansions set at too low a temperature and flying around in his wife's airplane.
hanoi john is in a Vietnam time warp. He has not progressed beyond it. he's still fighting against 'Nixon's' war.
heres the final prediction.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/fin/sep24p.html
Or sitting home. IF sKerry gets in his judges/justices will put paid to what ever these protest voters are accusing GW of. They won't like sKerry's gun control, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual judges/justices one bit. They would condem us to 25-30 years of these life time appointed black robe tyrants...stroke of the pen, LAW of the land. It's taken us 20 years to rebuild the Republican party and get conservatives in congress and on the benches.
Check out the John F. Kerry Timeline. Email it to your friends.
.
electoral-vote.com is always swinging up and down; currently it has:
Kerry 217 Bush 311
Some states that were "tied" before, like Ohio and Florida, are "barely Bush"--though one poll (Cleveland Plain Dealer) in Ohio had Bush up by 9 points or so.
That's barely? He used to have Maine in Kerry's column but now it's barely Bush, along with NH next door. (Though I saw on Manchester NH's WMUR-TV tonite that a Concord
Monitor poll has thing exactly even in the Granite
State)
With the mess in FL how are they getting any decent polling data?
—Andrew Survivor
Sean Hannity made an excellent point on his radio show Friday. He seemed quite concerned that the Dems would try another stunt on par with the forgery scandal, but attempt it at the last minute before detection by the pajamahedeen could be realized, at which point Kerry could win and it would be too late to do anything about it.
Remember the DWI information that the Mainer held onto until just before the election when W was in the lead. He lost five points which led to the infamous debacle.
I am hoping that the Bush team expects this and is prepared for it.
I heard that, too. I told the dopey lib who said that she should vote for Bush then. You really mustn't piss off the guy who can send a tornado after you.
He did. Haven't you heard of "Hurricanes for Bush?"
Actually, I strongly believe that the Dems are sitting on a pile of similiar forgeries and fakes they were planning on dribbling out until election day.
I can't believe that with Kerry tanking they won't try to use the other documents they've created.
Oh, and as for the Dem's October Surprise in particular, I would have to guess that they will try and bring up the "Bush got a woman pregnant and paid for her to have an abortion" myth.
In other words, they are going to invoke all of the Michael Moore-style hysteria that moderates hate. I cannot see something like that resonating, but who knows.
I think that they are having trouble digging up legitimate dirt on the president. So many of the skeletons have already been released - the advantage of incumbency. And I am quite certain that there is such a visceral hatred for Bush that every motivated unemployed lefty has been feverisly scraping for something that would stick. This will be interesting.
The war will be getting uglier, for obvious reasons, but I think that most people want us to finish it and believe that Kerry would have us pulling out sooner rather than later with our tails tucked firmly between our legs.
Well, read some leftist writings on the upcoming election and an interesting pattern emerges.
Most leftists seem to acknowledge by this point Bush is most likely to win. They seem to believe this is because the American populace is made up of idiots, unlike, apparently, their enlightened selves.
As such, I would indeed expect more Mooresque hysteria. What with blaming Bush for the recent hurricanes though, I can't honestly think of how much more insane the Left can get, but in such a regard, they do always surprise...
Remember the DWI information that the Mainer held onto until just before the election when W was in the lead. He lost five points which led to the infamous debacle.
Even if they do manage to come up with a last minute dirty trick, unless it's something truly shocking (yet believable), it won't have the same effect as in 2000 because:
1. In 2000, Bush was an "unknown" and considered a lightweight, therefore he was very vulnerable. Not so now--he's the incumbent and is anything but a lightweight now.
2. The CBS scandal has "innoculated" W to a great extent and anything from now on will be viewed with great skepticism.
Like this from DU board?
seventhson (1000+ posts) Sat Sep-25-04 07:57 PM Original message Poll question: Poll: Should Kerry Campaign Take Ownership of the Bush-Nazi Story?
Okay - I will put this simply: The Kerry Campaign has been deleting my posts at the Kerry-Edwards forums about the Bush Nazi story.
They are obviously afraid of it.
I say their fear of this story demonstrates lack of leadership quality and I believe they ought to embrace the Bush-Nazi story.
If this story is true - and I believe it is - then they ought to OWN the story and TELL us it concerns them. That it is scary and that people need to vote for Kerry and Edwards in order to kick the Bushes into the river in November.
What do YOU think? What would YOU advise the campaign to do?
Read this first and then tell what Kerry and Edwards should do now that the story is in the INTERNATIONAL media.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00....
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