2006 Elections @ MindSay 
CHOICES 2006: THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS
Current mood: lazy
Category: News and Politics
I'm glad John Kerry didn't win the Presidential election in 2004.
This is what he said the other day at a campaign rally at Pasadena City College "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.
What he meant to say was "If you don't, you get us stuck in Iraq" and hence the punch line was not supposed to be against the brave soldier on the front line in Baghdad, but President Bush. I guess on the campaign trail this passes the laugh test but it reeks of being a sore loser.
Even if he had said what he intended to say, it still isn't very funny.
It's patronizing.
This is funny.
John Kerry isn't some first or second term member in the House though, he's the Democratic Party's most recent nominee for President. More important than what he said, or attempted to say, is that he was attempting to use the military, and not the civilian brass in the Pentagon or Secretary Rumsfeld but the everyday Airmen, Soldier, Cadet and Marine as the subject of his joke. For a man whose claim to fame was that he 'served in Vietnam' I would think he would have a little more respect for his fellow comrades in uniform. For someone who wanted you and I to entrust him as Commander-In-Chief, and who still has ambitions to do so, I find his attempted statement even more condescending than his actual gaffe.
And his comment, laid bare for all to hear, is a quintessential example of what is wrong with the Democratic Party. It's become the party of John Kerry, no longer of John Kennedy. A generation ago, the soldiers and privates in our military were by a margin of 2:1 registered Democrats to Republicans. Today, they are more than 2:1 Republican. And not because they support long-standing GOP plans to eliminate the estate tax or reform this country's tort system. It is because Republicans, conservatives, have much less of a problem than do liberals, progressives and what other adjectives those on the political left and in the Democratic party want to call themselves, with the idea of America and being American. It's that simple.
It sounds corny but it's true.
It's the culture war stupid!
Culture wars are not about abortion and guns, gay rights and the environment. They are about the notion that this is a country worth living in and not being embarassed to say so, and therefore it is a country worth sticking up for and defending.
I'm not saying John Kerry is unpatriotic. Or that Democrats are unpatriotic. But it is fair to point out that it is those on the political left who have a much harder time embracing an American national identity and uniting in common cause with their fellow citizen. There are several reasons for this.
One, is that those left-of-center, like John Kerry, think that they are smarter than those right-of-center. That Harvard, or MIT are infinitely more interesting places than say, oh, Texas. That everything in between the Ivy League and Berkeley is flyover country.
Two, those left-of-center have no problem with identity, just an American one. It's why John Kerry and those like him love to count among their supporters any group of Americans that has a hyphenated identity that seperates itself from the rest of us.
Three, John Kerry and many of his followers are baby-boomers and of the Vietnam era, and forged their political identity not so much as being anti-war, but anti-military, skeptical of the use and projection of American power in the world, opposed to defending our national interest. It's why they are always looking for some conspiracy or cabal behind every foreign policy of our government. Usama bin Laden isn't evil, the Carlyle Group or PNAC is. Saddam Hussein isn't the real threat, Halliburton is. And on, and on.
This wasn't the case back in 1960 when John F. Kennedy was the Democratic Party's standard bearer. Just reread the words in his 1961 inaugural address.
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
If you didn't hear his Boston accent which gives his identity away, you'd swear it came out of the mouth of a Republican. And it would be followed by charges of imperialism, racism, colonialism and every other ism that you learn in sociology and ethnic studies classes in college.
From my favorite Constitutional law professor, and talk radio show host Hugh Hewitt; "Kerry reminded people that the war against the war has been underway since mid-2003, and that the Democrats have never taken the many opportunities to try and rally around the effort to reconstruct a free Iraq but at every turn have demanded an exit on some sort of rushed and arbitrary timetable. They disparaged the effort to push elections forward, then the effort to form a government, and now that government's effort to rule and unite. The enemy has been watching, and has calculated that they only way they can win is by waiting out America ---just as the North Vietnamese did."
Kerry has since issued an apology. Always a day late and a dollar short, he can't even be sincere in saying he's sorry. Like his Iraq votes, he was for what he said, before he was against it.
