:Reasonable Force

The Bush campaign website is offering a ‘Live Debate Facts’ newsfeed to leverage the power of the internet in tonight’s debate and those that will follow.

I’ve added that newsfeed to the top of my menu bar so feel free to keep this page open during the debate. According to this description from the Bush campaign, “each time John Kerry says something false or inaccurate during the debates, the live feed will be updated instantly with the facts.”

That’s going to be one busy newsfeed. Better go upgrade my bandwidth!

(hat tip: Matt Margolis / Blogs for Bush)

UPDATE: They’ve somehow got the vertical feed hosed and it was throwing my menu bar out of whack. If it gets fixed later today I’ll put it back.

2nd UPDATE: I’ve put it back. I don’t know… it looked bad on my computer at work and now that I’m back home it looks like it’s okay. If you don’t see anything in my menu bar at the side, scroll waaaaaaay down until you come to the Debate Feed.

1 Comment

WSJ’s OpinionJournal takes on the assertions by Jimmy Carter and others that black voters were denied their right to vote by various means in Florida.

In June 2001, following a six-month investigation that included subpoenas of Florida state officials from Governor Jeb Bush on down, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report that found no evidence of voter intimidation, no evidence of voter harassment, and no evidence of intentional or systematic disenfranchisement of black voters.

Headed by a fiercely partisan Democrat, Mary Frances Berry, the Commission was very critical of Florida election officials (many of whom were Democrats). For example, “Potential voters confronted inexperienced poll workers, antiquated machinery, inaccessible polling locations, and other barriers to being able to exercise their right to vote.” But the report found no basis for the contention that officials conspired to disenfranchise voters. “Moreover,” it said, “even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred,” let alone racial discrimination.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division conducted a separate investigation of these charges and also came up empty. In a May 2002 letter to Democratic Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, who at the time headed the Judiciary Committee, Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd wrote, “The Civil Rights Division found no credible evidence in our investigations that Floridians were intentionally denied their right to vote during the November 2000 election.

The thing that has always bothered me most about these claims is that the Democrat party continues to perpetuate an image of black voters as helpless, downtrodden victims. I don’t believe that to be the case. Nor do I believe that the black community will for much longer tolerate the institutionalized racism inherent in the platform and demagoguery of the Democrat party.

No Comments

This is positively rich. After legitimizing an election in Venezuela that many believe to have been a sham, former president Jimmy Carter presumes to issue dire warnings about the Florida voting arrangements, fearing a possible repeat of “irregularities” from the 2000 election.

Let’s see… what were those irregularities again? Oh, yes. Dan Rather calling the election for Gore before all the polling places closed, Florida’s Supreme Court ignoring the state’s law concerning deadlines for recounts, Democratic precinct managers attempting to count votes that hadn’t been punched, and Democrats attempting to disqualify absentee military ballots.

Yes, Mr. Carter, we surely wouldn’t want to see any of that happen again, would we? But not to worry. I understand that there will be international observers to guarantee the fairness of the proceedings.

(hat tip: Drudge)

No Comments

More unreported and underreported good news from Afghanistan from Arthur Chrenkoff who has become an indispensible news source. Where does he find the time to compile all this, one wonders?

No Comments

Brought to you by Blogs for Bush.

President Bush motivated this group of departing soldiers by paying them a surprise visit, according to a Washington press pool report credited to Dana Milbank of the Washington Post and Matt Cooper of Time magazine. Note that they subtly attempt to cast aspersions on the president’s motives by including this little detail:

All the soldiers had been given absentee ballots in the day or two before they departed. Many still had the ballots with them.

A seemingly incongruous statement given the larger context of the article, hmmm?

1 Comment

Rev. Mark D. Roberts, among other things, a well-known blogger on matters of faith, has written a series of articles on the role of the church in political discourse.

The example below is from the second article in the series:

My second story is more current. When I go into the voting booth this November, I will see the names of three members of my church on the ballot. One is running for city council, a non-partisan race, at least in principle. Another is running for State Senate as a Republican. And another is running for Congress as a Democrat. Ironically, the Republican and the Democrat are both named John.

