Mark Steyn: Kerry won't scare any of the big beasts

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 02/10/04 | Mark Steyn

[Pokey78]

Among my Christmas presents was a copy of Survive, a recent collection by Sports Afield magazine of helpful tips for the great outdoors. Most of the stuff was familiar - rub a raw potato on poison ivy, roast a wood bug before you eat it - but on page 70 I was surprised by this novel approach to mountain lions: "Do not approach one, especially if it is feeding or with its young. Most will avoid confrontation, so provide an escape. Do all you can to appear larger. Raise your anus, and open your jacket if you have one on." I can't say I did that the last time I saw a mountain lion, but maybe I had a lucky escape. And then I realised it's meant to be "raise your arms" and that the item is a cautionary tale in the pitfalls of computer "scanning".

One hopes the misprint doesn't lead the less seasoned hiker into an awkward situation, and that any mountain lion confronted by city folks dutifully adopting the prescribed position will think "What the hell do they mean by that?" and wander off shaking his head rather than flying into a carnivorous rage.

I thought of the advice when I caught Presidential candidate John Kerry, the Default Democrat, at one of his final campaign stops in New Hampshire. Unlike the noisily anti-war Howard Dean, Kerry has taken a different tack. The thinking seems to be that, on the war, George W Bush is the mountain lion and the Dems need to "do all you can to appear larger". When I first encountered him on the hustings last summer, Kerry was austere and patrician and all too obviously found electioneering a distasteful chore. He mentioned his service in Vietnam a lot, but only as biography. Now he implicitly contrasts his military record with George W Bush's, and thereby to the war on terror. Mostly he does this through meaningless slogans. Everywhere he goes he intones portentously: "I know something about aircraft carriers for real." What does this mean? Does he own one? He's certainly rich enough to afford one and, unlike the French, one that works.

But, of course, it doesn't have to mean anything. It's like the other catchphrases in his stump speech: "We band of brothers," he says, indicating his fellow veterans. "We're a little older, we're a little greyer, but we still know how to fight for this country." These lines are the equivalent of the guy in the woods raising his arms and opening his jacket: it's a way of making a dull politician with no legislative accomplishments and two decades of shifty, flip-flop weathervane votes appear larger than he is. The Dems reckon that Bush is a single-issue candidate - he's the war guy - and that, if Kerry can make himself appear larger on the national-security front, Bush's single issue will cease to be an issue and the election will be fought on Democratic turf - healthcare, education, and so forth.

So far the strategy's working. Kerry won three purple hearts in Vietnam, while Bush was either in the National Guard or, according to Michael Moore, a "deserter". This charge is easily rebutted, but once you start having to explain things the other guy's won. What counts is not the fine print but the meta-narrative: Kerry was in South-East Asia, Bush was in the South-West United States. That makes Kerry seem "larger", which may be why the Bushies are waddling away from a fight on the issue.

But the idea that this puffs up Kerry to be the President's equal on the new war is a more tortuous stretch. The only relevant lesson from Vietnam is this: then, as now, it was not possible for the enemy to achieve military victory over the US; their only hope was that America would, in effect, defeat itself. And few men can claim as large a role in the loss of national will that led to that defeat as John Kerry. A brave man in Vietnam, he returned home to appear before Congress and not merely denounce the war but damn his "band of brothers" as a gang of rapists, torturers and murderers led by officers happy to license them to commit war crimes with impunity. He spent the Seventies playing Jane Fonda and he now wants to run as John Wayne.

Vietnam was a "war of choice". But, once you chose to go in, there was no choice but to win. America's failure of will had terrible consequences. The Seventies - the Kerry decade - was the only point in the Cold War in which the eventual result seemed in doubt. The Communists seized real estate all over the globe, in part because they calculated that the post-Vietnam, Kerrified America would never respond. In the final indignity, when the proto-Islamist regime in Teheran seized the embassy hostages, they too shrewdly understood how thoroughly Kerrified America was. It took Mrs Thatcher's Falklands war and Reagan's liberation of Grenada to reverse the demoralisation of the West that Kerry did so much to advance.

