Res Publica 2005

If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?

David Brooks - NYTimes

I read the following statement from an article from the Buffalo News, and it struck me as a great example of how some talk is designed to keep a person indoctrinated.

But social conservatism is another thing entirely, a mutant strain unhindered by critical thought.

This statement tells us an awful lot about the speaker.

1) He is an elitest.

In other words, he believes, or has been trained to speak out that people who don't agree with his viewpoint are mental, social or educational inferiors.

There are a few things wrong with this assumption. As a former Instructor of English, I would mark it as a sweeping generalization. It condemns everybody in an large group as being one thing or another. This is the moral equivalent of saying, "All Indians are drunkards." It is no more true, and shows a large amount of prejudice on the part of the speaker.

2) He considers social conservativism to be a "mutant strain." Actually, any one who studies the history of the world will find out quickly that social conservativism is probably the human norm. The majority of the people in any area tend to cling to the norms of their group, moving forward on an idea as a whole, slowly, in part because human experience has shown that jumping on the new and innovative often disrupt the fabric of society, and a lot of the time the innovation doesn't really work. Just look at the history of most utopian movements. The Pol Pot regime is a great example of what can happen at the extreme.

3) By calling conservatives "mutants," he is practicing the old tried and true technique of demonizing one's enemy. If he makes the enemy seem less than human, it becomes easier and more comfortable to hate them hurt them or manipulate them. The world is full of this attitude, usually bolstered with folkloric stories like the stories in medieval Europe about Jews poisoning the wells, or the stories about witches eating babies.

But the most dangerous problem with demonization is that it allows you to not know who you are in disagreement with. It masks the people who you need to deal with. Many people who have parroted the Democratic rhetoric seem to think that we are about ready to junk the constitution, declare a theocracy, and eat babies for lunch.

Look around you - do you see secret police beginning to lock people into concentration camps? Hardly.

Bush is not Hitler. Bush is a kind man who tries to do the right thing by the set of values he has, just like most of us do. But if all you repeat to yourself that he is a virus, a chimp, Hitler, a demon, how are you going to be able to judge what is happening?

Critical thought is why many of us have become social conservatives. For me it was deep studying history, and seeing what really worked in societies and what didn't. It was based on much reading of serious works, studying the effects of people like Locke and Bentham, Mills, Burke, Marx and earlier writers as well.

What is it that counts? For many of us it is right living in a way that supports family, community, and the ability for the majority of people to lead a decent life. Many of us "Values Voters" see that as being pro-American, pro-Business, and tolerant of the religious as well as the secular.

Think about it. Look and see. What are you reacting to? Is it a monster of your own creation? Or have you used your own critical thinking skills to look above the "monster" of the political hype and made a clear analysis of it?

From the Toronto Sun:

Middle America experienced an epiphany. We are not bigots or yokels just because we believe in the family and in traditional virtues and values. We are not hateful merely because we support our troops and cry when we hear the national anthem.

Working-class Americans began to ask some questions. They wondered why wealthy, white entertainers, artists and, I'm sure, freelance manufacturers of organic yogurt, were announcing that they would leave the United States if George Bush won the election.

Imagine that. If democracy didn't provide the result they wanted, these selfish rich kids would run away to Canada or Britain.

Is that patriotism? Middle America didn't remember Republicans threatening to leave when Bill Clinton won a second term.

Middle America grew tired of the insults. We're not voting out of fear, they said, we don't accept every word we hear from the government and we're not so easily manipulated. Stop telling us that we don't understand what's going on.

We've raised kids and paid mortgages and we resent listening to lectures, especially when delivered by an actress with a vacant smile and a copy of Socialism For Beginners.

Tired of the critics

Middle America shouted its impatience. It wasn't that it so liked George Bush, more that it was so tired of Bush's critics.

Middle America remembered a time when actors, singers and writers reflected the nation. These performers no longer aspired to reflect but to reshape it in their own narcissistic image.

John Kerry was too close to that clan, too much part of the culture of smug assumption.

It wasn't George Bush who was the victor last week, but men and women who stood up and announced to the self-defined elites that "the people" is not a concept but a flesh-and-blood reality. And one that bites back.

Important thing to realize: Democracy doesn't mean if you lose, you run away. Democracy doesn't mean you begin to campaign for revolution, or try to figure out ways to take the vote away from the people (both solutions I have seen posted by democratic activists in the last two days). Democracy is the art of choosing leaders based on being able to persuade others that your approach is more correct and better.

Note to the wise: If you really want to persuade people, don't tell them you know better. Be careful of your own propaganda - this time around, so much of what people were saying seemed to be based on items repeated over and over without any fact checking that a lot of people just stopped listening. Look and see what motivates them really. Any English teacher can tell you that one.

The reelection of President George W. Bush and the increase of 4 Republican seats in the Senate offer Republicans an opportunity to have judicial nominees approved by the full Senate.

Self-proclaimed moderate Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) is in line to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specter helped kill President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court and that of Jeff Sessions to a federal judgeship.

On November 3, Sen. Specter issued the following blunt warning to the president concerning judicial nominees.

"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely. The president is well aware of what happened, when a bunch of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster. [A]nd I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning."

