Alan Keyes comes out in support of President Bush, denounces Democrats, "our survival is at stake!"

SEAN HANNITY: John Kerry came up a big winner last night, he won five out of seven state contests, but can Edwards or Clark start gaining on him? Joining us now from Washington, former presidential candidate in his own right, our good friend Alan Keyes. Ambassador, how are you?

HANNITY: Well, we're always glad to have you back. It's been a while. Good to see you, my friend.

I think, at the end of the day, beyond getting into "he's a Massachusetts liberal" and his extensive Ted Kennedy-like liberal voting record, I think there are two questions here that John Kerry's going to have to answer: will you continue to seek out terrorists where they are, and track them down, and go after states that harbor them--and how many months a year should Americans pay taxes? How much should we give them, four months of our income, five months?

KEYES: Well, I think that the first one is going to be the most critical. I find it hard to believe that the American people will easily trust a Democrat with our national security, in the midst of a war on terror that, after all, was partly the result of the vulnerabilities that we were left with after the Clinton years. I think that they have a president who has shown himself to have the fortitude, the resolve, to make head against our enemies--and I'm not sure they're going to turn the reigns over to a party that has, to be quite frank about it, a record that is pretty well anti-security. They're uncomfortable with these issues, and they're especially uncomfortable with the necessity of fighting back against an insidious enemy like this.

HANNITY: Well, what is going to be the best strategy? Democrats are on attack now, and some Republicans call me and they're nervous 'cause they think--the Republicans, I think, have not yet begun to fight, and I think they will. Will it be more effective to tie his record to Kennedy? Will it be more effective to point out his voting record, his years of proposal to cut the intelligence community? Will it be his desire to cancel 27 weapons systems, including the MX, the Trident, the Patriot Missile, the F15, the F16, the M1-tank, the Pershing II Missile--will that be the big issue?

KEYES: I would have to say I think that the most effective thing that can be done is not much to focus on the question of whether this man's going to be president of the United States. I, frankly, believe at this time that someone like this is not qualified--not just because of his liberalism, but because he comes from a party, from background, with a record that does not have the kind of mindset that will pursue our national security aggressively during this time when our very survival is at stake.

And I think that his liberalism, of course, on economic and fiscal issues will certainly help to consolidate the core Republicans in support of the effort against him.

But overriding everything, I think, is going to be the concern not to change horses in the middle of the stream when we're in the midst of a war.

HANNITY: In a few minutes, we're going to be joined by Hillary Rodham Clinton's former campaign manager/spokesman and Howard Wilson's going to join us, and we're going to talk about this AWOL issue that is, quote, the "big issue" of the Dems. I think John Kerry's war record is admirable. I think he deserves credit--but it's where he's been the last twenty years. He's been on the wrong side of history in the Cold War, on building up defense, building up intelligence. But as I look at his record, it gets complicated inasmuch as it's not a short, snappy sound bite that you can give to the American people. How does . . . .

KEYES: Well, see, I think it is, though. He dares to suggest that as an individual G. W. Bush was AWOL, when we are dealing with a record and a party that have been AWOL on the issues of American national security (for, what, two decades now?), helped to gut our national intelligence, helped to put us in a situation where we didn't even have the interpreters needed to deal with the situation in the Islamic world? You've got to be kidding that they would come forward now and suggest that they should replace G. W. Bush.

COLMES: Alan, you know, it's really an outrageous lie to accuse a whole party of all the things you've just said. We know the problems with the CIA are systemic. I can tell by the hysteria now, the way people are going after Kerry, how truly concerned they are about him.

And, by the way, answer this: how is it, then, that we're still basically a 50/50 nation, and polls now are showing Kerry ahead of Bush, if the American public really doesn't at all trust Democrats, and one can't get elected?

KEYES: Two things. First of all, I am not lying about this. I was present during the Reagan years, when we followed after Carter and his disastrous destruction of America's national intelligence capabilities. I watched as Clinton followed in the same path, preparing the terrible disaster that we faced then on 9/11.

It's not to say that there's not blame to be spread around, but, excuse me, the Democrats do not have a record that, on this subject, would lead one to trust them to the kind of consistency and aggressiveness that's needed to defend our very lives in the midst of a war. And I think that part of the reason right now things haven't consolidated [is that] people always pay half attention right now. There's only a contest on the Democrats' side. It gets most of the attention. I think that the Republicans haven't yet begun to fight this election. Once the Democrat nominee is clear, we will, and then I think it's really not going to be a contest.

COLMES: You've got a very energized populous now, as seen by the number of people. More than most years have turned out for these primaries. You also have places where the president is vulnerable. We see the Taliban is now regrouping in Afghanistan. We have seen warlords regrouping in Afghanistan. There is still great debate in this country about whether going to Iraq diverted attention away from where we should have been focused--Osama Bin Laden is still at large, and the idea that intelligence reports and David Kay's message is that, what we were told was the reason for going has not panned out. That's not sitting well thus far with the American people, Alan.

