Doctrinal confusion

"Charlie Gibson's gaffe..." Damn right.

7 years

Rescue workers remove a Father Judge, a parish priest from one of New York's fire halls. Father Judge was administering last rites to a firefighter who was killed by one of the many bodies that fell to the ground after people leapt from the tower to their deaths, when he too was struck by a body and killed.

It seems to me that if President Bush is solely responsible for the sub prime mortgage crisis and for high gas prices, as some would have us believe, then he is also solely responsible for keeping America safe from terrorism for 7 years.

I for one have never bought into the narrative, that has been peddled for years now, that George W Bush is worthless. He has done more to confront the threat of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism than any other world leader in history. To me that is far from worthless, it's priceless.

Benazir Bhutto

There is an interesting yet deadly serious situation developing in Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, has been and hopefully will be in the future, a valuable ally in the war on terror. Lately however, he has taken certain anti-democratic steps in order to restore order in his country. Among other things, he has suspended the constitution thereby making public political demonstrations illegal. The political opposition leader is a politically charming woman by the name of Benezair Bhutto. Obviously, the fact that she is a woman is likely incompatible with any Taliban-style Islamic fundamentalism. This makes her an appealing figure in the mind of anyone seeking to bring modernity to the greater Islamic world.

However interesting Bhutto may be as a political figure, this situation obviously puts the Bush administration the difficult position of having to choose between supporting an ally or supporting democracy. It'll be interesting to see what happens. Let’s just hope that Bhutto survives the Muslim fundamentalist assassins seeking to silence her by committing violence upon women, which by the way, is supposedly incompatible with the teachings of Islam.

The Guy From Boston!

You might wanna turn down the volume one or two notches before you listen to this hilarious rant by internet phenomenon "The Guy from Boston". It's not for the politically correct. It's Paulie Walnuts meets Michael Savage. He's so angry about illegal immigration, he can barely see straight.

Posturing

Barrack Obama proclaimed the other day that he is for the unilateral invasion of Pakistan in order to kill or capture OBL. It's fairly amazing that Obama seems to have no compunction about threatening Pakistan, a nuclear power and ally in the war on terror. While it is reassuring to see that Obama actually concurs with President Bush that Islamic terrorism represents a fundamental threat to America's security and way of life and that it should be aggressively confronted, I do notice that Democrats always seem to be in favor of a different war than the one we are fighting. This sabre-rattling speech by Obama the other day was vintage disingenuous political posturing.

A war we might...

"Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with." -Micheal O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, New York Times op-ed contributors

Two prominent critics of the Iraq war have returned from Iraq telling a story not exactly in line with the script from which Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, and most Democrats have been reading from lately. Essentially, O'Hanlon and Pollack demonstrate that the surge is starting to show signs of success. While conceding that the political situation is far from stable, the article raises the question of: If we start to see clear signs of improvement from Iraq, should we possibly reconsider the knee jerk desire to cut & run? Speaking of cut & run, Harry Reid, arguably the worst Senate majority leader in history, declared several weeks ago that 'the Surge' in Iraq had failed before it had even been fully implemented. This is just one recent example of what has become painfully obvious at this point, that is: Harry Reid and others who agree with him are deeply invested in America's defeat in Iraq. With the release of this New York Times op-ed found here, perhaps we have reason to believe that Harry Reid's and the Democrats' worst nightmare may be realized: that we might prevail in Iraq.

Dismissed II

The last remnants of "Plame-Gate" have been washed away. Valerie Plame's lawsuit against members of the Bush Administration has been dismissed as of today, representing the final nail in the coffin of the supposed controversy.

U.S. District Judge John Bates rejected the lawsuit in a 41-page ruling today.

from The Washington Post:

...While Bates did not address the constitutional questions, he seemed to side with administration officials who said they were acting within their job duties. Plame had argued that what they did was illegal and outside the scope of their government jobs.

"The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory, " Bates wrote. "But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials."

Dismissed

As of today, the matter of the NSA wiretapping program is settled. Another trumped up controversy dismissed.

Fall Guy?

The political witch hunt referred to by some as “Plame-gate” has culminated today with a guilty verdict for Scooter Libby on four of five charges of obstruction of justice and perjury.

Katie Couric declared today with unmitigated glee, “Scooter Libby is found guilty in the CIA leak case!”