The troops aren't buying it though, and neither should you. Remember who understands that we are whether we like it or not a country at war. And that you don't fight wars unless you intend to win. John Kerry and too many Democrats don't want us to win. They don't want to win because they never supported getting in the fight in the first place. Not winning in Iraq validates their anti-war position all along. Democrats and John Kerry do not want bad things to happen to this country or our interests, or more directly to you and I one morning on our way to work or in an airplane up in the sky. But they have no plan or strategy to prevent such incidents from happening; be it a suicide bomber on a bus like in Israel or a spectacle of the 9/11 variety.
It's not their patriotism I question.
It's their judgment.
Any vote for any Democrat is a vote against victory and a vote for vulnerability. Vote for victory. Vote Republican.
Category: News and Politics
I'm glad John Kerry didn't win the Presidential election in 2004.
This is what he said the other day at a campaign rally at Pasadena City College "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.
What he meant to say was "If you don't, you get us stuck in Iraq" and hence the punch line was not supposed to be against the brave soldier on the front line in Baghdad, but President Bush. I guess on the campaign trail this passes the laugh test but it reeks of being a sore loser.
Even if he had said what he intended to say, it still isn't very funny.
It's patronizing.
This is funny.
John Kerry isn't some first or second term member in the House though, he's the Democratic Party's most recent nominee for President. More important than what he said, or attempted to say, is that he was attempting to use the military, and not the civilian brass in the Pentagon or Secretary Rumsfeld but the everyday Airmen, Soldier, Cadet and Marine as the subject of his joke. For a man whose claim to fame was that he 'served in Vietnam' I would think he would have a little more respect for his fellow comrades in uniform. For someone who wanted you and I to entrust him as Commander-In-Chief, and who still has ambitions to do so, I find his attempted statement even more condescending than his actual gaffe.
And his comment, laid bare for all to hear, is a quintessential example of what is wrong with the Democratic Party. It's become the party of John Kerry, no longer of John Kennedy. A generation ago, the soldiers and privates in our military were by a margin of 2:1 registered Democrats to Republicans. Today, they are more than 2:1 Republican. And not because they support long-standing GOP plans to eliminate the estate tax or reform this country's tort system. It is because Republicans, conservatives, have much less of a problem than do liberals, progressives and what other adjectives those on the political left and in the Democratic party want to call themselves, with the idea of America and being American. It's that simple.
It sounds corny but it's true.
It's the culture war stupid!
Culture wars are not about abortion and guns, gay rights and the environment. They are about the notion that this is a country worth living in and not being embarassed to say so, and therefore it is a country worth sticking up for and defending.
I'm not saying John Kerry is unpatriotic. Or that Democrats are unpatriotic. But it is fair to point out that it is those on the political left who have a much harder time embracing an American national identity and uniting in common cause with their fellow citizen. There are several reasons for this.
One, is that those left-of-center, like John Kerry, think that they are smarter than those right-of-center. That Harvard, or MIT are infinitely more interesting places than say, oh, Texas. That everything in between the Ivy League and Berkeley is flyover country.
Two, those left-of-center have no problem with identity, just an American one. It's why John Kerry and those like him love to count among their supporters any group of Americans that has a hyphenated identity that seperates itself from the rest of us.
Three, John Kerry and many of his followers are baby-boomers and of the Vietnam era, and forged their political identity not so much as being anti-war, but anti-military, skeptical of the use and projection of American power in the world, opposed to defending our national interest. It's why they are always looking for some conspiracy or cabal behind every foreign policy of our government. Usama bin Laden isn't evil, the Carlyle Group or PNAC is. Saddam Hussein isn't the real threat, Halliburton is. And on, and on.
This wasn't the case back in 1960 when John F. Kennedy was the Democratic Party's standard bearer. Just reread the words in his 1961 inaugural address.
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
If you didn't hear his Boston accent which gives his identity away, you'd swear it came out of the mouth of a Republican. And it would be followed by charges of imperialism, racism, colonialism and every other ism that you learn in sociology and ethnic studies classes in college.
