Bush is looking good! Hugh Hewitt on why prez is improving his lead, heading toward victory

I have devoted a lot of space and time at my blog to prompting and collecting the responses from hundreds of bloggers to the questions: Why vote for Bush and what's wrong with Kerry. These bloggers run the gamut from homeschooling moms to busy doctors and lawyers to retired intelligence operatives and professors of every sort. Their contributions to the debate on why George W. Bush ought to be re-elected is superb, and I invite to you to spend time reviewing their submissions and strengthening your own arguments for the closing laps of Campaign 2004.

Of course, the Bush campaign is concentrating on blocking and tackling right now, and the key will be the success of the 96-hour effort. There are some structural advantages running strongly in the president's favor which you should remind any of the weak-kneed in your family or wider circle.

First, 4 million evangelicals stayed home in 2000. That isn't going to happen this year – not with appreciation for the president at a peak in this community, and with concern over both the war on terror and the protection of traditional marriage. This is a huge advantage over the president's position in 2000, and one not easily understood by pollsters using turnout models based on the 2000 election.

Blacks turned out at a very high rate of 54 percent in 2000, and voted 91 percent for Gore. Recent polling suggests that the president may have doubled his share of the African American vote.

Jewish Americans account for only 4 percent of the vote overall, but many of those votes are cast in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Jews voted for Al Gore over George Bush by a margin of 81 percent to 19 percent in 2000. The president's strong support for Israel and Kerry's back-flip on the fence and on Arafat will help the president improve his performance here.

Then there's the Catholic vote, which makes up slightly more than 25 percent of the electorate. It broke for Gore by about 53 percent to 47 percent in 2000, but this year Kerry's extremism on abortion – favoring taxpayer-funded abortions, refusing to vote to ban partial-birth abortions or to require parental notification – has caused many church leaders to remind their congregations of the centrality of the abortion issue to the church's dogma. Bush should increase his total share of the Catholic vote.

To these structural advantages add the fact that on the conduct of the war on terror, Bush enjoys a huge lead over Kerry – a "last minute decider issue" if there ever was one.

And of course, the 96-hour effort that was tested so successfully in 2002 is fully deployed and already in operation.

Whether or not the pollsters take accurate pictures over the next two weeks, understand that all the dynamics are working in favor of the re-election of George W. Bush. And there is not "DUI bombshell" dirty trick waiting to be dropped this time around, and no early call of Florida for Kerry to help suppress GOP turn-out across the country.

Lots of good signs for Bush, and not much to cheer a Kerry supporter except perhaps replaying "F911" for the hundredth time.

Here's a Word handout I'm finishing editing to pass out this weekend.

I'd appreciate any corrections from FReepers.

It's still a bit jumbled.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Senator Kerry’s positions:

Nuclear proliferation is the most dangerous problem on the planet. I would give nuclear fuel to Iran.

We need multilateral coalitions to deal with problems. We should hold bilateral talks with North Korea.

The president has always had the right of preemptive strike to defend America. Before we go to war we must have reasons and evidence that will meet a global test and hold up under international scrutiny.

I believe in a woman’s right to privacy. Mary Cheney is a lesbian, in case you didn’t already know.

I believed the intelligence before the war with Iraq that said they had weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was a deadly threat. It was the wrong war, at the wrong time, in the wrong place. It would be irresponsible for me to vote against the appropriations bill to fund supplies for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistatn. I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it. I have always been consistent.

President Bush has offended our allies, while I would be diplomatic and not offend them.
The Saudi Arabian monarchy is corrupt. President Putin of Russia is a dictator trying to suppress free speech. Our allies in Iraq -- Britain, Italy, Poland and Australia -- are a coalition of the coerced and the bribed. Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi is a puppet.

Senator Kerry’s plan to win the peace in Iraq: “I would call a summit.”

President Bush’s positions:

President Clinton’s bilateral agreement on nuclear weapons with North Korea failed because the North Koreans didn’t keep their word, despite the huge payments to them in money and food aid. We now have multilateral talks with North Korea, including China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea who have a stake in the outcome, and China and Russia can put more pressure on dictator Kim Jong-Il than America can.
The Proliferation Security Initiative started by President Bush is helping to box in North Korea. It uncovered and stopped the Pakistani A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network, and has become a framework for international military and police exercises organized by the United States. Among its 15 members are the world's largest economic and military powers: The United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Russia, the Netherlands, France, Australia, and Germany.

Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons. We are working for a diplomatic solution with the British, the French, the Germans and the Russians, and through the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to solve peacefully the problem of Iran’s mullah dictators wanting to produce plutonium.
Under President Bush, a three-way alliance between the United States, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan has formed called the Caspian Guard. Looking at Iran on a globe, you can see we are well on the way to boxing in Iran with American military basing rights in Afghanistan, Iraq and Uzbekistan, and alliances with Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan.