Harry Reid’s reaction to the news was as predictable as it was childish. “…for the first time in a hundred and thirty five years someone working in the White House is indicted and now convicted, I think that says it all”.

That assessment is in fact the exact opposite of “saying it all”. Rather, it is a partial telling of the story without regard to the obvious truth of the matter that is; no charges were ever or will ever be brought about pertaining to the actual alleged transgression that was supposed to have taken place.

Presidential hopeful John Edwards weighed in saying, “…there are serious questions about whether the buck actually stopped with Libby. The American people deserve to know if Mr. Libby has been made a scapegoat in order to protect anyone else.”

This sentiment was echoed by at least one of the jurors who expressed concern that Libby was made out to be the “fall guy”.

This idea that Libby is the “fall guy”, which the Libby defense team unfortunately proposed themselves, is a mystery to me. Since no actual crime was alleged to have taken place regarding the identity of Valerie Plame, are we to believe that Libby is taking the fall for the actual person who lied under oath about who said what to whom and when about the identity of Valerie Plame?

Scooter Libby is not the fall guy. He either did or did not lie under oath about a matter that was not of great import in the first place. Even if the matter of leaking the name of Valerie Plame’s employer to the media did matter, it was in fact Dick Armitage, the right hand man of Colin Powell and frequent critic of the administration, who did the leaking and not Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, or any other member of the White House staff.

Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor, is most likely pleased with himself over today’s verdict, however getting merely a perjury conviction surely was not the goal of the investigation at its outset. Surely the point of the investigation was not simply to nail someone on a perjury charge. We are left to wonder... what was the point of the investigation in the first place? Answer: If the only result is a conviction of perjury and obstruction of justice, the investigation was in fact pointless. Today’s conviction teaches us nothing beyond the fact that one should not lie under oath when questioned by federal prosecuters, which is an obvious truth that should already be known to anyone who would rather avoid being sent to prison. In other words, nothing that wasn't previously evident was discovered as a result of today’s verdict.

Because Fitzgerald's investigation has amounted to essentially nothing, it has proven to be an utter failure and colossal waste of time and money. It is nothing approaching a vindication of Joe Wilson or an indictment of the Bush administration. Those who believe that today’s verdict is validation of some sort of conspiracy theory that supposedly took place within the Bush administration are most likely the same people who are in fact routing for America’s defeat in Iraq. Namely Katie Couric, Harry Reid, David Letterman, Rosie O’Donnell, and countless other knee jerk lefty hacks who are invested in America’s defeat in Iraq and the tireless vilification of the Bush administration.

Philosophical Ramblings

I enjoy talking politics with anyone. Unfortunately, many of my fellow Bay Staters, specifically those on the left, in fact disdain talking politics. Let me qualify. They disdain talking politics certainly in the way in which I enjoy that is, constructively. I enjoy discussing politics and political philosophy in an open, honest, and logical manner; a Socratic dialogue if you will. Sure, you can get a Massachusetts liberal to engage in a session of Bush bashing or religion bashing, but as soon as a logical obstacle arises in front of them on a substantive matter of political philosophy or policy, the conversation turns sour, perhaps even more sour than it previously was. At this point in the conversation, the person questioning liberal dogma becomes the focal point of animosity for even raising perhaps another point of view that say for example President Bush is correct on a given matter or that religious people deserve some respect rather than ridicule.

One thing I have found is that liberals are not very tolerant. They are not tolerant of those that do not agree with their ideology and/or their political philosophy. I have had much first hand experience with this phenomenon. I call it a phenomenon because it is rather surprising that a group who claims tolerance as one of their bedrock principles are in fact very intolerant of those whom they do not agree with. And, as I have suggested at the beginning of this blog in perhaps my most controversial and discussed post, Everything is Everything, liberals tend to rely upon emotion rather than logic as the foundation of their philosophy and the driving force behind why they believe the way they do.

There is nothing wrong with emotion. It should be seen as a source of strength for human beings. Emotion should not be wholly disregarded either, as human beings are not robots. However, as Aristotle believed, the highest pursuit of man is reflection. Reflection is the cognitive process that a human engages in either before or after taking action. Implicit in reflection is the use of logic. So in way, reflection is short hand for logical reflection or more precisely the application of logic to events, surroundings, and circumstances.