From my favorite Constitutional law professor, and talk radio show host Hugh Hewitt; "Kerry reminded people that the war against the war has been underway since mid-2003, and that the Democrats have never taken the many opportunities to try and rally around the effort to reconstruct a free Iraq but at every turn have demanded an exit on some sort of rushed and arbitrary timetable. They disparaged the effort to push elections forward, then the effort to form a government, and now that government's effort to rule and unite. The enemy has been watching, and has calculated that they only way they can win is by waiting out America ---just as the North Vietnamese did."
Kerry has since issued an apology. Always a day late and a dollar short, he can't even be sincere in saying he's sorry. Like his Iraq votes, he was for what he said, before he was against it.
The troops aren't buying it though, and neither should you. Remember who understands that we are whether we like it or not a country at war. And that you don't fight wars unless you intend to win. John Kerry and too many Democrats don't want us to win. They don't want to win because they never supported getting in the fight in the first place. Not winning in Iraq validates their anti-war position all along. Democrats and John Kerry do not want bad things to happen to this country or our interests, or more directly to you and I one morning on our way to work or in an airplane up in the sky. But they have no plan or strategy to prevent such incidents from happening; be it a suicide bomber on a bus like in Israel or a spectacle of the 9/11 variety.
It's not their patriotism I question.
It's their judgment.
Any vote for any Democrat is a vote against victory and a vote for vulnerability. Vote for victory. Vote Republican.
CHOICES 2006: THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS
CHOICES 2006: THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS
Current mood: contemplative
Category: News and Politics
From the dean of American politics, Michael Barone on the "new normal" and its political consequences;
"why do large majorities of voters say the nation is off on the wrong track? One reason is that we have come to expect good things . . . We are dismayed by continuing violence in Iraq because we have come to expect military interventions to be as casualty free as our effort in Kosovo."
"From the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union up until the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, we were on a holiday from history. We were happy to pay little attention to the Islamofascist terrorist threat that should have been apparent from the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. We left that to government officials, (John O'Neil) who took it seriously and did some things to address it -- but in hindsight not enough. Since then, we took the offensive and have had some successes in stopping terrorists. But we seem to be growing tired of the fight."
"We are weary, it seems, and ready to go back on holiday. Some things -- a nuclear attack on the United States, the successful release of a disease pathogen that could kill millions -- are just too horrifying to think about. But maybe we should think more about them. As Leon Trotsky is supposed to have said, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."
Uneasy for a Reason
Current mood: contemplative
Category: News and Politics
From the dean of American politics, Michael Barone on the "new normal" and its political consequences;
"why do large majorities of voters say the nation is off on the wrong track? One reason is that we have come to expect good things . . . We are dismayed by continuing violence in Iraq because we have come to expect military interventions to be as casualty free as our effort in Kosovo."
"From the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union up until the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, we were on a holiday from history. We were happy to pay little attention to the Islamofascist terrorist threat that should have been apparent from the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. We left that to government officials, (John O'Neil) who took it seriously and did some things to address it -- but in hindsight not enough. Since then, we took the offensive and have had some successes in stopping terrorists. But we seem to be growing tired of the fight."
"We are weary, it seems, and ready to go back on holiday. Some things -- a nuclear attack on the United States, the successful release of a disease pathogen that could kill millions -- are just too horrifying to think about. But maybe we should think more about them. As Leon Trotsky is supposed to have said, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."
Uneasy for a Reason
NORTH KOREA, NUCLEAR WEAPONS & THE NEW WORLD ORDER
"There are no permanent allies, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests." --Chinese proverb
We've all learned by now of the seismic activity that was recently recorded in the waters of the North Pacific, that undoubtedly was a nuclear test by North Korea. And a success even if it wasn't the biggest possible explosion. Clearly no good can come of this, because even if Kim Jong Il can make nuclear weapons, he can sell nuclear weapons. Smart people were more than just speculating five years ago in the immediate wake of 9/11 and concluded that the single greatest threat to world peace, not just here but anywhere was found at the intersection of weapons of mass destruction and Islamo-terrorism. This is eerily closer to becoming reality.
And one thing supporters and critics of President Bush, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Global War on Terror should be able to agree on.