The United Nations’ oil for food program with Saddam Hussein is under investigation for corruption. U.N. aanctions against Saddam’s regime were unraveling due to this corruption. [Saddam gave huge oil credit vouchers worth millions to companies in France and Russia in exchange for weapons materials.] Saddam kept plans and equipment for making chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, planning to restart his programs after sanctions were lifted. He didn’t cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors.

Saddam had chemical weapons and used them on the Iranians and the Kurds. In March, 2003, summer was coming, when the heat alone would have killed our soldiers in chemical suits. Confining soldiers in Kuwait and on ships through the summer would have been a morale breaker for our nation and our soldiers. Everyone agreed Saddam had the weapons. President Bush had to decide whether waiting would increase the danger to America, or whether to trust our fate to a madman who wanted revenge for Gulf War I.
If Turkey had allowed the 101st to enter Iraq from the north, we would have had more troops in Baghdad at the fall of Baghdad. The commanders on the ground told President Bush that they had all they needed to get the job done before he gave the order to go, and their planning prevented Scud missile strikes, torching of the oil fields, and a pogrom against Kurds and Shiites. The world is better off with Saddam in a jail cell.

Thirty countries are in our coalition helping Iraq. Even Germany is providing financial aid to Iraq and training Iraqi troops and police officers in the United Arab Emirates. Russia, France, and Germany have forgiven 60 billion dollars worth of debt incurred by Iraq under Saddam Hussein. The United Nations is helping register Iraqis for elections scheduled in late January. The interim government in Iraq, under Prime Minister Allawi, has sovereignty now, and Iraq’s new troops are helping U.S. troops clean out foreign terrorists and Saddam loyalists in cities in the Sunni Triangle. Sumarra is now policed by the Iraqis and Fallujah is close to containment. Schools and hospitals are all open and supplied. Over 100 newspapers are being printed. Electrical output exceeds amount before Saddam fell. Children are no longer in prisons; 12 year old girls are not being raped by Uday; and 200,000 victims of Saddam are getting proper burial.

If we had given up during WWII when we suffered great casualties in the Battle of the Bulge and at Iwo Jima, we never would have gone on to see victory, with Germany and Japan emerging as free democracies.

Afghanistan just had free elections with the help of the United Nations and voted for President Karsai. Women are going to school, getting care during childbirth, and voting in Afghanistan now.
After few weeks of military action in Afghanistan in 2001, the media said it was a quagmire. Like Iraq, Afghanistan has been a balancing act between putting in so many of our own troops that we have greater control but enrage average citizens and using fewer troops to encourage freedom loving Afghanis to take control of their political system and their own security, which is messier.

As in Iraq, we and our NATO allies are training the citizens of Afghanistan to become policemen and soldiers to defend themselves and with the U.N. we are training them how to hold elections. President Bush believes the long-term answer to terrorism is to assist with the birthing of democracies in the Middle East. This may be a long and difficult labor, but is probably the best insurance that young men in these regions will find better things to do in the future than coming over here to blow up themselves and our children.

What happened to the weapons program that the United Nations and every intelligence agency in the world believed that Iraq possessed? Here are several things to consider.
1. Before Gulf War I in 1990-1, Saddam sent his fighter jets to Iran, his enemy, for safekeeping.
2. Right after Saddam was caught in December, 2003, Mohamar Ghadaffi of Libya decided to give up nuclear weapons program materials in his possession. These materials recently arrived in 48 very large crates at our nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with more coming. Libya’s entire nuclear program will soon be in our possession. Energy Secretary Abraham says Libya had 4,000 centrifuges and enough uranium hexafluoride gas to manufacture several nuclear weapons per year, much more than we thought Libya had.
3. The Duelfer report noted that unknown material from suspected WMD sites was trucked to Syria just before U.S. troops went into Iraq in 2003. If Syria has some of Saddam’s weapons, is Syria’s President Assad waiting to see if Bush wins reelection before deciding to give them up?

The 9/11 Commission Report documents Iraqi intelligence agents having direct contact with Osama bin Laden in Sudan in 1992 and Afghanistan in 1998. Recently Saddam Hussein’s Italian lawyer stated that he saw Osama bin Laden in Baghdad in 1998. Saddam paid $25,000 to families of suicide bombers. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. admitted bin Laden loyalist, now leading terrorists in Fallujah, fled Afghanistan wounded to Iraq in 2002 where he was given safe harbor and medical treatment. In 2002 in Baghdad, CBS’s Leslie Stahl interviewed Abdul Rahman Yasin, who aided mastermind Ramzi Yousef in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

Contents from internet research done by grassroots volunteer Patricia *****, who is solely responsible for content and who paid for copying this handout.

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Hugh Hewitt MEGA PING!!