This statement by Sen. Specter indicates he would apply a pro-choice litmus test to the president's nominees and would likely not pass them out of committee if they did not meet that litmus test.

Republicans cannot lose this fight to a moderate Republican. Tell the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that we demand strong leadership.

If you would like to help, go here:

For more information go to Not Specter.com

To find your senators, go here: www.senate.gov

Bishop Rene Henry Gracida, emeritus of Corpus Christi, Texas has some comments about Mr. Specter that might help you to decide if this is a pro-life cause you want to be involved with

By Suzanne Fields, Tallahassee.com

Many pundits define the culture wars as a war between religious people vs. secularists. This misses the point. The culture wars are about the values of common sense that underwrite traditions that have undergirded Judeo-Christian moral codes for centuries. The culture wars are about how we raise our children, what the schools teach them, how we teach them what's right and what's wrong.

The marriage amendments, after all, merely attempt to protect the tried and true status quo. The culture wars are about how the political culture reinforces, or contradicts, the popular culture. The voters understood that this week and the elites didn't.

Pundits are puzzled that the president could win such a ringing vote against all their advice. The voters were not puzzled at all. Voters told the exit pollsters that the president says what he believes and believes what he says, and John Kerry says what he thinks the voters in front of him want to hear. They determined that this is no time to choose a commander in chief who can't make up his mind about the war in Iraq, nor the time (if there ever is such a time) to ask an American soldier to die for "a mistake."

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Though he says his remarks were taken out of context in news reports, comments by Arlen Specter that make it appear he doesn't want President Bush to nominate pro-life judges to the Supreme Court have drawn considerable concern from pro-life groups.

At a news conference Tuesday, Specter was asked what he would do as the likely next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee if Bush sent pro-life judicial nominations to the Senate for confirmation.

"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v Wade, I think that is unlikely," Specter said.

"Senator Specter needs to realize that the victories the Republican Party had on election night were due to the Value Voters. A clear mandate has been sent to Washington -- appoint strict constructionists who will interpret law, not make it," said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

Like representatives of other pro-life groups, Perkins says Specter should not be allowed to become the next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Concerned Women for America 's Jan LaRue says Specter "disqualified" himself from serving as chairman of the committee.

"Sen. Specter has repeatedly made it clear that he will block appointments of federal judges who do not pass his pro-abortion litmus test," said LaRue. "Specter has signaled in advance that he does not intend to conduct the Judiciary Committee in a fair and impartial manner. Therefore, he has disqualified himself from consideration for that position."

LaRue's group wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee asking them to prevent Specter from obtaining the chairmanship.

Normally, senators ascend to a chairmanship of a committee by virtue of their seniority. However, the 55 member Republican caucus could vote to strip him of the title and appoint someone else to lead the committee.

Such moves are rarely executed and often fail because most senators do not favor toppling the seniority system.

However, pro-life organizations are meeting with pro-life lawmakers on Capitol Hill in advance of the Senate leadership votes to determine what, if anything, should be done about Specter in light of his comments.

PARTIAL LIST OF ISLAMIC TERRORIST ACTIVITIES

1968 Robert Kennedy assassinated
1972 Munich Olympics Sep-5,1972 (Black September)
1976 Entebbe Hostage Crisis, June 27, 1976
1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, Nov. 4, 1979 444 days
1979 Grand Mosque Seizure, Nov 20,1979
1981 Assassination of Egyptian President, Oct 6,1981
1982 Assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister, Sept 14, 1982
1983 Bombing of US Embassy in Beirut6, April 18,1983
1983 Bombing of Maring Barricks, Beruit, Oct 23,1983
1984 Hizballah Restaurant Bombing, April 12,1984
1985 Egyptian Airliner Hijacking, Nov 23,1985
1985 Rome Airport murders
1985 TWA Flight 847 hijacked, U.S. Navy diver murdered
1985 Achille Lauro hijacking, Homacidal maniac lived in saddams Iraq
1986 Aircraft Bombing in Greece, March 30, 1986
1988 Pan Am 747 Flight 103 Bombing, Lockerbie, 100's murdered
1988 Berlin Discoteque Bombing, Dec 21,1988
1992 Bombing in Israeli Embassy in Argentina, March 17,1992
1993 Attempted Assassination of Pres. Bush Sr., April 14,1993
1993 First World Trade Center bombing, February 26th, 7 Killed, Hundreds injured, Billions
1994 Air France Hijacking, Dec 24,1994
1995 Attack on US Diplomats in Pakistan, Mar 8,1995
1995 Military Installation Attack, Nov 13, 1995
1995 Kashmiri Hostage taking, July 4,1995
1996 Khobar Towers attack
1996 Sudanese Missionarys Kidnapping, Aug 17,1996
1996 Paris Subway Explosion, Dec 3,1996
1997 Israeli Shopping Mall Bombing, Sept 4, 1997
1997 Yemeni Kidnappings, Oct 30,1997
1998 Somali Hostage taking crisis, April 15,1998
1998 U.S. Embassy Bombing in Peru, Jan 15, 1998
1998 U.S. Kenya Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1998 U.S. Tanzania Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1999 Plot to blow up Space Needle (thwarted)
2000 USS Cole attacked, many U.S. Navy sailors murdered
2000-2003 Intifada against Israel - 100's dead and injured
2000 Manila Bombing, Dec 30,2000
2001 4 Commercial airliners hijacked, 250+ murdered
2001 World Trade Center attacked, 2800+ murdered
2001 Flight 93 murders
2001 Pentagon attacked, 180+ murdered
2002 Reporter Daniel Pearl, kidnapped and murdered
2002 Philippines American missionary, Filipino nurse killed
2002 July 4, El Al attack Los Angeles LAX, several murdered
2002 Bali bombing - 200 dead, 300 injured
2002 Yemen, French Oil Tanker attacked
2002 Marines attacked / murdered in Kuwait
2002 Washington D.C. sniper
2002 Russian Theater attacked, 100+ dead
2002 Nigerian riots against Miss World Pageant, 200 dead, dozens injured
2002 Mombasa Hotel Attacked, 12 dead, dozens injured
2002 Israeli Boeing 757 attacked by missiles, fortunately no one injured
2002 August Hotel bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia. 12 dead, dozens injured.
2003 Rusian concert bombing
2003 Phillipines airport and market bombing
2003 Foiled SAM plot in the USA
2003 UN Baghdad HQ Bombing