Senator Kerry has done a good job of enlarging himself but the reality is simple: George W Bush's America has won two swift wars and overthrown two enemy regimes; John Kerry was heroic in a war that America lost and whose loss he celebrated. Since then he's been a model lack-of-conviction politician. The question for anyone who thinks Kerry has "credibility" on national security is a simple one: who do you think Iran, North Korea, Syria, al-Qa'eda's Saudi paymasters and the rogue elements in Pakistan's ISI would prefer to see elected this November?

Those guys are the real dangerous beasts and you can bet that, unlike Democratic primary voters, they don't think Kerry looms so large, with his endless deference to the UN and the French, and his view that the war on terror should be more a matter of "law enforcement" - subpoenas, the Hague, plea bargains. That's as profound a mis-understanding as the fellow on page 70 of my book, raising his butt to the mountain lion. And that's not a position most Americans will want to take.

[autoresponder]

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Another "Kohn-Job"?

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J-FK's ancestry traced back 2000 years to the time of the birth of Christ *(68 generations) !

-- Well, Kerry does claim to be a "Pilot"...... (sic)

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ROYAL AND SAINTLY ANCESTRY OF SENATOR JOHN FORBES (KOHN) KERRY

(Press Release; for immediate release)

PRWeb.com

(http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/11/prweb90500.htm)

Kamuela, HI November 22, 2003 –

The Family Forest Ancestors of Senator John Forbes Kerry eBook presents more of Senator Kerry's ancestry, according to recorded history, in one central location than can be found anywhere other than in the Family Forest World Record Edition.

Each Family Forest eBook is a response to single query. The response is generated by the Family Forest World Record Edition, presented in Adobe Acrobat format, and searchable via Adobe Acrobat search tools.

In this case the single multipart query was: Show all of the ancestors of Senator John Forbes Kerry (according to recorded history) who are lineage-linked to him within the Family Forest World Record Edition, along with the siblings of those ancestors. Show any and all dates and places that are attached to those people, along with any notes about their lives and accomplishments.

Show each book and page reference for every statement and connection, and display the results in standard genealogical format, along with a complete and highly detailed index.

The Family Forest Ancestors of
Senator John Forbes Kerry eBook contains 2,340 pages of surprising ancestral history discoveries spanning *68 generations of his ancestors, gleaned from a number of fascinating and enriching historical and genealogical books and periodicals

(see http://www.familyforest.com/biblio.html),

about the lives of many thousands of different people who lived during the last *twenty centuries. In addition, it has a very detailed 166-page index, and the entire knowledge publication is printable.

One of Senator Kerry's royal and saintly ancestors, Louis IX The Saint, King of France, was the subject of a Family Forest Royal Descendants series eBook released earlier this week.

See http://www.familyforest.com/Saint_Louis.html for details on that unique title.

The Family Forest® Ancestors of Senator John Forbes Kerry CD-ROM is available at

www.familyforest.com/product2.html

You may download eBook now at REGNOW for only $24.95

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Let's see if Kerry can still walk on water now........

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I found this "cached" at GOOGLE;

the original link has been DELETED!

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[baseballmom]

... understood how thoroughly Kerrified America was. It took Mrs Thatcher's Falklands war and Reagan's liberation of Grenada to reverse the demoralisation of the West that Kerry did so much to advance.

Kerrified. Excellent play on words by Steyn. Would that make Kerry's supporters Kerrorists?

[petercooper]

thanks pokey!

[petercooper]

thanks pokey!

[autoresponder]

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No "Kerry" listed on the Whipple.org GenWeb site

Forest Family claims John Forbes Kerry is related to George HW Bush, George W Bush, Princes Di (thru: Spencer, as is Barbara Bush), Prince Charles (and all the young British Princes [on BOTH SIDES] as I am?)

FDR (Ho-Hum), Eleanor (Ho-Hum), Michael Douglas, TR (Yup!), Clint Eastwood (New to me!), British Royal Family, French King Louis the Cheese-Eater (new to me! No Thanks!), Oxenberg, (They missed Calvin Coolidge!),

"Cooke", Mayflower, 1620 :

Francis Cooke [woolcomber]

John Cooke [Francis Cooke's son]

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Before you all get bent out of shape, go back (about) 10 generation and nearly 75% of Americans can be traced back to European Royalty.

