Sen. John Kerry Keeps 2008 Options Open [he came just a whisker away from being president...]

It's almost as if Sen. John Kerry never stopped running for president. He still jets across the country, raising millions of dollars and rallying Democrats. He still stalks the TV news show circuit, scolding President Bush at every turn.

The Massachusetts Democrat, defeated by Bush in 2004, insists it is far too early to talk about the 2008 race, but some analysts assume he has already positioning himself for another shot at the White House.

"Obviously, Kerry has all but said he wants another crack at the thing," said Neal Thigpen, a political science professor at South Carolina's Francis Marion University. "He's going to make a second try."

While most losing presidential nominees quickly fade into the political landscape, Kerry has worked hard at maintaining a high public profile.

"He's continuing the fight he began in 2004," said Kerry spokesman David Wade. "He wants to make it very clear he's a fighter who is going to continue to fight for his agenda."

Borrowing a page from Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record)'s 2000 postelection playbook, Kerry has kept much of his presidential political organization intact. He has also used his fundraising prowess to aid Democrats across the country, collecting chits that could be called if he seeks the party's White House nomination.

"He believes in his heart and soul that he came just a whisker away from being president," said Ronald Kaufman, a veteran GOP operative with Massachusetts roots.

Tonk,
Thought you'd be interested to see I'm still trying to educate folks about Kerry and his slimy attempts to get attention using our fine military. This is my latest column in the Marietta Daily Journal, a suburban newspaper in Atlanta. Don't worry Tonk. Us children of Vietnam will never forget what he did to our fathers and what he's trying to do to our troops today.

Noor puts freedom in a real context

Laura Armstrong, Jan. 1, 2006

If I could force the critics of this war to look anywhere right now, I'd make them look at Georgia, at a little baby, and at the good-hearted Americans who're moving heaven and Earth to help an Iraqi family.

I'd show them Baby Noor, the 3-month-old infant who's traveling from Abu Ghraib to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta for life-saving surgery. I'd point them at Georgia's 48th Brigade Combat Team, the regular folks at Douglasville's Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church, Senator Saxby Chambliss and every other kind soul behind the spirited effort.

This story, which in a few short days has become symbolic of all that's good about U.S. involvement in Iraq, is proof that much of what liberals and critics say about the war is propaganda.

"Bombing the hell" out of a country, intentionally killing innocents, and being there only for oil are the addled manifestations of war critics who live in a world of denial, accusation and mistrust.

Their opposition to our presence in Iraq, including non-stop criticism of the administration and our military as "imperialist killing machines" isn't based on fact, but on myth, misguided naivetÃ© or, worst of all, hatred for this president.

They don't want to admit to any successes in Iraq, even the individual ones like saving Baby Noor.

See the hand ringing, as war critics watch troops get positive press for doing what they do every day: helping the people of Iraq.

See them aghast that Baby Noor might get half the coverage given the torture story, the atrocity story, the Koran mishandling story. They do not want the world to see soldiers being fatherly, going the extra mile to save one small life.

This rocks John Kerry's world, because he and his cronies say our troops "terrorize Iraqi women and children" in the middle of the night. Don't ask me why, but a majority of liberals and democrats want us to believe that, even though they claim to "support the troops". (If they're not characterizing our professional soldiers and Marines as evil occupiers, they're painting them as misled victims).

And about the father and grandmother of little Baby Noor: have you noticed they must cover their faces, protecting their identities from the possibility of discovery?

This is not done for religious reasons, but out of fear. Fear that the real evil occupiers of their country and their neighborhood will see them. Fear the insurgents (lets just call them what they are - terrorists) might see them TRYING TO GET HELP FOR THEIR CHILD and kill them and their family members.

Americans historically stand up against evil. We're bearers of hope and freedom around the world, despite what liberals say.

If Baby Noor's touching story isn't proof enough for them of why we should be in Iraq and of the evil we're fighting, then I'm resigned to the fact they're hopelessly stuck in a quagmire of their own - the inability to see that for which we fight.

How can men be so evil that they would kill someone for saving their child?

This puts freedom in perspective to me.

lbarmstrong3378@comcast.net

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