All of this is part of why it is my belief that it is predominantly liberals who disdain discussing politics in an objective, highly logical, and constructive manner. I can’t tell you how many discussions with left leaning individuals I have had where the liberal becomes upset or angry with me because I hold a different opinion than they do. Again, unchecked emotion bears its unruly and uncivilized head. It is my belief that liberal philosophy itself is heavily and predominantly influenced from the top down by emotion. There are countless examples of this ‘policy ruled by emotion’ phenomenon that are part of the liberal rhetorical arsenal. Let’s just take the one example of the left leaning, and by the way politically correct, desire to have more “diversity” in the work place and in schools. Now on the surface, without thinking particularly logically or deeply, it might seem like a good idea to artificially create a diversity of race in the work place and in public and private schools. There is an emotional desire to want to see many different types of races represented in all the institutions of society. On the other (logical) hand, the best person for the job or the most qualified person to fit a given position, by objective standards, is not determined by the color of one’s skin. Also as an aside, is it not condescending to minority races to lower the bar of admission or hiring criterion based on the color of one’s skin, something that President Bush has called the 'soft bigotry of low expectations'? But moreover, what liberals never seem to grasp in the matter of diversity is that diversity of thought is something that should be encouraged and sought out, not simply diversity of skin color. In the realm of logic, true diversity is based on diversity of background and diversity of philosophy. The liberal enclaves who shout down conservative speakers, on college campuses for example, should take a page out of their own supposed playbook and allow and encourage diversity, not simply of skin color, but of thought. Not to be negative, but I point this out to liberals whenever I can, that a policy based on skin color is in fact itself a clear example racism. So, the affirmative action programs that ham handedly attempt to rectify centuries of racism, by the use of quotas or any other race based criterion, are in fact racist themselves. The liberal response to do away with racism is in fact to encourage more racism. Only those who are governed primarily by emotion and who are not particularly logically well thought out can bring about this kind of paradox. If you were to confront a liberal on these matters of ‘racism to rectify racism’ they would most likely get angry and either personally attack you, or try to change the subject. If you could somehow get a liberal to be completely logical, truthful, and objective about the matter they would concede that many of the policies of affirmative action are yes racist, but they are examples of ‘good racism’. The result of any honest and scientific inquiry would surely be that liberals, or anyone else who believes that diversity of skin color should be artificially imposed on schools and workplaces, believe that there is good racism and bad racism. And how is it decided as to who should be a target of good racism and who of bad? Well, that all depends on the color of your skin.

The affirmative action paradox is one the most glaring examples of why I believe that Liberals are heavily influenced by and reliant on emotion (rather than logic) when conceiving of their political philosophy. The use of emotion in liberalism is not limited to the derivation of their political philosophy. Emotion, or more precisely emotional behavior, is also a favorite tactic of liberals when engaged in a debate. This can be characterized by raising the voice, shouting down, personally attacking, or even changing the subject when engaged in a debate. Now, raising one's voice et cetera is not limited to liberals. However, since liberals rely so heavily on emotion when constructing their overall philosophy, I suppose they find it a useful tool to employ when engaged in debate. On the other hand, It is also my assertion that, since conservatives tend to rely on logic when conceiving of their political philosophy, that the tactical use of logic in an argument is only natural to them.

Some may believe that the conclusions I'm making here are simply a matter of common sense and therefore not newsworthy, but perhaps they would be surprised to learn that many left leaning individuals would not be capable of agreeing with any of the points I have made here, even in the most general sense. In fact, I can imagine a scenario where a liberal reading this would come back and make the exact opposite argument, declaring that liberals are more logical than conservatives and it is conservatives who are influenced primarily by emotion. In this particular hypothetical situation, the use of this 'turning the tables' tactic would not be particularly logically sound or in the end rhetorically convincing. Therefore, the use of this tactic would serve as further evidence that what I have said here has the virtue of being true. I could continue almost endlessly about this and related topics but seeing as these thoughts are the thread that runs through all of my posts on this blog, no doubt these matters will be revisited and further fleshed out.

The New Hillary

Have you seen the video footage of Hillary Clinton reacting to the questions regarding her “joke” on how she has had experience with dealing with evil and bad men in her life? In the footage I found online here, she is positively giddy. Suddenly Hillary Clinton is a light, bubbly and cheerful “valley girl” . Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the new Hillary, who has obviously been coached and has received acting lessons to come across as more “likable”. No doubt Terry McAuliffe and the rest of her entourage ran focus groups and took polls determining that Hillary was in need of a personality overhaul. And from what I have seen so far, they have done a remarkable job transforming Hillary from a shrill, ornery, menopausal battle-ax to a cheerful chipper and happy go lucky valley girl.