"We are, at present, at the unravelling of the nonproliferation regime and the global nuclear order that we've taken for granted . . . This is a huge event whose importance may only become evident in five years" says Graham Allison, former assistant secretary of Defense under President Clinton.
from the same article in the Sunday Times "The only early-warning system to detect countries that are going down the nuclear weapons road appears unable to do its job. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has failed to detect cheating by countries at an early stage in part because it lacks the authority to do necessary investigations. It also has no enforcement power to stop what it discovers and can only report to the Security Council, which has had trouble agreeing on appropriate punishments."
Comforting isn't it. If the UN was unable, because it is incapable, of preventing North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons what confidence in the world does anybody have that they will be successful in deterring Iran?
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nukes15oct15,1,7325444.story
"FAS (Federation of American Scientists) members warned the American people in stark and simple terms . . . the whole world would soon be nuclear-armed. There is no secret here, they said, and there is also no defense. The Nuclear Age is upon us, and it cannot be undone."
"Nuclear proliferation did proceed, but for 50 years it was slowed (in some cases stopped) by diplomacy and, more fundamentally, by the Cold War itself, with the guarantees it offered to nonnuclear nations of surrogate nuclear strength under the U.S. and Soviet retaliatory 'umbrellas'."
" . . . the umbrellas have frayed, and the world has become a more fractured and complicated place, no longer bound by the old alliances, where independent nuclearl arsenals have greater meaning than before." As the Soviet Union dissolved, the world in terms of security has gone from a stable bipolar contest between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. to a less stable one defined by multipolar contests for power and security, despite the fact that the U.S. still reigns supreme. That's not how the "end of history" and the "peace dividend" was supposed to go back in 1989.
"Nuclear weapons technology has become a useful tool, especially for the weak. It allows them to satisfy their ambitions without much expense. If they want to intimidate others, to be respected by others, this is not the easiest way to do it. Once a country decides to become a nuclear weapons power, it will do so regardless of international sanctions or incentives. . . It is not a question of what is fair, or right or wrong."
Perhaps most depressing is in the conclusion; "it is important to recognize that the spread of nuclear weapons is a condition over which we do not have control and for which there is no solution. It does no good to bemoan the folly of it all or to belabor the fact that we are the ones who ushered in the Nuclear Age. The world is an unsafe place and we have no choice but to live in it. Pretending otherwise, or imagining that we can impose order when we lack the power to do so, is the surest recipe for self-destruction and disaster."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-langewiesche15oct15,0,1492721.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary
Sobering.
If there truly is nothing that can be done about the fact that North Korea in addition to Pakistan and India have now developed nuclear weapons and that Iran will be next but not last and that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a fact of life then it seems to me that we have two choices; neither of them attractive, but necessary. One, we call off the pretense that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is a crowning success and the doctrine that will disarm the planet and usher in world peace and dump it by maintaining our stock and superiority of such weapons for its deterrent value on would be users and detonators. And two, begin to take seriously the idea of a nuclear missile defense system that would intercept and destroy inbound nukes providing a second deterrent to would be users and providing the actual defense to such a hellish holocaust nobody wants to see happen.
Oh, and one last thing . . . before you cast your vote this November; for Congress and Senate, with the balance of power up for grabs remember what would be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said regarding just such a defense system just a few short years ago; "The United States does not need a multi-billion-dollar national missile defense against the possibility of a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile." Oh really, Madam Congresswoman?? And just what is the United States to do when less than democratic and stable regimes begin to acquire nuclear weapoms? Disarm? Spend the better part of a decade trying to talk them out of it like the Clinton Administration did with North Korea back in the 1990's?? Close our eyes and hope for the best???
http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=103
Remember what is truly at stake in this election, in every election in the post 9/11, post Cold War world, and how truly dangerous it is, and remember which party is the stupid party, and which party is the dangerous party.
Any vote for any Democrat is a vote against victory and a vote for vulnerability. I'm voting for the stupid party.
We've all learned by now of the seismic activity that was recently recorded in the waters of the North Pacific, that undoubtedly was a nuclear test by North Korea. And a success even if it wasn't the biggest possible explosion. Clearly no good can come of this, because even if Kim Jong Il can make nuclear weapons, he can sell nuclear weapons. Smart people were more than just speculating five years ago in the immediate wake of 9/11 and concluded that the single greatest threat to world peace, not just here but anywhere was found at the intersection of weapons of mass destruction and Islamo-terrorism. This is eerily closer to becoming reality.
