When Democrats Advocated Protecting Social Security

Did you know there once was a time when Democrats admitted they believed Social Security needed protection and reform? Of course, it's quite significant that, of the occasions they took to trumpet the need to fix the program, they were the loudest when they used Social Security reform to justify their strident opposition to President Bush's first tax relief package in the first few months of 2001.

Juxtaposing the Democratic Party's lackadaisical position on Social Security reform today (remember, they actually booed the President of the United States on this issue during the State of the Union) with what they were saying during the budget fights of 2001, when President Bush's tax relief package was being debated, reveals quite a contrast.

Here, then, are a few excerpts from Democrats during the debates, speeches, and tirades on the Senate floor in 2001. I pulled all quotes from the Congressional Record (CR).

WARNING: This list of quotes is awfully long, but they're all worth having in your arsenal.

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***SEN. ROBERT BYRD (W.V.): What about Social Security and Medicare reform? When the baby-boom generation begins to retire over the next ten years, financial pressure on the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will rise rapidly as payroll tax income falls short of what is needed to pay benefits. Both programs are expected to have expenditures in excess of receipts in 2016. Where will the federal government find the money to finance these benefits? In the absence of budget surpluses for the rest of the government's operations, policymakers would have three options: raise other taxes, curtail other spending, or borrow money from the financial markets. If we go along with these massive tax cuts, how will we honor our pledge to protect Social Security and Medicare? [CR s3674, April 6, 2001]

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***SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (CONN.): Because of the excessive Republican tax cut and the inadequate size of this contingency fund, Congress may be forced to raid the Social Security and Medicare trust funds or face the prospect of a return to budget deficits. The GOP budget imposes deep cuts on important programs. The Budget Resolution would cut non-defense discretionary spending by about $8 to $9 billion or two percent below the level needed to keep pace with what was provided last year, adjusted for inflation. Funding for environmental protection, disaster assistance, veterans' medical care, Community Oriented Policing (COPS) and the Army Corps of Engineers would be particularly hard hit.

[. . .]If we are successful in building on our prosperity, we will be able to guarantee the future of Social Security and Medicare. Everyone knows that strengthening Medicare will require more resources, not less. Yet the President's tax cut reaches into the Medicare surplus, leaving scant hope for modernization, or a new, meaningful prescription drug benefit, as the President promised. While today's workers will rely more and more on personal savings for retirement, for millions of Americans, Social Security is still the foundation of their old-age support. We must meet our obligations to our retirees, but we must also seek reforms that will make their retirements more secure. [CR s3675, April 6, 2001]

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***SEN. PAT LEAHY (VT.): Mr. President, I must oppose this budget because it is an irresponsible gamble with our economic future.

This resolution sets aside trillions of projected budget surpluses for tax cuts proposed by President Bush that are steeply tilted to the wealthy. It pays for the Bush tax plan at the expense of needed investments in Social Security, Medicare, education, law enforcement and the environment.

After years of hard choices, we have balanced the budget and started building surpluses. Now we must make responsible choices for the future. Our top four priorities should be paying off the national debt, passing a fair and responsible tax cut, saving Social Security, and creating a real Medicare prescription drug benefit. [CR s3681-3682, April 6, 2001]

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***SEN. CARL LEVIN (MICH.): In approaching our Federal budget, I believe we should divide the projected surplus among four budget goals: giving the American people fair and fiscally responsible tax relief, paying down the debt, protecting Social Security and Medicare, and responsibly investing in key priorities such as education, prescription drug coverage for seniors, environmental protection and national defense.

Understanding that these projections are uncertain, here's what I think should be done with surplus dollars that actually materialize:

First, I would protect the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. We have to take prudent steps today to ensure that as 77 million baby boomers retire over the next 30 years, the costs of their Social Security and Medicare won't explode the Federal budget. In just 15 years, the Social Security and Medicare programs will require transfers from the "non-Social Security and non-Medicare" side of the Federal budget in order to pay benefits. Without reform, these transfers will get larger and larger, placing enormous pressure on the federal budget--pressure that would be compounded if President Bush's proposed tax cuts were enacted. Thus I think it is imperative to set aside the surpluses that are currently accumulating in these trust funds and not use them for new spending or tax cuts--as the President's budget proposes to do.

As budget debate continues in the weeks ahead, Congress will be making some important decisions regarding our country's future. We have the ability to provide targeted tax relief, fund some important national priorities and protect Social Security and Medicare for future generations, while dedicating significant resources to paying down the national debt. To achieve all of these goals, we need to act wisely today so that we strengthen our economy in the long run, not weaken it once again by risking a large Federal deficit with an excessive tax cut benefiting mostly those who need it least. [CR s3683-3684, April 6, 2001]

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***SEN. TED KENNEDY (MASS.): Mr. President, at the heart of the budget dispute between Republicans and Democrats is the size of President Bush's proposed tax cut. Republicans claim the surplus is so large that we can have it all, that their massive tax cut will not interfere with efforts to address the country's most serious concerns.