I think I like the old Hillary better, the one encapsulated well in audio clips I’ve heard of her shrieking at the top of her lungs -as if she’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown- about the Bush Administration. At least the old Hillary was a genuine Hillary. In a way the new Hillary is more insidious. The new Hillary reminds me of a bad science fiction movie where a demon has taken an innocuous human form. In short, the new Hillary is scarier than the old.

I’m also beginning to believe that Democratic voters don’t particularly care about a candidate’s policy positions or their ability to generate substantive new ideas and solutions to ongoing problems. Having seen the populist Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts being swept to power on the backs of a swooning liberal media with one of the most substance free and slogan heavy campaigns in political history, and now seeing the groundswell of mob-like zombie-ish support for Hilary Clinton regardless of what she represents (if we could even figure that out), I’m starting to think that Democrats really don’t care that much about substantive and specific platforms and policy positions when it comes to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of politicians and political campaigns. If you’re Hilary Clinton, because you have ovaries and because you have a (D) next to your name, you have automatically locked up a significant population of voters, regardless of what you say or do. So Mrs. Clinton can make as many bad jokes about her philandering husband as she wants to, Democratic voters will still swarm to her like moths to a flame.

As for me I prefer known quantities, so I'll always prefer the original recipe Hillary.

SOTU

Maybe I'm crazy, and most of my fellow Bay staters would think that I am for what I'm about to say, but I thought that President Bush delivered a very good speech last night, I find him to be convincing and genuine. The country would be better served if Congress were at least somewhat willing to adopt some of the ideas he presented last night.

Rancor

Despite the upbeat tone of my New Years Day post, it seems that things in Washington have reverted back into the petty partisan rancor that characterized the last several years. I had thought that now that the Democrats have a degree of political power after last year's elections, they would perhaps now demonstrate that they are the leaders that they have been claiming to be. Instead what we have is the same old Democratic party, with obvious exceptions like Joe Lieberman, that can be characterized by petty partisanship, pointless and backward looking Bush Bashing and an undeniable paucity of ideas of their own to replace the ones they shoot down on matters of security specifically the war on terror and Iraq.

When Nancy Pelosi declared endlessly, "Stay the course is not a strategy" not only was she intentionally mischaracterizing Iraq war strategy by implying that Stay the course means stay endlessly, but you would think that now that a new strategy has been conceived and presented she might relent somewhat. No dice. Instead, it has gotten worse. The obvious truth of the matter is that the Democrats do not have any strategy of their own in Iraq other that the one that they lack the backbone to publicly and openly promote that is: full retreat.

So Barbara Boxer can revive the petty "Chicken Hawk argument" and roll it out again against Condi Rice all she wants to. Nothing will change the fact that to most Democrats, the only acceptable strategy in Iraq and possibly the entire war on terror is full retreat. The problem is that most Democrats who believe in retreat lack the moral courage and intellectual honesty to admit they hold this position. Democrats, rather than admit they favor retreat in Iraq, would prefer to snipe away at Bush policy and make snide and petty remarks as if they were still the embittered minority party that they were four years ago. It may be a new year with some new leadership in Washington, but for many Democrats on Iraq, it’s the same old song and dance.

The Way Forward

The esteemed panel of veteran beltway leaders headed up by James Baker and Lee Hamilton known as the Iraq Study Group (ISG) submitted their much-anticipated findings to the public and The President today. The bi-partisan ISG report offers a sober assessment of the situation in Iraq and offers some possible solutions to the problems facing the country, insisting that the solutions if adopted should be implemented in a wholesale, rather than piece meal, manner. The Washington Post is reporting that the President, “...offered no immediate endorsement or rejection of any of its recommendations.” The President praised and thanked the panel of statesmen for their contribution to the discussion and pledged that their findings would be taken very seriously by his administration.

I don’t believe that it takes a group of elder statemen to come to the conclusion that, “The situation in Iraq is deteriorating” and that “What we are currently doing is not working”. However, some of their attempts at offering solutions are at least interesting and appreciated, if not fairly unrealistic.

