Greetings, here's my follow-up article to "A New Low For Liberals", titled (surprisingly enough) "A New Low For Liberals (Part II)" ;o)
A New Low For Liberals (Part II)
By Edward L. Daley
The other day I wrote an article concerning the recent Al Qaqaa storage facility issue we've all been hearing so much about this week titled 'A New Low For Liberals'. It was my contention (and still is) that John Kerry and the left-wing media were wrong to have jumped to the conclusion that the American military allowed a large amount of explosives to be "looted" from that site after the area had been overrun by our forces near the beginning of the Iraq War.
I also pointed out the seemingly coordinated efforts by the Kerry campaign, the New York Times, and CBS News to use the information they had acquired to defame the president, without bothering to make sure the story was true before making it known to the American people. At that time they had not provided any real proof to support their claims. Even as I write this article, they have not offered irrefutable evidence to back up their assertions, and I believe now, as I believed then, that they would have run the story even if they themselves believed it to be fallacious.
If the story should inevitably prove to be true beyond all reasonable doubt, I will be more than happy to admit that my assertion that "the story wasn't true" was incorrect. Yet even if that turns out to be the case, it will not mean that Mr. Kerry, or the various liberal media organizations I referred to in my previous article, were right to jump the gun with respect to the subject at hand.
The fact remains that no one could have stated with any reasonable amount of certainty on the 25th of this month that the explosives in question were removed from Al Qaqaa after the war had begun. The Kerry camp and its confederates still cannot do so, nor is it likely they will be able to anytime soon. To conclude such a thing without any real proof at one's disposal is simply asinine, and to state publicly that such unsupported opinions amount to fact, especially so close to the presidential election, is nothing short of despicable.
By any means, ever since I wrote the aforementioned article, I have been receiving e-mails from various leftists who are all too willing to point out to me that further information has come to light concerning the Al Qaqaa issue. Of course, none of them seem to be interested in ALL the information available regarding this subject... only the information which they believe justifies their support of John Kerry.
One such critic of my opinions on the matter is a person whom I will refer to simply as Joshua. I have decided not to include his last name or the city and state from which he hails in this article, since I believe it would be unfair of me to publicly demean him in such a format. After all, he has no means of defending himself at this time.
Still, I do feel that it is appropriate to share with all of you his postings to me, and my responses to him. The following exchanges occurred this morning, and I am adding them here because I believe they will give you some insight into the mindset of this individual (and what is likely the similar attitudes of many other left-wingers).
October 29, 2004
Joshua ****** wrote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933 In the words of David Kay, US (and UN) Weapons Inspector, "Game. Set. Match." Are you now going to post an article apologizing for labeling it a fraud and to the Dems? Newsflash: Kerry wins.
Edward L. Daley wrote:
http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerry200410282152.asp
Joshua ****** wrote:
Oh no buddy. You made me link to the David Kay transcripts. I'm sorry to do this to you.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/28/asb.01.html The only claim made in this article that's worth looking at:
Some explosives gone before invasion. I don't disagree. However, those were RDX, and we're talking about HMX. RDX was supposedly gone, but NOT the HMX. Kay specifically states that the explosives in the video appear to be HMX. Stop grasping at straws. The video proves they were there when we got there. We knew they were there before we invaded, for Christ's sake. The troops were told to move on to Baghdad and no one came to replace them and guard the explosives. Plain and simple.
Edward L. Daley wrote:
Kay has a right to his opinion, but that's all it is... his opinion. The fact is that nothing in that video (see MSNBC link above) is proof of anything. In the first place, simply finding some explosives after the war started, at a facility which was designed to store massive amounts of explosives, doesn't mean that the missing explosives John Kerry keeps babbling about weren't gone before the war began.
If I showed you a videotape of a dog at a kennel, that wouldn't tell you how many dogs had been in the kennel the day before. The truth is that you want to believe otherwise because it suits your political agenda, not because you have conclusive evidence.
Senator Kerry and the New York Times did not, nor do they now, have irrefutable evidence of the claims they've been making. The burden of proof rests solely with the people making the claims, not the people who are questioning the veracity of their assertions.
At the time the story first broke, and John Kerry began stating his opinion of the matter as it it were fact, there was plenty of evidence to refute his contentions. It was utterly irresponsible of him to say that X amounts of certain explosives were looted from that storage site after the war began. He had (and still has) no idea how much was even there to be removed, let alone when it was taken.