And one thing supporters and critics of President Bush, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Global War on Terror should be able to agree on.
"We are, at present, at the unravelling of the nonproliferation regime and the global nuclear order that we've taken for granted . . . This is a huge event whose importance may only become evident in five years" says Graham Allison, former assistant secretary of Defense under President Clinton.
from the same article in the Sunday Times "The only early-warning system to detect countries that are going down the nuclear weapons road appears unable to do its job. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has failed to detect cheating by countries at an early stage in part because it lacks the authority to do necessary investigations. It also has no enforcement power to stop what it discovers and can only report to the Security Council, which has had trouble agreeing on appropriate punishments."
Comforting isn't it. If the UN was unable, because it is incapable, of preventing North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons what confidence in the world does anybody have that they will be successful in deterring Iran?
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nukes15oct15,1,7325444.story
"FAS (Federation of American Scientists) members warned the American people in stark and simple terms . . . the whole world would soon be nuclear-armed. There is no secret here, they said, and there is also no defense. The Nuclear Age is upon us, and it cannot be undone."
"Nuclear proliferation did proceed, but for 50 years it was slowed (in some cases stopped) by diplomacy and, more fundamentally, by the Cold War itself, with the guarantees it offered to nonnuclear nations of surrogate nuclear strength under the U.S. and Soviet retaliatory 'umbrellas'."
" . . . the umbrellas have frayed, and the world has become a more fractured and complicated place, no longer bound by the old alliances, where independent nuclearl arsenals have greater meaning than before." As the Soviet Union dissolved, the world in terms of security has gone from a stable bipolar contest between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. to a less stable one defined by multipolar contests for power and security, despite the fact that the U.S. still reigns supreme. That's not how the "end of history" and the "peace dividend" was supposed to go back in 1989.
"Nuclear weapons technology has become a useful tool, especially for the weak. It allows them to satisfy their ambitions without much expense. If they want to intimidate others, to be respected by others, this is not the easiest way to do it. Once a country decides to become a nuclear weapons power, it will do so regardless of international sanctions or incentives. . . It is not a question of what is fair, or right or wrong."
Perhaps most depressing is in the conclusion; "it is important to recognize that the spread of nuclear weapons is a condition over which we do not have control and for which there is no solution. It does no good to bemoan the folly of it all or to belabor the fact that we are the ones who ushered in the Nuclear Age. The world is an unsafe place and we have no choice but to live in it. Pretending otherwise, or imagining that we can impose order when we lack the power to do so, is the surest recipe for self-destruction and disaster."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-langewiesche15oct15,0,1492721.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary
Sobering.
If there truly is nothing that can be done about the fact that North Korea in addition to Pakistan and India have now developed nuclear weapons and that Iran will be next but not last and that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a fact of life then it seems to me that we have two choices; neither of them attractive, but necessary. One, we call off the pretense that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is a crowning success and the doctrine that will disarm the planet and usher in world peace and dump it by maintaining our stock and superiority of such weapons for its deterrent value on would be users and detonators. And two, begin to take seriously the idea of a nuclear missile defense system that would intercept and destroy inbound nukes providing a second deterrent to would be users and providing the actual defense to such a hellish holocaust nobody wants to see happen.
Oh, and one last thing . . . before you cast your vote this November; for Congress and Senate, with the balance of power up for grabs remember what would be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said regarding just such a defense system just a few short years ago; "The United States does not need a multi-billion-dollar national missile defense against the possibility of a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile." Oh really, Madam Congresswoman?? And just what is the United States to do when less than democratic and stable regimes begin to acquire nuclear weapoms? Disarm? Spend the better part of a decade trying to talk them out of it like the Clinton Administration did with North Korea back in the 1990's?? Close our eyes and hope for the best???
http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=103
Remember what is truly at stake in this election, in every election in the post 9/11, post Cold War world, and how truly dangerous it is, and remember which party is the stupid party, and which party is the dangerous party.
Any vote for any Democrat is a vote against victory and a vote for vulnerability. I'm voting for the stupid party.
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