KEYES: Frankly, I think that it's not sitting well, and I think that we need to look into it--but that's a question of the competence and professionalism of our intelligence community and the national security apparatus, in terms of the information they gave to the president. It's not a question about the soundness of the judgment he made based on that intelligence.

It would have been irresponsible in him not to act against a threat that was outlined in the intelligence estimates that he had.

And that's part of the problem here. The Democrats talk as if they would have faced that situation and not made the same decision based on the intelligence he had. How can you trust them, then, when they won't do what is preemptively necessary to keep the terrorists from getting weapons of mass destruction?

COLMES: Well, there's no proof that preemptively going into Iraq had anything to do with making us safer. I don't think there was any dispute about going to Afghanistan. The country was united, the world was united. That is not the issue. The issue is about what the president did, and whether or not the reasons he gave to go to war actually panned out--and it hurts our credibility.

KEYES: After the fact, asking questions about whether the intelligence estimates were accurate is important to improve our intelligence capabilities. It does not, however, raise a question about the soundness of the president's judgment based on that intelligence.

HANNITY: All right. Alan, hang on one second. Gotta take a break. We'll continue more with Alan Keyes right after the break.

COLMES: We continue with Alan Keyes. Ambassador Keyes, as a fiscal conservative, as a true conservative yourself, do you have some problems with the spending of this administration?

KEYES: Oh, I sure do--and I wouldn't want to give the impression that I don't have other problems with this administration on some areas where I think that the president has fallen short of the kinds of things that I really think are needed in some areas.

But I also wouldn't want to give the impression that I think that anything can be more decisive for the American people right now than the question of our national survival in the face of the most insidious threat this nation has ever faced.

In the face of that, I think a lot of us are going to be putting our other issues behind those issues that have to do with the survival of this nation in wartime.

COLMES: Are you saying there's only one issue in this campaign, that other issues don't matter? Because, if you look at what the American people are saying, a lot of issues do matter, and to many conservatives, the president's not measuring up on those issues.

KEYES: Well, see, I think that the one problem--and the media, I think, is looking at all these other things because they've got to have stories. When people get into that voting booth and confront the reality of our situation, as we have had to confront it now since the terrible events in 2001, I think a lot of people are going to find that they are reminded of who they are and how they felt at that moment when we confronted the abyss and knew that we had to measure up. That is still our situation, and when they finally get to the voting booth, I think that's going to be the one that decides their minds.

COLMES: Do we really feel safer now than we were four years ago? We've had orange alert, we now have a ricin issue, we've been on alert a number of times, American interests have been attacked all over the world. Many Americans are--I think that's a fair question, if we're really safer now.

KEYES: You know, we can't control whether people who are inimical to us, out of the kind of fanatical hatred we encounter in these terrorists, are going to attack us. We can control whether we're going to be prepared for those attacks, whether we're going to act to eliminate the cadre of people who are aiming those attacks against us, whether we're going to preempt states and groups that are aiming to kill Americans with weapons of mass destruction. I think we have a responsibility to deal with this issue first, because we're not going to be around to deal with the others if we mess with this one.

HANNITY: Ambassador, I couldn't agree with you more. You know what I find amazing--and I guess this is all part of this political process--is the very same liberals who lead the charge to cut defense, who attacked the intelligence community, render it impotent in the 1990's the way they did, the ones that gave us the worst deal imaginable under Clinton in North Korea, didn't finish the job with Saddam, oh, and passed on Osama, are now lecturing the administration on how to deal with defense issues. It's somewhat humorous, if it weren't so scary.

KEYES: If it weren't so serious, it might be funny--but it is very serious. And I think that when you look back on that record, when you look back, to be quite frank about it, there has been a record of hostility, not to say contempt, for the requirements of our national security, for the military and what's involved in sustaining it--especially, by the way, for our national intelligence apparatus, where they seem to be more afraid of rogue American actions than they were of the rogues who are trying to kill and destroy us.

And I think that this is all going to come out in the wash during the election campaign.

HANNITY: I'm confident, as well--and I love the fact that we're having two very distinct visions, which is what I said initially to you, that this will come down to two questions: one, will you, John Kerry, continue the War on Terror, track down terrorists where they are, or not? Do you think the American people are overtaxed or undertaxed? Should we extend the deadline for taxes?

But one of the things--I take heart in the fact that they're out there saying the president's AWOL, that he started a war for political benefit, that we're not better off with[out] Saddam. Doesn't it show they're desperate?