I know both Johns as members of my church. Moreover I’ve spoken with them about their political views and I’ve read things they have written. Both of them are quite independent in their thinking, not always toeing the lines of their respective parties. I wonder if their independence might reflect, in part, their Christian viewpoints. Be that as it may, however, I know for a fact that these two men make an effort to live out their Christian faith in their political lives, both in their positions and in their behavior.

Let me provide an example of the latter. The man I’ll call John #1 was in a gathering of local party leaders. He overheard several of his partisan partners running down John #2. They weren’t just criticizing his views, but his character. John #1 intervened. “Look,” he said, “I disagree with most of John #2’s views. You know that. But I know him personally. He and I attend the same church. And what you’re saying about his character is inappropriate. It’s not true and it’s not right.” John #1’s political cronies were shocked, but appropriately ashamed. They stopped talking about John #2 in the way they had been talking.

I greatly admire John #1, both in general and for what he did in this meeting. It took courage to break out of the partisan mold and stand up for John #2. It also took perspective, the kind of perspective one gets from being first a citizen of heaven, and then a citizen of the USA, and then a Democrat or a Republican or Libertarian or a Green or . . . . (For the record, I don’t know if John #2 has ever had to defend John #1 in this way, but I expect that he would show the same sort of integrity in such a situation.)

A thoughtful and necessary read for people of faith who haven’t given this matter any consideration. It also speaks, to some degree, to the nature of the weblog which, while noticeably partisan during this election season, is intended to eventually deal more with apologetics and issues of faith.

With the links to both the Southern Baptist Convention and the campaign website of George W. Bush it would be understandable for a visitor to conclude that voting Republican is an article of my faith. That is not the case.

My support of President Bush is based on his character, his pro-life position, his support for the defense of the institution of marriage and his strong leadership on national defense. I believe these issues are the most crucial facing our nation at this time, thus I feel compelled to voice my support rather than sit on the sidelines.

As the NRA-ILA news feed makes clear, I also think that the right to keep and bear arms is essential to ensuring that we remain a free and democratic society. Being a free and democratic society is what allows us the freedom to worship as our conscience dictates, and gives evangelical Christians the freedom to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others both here and abroad.

My faith informs my views on these issues. As Pastor Mark notes, however, others who share my faith do not necessarily share my views. I welcome respectful discourse with them as well as those who do not know Christ as their savior. This website is, at the moment, more an extension of my own thoughts and the issues that occupy me than it is a… um, purpose driven site. Also, despite the dot-org domain I’ve selected, I do not represent an actual non-profit organization that needs to concern itself with IRS regulations regarding advocacy of candidates.

I suspect that over time I will be refining my focus to be more overtly evangelical. At that point I may feel it prudent to dispense with political endorsements for the sake of removing any obstacles between a seeker and the cross of Christ. Ultimately that is infinitely more important than this, or any, election.

2 Comments

Victor Davis Hanson, writing for OpinionJournal, uses points from President Bush’s address to the U.N. to highlight the hostility of that body to Western ideals and its uselessness as a means of achieving progress on the most demanding global issues of this era.

What was the response to Mr. Bush’s new multifaceted vision? He was met with stony silence, followed by about seven seconds of embarrassed applause, capped off by smug sneers in the global media. Why so?

First, the U.N. is not the idealistic postwar organization of our collective Unicef and Unesco nostalgia, the old perpetual force for good that we once associated with hunger relief and peacekeeping. Its membership is instead rife with tyrannies, theocracies and Stalinist regimes. Many of them, like Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, have served on the U.N.’s 53-member Commission on Human Rights. The Libyan lunocracy–infamous for its dirty war with Chad and cash bounties to mass murderers–chaired the 2003 session. For Mr. Bush to talk to such folk about the need to spread liberty means removing from power, or indeed jailing, many of the oppressors sitting in his audience.

Second, urging democratic reforms in Palestine, as Mr. Bush also outlined, is antithetical to the very stuff of the U.N., an embarrassing reminder that nearly half of its resolutions in the past half-century have been aimed at punishing tiny democratic Israel at the behest of its larger,more populous–and dictatorial–Arab neighbors. The contemporary U.N., then, has become not only hypocritical, but also a bully that hectors Israel about the West Bank while it gives a pass to a nuclear, billion-person China after swallowing Tibet; wants nothing to do with the two present dangers to world peace, a nuclear North Korea and soon to follow theocratic Iran; and idles while thousands die in the Sudan.

