Sure. Tancredo opened his mouth, and inserted foot.
He allowed himself to get manuevered into a situation in which he would advocate using a nuclear weapon against the prime religious symbol of over a billion people.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
You, on the other hand, have become an irrelevant, shrill, bombastic noise.
You failed to provide context as I asked you to. I wonder why you did that??
Tancredo was asked about what a possible response would be if a muslim terrorist entity was to detonate a nuclear weapon in this country. What Tancredo described was simply self defense.
You paint what he said as if he was talking about doing that as a first strike.
You are the one that got manuevered my FRiend. Context matters.
He advocated nothing.
Like President Bush has never done or said anything dumb. Gimme a break. Yet, he was elected President and, aside from his awful record on immigration reform and border security, he has been a fine President at that.
And what of Ronald Reagan's "the bombing begins in 5 minutes" remark? Dumb? It scared the living heck out of the Soviets.
Hell, it is time that the jihadists fear America. That's all they understand. If Tom Tancredo was somehow elected President, that comment would have them afraid that he might have actually ment that he planned to bomb Mecca if they nuked one of our cities and vaporized millions of Americans. Good! I want them to fear utter annihilation as they result of any further attacks on America. Tell me, what do you think a proper response would be if a group of nationless jihadists who pray to Mecca and make their Hajj there nuked America and vaporized a million Americans? Is it the best plan to nuke Mecca? Would it be appropriate to announce it as policy? No. Should it be discussed as a potential target in the case of specific events? Yes. Considering all targets as a response to a nuclear attack is appropriate. We used to consider Mutual Assured Destruction - the annihilation of millions of people and possibly the end of the entire freakin' world - as an appropriate response to a nuclear attack. Is Mecca so special that it deserves protection and should never even be discussed in that matter or considered at a potential target? I'd love to hear your answer to that question.
Some may think so, but if an option to destroy those sites convinced more moderate Muslims to police their own and work to prevent such a nuclear detonation in the US, I say it's worth the utterance, the attack as a response option. We hold that option open for any OTHER enemy who would attempt to destroy us.
The really DUMB move would be to give the Muslim world or any other potential enemy any impression we'd remain complacent right up to a critical blast.
If he were asked if the Chinese bombed the US with a nuclear device, what city would you think would come up as a response target? I'll give you a hint - it has 11-12 million souls in it and is in Northern China.
One key part of deterrance is demonstrating the willpower to use the weapons at one's disposal.