It's not that all Moslems are terrorists. I know this is not true. I have worked as an ESL tutor and have had many Moslem friends. One was a young man who managed to sneak out of Kabul and run for the Pakistani border when the Russians came in. A harrowing tale. I was taught the joys of stuffed grape leaves and baklava by a lovely lady from Cairo. I have worked with young people from Tunisa who played lovely folk music and who taught Louisiana children how to speak French, which has mostly died out in Louisiana. I have worked with and taught people from Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian areas, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia, Egypt, Nigeria and other Moslem nations. I do not talk from just abstract. I have known and cared and liked a lot of people from this part of the world. Some of them were so incredible gracious and good in their everyday dealings with people, that I was amazed at the violence of the politics back in their native lands.

Unfortunately, though, that most big acts of terrorism in recent memory have been committed by Moslems. It is impossible not to know this as a fact, to pass it off as a fluke. Each action that makes international news incriminates all followers of Islam in the eyes of many people. With each new event, the linkage becomes deeper and deeper etched in people's minds. Every now and then, my son says something that says he has been infected with this. I try to correct him, but how much of it sinks in? Unfortunate, but true.

Some followers of the Prophet have chosen to become the new Crusaders, the bogey-man, the people who harm the innocent. Each blow is seen a strike for God against the infidel instead of an action that just makes things worse. And the Fatwas that allow and excuse it keep coming. It is a sad thing to watch. There are no easy answers. Ignoring them will be impossible, because they don't want their causes ignored, and the nature of these types of actions is reprehensible. Pretending they are a nuisance will not change things. What we can do only, I suspect, is open the doors where good comes, protect our backs where necessary (which is what the war on terrorism is about), and try to not drown the reality in rhetoric. And pray. And with patience, perhaps, progress will be made.

Interesting statistic:

Bush was favored by 61 percent of people from all faiths who attend services weekly; they made up 41 percent of the electorate. Democrat John Kerry drew 62 percent of Americans who never attend worship, but they only accounted for 14 percent of voters.

(source AP via Free Republic)


41 percent of the electorate is made up of religiously active people in the way we normally designate that - people who attend services weekly. That is a lot of people. This is one reason why the attempt to totally secularize everyday life causes so many waves. It's not that people want a national church. What they want is to acknowledge that the sacred has meaning in every day life. And the bad talk about Christianity that has become fashionable in some circles, the desire to eliminate things to make the world safe for non-Christians will always cause bad feelings. Last year, the story about one city allowing of Moslem and Jewish symbols during the holidays (because they were considered ethnic symbols) but not Christian just fed that bad feeling. You may not be Christian, or like to see religious imagery or talk in the public arena, but it is part of the reality of living in America. This big a sector of the population just can't be swept away, or worse, perhaps, pushed too far into a corner without real repercussions. You can't ask believers to act like they were atheists in public without expecting stress. And perhaps, the strength of response on the issue of anti- gay marriage amendments is a result of some of that. Think about it.

America's faith in freedom has been reaffirmed. With the re-election of President Bush, America recommitted itself once again to expanding freedom and promoting liberty. Only the 1864 re-election of Abraham Lincoln, the 1944 re-election of Franklin Roosevelt and the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan rival this victory as milestones in the preservation of our security by the advancement of freedom.

This election validated not just freedom, but also the faith our Founding Fathers placed in average folks to navigate the course of this great nation. By weighing the greatest issues at the gravest times and choosing our path, ordinary people have again accomplished extraordinary things. With courage and caution, rather than fear and timidity, the voters chose a path to ensure others would enjoy the same freedom to set their own path.

This election outcome should have been implausible, if not impossible. With a litany of complaints — bad economy, bad deficit, bad foreign war, bad gas prices — amplified by a national media that discarded any pretense of neutrality, a national opposition party should have won this election.

But the Democratic Party is no longer a national party. As difficult as the challenges are — both real and fabricated — Democrats offered no solution that was either believable or acceptable to vast regions of America.