Third, the present secretary-general, Kofi Annan, is himself a symbol of all that is wrong with the U.N. A multibillion dollar oil-for-food fraud, replete with kickbacks (perhaps involving a company that his own son worked for), grew unchecked on his watch, as a sordid array of Baathist killers, international hustlers and even terrorists milked the national petroleum treasure of Iraq while its own people went hungry. In response, Mr. Annan stonewalls, counting on exemption from the New York press on grounds of his unimpeachable liberal credentials. Meanwhile, he prefers to denigrate the toppling of Saddam Hussein as “illegal,” but neither advocates reinstitution of a “legal” Saddam nor offers any concrete help to Iraqis crafting consensual society. Like the U.N. membership itself, he enjoys the freedom, affluence and security of a New York, but never stops to ask why that is so or how it might be extended to others less fortunate.

No Comments

President Speaks to the United Nations General Assembly

Every nation that wants peace will share the benefits of a freer world. And every nation that seeks peace has an obligation to help build that world. Eventually, there is no safe isolation from terror networks, or failed states that shelter them, or outlaw regimes, or weapons of mass destruction. Eventually, there is no safety in looking away, seeking the quiet life by ignoring the struggles and oppression of others.

In this young century, our world needs a new definition of security. Our security is not merely found in spheres of influence, or some balance of power. The security of our world is found in the advancing rights of mankind.

The President said this in the face of Kofi Annan’s characterization of the Iraq invasion as “illegal”:

The dictator agreed in 1991, as a condition of a cease-fire, to fully comply with all Security Council resolutions — then ignored more than a decade of those resolutions. Finally, the Security Council promised serious consequences for his defiance. And the commitments we make must have meaning. When we say “serious consequences,” for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences. And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world.

In addressing the Middle East, President Bush called for action on the parts of both Palestinians and Israelis, but he clearly placed the bulk of responsibility on Arafat and his supporters in the United Nations.

These two nations will be a model for the broader Middle East, a region where millions have been denied basic human rights and simple justice. For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations.

This commitment to democratic reform is essential to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Peace will not be achieved by Palestinian rulers who intimidate opposition, tolerate corruption, and maintain ties to terrorist groups. The longsuffering Palestinian people deserve better. They deserve true leaders capable of creating and governing a free and peaceful Palestinian state.

Even after the setbacks and frustrations of recent months, goodwill and hard effort can achieve the promise of the road map to peace. Those who would lead a new Palestinian state should adopt peaceful means to achieve the rights of their people, and create the reformed institutions of a stable democracy. Arab states should end incitement in their own media, cut off public and private funding for terrorism, and establish normal relations with Israel. Israel should impose a settlement freeze, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people, and avoid any actions that prejudice final negotiations. And world leaders should withdraw all favor and support from any Palestinian ruler who fails his people and betrays their cause.

More thoughts on the above to follow.

No Comments

This past weekend the National Football League honored the memory of former Arizona Cardinal and Army Ranger, Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan in April of this year. Tiki Barber reflects on the significance of Tillman’s story at NFL.com.

He arrived at Arizona State in 1994 on the school’s last football scholarship. He landed a spot on the end of the bench, where many players’ dreams have gone unfulfilled. But he left four seasons later as the Pac-10′s Defensive Player of the Year. Not long after that, he was selected by the Cardinals with the 226th pick of the 1998 NFL Draft. Two-hundred-twenty-sixth out of 241! In five months, he was Arizona’s starting strong safety. And it was only five years after that he gave up a multi-million dollar contract to join the Army Rangers with his brother, Kevin.

I didn’t know Pat personally, but I played against him eight times in my career. And every single time I lined up for a play, I scanned the Cardinals secondary to see where he was. He was a hard hitter, a great competitor and a presence on the field.

