Category: Election ’04

I said I had faith in the Aussies as they began going to the polls Down Under, and they redeemed that faith.

Now, fresh off his victory, Prime Minister John Howard has firmly entrenched his country as one of our staunchest allies.

Australian troops will stay in Iraq (news – web sites), Prime Minister John Howard declared Monday, as the stock market in Sydney hit a record high following the conservative leader’s election to a historic fourth term.

At his first news conference since Saturday’s election increased the parliament majority of his center-right coalition, Howard said his priorities were guarding the nation’s security, working with allies to fight terrorism and maintaining the booming economy.

The victory was a resounding vote of confidence in the government’s handling of Australia’s economy, which has low inflation, unemployment and interest rates, a budget surplus and low government debt.

All this despite the antics of John Kerry’s sister.

It should be noted that not all of Howard’s opposition have decided to take the results gracefully.

Voter ignorance, greed and apathy returned the Coalition to government, a South Australian Greens MP said today.

Kris Hanna, a former state Labor backbencher who joined the Greens last year, today said he was disappointed with the majority of Australian voters.

“(Labor Leader Mark) Latham did his best to offer an alternative but too many Australians were not discerning or caring enough to vote (Prime Minister John) Howard out,” Mr Hanna said.

Mr. Hanna missed his true calling as a Florida Democrat.

The Bush camp is planning on using John Kerry’s own words against him, as well they should.

President Bush’s campaign announced Sunday its plans to use as the basis of a new commercial a quote from an 8,000-word New York Times Magazine article about Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

The parsing prompted the Kerry camp to retort that the soon-to-be-released Bush ad was another example of the president’s campaign taking words out of context to create a misleading impression.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! The Kerryites are concerned about a quote being taken out of context. Where is their concern as Kerry and his attack-puppy sidekick repeatedly take Vice-President Cheney’s words about the danger of another attack so out of context that they intentionally, completely change his meaning? After all, the Veep never said a Kerry election would increase the danger of a terrorist attack; rather, he argued it would increase the danger of such an attack being responded to in a pre-9/11 manner, a valid consideration.

Are the Dems right in whining about context?

The article, a largely analytical cover story in the magazine, says the interviewer asked Kerry “what it would take for Americans to feel safe again.”

”We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance,” the article states as the Massachusetts senator’s reply.

”As a former law enforcement person, I know we’re never going to end prostitution. We’re never going to end illegal gambling. But we’re going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn’t on the rise. It isn’t threatening people’s lives every day, and fundamentally, it’s something that you continue to fight, but it’s not threatening the fabric of your life.”

Whatever part of Kerry’s statement you parse or take in it’s entirety, it is hard not to see an actual substantiation of Cheney’s point. Without victory over Islamist terrorism, those terrorists will never be just a nuisance. With an attitude of law enforcement and diplomacy as our primary weapons, that victory cannot be attained. Nor can it be attained if we insist that the focus of the war is Osama bin Laden instead of the greater whole of the radical Islamist movement.

A Kerry spokesman defended his candidate against the substance of the charges.

Reuters reported that the new Bush commercial’s script asks “How can Kerry protect us when he doesn’t understand the threat?”

Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer called the Republican charges “absolutely ridiculous.”

“This is yet another example of the Bush campaign taking John Kerry’s words out of context, and then blowing it up into something that is nothing,” he said.

“The whole article is about how John Kerry recognizes that the war on terror requires a multipronged approach. It’s not just the military aspect, but you need diplomacy to be able to enlist your allies. The Bush people have never understood that. John Kerry has always said that terrorism is the No. 1 threat to the U.S.”

Unfortunately, Kerry has not always said that terrorism is our top threat. From the first Bush-Kerry debate:

LEHRER: New question, two minutes, Senator Kerry.

If you are elected president, what will you take to that office thinking is the single most serious threat to the national security to the United States?

KERRY: Nuclear proliferation. Nuclear proliferation.

Now, I’ll be fair. Kerry tied this into terrorism, though not exclusively. He also tied it to the North Korea’s nuclear ambitions when he made the following statement in his continuing answer:

And part of that leadership is sending the right message to places like North Korea.

Right now the president is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons. It doesn’t make sense.

You talk about mixed messages. We’re telling other people, “You can’t have nuclear weapons,” but we’re pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using.

Not this president. I’m going to shut that program down, and we’re going to make it clear to the world we’re serious about containing nuclear proliferation.

In Kerry’s mind, the greatest danger the U.S. faces is nuclear proliferation, not Islamist terrorism. There may be some validity to this, but two points should be considered. First, it is contrary to the statement of the Kerry spokesman. Second, it is curious that Kerry’s answer to our alleged greatest danger is the policing up of known nuclear materials while cancelling our efforts to build a potential deterrent to future nuke sources.

This point puts Kerry perfectly into context. It supports the Bush campaign’s questioning of Kerry’s view of the threat of terrorism based on his own quotes in the Times Magazine. It jibes with his inability to take a lasting stance (outside of hindsight) in favor of any offensive U.S. action, beginning at least with Viet Nam and continuing through today. Finally, it dovetails nicely with his support of a unilateral freeze in the ’80s in the face of another threat. Simply put, John Kerry does not understand our enemies, nor is he resolute in facing them in any manner other than to rely upon others and reduce our own efforts.

From somebody who didn’t even watch (and justified it well):

I’m sure Bush kicked Kerry’s ass all over the stage if you give a farthing about terrorists and killing those who undeniably and without quarter want to kill you. Outside of that, who could possibly give a flying eff at a rolling donut about stem cells or deficits or the opinions of the French or Germans? Western civilization is at war. If those dipsticks don’t care to defend it, that’s their call and their shame. But don’t tell me America can’t do it, not when we’ve got the Aussies, the Brits, the Poles and 30 more freedom-loving countries on our side.

Holy crap, Scott, you are the man. If the world goes to hell and Bush loses, I’m nominating you for President of the reborn Republic of Texas.

I promised it so here it is.

After reviewing the transcript, Cheney won. Simple as that, and not surprising at all. Cheney edged on the domestic latter half and dominated on the security issues.

I’ll keep this post brief because my timing sucks. In retrospect, I probably should’ve gone with the nom de keyboard of the DelayedPundit.

The reason I give the VP a decided victory is simple: Kerry and Edwards are wrong about the war against Islamist terror. When they talk about the centrality of bin Laden, when they show their blinders allowing nothing but a focus on bin Laden, when they condemn any other effort in the war that does not expressly address bin Laden, they are wrong. Yes, Osama bin Laden attacked us. All parties are interested in busting his ass. Apparently only Bush-Cheney are interested in stopping other reiterations of bin Laden by attacking the Islamist culture and offering the alternative of freedom and democracy. Do Kerry and Edwards honestly think we would be magically safe from the Islamist bastards if Osama’s head was stuck atop a star-spangled pike? If so, they are wrong and American lives could be the cost. That is the reality of a post-9/11 world.