Listen and learn. Learn that all we choose comes through our values first. It is like Bushido, the honor code of Japan. But this is America's honor code. We start with belief. We start with there are values worth guiding our life by. It may be a vision of God, it may be a vision of what America means, but it is the guiding light of our life. From this concept streams everything else - how to live, what we find acceptable, what we are willing to put up with.

Economics is not first. Pleasure is not first. What we believe in is first. It's not a "values thing." It is the center of our life. When you trash that center, and tell us we are below you because of it, don't be surprised when we don't buy what you say.

The Weekly Standard reports that :

Minutes after President Bush thanked the country for electing him to a second term, Mark Halperin, author of the ABC memo, called the president a "lame duck."

We will see how lame this duck is. And how wounded the MSM is after their pretense at being objective has crumbled badly. It will be interesting to see how the world has changed, and how how hard it is to put the genie back in the bottle.

But I would suggest that the advertisers look at the election results map. Where are your customers, guys? And you wonder why the MSM is continually losing marketshare?

In the aftermath of the election, it becomes more clear about how widespread the reality is:


One of the things people need to realize is this:

America is as much an idea of what life should be like as much as a place.

For much of America, the idea is:

• Based on Family
• Based on the Judeo-Christian culture
• Based on Hetero-sexual values and behaviors
• Based on the concept of natural law - that there are real rights and wrongs

Most importantly, probably, is that values are seen as something worth dying for, and so worth designing a life around, even if we fall short of it a lot of time.


The American Bushido, way of the American citizen-warrior, perhaps. It was forged in the blood of settlement, and no matter what you think of us, this is what most of us are. New York and San Francisco don't represent most of us, nor does Los Vegas or even Chicago. Most of America believes in God, Mom and Apple Pie. If you have trouble understanding this, calling us stupid and telling us we need to be led by the people we see as having no center, no bottom, no core values except "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die," won't work. Stop calling us things like "flyover country." Study us with an open mind like one of those exotic Eastern cultures that so enthrall the new age movement, and you will learn why most of America is Red and not blue. And in the process you might learn why this has worked so long. After all, we are the longest surviving democratic republic on earth. We have never had a second revolution, we have only had one civil war, and we have time and again worked hard to be the good guys, even if we have gotten off track now and again.

Learn, and you will understand why America wants to be the city on the hill, and not just Europe West. And maybe this will all make sense to you. And if not, well God bless you, and see you at the polls!

Poliblog notices that Kerry would need 90% of the provisional ballots to break his way to win (and that assumes that they are all valid). (He covers this part of the story very well, and has several entries on it.

According to the Corner, CNN just reported that of the first 20,000 provisional Ohio ballots counted that 2/3rd went to the President. Don’t know where they got that information.

A CBS connection with the exit polls? There are two companies that did it, but one of them is
Mitofsky International.

From 1967 to 1990, Mitofsky was executive director of the CBS News election and survey unit, and was an executive producer of its election night broadcasts. He conducted the first exit polls for CBS in 1967, and developed the projection and analysis system used successfully by CBS and Voter News Service. He started the CBS News/New York Times Poll in 1975 and directed it for CBS for its first 15 years.

Wonder if that had anything to do with the weighted (and they were weighted towards groups that were heavily in favor of Kerry if you look at their breakdown) exit polls designed to make Kerry look like he was taking it all?

by Brendan Miniter, Opinion Journal

In a tight electoral race it's possible to imagine that there really isn't much of a difference between the two candidates. One may be liberal and the other conservative, but it's easy to assume that because each man speaks to a sizable portion of the electorate, either is just as likely to deliver peace and prosperity. It's easy to imagine that after all the hot air is expended in Washington, life for average Americans outside the Beltway isn't really going to change that much.

It would be a mistake to draw such a conclusion this year. Tomorrow's election is the most consequential since Ronald Reagan sought re-election in 1984 and perhaps on par with the Gipper's run in 1980. The reason for this is simple: Sept. 11. On that day this nation suffered the most devastating attack on its soil since World War II and was jarred into the hard reality of confronting the threat of our time. This confrontation has been long in coming, and now the electorate will weigh in on it.

It's tempting to think that al Qaeda is a localized problem and, although a concern, not something that can seriously undermine our way of life. After all, if Israel can survive in the face of daily terrorist attacks, why can't this nation as well? That, apparently, is what the Spanish electorate decided earlier this year. And it is one of the arguments of Michael Moore's propaganda film "Fahrenheit 9/11." But the truth is that America does not have such a "luxury." America stands as a symbol to the world that a society based on liberty is indeed possible and, yes, preferable. Because of that, the threat we face goes far beyond the few attacks a collection of thugs could pull off. This is a battle over the future of liberty at home and abroad.

This is something Osama bin Laden fully understands. In a video released Friday afternoon, bin Laden said that Americans would be free from terrorists attacks only once "our security" is assured. But America's very existence is a threat to his own security and the security of all those who perpetuate a culture of hate, oppression and death.

The reason for this isn't that America is culturally imperialistic. Far from it. The power of "cultural relativism" in the West has been steering our foreign policy for decades. The U.S. gives billions to Egypt each year with little more than a single caveat--that it not launch a military attack on Israel. In Saudi Arabia American GIs spent a decade guarding the kingdom against Saddam Hussein, while limiting their own church services--among other things--on U.S. military bases so as not to offend Saudi sensibilities. Bin Laden recognizes America as a threat not for what it does on the world's stage, but for what it stands for. And he knows America must be destroyed as a symbol if he is to succeed with his vision for the Muslim world.