I actually think about Pat a lot. I think about what he gave up in his life to do what he believed in. At 27 years old, he had already done more than most people will do in three times that amount of time. His was a life definitely worth remembering. In a time when this country needs heroes, Pat, along with the 1,000 other servicemen and women who have given their lives, deserve our highest pedestal.

Ironically, Tillman took great care to avoid being treated like a celebrity when he enlisted and would likely be frustrated at the attention his death has garnered when so many others have sacrificed anonymously. As I noted shortly after his death, however, his fame serves to make us mindful of all of those who serve and who will lose their lives so doing.

No Comments

This commentary written by a retired Air Force Colonel does a fine job of comprehensively addressing just about every allegation slander made about the President’s Air National Guard service. He dispenses with the charges so thoroughly that, in conjunction with the belated CBS apology (though whether Rather’s team was complicit in the fraud or simply neglected to scrutinize the ‘evidence’ because of their anti-Bush bias is an open question), I won’t dignify the subject with any further posts.

George W. Bush is not a complicated man. We know him and we can trust that he really is the man we know. It’s high time our attention was refocused on the Democratic candidate that would take his place in the Oval Office. What does he believe? What, in his background as Lt. Governor of Massachusetts and in his twenty-year Senate career, demonstrates that he has the qualities that these perilous times demand of the President of the United States?

Kerry called attention to his Vietnam service and his version was questioned by some of his fellow veterans. Kerry then made allegations about President Bush’s National Guard service during the same time period and those questions have been answered. Hopefully, the ill-advised Vietnam phase of the campaign has run its course and the remaining weeks can be about more timely questions. Which of these two men has the clearest understanding of these times; and how national priorities must be ordered to ensure not only the continued growth of opportunity and prosperity for all Americans, but the endurance of the ideals that shaped the nation to which hopeful men risk their lives to bring their families and which evil men seek to destroy?

The sad truth is that America has two enemies. One enemy without; an ideology wrapped in religious trappings that seeks to destroy all who refuse to subjugate their culture to its own. The other enemy within, seeking to rewrite all nobility and virture out of our history, tarnish our icons and eradicate our spiritual heritage.

At this point in time, President Bush and the conservatives in the Republican party stand between us and both of these enemies. John Kerry and the liberals of the Democrat party cater to and, with increasingly rare exceptions, represent the enemy within and, because they don’t understand the source of America’s virtue, fail to recognize the nature of the enemy without and that it cannot be appeased, but must be destroyed.

No Comments

Keep checking some of the sites I linked in my previous post for up-to-the-minute coverage of the CBS forgery fiasco. In the meantime, Anne Morse, writing for National Review Online, recalls another egregious example of Dan Rather’s team crafting the story they wanted with no regard for the truth.

On June 2, 1988, CBS aired an hour-long special titled CBS Reports: The Wall Within, which CBS trumpeted as the “rebirth of the TV documentary.” It purported to tell the true story of Vietnam through the eyes of six of the men who fought there. And what terrible stories they had to tell.

“I think I was one of the highest trained, underpaid, eighteen-cent-an-hour assassins ever put together by a team of people who knew exactly what they were looking for,” said Steve Southards, a Navy SEAL who told Rather he had escaped society to live in the forests of Washington state. Under Rather’s gentle coaxing, Southards described slaughtering Vietnamese civilians, making his work appear to be that of the North Vietnamese.

“You’re telling me that you went into the village, killed people, burned part of the village, then made it appear that the other side had done this?” Rather asked.

“Yeah,” Steve replied. “It was kill VC, and I was good at what I did.”

Steve arrived home “in a straitjacket, addicted to alcohol and drugs” knowing that “combat had made him different,” Rather intoned. “He asked for help; that’s unusual, many vets don’t. They hold back until they explode.”

Rather then moved on to suicidal veteran named George Grule, who was stationed on the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga off the coast of Vietnam during a secret mission. Grule described the horror of watching a friend walk into the spinning propeller of a plane, which chopped him to pieces and sprayed Grule with his blood. The memory of this trauma left Grule, like Steve, unable to function in normal society.