Principally among the unrealistic yet interesting recommendations is that we launch a new round of diplomacy aimed at Syria and Iran in an effort to encourage them to essentially help us achieve success in Iraq. Part of this effort, at least when dealing with Syria, recommends that we cajole Israel into ceding the strategic Golan Heights to Syria in return for their cooperation rather than contravention in Iraq and also that they stop supporting Hezbollah’s efforts to disrupt the fledgling democracy of Lebanon. Obviously recommendations like this are appreciated, but ultimately they are unrealistic. Syria most likely does not value the Golan Heights over their own desire to meddle in the affairs of the countries around them. The price for obtaining the cooperation of our sworn enemies surely is too high to make that avenue practicable.

The report is available to download in PDF form here. While serious efforts to seek solutions in Iraq should always be welcomed, many of the recommendations, especially in the diplomatic realm, do not strike me as particularly plausible. I am inclined to defer to the one man Iraq study group, in the form of geo political maestro Charles Krauthammer, on this matter as to what to do now moving forward. He too has a sober assessment of the situation declaring among other things, that the al Maliki government has thus far proven to be a failure and should be replaced if they are unable to drastically alter the manner in which they operate. The crux of Krauthammer’s suggestions comes in the form of a proposed ultimatum that be issued to the al Maliki government. In his latest column, written several days before today’s public disclosure the ISG report, Krauthammer says, “The United States should be giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a clear ultimatum: If he does not come up with a political solution in two months or cede power to a new coalition that will, the United States will abandon the Green Zone; retire to its bases; move much of its personnel to Kurdistan, where we are welcome and safe; and let the civil war take its course. Let the current Green Zone-protected Iraqi politicians who take their cue from Moqtada al-Sadr face the insurgency alone. That might concentrate their minds on either making a generous offer to the Sunnis or stepping aside for a coalition that would.”


I endorse this proposal as a possible workable solution to the situation. While it will be essentially a defeat for the Bush Administration if it is forced to admit that a unity government may ultimately not be plausible in Iraq, at this point it’s pretty clear that we have done all that we can to help the Iraqis help themselves. Freedom once found, is by nature unpredictable. The Iraqi people were given their freedom when we removed the butcher of Baghdad; it is now up to them to determine what to do with that freedom. Unfortunately for us all, the majority of Iraqis seem to want to devolve into sectarian strife, terrorizing their own population in the form of suicide bombers and mortar attacks perpetrated by Sunnis by day and Shiite police uniformed death squads raiding Sunni neighborhoods by night.

If an ultimatum is given to the al Maliki government and they comply, by either making concessions to the Sunnis or stepping down to let a government in that will, then the hopes of a unity government will not be lost. The other, and arguably less optimal side, of the ultimatum coin entails that we strategically withdraw from the green zone and move to our bases in northern Iraq where we are appreciated. This will still allow us to retain a strategic presence in the region, which ultimately is one of the primary reasons that we are in the country in the first place. With a presence in northern Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon along with friendly governments in Pakistan and India, we will have enough to maintain a presence that Krauthammer calls, “…the geographic parentheses around the principal threat to Western interests in the region, the Syria-Iran axis.”

Cut and Run

Cut and Run…the position held by the majority of Democrats on the main issue of the elections, Iraq, is not a winning stance. Ironically, it is because the situation in Iraq has deteriorated in recent weeks that the position of cut and run, which by the way represents any position other than staying to finish the job, seems even more absurd now than it did several weeks ago. And please, let’s not kid ourselves or quibble over terminology. Any accelerated timetable for withdrawal, no matter if called immediate withdrawal or “redeployment” is tantamount to and in fact is cutting and running. As Michael Steele points out to his angry and defensive opponent in Maryland, Ben Cardin, what would the Democratic strategy be in Iraq if they find themselves in the position of determining what to do in the country? Rather than repeat Cardin’s stammering response, let me save us the trouble and tell you that Democrats have no idea how to achieve success in Iraq. The only thing Democrats can say is that President Bush is not getting the job done. Even if that is true, in the minds of thinking people, Democrats are not simply absolved from having an actual position of their own on Iraq. Also, just for the record, “Stay the course” is a quicker way of saying, “stay until the job is done”. Unfortunately, Democrats did manage to redefine “stay the course” as “stay endlessly” and so the Bush Administration no longer uses that description. Democrats can attack a description of what we are doing in Iraq all day long, but when it comes to offering their own solutions, the silence is deafening.