KEYES: Well, I think that it shows that they don't have much of a grasp of the real situation if they think this election's going to be decided on the basis of base personal attacks, and that sort of thing. They have got to get out there and begin to articulate concerns that will strike at the heart of the real issues and dangers the country faces. They are not doing it right now, and that's why I think they'll fail.

Like many, I was brought up in a "democrat" household. In 2000 I voted for Bush after paying very close attention to what was being said by Gore, et al.

I am now a registered Independent in the state of California---and proud of it (being independent and a Californian)

In 2004 I will vote for GWB for the simple reason that we are in a war, a war more insidious and dangerous than we have faced since the birth of our country.

On a side note I believe that Al Queda's strings are being pulled by the former Soviet Union.

This is War and so far I see no reason to elect Kerry to continue prosecution of this war which may last another ten years.

As an independent and former democrat, I do not see republicans as "the answer" to returning America to its constitutional roots. I believe for the most part that both parties are crumbled heaps of power mongering. That being said I can only hope that GWB will steer the country in the right directions. So far on his domestic agenda there are many areas that I vehemently disagree. But despite those issues, for now GWB has my vote.

I would like your opinion on Bush's promotion of the FTAA treaty, and what effect his amnesty of 12 million illegals will have on the delicate 50/50 balance at the ballot box.

I would like to know what the plan is for rolling back decades of liberal corruption. Does the battle begin with the leftist movement of the Republican party? What would actally work to move the Party back from it's march left?

If Bush wins against all odds, what measures are in place to prevent him from initiating this amnesty or the FTAA treaty? Does he have the best chance out of all the cadidates of getting this type of destruction through congress and the senate? Because if he does manage all of the above it is most likely the last time there will be a Republican holding any office in the USofA.

If the Republican Party has to be liberal lite to stay in the game, that pretty much means that conservatives have no real representation in this country. What then? I know you urge us to work with what we have, but shutting up and voting, is not a plan that has any real effect in rolling back decades of corruption or moving the party right.

I think the only thing politicians fear is being out of office. If all they get for their liberal actions is smiles and pats on the back I don't see them having any reason to change or fear the electorate. If conservatives are vital to the party, we should demand to come away from the table with some representation of our ideals. What is your long term plan?

You won't convince me to start disliking this President in any way.

I was one of those veterans that served in the same war as Kerry. The difference between myself and Kerry is, I didn't betray my country and dishonor my service after I returned to my Homeland.

I saw just as much if not more action than Kerry did, but in my case, the men that fought with me were equally committed to each other and we quickly defeated the enemy because of that commitment.

I see my country in DEEP trouble, not because of puny little nit-picks like I hear you "Purists" constantly rant about, but real and dangerous trouble.

Cynicism, apathy and complacency have become the enemy we cannot win against. It has taken a firm control of those who call themselves "True Conservatives" and it will end in our overall defeat because we lost our vision and resolve for a higher calling.

I will not play with the idealistic splitting of hairs. Our duties to the better health of this country clearly lies with the President. Like any good soldier, I fought too hard and to many of us died to keep this ground under our feet. And I refuse to give up what we've gained so far.

"I would like to know what the plan is for rolling back decades of liberal corruption. Does the battle begin with the leftist movement of the Republican party?"

==

The battle "begins" -- or rather continues, by re-electing Bush and electing more Republicans, so they are less constrained by the Democrats in shifting the country towards more conservative ideas. When you have a runaway train, it is physically impossible to turn it around 180 degrees, you gradually slow it down and slowly turn it a few degrees, then a few more degrees, and so on. You are complaining, because Bush didn't wave a magic wand and turn the runaway train around 180 degress in 10 seconds.

Because if he does manage all of the above it is most likely the last time there will be a Republican holding any office in the USofA."

Precisely... a fact that is understood, accepted, and considered by pragmatists who act according to that limitation, regardless of their ideological preferences.

I think the smartest thing to do is to copy the frog-boiling method used by Liberals - and you can't do that unless you're in a position of power...

So let's keep our positions, maintain any power we manage to eek away from the Liberals, and gradually show the average Joe-voter that our ideas will truly work to make a better country for everyone.

It's not amnesty. It's a worker program and a strengthening of our borders. If you want amnesty, let Kerry or any of the Democrats win the White House. They have promised instant no questions asked amnesty with full citizenship and voting rights to all 12,000,000 illegals immediately. And I don't think I'll be placing dislike for the proposed FTAA treaty in a higher position than winning the war on terror. There will be many fights over that one in the coming years despite who wins the White House. The important thing now is to concentrate on winning the war and replacing the liberal activists.