The issue here goes far beyond foreign policy. This struggle will have a fundamental impact here at home as well. Confronting Islamic terrorism is forcing this nation to decide which tenets of its own society it is willing to fight to preserve. From the depths of his filthy cave, Osama bin Laden has forced America to confront its own slide toward indifference and ignorance of the daily functioning of a free society. That slide began decades ago and was a driving force behind the anti-Vietnam War movement. Although President Reagan restored America's pride in its role as a symbol of liberty, the slide has continued to be evident in our schools and public debates. So on the day terrorists toppled two towers in New York, Americans stood in danger of forgetting why it is that their nation towers over the world.

It is here that John Kerry has made his most significant contribution to American culture. It has been his persistent belief for more than 30 years that American military power is not a force for good. Rather he believes that by fighting for the freedom of the South Vietnamese people and for liberty in Iraq today, America has surrendered its moral authority. That's what he argued upon returning from Vietnam, and it is the message of his campaign today when calls Iraq the "wrong war at the wrong time" and chides America for having gone it "alone."

At bottom, Mr. Kerry's objection to the war in Iraq and the anti-Bush animus he has tapped into have nothing to do with protecting our troops, conserving resources to go after terrorists elsewhere, or even making nice with Germany and France. The objection is over whether there are fundamental moral values worth fighting for in the world. In his 1971 Senate testimony Mr. Kerry said that such values are not universal: "We found most people [in Vietnam] didn't know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them." And he articulated a remarkably consistent view this year when he indicated democracy was optional in Iraq and perhaps imposing a strongman there was preferable.

This has not been George W. Bush's position. First in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, he has fought two wars of liberation. To fight these wars Mr. Bush first had to believe in the greatness of this nation; before he could export it to places that have known little more than tyranny, he had to believe the fundamental American value of liberty for all was also a universal value. With that belief comes the understanding that liberty abroad can serve as a bulwark against terrorism. But in fighting these wars, the president had to know that America would also look anew at the principles of liberty at home. From a terrorist's right to free speech and free association, to pressing the international community to confront terrorism and to the values we wish to impart to the next generation to ensure they remain resolute in defending this nation, this war is forcing a great re-examination in America.

Mr. Kerry gets blamed for inserting the Vietnam War into this campaign, but the conclusion drawn during that conflict that using American forces abroad is almost never morally justifiable has needed to be reconsidered for more than a generation. Faced with the threat of international terrorism and a president willing to use both military force and American values to confront it, that reconsideration is now well under way. Mr. Kerry loves this country, but what's at stake in this election is whether we will continue to confront terrorism with liberty or conclude that freedom isn't universal after all.

LOS LUNAS, N.M. - Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said Sunday that Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites)'s first response to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s new videotape was to take a poll to find out what he should say about it.

A spokesman for Kerry's campaign did not deny polling on the bin Laden videotape, but suggested President Bush (news - web sites) has done so. Bush's campaign strategist denied asking any poll questions about the al-Qaida terrorist.

"The thing that I find amazing about it is that John Kerry's first response was to go conduct a poll," Cheney told supporters in Fort Dodge, Iowa. "He went into the field ... to find out what he should say about this tape of Osama bin Laden."

"It's as though he doesn't know what he believes until he has to go and check the polls, his finger in the air, to see which way the wind is blowing and then he'll make a decision," said the vice president, who offered no evidence to back up his claim. "George Bush (news - web sites) doesn't need a poll to know what he believes, especially about Osama bin Laden."

"I don't think that's a man who is up to the task of being commander in chief," Cheney said of Kerry.

NY Daily News: Right war, right time, right man

The United States is at war — long-term, make no mistake. Muslim fanatics are bent on destroying the rest of humankind. One September morning three years ago, they felled the World Trade Center, struck at the Pentagon and might have smashed the Capitol or the White House had they not been stopped by the heroism of the doomed passengers on a hijacked jetliner. In rage and sorrow, New Yorkers do not forget that terrible day.

And we live now in the shadows of menace.

The next President of the United States has no higher duty than to prevent more such catastrophic blows, here or anywhere on these shores, by waging a sustained worldwide assault against the bringers of destruction. As New York's Hometown Newspaper and eyewitness to the devastation that can suddenly rain down, the Daily News prays that the coming commander-in-chief will be up to the task of fighting this great war.

The choice on Tuesday is, of course, between Republican George Walker Bush and Democrat John Forbes Kerry. The News is dismayed by Bush's domestic record. His presidency simply has not been about serving the interests of middle-class and working-class families, whose fortunes have declined. Most tellingly, Bush weighted the centerpiece of his program — deep tax cuts — to the wealthy, providing a costly bonanza to those on top without generating an economic lift for everyone else. A sorry result was the biggest drop from budgetary surplus to deficit in U.S. history — just a few years before millions of baby boomers will retire and thus threaten the solvency of Social Security and Medicare.