So which is it? Do Democrats favor cutting and running (or whatever euphemism they want to call it) or do they simply have no position on Iraq? The answer is: they themselves do not know. It is my assessment that in many races, Democratic candidates have not thought beyond the Nancy Pelosi playbook of “blame Bush”. Really, it was circulated apparently very well that if Democratic candidates just pound away on Bush enough, then it really won’t matter if they don’t ever bother to offer any solutions of their own.

So, the Democratic secret hope that things go badly in Iraq seems for the moment at least, because the insurgents are trying influence our election, to be coming true. Their hopes and dreams of chaos in Iraq were in fact realized only too well, for now it is even more apparent that we cannot leave prematurely, because it would hand victory to all of the various enemies of our country. Really, can we all not agree that Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad and Osama Bin Laden are hoping, in fact actively and openly advocating, that we cut and run? Gee, what a surprise, the Democrats find themselves aligned with our worst international enemies on this issue, not to mention a host of other issues.

It will be interesting to see what happens if Democrats win back a degree of political power in a few days. Will our troops be immediately withdrawn, to the utter glee of our enemies? Or will Democrats be too busy conducting the various congressional investigations into the Bush Administration attempting to re-live the 2000 and 2004 elections, to bother conducting a war on terror? I defy any liberal reading this to show me where I’m going wrong with my analysis. And please, if you challenge me, try to come up with a specific vision of what should be done in Iraq. I won’t hold my breath, for I have yet to hear any left leaning individual anywhere offer a drastically different and/or substantive solution to the major issue of the day, the War in Iraq.

Clintonian Revisionism

With the mid-term elections scant weeks away, political operatives everywhere are scrambling to raise issues and dig up dirt on any candidate under the sun. From Mark Foley to down and dirty political TV ads, the gloves are coming off. Along with all of this, I am seeing an emerging strategic trend, which is being adopted by mainstream Democrats. In a combined effort to polish the Clinton legacy and to re-cast Democrats as tough on matters of national security, there seems to be a growing effort to re-write or at least revise certain chapters of the history of the Clinton Administration.

Lately, there have been two fallacious thrusts of this Clinton Administration revisionist history, one more egregious than the next. First, during the now famous Fox News Sunday Chris Wallace interview, Clinton did everything he could to suggest that he had done everything possible to kill or capture Bin Laden and that his administration did a tremendous amount to thwart the plans of Al Qaeda. Secondly, and more recently, Democratic operatives are attempting to re-write the Clinton Administration’s handling of the People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK) and their acquisition of nuclear technology and weaponry. Both of these Clinton failings are being recast as triumphs in order to “take back” national security as a winning issue for Democrats. The theory being that if Democrats can revise enough of the history of the Clinton Administration, they can achieve three important goals. If successful, Clinton’s somewhat sordid legacy can be repaired, the Democrats take a winning issue into the elections, and Hilary Clinton’s stock rises as somehow being tough on terror because her husband was (even though he wasn’t).


The facts on both of these issues have been known and touted by conservatives for years now, rarely if ever challenged. To must of us, it seems rather unusual to suddenly want to re-debate issues long since resolved. In the Bin Laden case, I was of the understanding that neither the Bush Administration nor the Clinton Administration had done nearly enough to prevent terrorism pre 9-11. Even though Clinton had many more opportunities and more time to fight Al Qaeda than Bush did, the issue, politically speaking, I considered to be a wash. It stands to reason that not much political mileage can be made on an issue where both sides of the aisle essentially failed. In a way, the whole country failed. We all failed to see Al Qaeda terrorism as the threat that we now know it to be. For example, the American public most likely would not have been behind a pre-emptive military attack on the Taliban, which now in hindsight would have been a brilliant move. So hindsight being 20/20, both administrations can be blamed for failing to prevent 9-11. To me, at least it seemed, that if blame were to be doled out, then the Clinton Administration would receive the lion’s share. I never imagined that Democrats would attempt to point to what Clinton did against terrorism pre –9-11 as a winning issue! A truly bizarre strategy over an issue, which I assumed, was a wash.