Neither could Mikal Rice, who broke down as he described a grenade attack at Cam Ranh Bay, which blew in half the body of a buddy, “Sergeant Call.” “He died in my arms,” Rice tearfully recalled. Rice described how the sound of thunder and cars backfiring would regularly trigger his terrible memories.

Most horrific of all were the memories of Terry Bradley, a “fighting sergeant” who told Rather he had skinned alive 50 Vietnamese men, women, and children in one hour and stacked their bodies in piles. “Could you do this for one hour of your life, you stack up every way a body could be mangled, up into a body, an arm, a tit, an eyeball . . . Imagine us over there for a year and doing it intensely,” Bradley said. “That is sick.”

“You’ve got to be angry about it,” Rather replied. “I’m suicidal about it,” Bradley responded.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, drug abuse, alcoholism, joblessness, homelessness, suicidal thoughts: These tattered warriors suffered from them all.

The The Wall Within was hailed by critics who — like the Washington Post’s Tom Shales — gushed that the documentary was “extraordinarily powerful.” There was just one problem: Almost none of it was true.

The rest of the article recounts that most of what these men said was complete fabrication and that it took only a minimum of investigation to discover that fact. This goes beyond bias in reporting. It’s clear that the method employed here is to begin with a story you want to tell, produce resources to support that story (the more sympathetic the better), then rely on your status as a “journalist” when the integrity of your sources is questioned.

No Comments

The humiliation of CBS and Dan Rather is being thoroughly covered by more than a few internet pundits and, belatedly, by some major news outlets as well. Their enthusiasm to run with spurious documents they claimed showed President Bush was derelict in his National Guard service shows the desperation that Democrats feel as they watch Kerry’s campaign meltdown and their willingness to stoop to almost anything to try and sandbag the President.

Dan Rather’s determination to perpetuate the myth that “Bush was AWOL” prompts this response.

No Comments

I already had a high estimation of Condoleezza Rice. Now it has skyrocketed. Though my beloved Panthers took a beating last night at the hands of Brett Favre and Ahman Green, we were treated to the sight of Dr. Rice in the owner’s box enjoying the game. She was in town to speak at two local colleges and gave an interview to Scott Fowler of the Charlotte Observer.

Q. How did you get to be such a football fan?

When I was born in Birmingham, my father was a high-school athletic director and an assistant football coach. He was sure he was going to have a boy and that I’d be his All-American linebacker. But I was an only child, and he had to do something. So he taught me all about football. He was a Presbyterian minister as well, and some of my earliest memories are of going to church on Sundays and then watching the NFL games on Sunday afternoons with him.

Q. So you really want to be NFL Commissioner after Paul Tagliabue retires?

I do. NFL Commissioner would be a dream job for me.

Q. Why?

I love football, and I think the NFL is an exceptionally well-run league. It’s also very central to the way we think of ourselves as a country. On any Sunday, in any NFL city, fans have essentially the same experience with a little local flavor. When I was the provost at Stanford, the athletic department reported to me. I liked that. I’ve always enjoyed the management side of sports.

Not for another four years, Condi.

No Comments

Blogs for Bush: The Blogroll For Bush Passes 1,000 Blogs!

Great work by Matt and the rest at Blogs for Bush to bring all these fine folks together.

If you have a blog and want to join the Blogroll for Bush click here.

If you’d like to start your own blog click here.

No Comments

Reuters reports that Iran may be buying time to develop atomic weapons!

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran is using negotiations with the European Union’s “big three” on suspending sensitive nuclear activities to buy the time it needs to get ready to make atomic weapons, an Iranian exile and intelligence officials said.

With intelligence sources saying Iran could be months away from nuclear weapons capability, the United States wants Iran reported to the U.N. Security Council immediately, charging Tehran uses its civilian atomic energy program as a front to develop the bomb. Tehran vehemently denies the charge.

France, Britain and Germany want to avoid isolating Iran and have taken a go-slow approach, negotiating with Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities.

“Iran continues to use existing differences between the U.S. and Europe to their advantage and tries to drag out talks with the EU to buy time,” Alireza Jafarzadeh, an Iranian exile who has reported accurately on Iran’s nuclear program in the past, told Reuters.