Kerry's domestic agenda is preferable. He would repeal Bush's tax reductions on incomes of $200,000 and up, promises to find money for new programs without increasing the deficit and has advanced thoughtful proposals for addressing intractable problems such as the growing number of Americans without health insurance. His plan generally tracks the philosophies of Democratic predecessors Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

The News endorsed Clinton and Gore in the three races beginning with 1992, each time judging their domestic agendas in the best interests of the American people. But it is no longer Sept. 10th. The world has changed. And nowhere has it been more tragically altered than in New York. And nowhere are the stakes higher.

As the preeminent symbol of America, this city remains Ground Zero, primary target of Islamic radicals. How best to win the war against terror so the country and its leading city emerge from jeopardy is the overriding concern in the election. The News believes Bush offers the stronger hope in this urgent regard.

Tested severely by 9/11, Bush recognized it was not enough — it had never been enough — to treat Islamic terrorism as a criminal-justice matter, or just to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen. The President had two crucial insights: First, that rogue states were a grave threat in that they could provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists as a force multiplier. And, second, that the Mideast's backward, repressed societies were generating virulent, homicidal hatred of the U.S.

And so Bush led the country to invade Saddam Hussein's Iraq, enraging some allies and alienating half the American people. We supported the President and we continue to believe he made the right decision. At the time, the world was convinced that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. No one knew for sure, but, having exhausted diplomacy, Bush refused to run the risk that a criminal head of state might turn an arsenal on the U.S. through the likes of Al Qaeda.

Only later was it learned that Saddam had disarmed, provoking roaring Democratic attacks and told-you-so clucking in Europe. Now, though, CIA weapons inspector Charles Duelfer has confirmed that Bush was right not to chance Saddam's intentions. Duelfer's report concluded that while Saddam had no weapons stockpiles, he was itching to restart Iraq's armaments programs, including nuclear, as soon as he bribed his way around UN sanctions. His first production capacity would have been soon in coming — mustard agents within months and nerve agents in a year or two.

Bush's move into Iraq exemplifies a commitment to stay on the offensive against terror, and to do so militarily where necessary and feasible, as was the case in Iraq. The message has been clearly heard in capitals around the world. That's why strongman Moammar Khadafy relinquished Libya's WMD program, and it's why a nuclear black market operating out of Pakistan has been shut down.

Iraq's mounting casualties have obscured the rightness of the U.S. cause, and Bush bears responsibility for allowing chaos to take hold. Among other things, the Pentagon underestimated the troop strength needed to stabilize Iraq and pulled a crucial punch in last spring's battle at Fallujah.

That said, it must be prominently noted that the dirty, unpredictable business of war is nonetheless moving the Iraqi people toward elections that were inconceivable under Saddam's tyranny. He is gone, and Iraqis will be able to vote, just as Afghans were able to vote this year because Bush reclaimed their medievally repressed country from the Taliban.

Kerry has promised to be tough on terror. His words are resolute — he will hunt down and kill terrorists — but they betray a skittishness about the exercise of American military power, conjuring up endless diplomacy before action while reducing the fight against Al Qaeda and cohorts to cell-by-cell skirmishing.

Forged in Vietnam, where he was both valorous and appalled by U.S. policy, Kerry has long been uncomfortable with the use of American might. Witness his senatorial votes against defense and intelligence spending proposals. And witness his vote in 1991 against giving the first President Bush authority to drive Saddam out of Kuwait, a step that was compellingly necessary to prevent Saddam from becoming a dominant force over the Mideast and its oil.

There's no doubt that Kerry has become more realistic since then, but his votes for and against the war and his shifting campaign rhetoric raise grave doubts about what, exactly, a President Kerry would do in Iraq. He emphasizes persuading countries like France and Germany to join the war effort, but they have said no and never. He promises to prosecute the war better than Bush, but he has not gone beyond pointing out every setback in the conflict.

Most seriously, Candidate Kerry's clearest position on the war undercuts the cause a President Kerry would be obligated to fight. As Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland put it: "Kerry's repeated denunciations of Iraq as the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time weaken the moral and perhaps even the legal base for ordering Americans to continue to fight there if he becomes President." World leaders — those Kerry intends to rally and those already committed — could not responsibly risk their citizens in a misbegotten fight.

At this critical juncture, America cannot afford such a lack of clarity — or even a hint that a President would revert to playing defense rather than staying on the offensive. Nor would it be wise to change commanders midbattle in Iraq and around the globe, replacing a tested leader with a man who would have to learn on the job under the most difficult circumstances. With so much at stake, that's a transition not to be wished for.

Returning Bush to office is the wise course, The News believes, despite our sharp disagreement with his domestic policies. Those pale in comparison with the overarching challenge of securing the nation and preserving New York's vital way of life. Of the two candidates, Bush has the clearer vision for accomplishing the goal, as well as the greater experience. He gets our endorsement.

Hattip to The Galvin Opinion

NY Daily News: Right war, right time, right man

The United States is at war — long-term, make no mistake. Muslim fanatics are bent on destroying the rest of humankind. One September morning three years ago, they felled the World Trade Center, struck at the Pentagon and might have smashed the Capitol or the White House had they not been stopped by the heroism of the doomed passengers on a hijacked jetliner. In rage and sorrow, New Yorkers do not forget that terrible day.

And we live now in the shadows of menace.

