Iraq equals Vietnam? We've reached that 1000 killed mark and the specter of Vietnam lurks over the horizon. Nevermind that Vietnam's bodycount was far far higher, and Iraq is far more pacified than North Vietnam ever was. Still, it's a spectre lurking nearby, and with Vietnam on the lips of Voters because Democratic Candidate John Kerry was a hero in that war.
The media likes to draw the parallel of Iraq to Vietnam. What they don't understand, or utterly ignore is that John Kerry (with the help of the press) is doing to Iraq what he did to Vietnam... turning a war that could be won into one that will be lost.
It is not the men on the ground that will lose that war for us, but the lies and misrepresentations of a man who has spent the last 30 years building a career on lies and misrepresentations. He lied about the actions on men on the ground of Vietnam. He tried to tell the American people that a victorious North Vietnam wouldn't result in massive reprisal killings. He was wrong on both counts.
That he still, in 2004, repeats his lies of the Vietnam days and twists them to fit this current struggle says a great deal of his character and political focus. Do we have any reason to believe he will act any differently to this war as president than he did to the Vietnam War, or this war as a presidential candidate?
If John Kerry is elected president, the people of Iraq need to fear for their future. The people of the United States do too.
Iraq, whether you agree with the original reasons for invading and ousting Saddam or not, is truly the new front in the war on terrorism. Al Queda, other terror organizations understand this better than any others. Their terror tactics in Iraq only punctuate this point. If a free and stable Iraq fails to congeal, there will be civil war, death on a massive scale and a whole generation of iraqies who will blame America, ripe for the picking as terrorists.
I'd like to believe that John Kerry understands this... or even cares, but his words say far different. "Set a date!" was his cry during Vietnam. Set a date we did, and sure enough, the North Vietnamese overan the south as soon as we left, and then killed millions in retrebution, and imprisoned countless others. He was irresponsible, or, he didn't care. It almost seems the later, because in 30 years, he has never apologized.
His cry for setting a date for American withdrawel remains the same now. He has even promised to set that date as president.
His date will create Vietnam in Iraq with utter certainty. The foes of freedom with take advantage of it, America will leave and it will create genocide, civil war and agony. It will make the United States even more open to attack than ever. A victory for John Kerry on November 2, 2004 will likely represent a major blow for America in the War on Terrorism.
I pray I'm wrong, but a man's actions speak louder than his words, and Kerry's actions have been shouts.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Friday, September 17, 2004
The thrashing of Mary Panzer
The Wisconsin primary election was last week. The count on one of the local state senate races just blew me away. Long time Senate member and Senate Majority Leader, Republican Mary Panzer was voted out of office by 21% to 79%. Her opponant, a Republican member of the State Assembly ran against her because of her abject refusal to let the taxpayer's bill of rights come up to vote in the state senate.
What's the taxpayer bill of rights? It's simple enough. It's an ammendment to the state constitution that would state that any tax hike, short of inflation raises, must be put to a referendum to the voters.
With Wisconsin sitting embarassingly at the top of the pile of high tax burden states, the taxpayer's bill of rights is desperately needed. Government spends money like water.
They're like the teenager who's parents pay all the bills. They have no responsibility or consequences for spending irresponsibly, so they don't care. The Taxpayer Bill of rights would kick the teenager out of the house and force him to live on a budget. I support this thing 100% because the taxes in Wisconsin are crushing lower income families (with property taxes), and driving businesses right out the door.
Mary Panzer dressed as a conservative republican, but she was anything but. The real reason she didn't bring the bill up for vote was not because she wouldn't have had enough votes to pass it, but because she was protecting herself and other liberal republicans from the flack that would have resulted if they'd voted against it.
So, she lost the primary by over 55% of the vote. This is not a case of the voters just being a little tired of her. No, this was an out and out rebuke. Other state senators better sit up and take notice. The taxpayers are speaking up.