Joshua ****** wrote:
So you're gonna tell me that you know better than the US' own weapons inspector? A man who had personally dealt with these stockpiles? You've gotta be kidding. Sure, Kerry jumped the gun. How about Bush's misappropriations? It's called politics. Get used to it.
I'm glad Kerry's finally standing up and fighting back. It makes me feel good about voting for him. This story is just going and going and going and going, and it's NOT going in your favor. Each day, there is more and more evidence against your theories.
Edward L. Daley wrote:
What I'm telling you as a matter of fact is that Kay wasn't there at the time, and is only making an educated guess... a guess which, by the way, does not take into consideration several key questions concerning the situation. I'm sure there are plenty of other experts who would disagree with his conclusions. Beyond that, when you say that Kerry "jumped the gun", that is precisely my point.
This isn't some parlor game we're playing here, these are damning allegations he's making about the President of the United States during a time of war. Perhaps you can just write off his irresponsibility as merely the little white lies of a politician, but serious adults happen to think that when a man who's running for the highest office in the land calls our current leader incompetent, he'd better damned well be able to back up that claim with something other than hot air!
Furthermore, anyone who would say that they are proud of someone who behaves in such a disingenuous manner only exhibits their complete lack of character and honor.
Joshua ****** wrote:
I'm still having a hard time with Republicans telling us that Kerry is bad because he jumps to conclusions. Doesn't that remind you of your own candidate? Again, this is politics. Both sides are equally guilty of this shit, but Kerry is just finally coming around and playing dirty like he should have the entire time. Keep drinking the Kool-Aid.
Edward L. Daley wrote:
In the first place, I'm not a Republican, and I didn't vote for Bush in 2000. Secondly, if your justification for excusing Kerry's irresponsibility is to say that everyone in politics jumps to conclusions, and that "playing dirty" is something that you actually promote in public officials, then you're too contemptible for me to continue debating with.
Joshua ****** wrote:
I don't advocate it in general, but this election has been "nastified" by the Bush administration. Kerry tried to play Mr. Nice Guy, and they told him to fuck off. He still tried and tried. He FINALLY grew a backbone and played their game, and now they're getting pissed. He'd lose if he didn't.
I don't like it, but he absolutely has to play at their level. THAT is what I'm happy about.
Edward L. Daley wrote:
You are delusional. John Kerry was the first and only one of the two candidates to use the words "incompetent" and "lied" regarding his opponent. To this day Bush has not used either of those words when talking about Kerry that I'm aware of. He has never said that the Senator intentionally mislead people on any issue, only that Kerry has used poor judgment at times, or was simply wrong about certain things.
He has refrained from calling Kerry a liar even though it is undeniable that Kerry DID intentionally mislead the American people when he stated that it was U.S. military policy to commit war crimes in Vietnam, and that the commission of those crimes (which Kerry admits to having committed himself) was "the rule, not the exception".
Once again your position has no merit; your claims no substance. No candidate in my lifetime has behaved more despicably than John Kerry has, in both the distant past and the present day. You are supporting a man who's capacity for telling provable, bold-faced lies is nearly pathological in nature, and nothing that you have to say about George W. Bush is going to change that fact.
John Kerry is the most widely despised individual to ever run for president by our military personnel both past and present... and for good reason. He either IS the war criminal he confessed to being back in the early 70s, or he intentionally lied about those war crimes in order to damn the very soldiers he served with. Those are the only scenarios possible, and no matter how you try to spin it, his own actions prove him to be unfit to be our Commander-in-Chief.
There's also the issue of his potentially treasonous behavior near the end of the Vietnam War which all reasonable American citizens have at least considered over the past year.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41106 http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41142
Josh ****** wrote:
I'm sorry. I don't read the works of the Reverend Moon. It's against my non-religion. I do believe Bush and Co. were the first to misrepresent Kerry in ads left and right.
Read the archives of FactCheck.org (or .com if you're Cheney) and see all the misleading s**t that BOTH sides have slung around. You obviously like the Kool-Aid. We'll leave it at this.
This is indeed where we did leave it, as I decided at that point not to continue wasting my time trying to reason with this completely unreasonable human being. I don't know about you, but I find it extremely ironic that Joshua was the one who felt the need to refer to Kool-Aid drinking here... and not just once.
Oh, and one more thing, it has just been reported that a U.S. Army team from the 3rd Infantry Division removed between 200 and 250 tons of explosives from the Al Qaqaa facility immediately following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137017,00.html Edward L. Daley is the owner of the Daley Times-Post
http://www.times-post.com