The impact of the Republican tax cut on the Federal Government's ability to address the most pressing concerns of the American people would be devastating. It is too large to fit into any responsible budget. The available surplus over the next ten years is, at most, $2.7 trillion. Whatever we do over the next decade to address this country's unmet needs must be paid for from that amount. Whatever we want to do to financially strengthen Social Security and Medicare for future retirees must be funded from that amount.

The Democratic budget plan stands in stark contrast to the Republican plan. Budgets are a reflection of our real values, and these two budgets clearly demonstrate how different the values of the two parties are. In political speeches, it is easy to be all things to all people. But the budget we vote for shows who we really are and what we really stand for. Our budget is geared to the needs of working families. It will provide them with tax relief, but it will also address their education and health care needs. And it will protect Social Security and Medicare, on which they depend for secure retirement.

There are four criteria by which we should evaluate a budget plan: 1. is it a fiscally responsible, balanced program? 2. does it protect Social Security and Medicare for future generations?, 3. does it adequately address America's urgent national needs?, and 4. does it distribute the benefits of the surplus fairly amongst all Americans? By each yardstick, the Republican budget fails to measure up. The Democratic budget is a far sounder blueprint for building America's future.

By consuming $2.5 trillion of the $2.7 trillion available surplus on tax cuts, the Republican budget would leave virtually nothing over the next ten years: to strengthen Social Security and Medicare before the baby boomers retire. . . .

The Social Security and Medicare surpluses are comprised of payroll taxes that workers deposit with the Government to pay for their future Social Security and Medicare benefits. Just because the Government does not pay all those dollars out this year does not make us free to spend them. Over the next ten years, Social Security will take in $2.5 trillion more dollars than it will pay out and Medicare will take in $400 billion more dollars than it will pay out. But every penny of this will be needed to provide Social Security and Medicare benefits when the baby boomers retire. [CR s3687 - 3689, April 6, 2001]

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***SEN. PAUL SARBANES (MD.): The Democrats have proposed a responsible budget alternative which balances the need for debt reduction, targeted tax cuts, and investment in critical national needs. The Democratic alternative fully protects the Social Security and Medicare surpluses to ensure that we will be able to meet our obligations to America's seniors, now and in the future. [CR s3691, April 6, 2001]

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***SEN. HARRY REID (NEV.): We need to be fiscally responsible and protect social security, provide a prescription drug benefit, fund education, ensure a strong and stable military, continue to pay down the debt, and to ensure the funding is available for our Nation's veterans. [CR s3695, April 6, 2001]

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***SEN. DICK DURBIN (ILL.): I also want to make certain we protect Social Security and Medicare. If as an outcome of this debate we end up jeopardizing Social Security or Medicare, then we have not met our moral and social obligation to the millions of Americans who have paid into these systems and depend on them to survive.

I believe the good news about the surplus should be realistic news. We should understand that surpluses are not guaranteed. We ought to make certain that any tax cut we are talking about is not at the expense of Social Security and Medicare. We should focus the tax cuts on working families to make sure they are the beneficiaries so that they have the funds they need to make their lives easier. That should be the bottom line in this debate.

As I said at the outset, Democrats and Republicans alike believe these tax cuts are going to happen. I believe it is a good thing to do. Let us pay down this national debt. Let us provide a tax cut for the families who need it. Let's make sure we protect Social Security and Medicare in the process. [CR s839, January 31, 2001]

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***SEN. DEBBIE STABENOW (MICH.): We believe fiscal responsibility, keeping the budget balanced, paying down the debt, protecting Social Security and Medicare are critical and should not be compromised for any other actions no matter how well intended. We have a train going down the track. My fear is there will be no budget trigger to stop the train before it goes off the track. That is common sense.

I believe common sense would dictate we pay down the debt, we protect Medicare and Social Security , we give a major tax cut focused on our middle-income families and small businesses and family farmers, and that we can do that and also be able to continue investments to keep the economy going. [CR s5684, May 25, 2001]

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***SEN. KENT CONRAD (N.D.): We are offering an alternative that we think is more cautious, more conservative, and more balanced. We take the forecast surplus of $5.6 trillion, and then we reserve every penny of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds for the purposes intended. That leaves us with $2.7 trillion remaining.

We separate that amount into equal thirds: A third for a tax cut; a third for the high-priority domestic needs of a prescription drug benefit, strengthening our national defense, improving education, and funding agriculture; and, with the final third, we set that money aside for strengthening Social Security and dealing with our long-term debt because just as we have surpluses now in this 10-year period, we know that when the baby boomers start to retire these surpluses turn to massive deficits.

We also say we ought to reduce the size of his tax cut to set aside money to strengthen Social Security for the long term. [CR s3264-3269, April 2, 2001]

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***SEN. BARBARA MIKULSKI (MD.): The democratic plan is balanced, fiscally prudent, and leaves resources so we can continue to pay down our debt, and make the balloon payments coming due on Social Security and Medicare. [CR s5502, May 23, 2001]

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***SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (W.V.): The facts are stark: Social Security payments will exceed income in 2015, and Medicare payments exceed income in 2010. We will be forced to tap into the Social Security Trust Fund principal in 2025 and the Medicare Trust Fund principal in 2017. In 2037, the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted, and the Medicare Trust fund will be exhausted even earlier, in 2025. I believe this tax bill jeopardizes the long-term solvency of Social Security and Medicare. These programs are fundamental for our seniors, and we have an obligation to ensure that both the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds are protected before enacting massive tax cuts. [CR s5505, May 23, 2001]

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***SEN. JOHN KERRY (MASS.): We are about to enact a $1.35 trillion tax cut and at the same time, we have done nothing to deal with fundamental issues resulting from mandatory spending and the retirement of the Baby Boom generation.