Some folks say that the average citizen doesn't care about taxes. Truth is, when it comes down to it, when you're liable to lose you house because you're elderly on fixed income and can't pay the irresponsibly high property taxes, you care about taxes a heck of a lot.
What's the taxpayer bill of rights? It's simple enough. It's an ammendment to the state constitution that would state that any tax hike, short of inflation raises, must be put to a referendum to the voters.
With Wisconsin sitting embarassingly at the top of the pile of high tax burden states, the taxpayer's bill of rights is desperately needed. Government spends money like water.
They're like the teenager who's parents pay all the bills. They have no responsibility or consequences for spending irresponsibly, so they don't care. The Taxpayer Bill of rights would kick the teenager out of the house and force him to live on a budget. I support this thing 100% because the taxes in Wisconsin are crushing lower income families (with property taxes), and driving businesses right out the door.
Mary Panzer dressed as a conservative republican, but she was anything but. The real reason she didn't bring the bill up for vote was not because she wouldn't have had enough votes to pass it, but because she was protecting herself and other liberal republicans from the flack that would have resulted if they'd voted against it.
So, she lost the primary by over 55% of the vote. This is not a case of the voters just being a little tired of her. No, this was an out and out rebuke. Other state senators better sit up and take notice. The taxpayers are speaking up.
Some folks say that the average citizen doesn't care about taxes. Truth is, when it comes down to it, when you're liable to lose you house because you're elderly on fixed income and can't pay the irresponsibly high property taxes, you care about taxes a heck of a lot.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
CBS and the Case of the Phony Memos
For all the loud obnoxious claims of the media to be the heralds of the truth and the news we need to know, it has become increasingly apparant to me that things are not always as they seem.
Case in point. CBS's news show "60 Minutes 2" recently had an expose' reported by Dan Rather in which he revealed memos supposedly written in 1972 by the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who was the commander of George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard fighter squadron. The memos say Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's record, and that Mr. Bush refused a direct order to take the required medical examination.
Lo and behold, a great number of online bloggers (spearheaded by www.powerlineblog.com), after looking at the online copies on CBS's website, have concluded that there is something rotten in the State of Rather. The rotton has to do with everything from the lack of letterheads in the memos, the porportional spacing, to the use of a superscript TH that was supposedly physically impossible to do on 1972 typewriters.
To make things worse, as the bloggers spun their conspiracy theories, legitimate experts began to take a closer look at the memos as well.
Their discoveries prove that Rather and CBS are careless and "Rather" biased. Ok, actually, it's not the discoveries that do it, it's CBS's reaction to them. Even a week after the memos were called into question, and even after some of the "experts" that CBS claimed verified the memos were real, backed out, CBS and Rather are both STILL standing behind their report.
Why they're doing this likely has to do with the wild hope that the fracus will go away, and the other news agencies won't dig any deeper. If CBS and Rather admit the mistake, they look careless and irresponsible, and CBS's news reputation is more or less toast. Of course, if they don't it's likely the same might happen.
Personally, I have no sympathy for Rather. If he didn' t fact check, as it appears he didn't, he deserves to hang out to dry. It's about time that one of those high horse prancing reporters in the national media gets called on the carpet for biased and irresponsible reporting.
Will it happen?
If this memo thing keeps going on, it just might.
I wouldn't hold my breath though.
Case in point. CBS's news show "60 Minutes 2" recently had an expose' reported by Dan Rather in which he revealed memos supposedly written in 1972 by the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who was the commander of George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard fighter squadron. The memos say Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's record, and that Mr. Bush refused a direct order to take the required medical examination.
Lo and behold, a great number of online bloggers (spearheaded by www.powerlineblog.com), after looking at the online copies on CBS's website, have concluded that there is something rotten in the State of Rather. The rotton has to do with everything from the lack of letterheads in the memos, the porportional spacing, to the use of a superscript TH that was supposedly physically impossible to do on 1972 typewriters.
To make things worse, as the bloggers spun their conspiracy theories, legitimate experts began to take a closer look at the memos as well.