(I knew about Danish, Norwegian, English, Scottish, Icelandic, but not about "French")

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Index of Persons | Surnames | Search | WhippleGenWeb Home | Whipple Home |


THOMAS KOHN [living?????]

Family 1: Valerie Ann Longsdorf

(____ - ____) [still "living"]

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Notes
Living individual--personal
information withheld.

E-mail corrections and additions to webmaster@whipple.org

HTML created by GED2HTML
v3.6-FreeBSD (Oct 16 2000)
on Thu Feb 5 04:59:12 2004 GMT.

Index of Persons | Surnames | Search | WhippleGenWeb Home | Whipple Home |

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[DeepDish]

Make yourself larger than life.

[backhoe]

Steyn first came to my attention when he reviewed films for the old American Spectator- most media critics & reviewers are way too airy-fairy for my tastes, but I found that if he liked a film, I was liable to enjoy it as well.

During the impeachment/Lewinsky fiasco, he wrote a piece for the WSJ, "In Defense of Tabloid Sleaze" that was such a classic of parody, irony, and sarcasm that I saved it in my scrapbook. I still read it from time to time, as it has only improved with age.

[MEG33]

Steyn just brightens up my day!

[MeekOneGOP]

[MeekOneGOP]

J-FK's ancestry traced back 2000 years to the time of the birth of Christ *(68 generations) !

Yeah, a real registered breed alright. Actually, he's ...

Just a gigolo

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[PoisedWoman]

other democrats and third party potentials are starting to smell blood in the water around Kerry. This might be why Howard Dean has changed his mind about dropping out

My thoughts exactly. Dean obviously knows how vulnerable Kerry is on many scores and wants to keep himself on the possible-candidates list. The Dean camp might have "operatives" on Kerry's case, digging up dirty laundry from the past. There's plenty and many people in New England know the details. Weenie Deanie might be trying to leverage a VP spot at the very least.

[PoisedWoman]

A Kerrified America - a nation deference to both the UN and France, a nation run awry with trial lawyers, a nation of weak stomachs and soft yellow bellies.

A Kerrified America, a nation run by a foul-mouthed, foreign-born heiress who keeps her boytoy's jewels on display on her desk, lending them back only when an ultra-liberal America-hating bill needs to be signed in the oval office, which she's redecorated in Louis XV.

[PoisedWoman]

Would that make Kerry's supporters Kerrorists?

Terrific!

Kerry supporters are Kerrorists!

[sandbar]

>HP you are on the money! It is all a facade. Can't wait >for the real bullets to start flying in the general >election. Should be a good one.

My fear is that it won't though. The media is going to block anything negative about the Democratic candidate and REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT anything negative about Bush. Even untruths. I sometimes get so disgusted and hate politics and hate ever becoming interested in it when I flip through and catch the unbelievable Katie Couric on there stating accusations on the president as if they were fact. Last night on the local evening news, on the blurb at the top of the news I hear in bold crappy newsanchor voice "President Bush is the worst jobless rate president in the history of the US... (pause and then a tad quieter) says John Edwards" What?

So I am not hopeful that America will get it. Alot of veterans don't have access to the net like we do. To the articles and sources, my father is one (a Vietnam Vet no less) He has almost had a breakdown when I told him who Kerry REALLY was with the I'm a Vet thing. I also showed him some pictures of Jane Fonda and Kerry. I showed him his testimony to Congress, he turned red he was so mad. He said, "I was over there, living the crap of that place and he was over here calling me a baby killer?!?!" But I don't have faith that this will get out. The media has already elected thier president and it's anybody but Bush. They have led the sheep to slaughter so to speak and I am scared because I have three children and I know the consequences of a man like Kerry as president. To be honest, part of me wants to put my head in the sand because I don't see much hope.

Sorry, pessimistic mood today after the constant berage of garbage from the LIBERAL (and how dare they deny it) media.

[GOPJ]

bump

[Cosmo]

he he. thanks:)

[optimistically_conservative]

I think I've found my new Tag line

Me too!

[Cosmo]

Now that ain't right!!!!!:)

i'm thinking seagulls from "finding Nemo", here: " mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine........."


feel the gin

[Cosmo]

oops, thought you'd stolen mine:)