“They feel they have bought at least 10 months,” Jafarzadeh said. He said he was citing sources in Iran familiar with the results of a recent high-level meeting on Iran’s nuclear program attended by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Jafarzadeh said officials at the meeting also decided to allocate an additional $2 billion from Iran’s central bank reserves to supplement some $14 billion already spent on what he called Iran’s “secret nuclear weapons program.”

The EU trio has expressed disappointment at Iran’s failure to keep promises it made in October to suspend all activities related to the enrichment of uranium, a process of purifying it for use as fuel for atomic power plants or in weapons. But the three remain committed to a process of engagement with Tehran.

My reaction here.

No Comments

Continuing to act in their self-appointed role as DNC aplogists, major media outlets are highlighting isolated bits of the years of President Bush’s service in the Air National Guard in order to deliberately support the assertion by the Kerry campaign that Bush did not fulfill his service obligation. Exposing their shameful display of selective reporting, Byron York of The Hill tells the rest of the story.

After training, Bush kept flying, racking up hundreds of hours in F-102 jets. As he did, he accumulated points toward his National Guard service requirements. At the time, guardsmen were required to accumulate a minimum of 50 points to meet their yearly obligation.

According to records released earlier this year, Bush earned 253 points in his first year, May 1968 to May 1969 (since he joined in May 1968, his service thereafter was measured on a May-to-May basis).

Bush earned 340 points in 1969-1970. He earned 137 points in 1970-1971. And he earned 112 points in 1971-1972. The numbers indicate that in his first four years, Bush not only showed up, he showed up a lot. Did you know that?

York then accounts for the time period currently focused on by the media, showing that for each year of his service Bush accumulated more than the 50 points required by his service obligation despite the approved absence for a Senate campaign.

Then, at his request, he was given permission to go. Bush received an honorable discharge after serving five years, four months and five days of his original six-year commitment. By that time, however, he had accumulated enough points in each year to cover six years of service.

Never let it be said that the liberals let facts get in the way of a good smear campaign.

(hat tip: Instapundit)

2 Comments

Victor Davis Hanson offers an instructive response to a reader who identifies himself as Arab-American and ponders why Americans who cherish the ideal of freedom would be opposed to the Palestinian desire for statehood.

Here’s the reader’s question:

I am an Arab-American born in the U.S. I cannot understand why anyone would be hostile toward the Palestinian right to freedom when these are the very ideals on which this country was built. I regret the targeting of civilians on both sides, yet many pro-Israeli individuals regret only the targeting of Israeli civilians. What is your opinion on the solution? Do the Palestinians have a right to freedom from the illegal Israeli occupation? Are the Israelis to blame for anything, or is it just the Arabs?

A fair question aside from the misperception that the IDF targets civilians. Read the response.

No Comments

Drudge headlines this morning indicate the impending renewal of big media’s focus on President Bush’s National Guard service during the Vietnam war. AP reports that the Pentagon has found additional documents in response to an AP lawsuit that show a gap in Bush’s Texas service, a missed medical exam resulting in lapsed pilot status, and that he missed what the AP calls “a key readiness drill.”

Interestingly, it is sufficient for the press that the Navy be the final authority on the quality of John Kerry’s Vietnam service, but Bush’s honorable discharge from the Guard doesn’t satisfy them as to whether his service was found acceptable.

Isn’t this degree of scrutiny into Bush’s service thirty-two years ago just as legitimate and relevant as the attention that conservative pundits are paying to John Kerry’s self-touted Vietnam record?

Don’t buy that line for a second.

For starters, let’s look at this paragraph from the AP article:

Bush’s Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard has become an issue in the presidential campaign as the candidates spar over who would make the best commander in chief. Supporters of Democratic nominee John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, have criticized Bush for serving stateside in the National Guard. Kerry’s Republican critics claim Kerry did not deserve some of his five medals.

So, here, our friends in the press help us draw the equivalence between the questions surrounding the military service of both men. Note that, while Bush’s critics are rightly identified as Kerry supporters (to include Kerry himself), the Vietnam veterans who have come forward to challenge Kerry’s account of events are described as “Republican critics.” Some of these men, perhaps even most of them, may be Republicans, but more significant is their proximity to the events John Kerry has used as the centerpiece of his campaign and their own status as decorated veterans.