The next President of the United States has no higher duty than to prevent more such catastrophic blows, here or anywhere on these shores, by waging a sustained worldwide assault against the bringers of destruction. As New York's Hometown Newspaper and eyewitness to the devastation that can suddenly rain down, the Daily News prays that the coming commander-in-chief will be up to the task of fighting this great war.

The choice on Tuesday is, of course, between Republican George Walker Bush and Democrat John Forbes Kerry. The News is dismayed by Bush's domestic record. His presidency simply has not been about serving the interests of middle-class and working-class families, whose fortunes have declined. Most tellingly, Bush weighted the centerpiece of his program — deep tax cuts — to the wealthy, providing a costly bonanza to those on top without generating an economic lift for everyone else. A sorry result was the biggest drop from budgetary surplus to deficit in U.S. history — just a few years before millions of baby boomers will retire and thus threaten the solvency of Social Security and Medicare.

Kerry's domestic agenda is preferable. He would repeal Bush's tax reductions on incomes of $200,000 and up, promises to find money for new programs without increasing the deficit and has advanced thoughtful proposals for addressing intractable problems such as the growing number of Americans without health insurance. His plan generally tracks the philosophies of Democratic predecessors Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

The News endorsed Clinton and Gore in the three races beginning with 1992, each time judging their domestic agendas in the best interests of the American people. But it is no longer Sept. 10th. The world has changed. And nowhere has it been more tragically altered than in New York. And nowhere are the stakes higher.

As the preeminent symbol of America, this city remains Ground Zero, primary target of Islamic radicals. How best to win the war against terror so the country and its leading city emerge from jeopardy is the overriding concern in the election. The News believes Bush offers the stronger hope in this urgent regard.

Tested severely by 9/11, Bush recognized it was not enough — it had never been enough — to treat Islamic terrorism as a criminal-justice matter, or just to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen. The President had two crucial insights: First, that rogue states were a grave threat in that they could provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists as a force multiplier. And, second, that the Mideast's backward, repressed societies were generating virulent, homicidal hatred of the U.S.

And so Bush led the country to invade Saddam Hussein's Iraq, enraging some allies and alienating half the American people. We supported the President and we continue to believe he made the right decision. At the time, the world was convinced that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. No one knew for sure, but, having exhausted diplomacy, Bush refused to run the risk that a criminal head of state might turn an arsenal on the U.S. through the likes of Al Qaeda.

Only later was it learned that Saddam had disarmed, provoking roaring Democratic attacks and told-you-so clucking in Europe. Now, though, CIA weapons inspector Charles Duelfer has confirmed that Bush was right not to chance Saddam's intentions. Duelfer's report concluded that while Saddam had no weapons stockpiles, he was itching to restart Iraq's armaments programs, including nuclear, as soon as he bribed his way around UN sanctions. His first production capacity would have been soon in coming — mustard agents within months and nerve agents in a year or two.

Bush's move into Iraq exemplifies a commitment to stay on the offensive against terror, and to do so militarily where necessary and feasible, as was the case in Iraq. The message has been clearly heard in capitals around the world. That's why strongman Moammar Khadafy relinquished Libya's WMD program, and it's why a nuclear black market operating out of Pakistan has been shut down.

Iraq's mounting casualties have obscured the rightness of the U.S. cause, and Bush bears responsibility for allowing chaos to take hold. Among other things, the Pentagon underestimated the troop strength needed to stabilize Iraq and pulled a crucial punch in last spring's battle at Fallujah.

That said, it must be prominently noted that the dirty, unpredictable business of war is nonetheless moving the Iraqi people toward elections that were inconceivable under Saddam's tyranny. He is gone, and Iraqis will be able to vote, just as Afghans were able to vote this year because Bush reclaimed their medievally repressed country from the Taliban.

Kerry has promised to be tough on terror. His words are resolute — he will hunt down and kill terrorists — but they betray a skittishness about the exercise of American military power, conjuring up endless diplomacy before action while reducing the fight against Al Qaeda and cohorts to cell-by-cell skirmishing.

Forged in Vietnam, where he was both valorous and appalled by U.S. policy, Kerry has long been uncomfortable with the use of American might. Witness his senatorial votes against defense and intelligence spending proposals. And witness his vote in 1991 against giving the first President Bush authority to drive Saddam out of Kuwait, a step that was compellingly necessary to prevent Saddam from becoming a dominant force over the Mideast and its oil.

There's no doubt that Kerry has become more realistic since then, but his votes for and against the war and his shifting campaign rhetoric raise grave doubts about what, exactly, a President Kerry would do in Iraq. He emphasizes persuading countries like France and Germany to join the war effort, but they have said no and never. He promises to prosecute the war better than Bush, but he has not gone beyond pointing out every setback in the conflict.

Most seriously, Candidate Kerry's clearest position on the war undercuts the cause a President Kerry would be obligated to fight. As Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland put it: "Kerry's repeated denunciations of Iraq as the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time weaken the moral and perhaps even the legal base for ordering Americans to continue to fight there if he becomes President." World leaders — those Kerry intends to rally and those already committed — could not responsibly risk their citizens in a misbegotten fight.