Since the Clintons want to re-debate and blame game who did what when pre 9-11, all of the same cast of characters have re-emerged from those days immediately following 9-11 when the American public wanted to know what the hell happened. Members of the 9-11 Commission, Richard Clarke, and Michael Scheuer all principal players in the post 9-11 political drama, are now getting a renaissance of face time on the various television news outlets and programs. If one listens closely to Michael Scheuer , head of the Osama Bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999, it is clear that President Clinton had many more opportunities to kill or capture Bin Laden than the Bush Administration ever did. The disarmingly candid Scheuer, by the way, is no fan of the Bush Administration. In his initially anonymously published book Imperial Hubris , he takes The Bush Administration's characterization of Osama Bin Laden to task as overly simplistic and incorrect by saying amongst other things that, “It's American foreign policy that enrages Osama and al-Maida, not American culture and society.” While the nature of our enemy in Al Qaeda is a matter worthy of debate, the facts surrounding our opportunities to kill Bin Laden are not a matter of dispute, rather they are a matter of historical fact. The self-deprecating and humble, self described bureaucrat Michael Scheuer is about as straight a shooter as there is when it comes to the facts surrounding Bin Laden and American counter terrorism measures pre 9-11. Among other condemnations, Scheuer points out that President Clinton had "eyes on target" many more times than any other administration ever came close to having. To make a long and well publicized story short, what we find after only a little research is that in reality the bulk of any blame that should be assigned vis a vis 9-11 should fall squarely on the shoulders of the Clinton Administration. Again, the Bush Administration, like the American people as a whole, is not blameless. But because Monday morning quarterbacking and blame gaming are not productive endeavors, I had issued all parties involved even Clinton, a pass. That we now find Democrats wanting to make what Clinton did pre 9-11 somehow a winning issue, to me is laughable.


The other area of history that Democrats are attempting to re-write of late surrounds North Korea. However ridiculous it would seem to point to Clinton’s handling of Bin Laden as a positive, attempting to recast Clinton’s handling of North Korea as adept, takes the ludicrous cake. I thought this issue as well had been put to rest long ago. I had no idea that suddenly now, weeks before an election, Democrats would point to the Clinton Administration’s handling of North Korea, by literally handing them nuclear technology, as a positive. This somewhat controversial ad created by David Zucker, director of the Naked Gun movies and Scary Movies, sums it all up nicely. As history has proven, dealing directly with North Korea in bilateral talks brings us nowhere because, when North Korea eventually blows us off and breaks the framework of an agreement, the rest of the world does not care. Other countries like China and Russia laugh at us when crackpot despots blow us off. Having learned that lesson, it seems clear that any type of agreement that would hold up would have to be a multilateral effort which Bush has been attempting to undertake. A strategy, by the way, that one would think Democrats would be in favor of given their carping vis a vis Iraq. As usual however, Democrats are always in favor of doing the opposite of whatever it is that we are doing. Suddenly now Democrats are in favor of unilateral action when it comes to North Korea (and Darfur by the way). Also, Democrats are now suggesting that the reason that North Korea desires nuclear weapons and broke their agreements with us is because they were offended for being included in the “axis of evil” speech given by President Bush. The theory being that Bush is to blame for not coddling or cozying up to Kim Jong Il. It's amazing that Democrats still have not abandoned the strategy of appeasement when it comes to dealing with our enemies. It's as if Democrats are suddenly Rip Van Winkle, just now waking up from a slumber in which they were not aware of the last 20 years of history.

All of this goes to the idea that Democrats want to make national security their own issue. Their mentality is “not to get swift boated” again, meaning that because of the swift boat ads, defense and national security had been taken away from John Kerry as his own issue in the 2004 presidential election. It is of course silly to cite the largely truthful swift boat ads as the reason why Americans didn’t buy into Kerry as tough on terror, when the real reason was in fact that Democrats are in reality weak on terror. Meaning, It is not a question of spin and political ads as much as it of actual facts and voting records.

In the end, I believe it to be a losing strategy to attempt to re-write history by casting Clinton and the Democrats as all knowing national security gurus. A better strategy would be to actually vote for measures that are tough on terror, such as the wiretapping of potential terrorists, risk profiling at airports, and tracking the finances of terrorists. But because Democrats don’t actually believe in these and many other anti terror tactics, they (unless directly involved in a mid term election), cannot bring themselves to vote for them. So the strategy is: rather than actually be tough on terror, try to revise history to a point whereas the American people begin to somehow believe that they are tough on terror. At the end of the day, trying to confuse the American people into believing that Democrats are and have been tough on terror is a poor substitute for actually being tough on terror.