Holding the White House and increasing the margins in both houses of congress while keeping the Democrats out will go a long ways in removing corruption and will eventually set the stage for rolling back the liberal excesses. A large part of the problem is the liberal activist judiciary. The activist judges must be replaced as they die off or retire with people of character who will abide by the Constitution. We know exactly what kind of judges the Democrats appoint and I don't know about you, but I don't want them. The only way to get the turnover in the judiciary is for the Republicans to hold the White House and the Senate for several terms in a row. Now is not the time to give it up.

We have the best chance with Bush and the Republicans. The Republicans are already starting to make noises about spending and some of the other proposals. There's no way the Kerry/Clinton/Kennedy/Boxer, et al, are going to improve our chances. Vote them out.

I don't think the Republican party will be liberal-lite. I believe the Bush people have done the calculus to do what it takes to deprive the Democrats the edge on certain issues and hopefully to bring some of the Democrat and swing voters their way, so he can hold the White House. I also believe that each of Bush's plans and proposals have some door or feature that is an opening to privatization, or accountability, or is in some measure better than the Democrat proposal for the respective issue. If we don't get Bush, we will get the Democrat plan. It ain't pretty.

Again, the major issue in the long term is the turnover in the judiciary. I believe we'll never have a shot at regaining our freedoms or our constitutional government until we dump the majority of the activists off the bench. And in the short and mid terms, winning the war on terror has to be the highest priority. I believe we should do whatever it takes to reelect Bush. A Democrat as commander-in-chief at this time would be a total disaster for us, and for the entire world.

couldn't agree more with your #102...and there are plenty of Aussies down under that are praying Bush wins,along with John Howard.

Some folks just simply don't seem to grasp the seriousness of these times.

The situation here in Australia is so similar I could repeat your words with just the names changed...hope you don't mind.

"I thank God every day for Prime Minister Howard and pray that He will grant him the wisdom and strength to lead our nation (and continue to unwaveringly support the leading nation)through this war for our survival and through these perilous times. I thank God that John Howard is a pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-family Christian and is not one to shirk his duties or waver in the face of adversity.Latham does not have what it takes to lead this nation. None of the Labor/Democrat/Greens etc candidates do."

God bless and keep America!

"And my second point is that since we are all so different, we should try to be respectful of each other's opinions"

==

You are intimating and expressly saying that people who support Bush are the ones who aren't "respectful" of the "dissenters" opinions. That shows your bias.

Many of us experienced on numerous occasions, that when we try to have a "reasoned discussions" (words the anti-Bush elements are so fond of), and bring facts and logic to the discussion, we get back posts like "you are a moron", which seems to be what is considered by "reasoned arguments" by the anti-Bush elements, claiming to be conservatives. Apparently you have no problem with that, since you very carefully crafted your statements to direct them at those defending Bush, trying to portray us as "insufferable bullies" in the face of the "refined, reasoned discussion" presented by the anti-Bush elements, masquarading as conservatives.

Some of us are very tired of their hypocrisy.

"You are complaining, because Bush didn't wave a magic wand and turn the runaway train around 180 degress in 10 seconds."

That is not true at all, I'm smarter than that. I am complaining that the damage he has managed in his first term can be exceeded beyond all ability to repair in his second.

The FTAA treaty slowly usurps the constitution and places us under international law. The Supreme Court is studying international law right now, and have stated that when international law conflicts with the constitution the constitution will have to be set aside. There is no bill of rights in international law. No writ of habeous corpus. Eventually, in case after case, when it gets down to some shop owner in Podunck, Miss. suing some shop owner in Chili, international law will finally usurp the constitution entirely.

Reagan created and instant 3 million strong voting block for demonrats with his amnesty. One that has influnenced the invasion we are suffering now. If Bush gets an 12 million amnesty passed what does that do to the delicate balance we are experiencing at the polls now between 50% demonrats and 50% Republicans? Or should we not consider these questions, hold our noses and vote?

I assume there is a cohesive and workable plan that I am not privy to, to contain and constrain the Republican Party from it's leftward bent. If not shouldn't there be one? Given the mindset of politicians shouldn't a plan contain the power of reward and punishment? If so how is it to be wielded? We have talked for years about incremental steps while Demonrats have galloped on our faces to the point that conservatives are foreigners in their own party and without representation. What are these future incremental steps and how do we implement them?

thanks!

Howard certainly has suffered..."war criminal/crimes against humanity/Bush's lapdog/most embarrasing moment in Australia's history" blah blah blah!

When I listen to the fragmentory arguing over the war on terrorism/Iraq etc I'm constantly reminded of a quote from Churchill "those with the most will will eventually win"

If the west could show a unified WILL this war would be a lot shorter.

Liberals don't seem to understand how much they are empowering their own enemies!

Some of the talk from politicians here in Oz (and no doubt elsewhere) in the context of the current situation is downright bloody dangerous!

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Alan Keyes on Hannity and Colmes Show - Feb 4, 2004