At this critical juncture, America cannot afford such a lack of clarity — or even a hint that a President would revert to playing defense rather than staying on the offensive. Nor would it be wise to change commanders midbattle in Iraq and around the globe, replacing a tested leader with a man who would have to learn on the job under the most difficult circumstances. With so much at stake, that's a transition not to be wished for.

Returning Bush to office is the wise course, The News believes, despite our sharp disagreement with his domestic policies. Those pale in comparison with the overarching challenge of securing the nation and preserving New York's vital way of life. Of the two candidates, Bush has the clearer vision for accomplishing the goal, as well as the greater experience. He gets our endorsement.

Hattip to The Galvin Opinion

For some time, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been seething over the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq – despite the fact that Saddam Hussein flouted U.N. resolutions for over a decade.

On Monday, ElBaradei, who heads the U.N.'s nuclear weapons control agency, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), will be given the forum of the U.N.'s General Assembly to present his annual report.

No doubt he will reinforce claims that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction program.

Already, ElBaradei has butted into U.S. politics by having his spokesman speak twice this past week to CNN and the AP about the Al-Qaqaa explosives story.

An administration source tells NewsMax that "it is very likely that ElBaradei will not be able to resist making comments about U.S. responsibility for the missing explosives the day before the election."

Our source also expects ElBaradei to follow his speech with an impromptu press conference and offer some hostile remarks about the Bush administration.

Stay tuned.

Source: NewsMax

He says:

Most offensive to Catholics is Kerry's rationalization on his faith. He treats it like a tote board, justifying his blank-check support of abortion by pointing to his opposition to the death penalty and his anti-war activism. First, Catholicism doesn't work on a points system; you don't get merits and demerits. Second, the Catechism does not preclude either the death penalty or war, contrary to popular belief. In fact, the Church allows for both under very limited circumstances, a fact which a short perusal of the Catechism demonstrates. An entire philosophy exists within the Church on the nature of "just war", and execution can be supported if it surely saves other innocent lives. Abortion, on the other hand, is expressly called a "grave sin" in the Catechism and no mitigating circumstances are countenanced, either in the doctrine or the Magisterium, the two-millenia body of teaching and philosophy.

This is part of a longer article about the incoherence of Kerry's stand on his religious viewpoints, and worth reading.

This incoherence, this willingness to say "Because I am an American Politician, the church can't tell me what to do, even if I claim I am catholic and therefore under the church's authority" is made clear in this bit from the AP yesterday:

BOSTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry scolded the Vatican Friday for saying Catholic politicians like himself have a "moral duty" to oppose laws granting legal rights to gay couples.

"I believe in the church and I care about it enormously," said the Massachusetts senator. "But I think that it's important to not have the church instructing politicians.

The truth is, if you are a faithful catholic, you cannot compromise like Kerry. If you compromise like Kerry, you are telling the church that the magisterium has no authority. Therefore, even though you might still go to services, you have put yourself outside of the Catholic communion, you have self-excommunicated. And no surface adherence to going to services, taking communion, or even acting in the community as a Catholic can change that reality. God knows the difference.

From My Bozsik

These terrorists come from places like Saudi Arabia where the standard of living is very high, yet the separation between the wealthy and the poor is ever increasing due to population growth and income redistribution under socialist policies. Once again, the disenfranchised, angry, or resentful find solace in a church ever too willing to accept them.

These terrorists come from places like the Gaza Strip. Where decades of rule by a pseudo-government and religion has created a land of squalor and hopelessness. Again, of anger and jihad. Where it is preferable to commit suicide in the name of religion than to raise a healthy family. Where, again, the fundamentalist church exercises control over a down-trodden population.

Here lies the complete problem. The inherent removal of personal freedom is what drives young men and women into fundamentalist Islam. If it was not enough to be oppressed by a government, by a society… it is much more to be silently oppressed by a welcoming religion. A form of a peaceful religion that does not guarantee personal freedom until Jihad is waged or a person has committed the ultimate sacrifice while in the name of Allah. While those who wail the sounds of war sit comfortably in their unimpeachable positions of authority.

It is not possible to wipe the Earth clean of this type of religion. It is possible, however, to spread freedom from one country to another. From man to man, from woman to woman. To their children. To remove a dictator from power so that in his wake is left the fruits of democracy. Of personal choice. The idea of self-determination and hope for the future.

It is possible to remove a government that forces the stoning of pregnant women in front of a cheering crowd of thousands, where the game of soccer was once played instead. It’s possible that country could then democratically elect a leader to bring women to their rightful place beside, and not behind, men.

It is possible to let these actions force other despots to rethink the directions of their lives and their country. To voluntarily give up weapons and weapon programs intended to kill thousands when the time warrants.

Cynicism is not an answer. Nor is it a method of change. One must believe in the power of a single man as an agent of change as strongly as those believe that murder is warrior’s weapon.

This election on November 2nd is not just an election for the President of the United States of America. It is an election for the entire world. It is an election where the United States will show the world, for good or for ill, how we stand up to the ideas of terrorism.

Conceding to the demands of terrorists is impossible. As was shown in another country, at another time, to cave into the demands of those who would kill innocent men, women, and children is a decision that beckons only more violence. Presently, those who voted in reaction to a terrorist attack are now trying the same terrorist organization in response to direct possibilty of a second attack.