Their discoveries prove that Rather and CBS are careless and "Rather" biased. Ok, actually, it's not the discoveries that do it, it's CBS's reaction to them. Even a week after the memos were called into question, and even after some of the "experts" that CBS claimed verified the memos were real, backed out, CBS and Rather are both STILL standing behind their report.
Why they're doing this likely has to do with the wild hope that the fracus will go away, and the other news agencies won't dig any deeper. If CBS and Rather admit the mistake, they look careless and irresponsible, and CBS's news reputation is more or less toast. Of course, if they don't it's likely the same might happen.
Personally, I have no sympathy for Rather. If he didn' t fact check, as it appears he didn't, he deserves to hang out to dry. It's about time that one of those high horse prancing reporters in the national media gets called on the carpet for biased and irresponsible reporting.
Will it happen?
If this memo thing keeps going on, it just might.
I wouldn't hold my breath though.
Friday, September 03, 2004
Keyes and Obama - Oooh boy.
I'm watching the interesting interplay of politics down in Illinois this month as the Republicans pull a rabbit out of their hat and dump Alan Keyes on the unsuspecting Illinois constituency.
After the odd and spectacular fall of former (R) candidate for senate, Jack Ryan, the Republicans think that Keyes is their best chance. They had their heads so far up thier collective rear ends for so long that a man from out of state (who criticized Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing) is the best option they can find.
Ryan was a great candidate till his fall from grace. As much as I find his personal habits distasteful, it really was none of the business of that obviously liberal judge in California to release the divorce records to the press. That he did it over the objections of both Ryan and his ex-wife... especially since they have a kid who now probably has to deal with teasing by classmates about his dad's perversion, makes it suspect in my book.
But that's beside the point.
Keyes, as much as I might agree with him on his stand on the issues, seems to have the wonderful gift of shooting himself in the foot with such a politically incorrect mouth that the Illinois press is falling all over itself to cover it.
"Any press is good press" may be an adage that is true in sports, but in politics, when your main voting constiuency is in a city that tends to vote entirely democratic, using politically incorrect phrasiology may not be your best course of action.
Of course, no-one really expects Keyes to win down there. He's not even from Illinois, and it has been publicized so well in state and nationally that everyone knows it.
Meanwhile, Obama has the distinction of having been around for over a year, having an eloquent turn of phrase, and being one of the most radical politicians out there, short of folks like Al Gore and the like. He's a shoo in for the most part. With Chicago, a city with a history of liberalism and corruption going back 80 years, on his side, how the heck can he lose?
Guess we'll have to wait and see.
After the odd and spectacular fall of former (R) candidate for senate, Jack Ryan, the Republicans think that Keyes is their best chance. They had their heads so far up thier collective rear ends for so long that a man from out of state (who criticized Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing) is the best option they can find.
Ryan was a great candidate till his fall from grace. As much as I find his personal habits distasteful, it really was none of the business of that obviously liberal judge in California to release the divorce records to the press. That he did it over the objections of both Ryan and his ex-wife... especially since they have a kid who now probably has to deal with teasing by classmates about his dad's perversion, makes it suspect in my book.
But that's beside the point.
Keyes, as much as I might agree with him on his stand on the issues, seems to have the wonderful gift of shooting himself in the foot with such a politically incorrect mouth that the Illinois press is falling all over itself to cover it.
"Any press is good press" may be an adage that is true in sports, but in politics, when your main voting constiuency is in a city that tends to vote entirely democratic, using politically incorrect phrasiology may not be your best course of action.
Of course, no-one really expects Keyes to win down there. He's not even from Illinois, and it has been publicized so well in state and nationally that everyone knows it.
Meanwhile, Obama has the distinction of having been around for over a year, having an eloquent turn of phrase, and being one of the most radical politicians out there, short of folks like Al Gore and the like. He's a shoo in for the most part. With Chicago, a city with a history of liberalism and corruption going back 80 years, on his side, how the heck can he lose?
Guess we'll have to wait and see.
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