This highlights a chief difference between these two campaigns. John Kerry believes that the only way he can make himself appear a viable choice for commander-in-chief is to focus attention on a four-month period in Vietnam. He studiously avoids mention of his treasonous activities after the war or his twenty-year record in the Senate. Because of that emphasis by his own campaign he has made himself vulnerable to the contradictory recollection of that Vietnam stint by those with whom he served and whose honor he tarnished by branding them war criminals.

President Bush, in contrast, has run on his record of the past four years just as, in the 2000 election, he ran on his record as Governor of Texas. The Kerry campaign is fond of saying that Bush’s record as President is one of failure, yet Kerry is the one not talking about his record as an elected official.

Is it possible that George Bush sought a position in the National Guard to avoid active duty in Vietnam? Sure. Is it possible that his status as the son of a former congressman and, then, Ambassador to the U.N. allowed him liberties that were not generally afforded Guardsmen? Again, certainly possible. These possibilities, however, cannot reasonably have more bearing on the man’s fitness to be commander-in-chief than the past four years he has spent in that very position.

Kerry has tried as hard as he can to focus our attention on four months in Vietnam that took place thirty-two years ago; on accounts of heroism disputed by others who were there and on service that he denounced as criminal upon his early release. I’m not sure even Clinton’s spinmeisters can save this disaster of a campaign.

The relentless fact that the Kerry campaign so wants to divert the American people from is that George Bush has performed admirably, with consistency and conviction, in the executive branch at both the state and federal level. At this time, when the enemy we face is prone to rely on horrific acts to attempt to cow nations and leaders into doing their bidding, it is vital that we re-elect a president who has demonstrated that he will not be moved from a course he believes is right.

No Comments

The horror of terrorism again shook the world this week, as the Beslan slaughter of innocents revealed another nation under siege by a cold-blooded killers. Russian President Vladimir Putin immediately linked the Beslan attack to ‘the worldwide network of terrorism’ and demanded a more determined response to the threat: ‘We showed weakness, and the weak are beaten.’

How must the free world now exhibit strength? Though news reports generally fail to convey just how, political and intelligence leaders acknowledge that a key requirement is uprooting that worldwide terror network ― which uses the nation of Syria as a central hub of activity.

Syria, since 1979 a perpetual member of the U.S. State Department’s list of nations sponsoring terrorism, continues ‘to provide political and material support’ to Hamas and ‘to permit Iran to use Damascus as a trans-shipment point for resupplying Hizballah in Lebanon.’

Earlier this year, a leading Syrian dissident and the former head of the coalition’s hunt for Iraq’s WMDs claimed that part of Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons were hidden in Syria. Additionally, a number of Iraqi officials ― including members of Saddam’s family ― were granted refuge in Damascus after the collapse of the Iraqi dictator’s regime, and many of the foreign fighters responsible for attacks against coalition troops are believed to have entered Iraq through Syria.

Read the rest.

No Comments

Russ at Blogs for Bush links to the developments that favor Bush in November, but warns that there’s plenty of time left for things to swing the other way.

If you know someone who’s on the fence, challenge them on these key questions:

• Do you want a president who waits until we’ve been struck again before acting… and then only with U.N. approval? Or do you prefer one who is working to identify threats and deal with them through diplomacy, projection of force and, when necessary, preemptive action?
• Do you want judges with lifetime appointments making law
  from the bench or do you agree with the Constitution that lawmaking is the province of elected representatives of the people?
• Do you believe that the government exists to be a nanny for the people or do you think the people are best served by a government that allows individuals the freedom to work for the things they need and to enjoy the fruits of their labor?

Obviously I think the answers of most undecided people to these questions will favor Bush. If they take the first position on any of them they likely are firmly entrenched on the liberal left.

If someone has bought into the “Bush lied” canard, it may be instructive to show them this. The point is not, as some might think, to say that Kerry was just as wrong or that he also lied. The point is, if Bush lied, then why does Kerry say that he would still have authorized force knowing what he knows today?

No Comments