Social Security's trustees reported in March that Social Security's tax income will fall short of Social Security's benefit payments beginning in 2016. Medicare's tax income will fall short of Medicare spending the same year. Social Security and Medicare's problems are related to the aging of the labor force. In the not-to-distant future, there will be too few workers in the workforce to maintain Social Security and Medicare as pay-as-you-go programs. These are not small problems.

In the case of Social Security, Congress will have to either reduce Social Security benefits, raise Social Security taxes, or find a third alternative.

The same issues apply to Medicare. The Congressional budget resolution sets aside $300 billion in a Medicare Reserve Fund. However, that $300 billion is needed just to finance a decent prescription drug benefit. In addition, there will be substantial costs associated with reforming Medicare. This year's Trustees' Report showed that health care costs per capita will rise. But as I have demonstrated, the tax cut would place Medicare surpluses in jeopardy.

Dealing with Social Security and Medicare's financial problems sooner rather than later minimizes the pain for beneficiaries and workers by allowing the government to address transitional costs before the problem reaches the breaking point. Congress should be acting in a fiscally responsible way by addressing Social Security and Medicare's long-term problems while we have the opportunity, while the Federal government is operating under surpluses and not deficits. [CR s5508-5509, May 23, 2001]

When written in Chinese, the word "crisis"
is composed of two characters--
one represents danger,
and the other represents opportunity.

John F. Kennedy

The 'Exit Strategy' Democrats
The only thing they can't imagine is success in Iraq.



Opinion Journal.com.


Thursday, February 3, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

Every so often, an American politician takes an unpopular stand for the sake of what's right: Think of Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon. Frequently, he takes an unprincipled stand for the sake of what's popular: Take Richard Nixon's price controls. Sometimes, even, he does what's right, which also happens to be popular: Ronald Reagan's bombing of Libya.

Only in the rarest of instances, however, do politicians take positions that are both unpopular and unprincipled. That is where the Democratic Party leadership finds itself today on Iraq.

On Sunday, some eight million Iraqi citizens risked their lives to participate in parliamentary elections--as vivid and moving a demonstration of democratic ideals in action as we've seen in our lifetimes. Whereupon Senate Democrats Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry took to the airwaves to explain that it was no big deal and that it was time to start casting about for an "exit strategy."

Mr. Kerry:
"No one in the United States should try to overhype this election.... It's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can't and doesn't vote."

Mr. Kennedy:
"While the elections are a step forward, they are not a cure for the growing violence and resentment of the perception of American occupation. . . . The best way to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that we have no long-term designs on their country is for the Administration to withdraw some troops now . . ."

Minority Leader Reid:

"We need an exit strategy so that we know what victory is and how we can get there. . . . Iraq is clearly important, but there are so many bigger threats to our national security . . ."

So what is the Democratic Party's message on this inspiring exercise in Iraqi self-determination? First, that the election's legitimacy is questionable. Second, that its effects will be minor. Third, that America's presence in Iraq is doing more harm than good by generating terrorism and anti-Americanism where none previously existed. Fourth, that the U.S. has better things to do. Fifth, that American sacrifices in Iraq are best redeemed not by victory, but by the earliest feasible departure.

As a matter of policy, this is a manifesto for irresponsibility. Just as the postponement of elections would have been a gift to the insurgents, a timetable for withdrawal now would amount to a concession of defeat. The Iraqis certainly know this, with interim President (and Sunni Arab) Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar saying Tuesday that it is "complete nonsense to ask the troops to leave in this chaos and this vacuum of power." The claim that the U.S. has become a force for occupation only validates the Al-Jazeera hypothesis that the terrorists are engaging in a legitimate exercise in "resistance."

What is more astonishing, however, is the Democrats' political tone-deafness. In their indictment of Administration policy, the Senators always take care to add a few words of tribute to the American soldier. But what's the point of praising his courage when only a fool would want to be the last man to die for a mistake?

Today, the Democratic Party has put itself in the awkward position of hoping to gain political advantage in the 2006 elections as a result of American wartime reverses, just as some House Republicans did during the war in Kosovo (they were saved by their Senate betters). This is not a place any political party should wish to be.

We understand that it is in the nature of the party of opposition to oppose. But there's no law in politics that says opposition has to be blind. Following the Iraqi election, Senator Hillary Clinton offered that "we have to salute the courage and bravery of those who are risking their lives to vote and those brave Iraqi and American soldiers fighting to protect their right to vote. They are facing terrorists who have declared war on democracy itself and made voting a life-and-death process." Last we checked, nobody had accused Mrs. Clinton of being a Republican.

At the onset of the Cold War, and despite opposition from the isolationist wing of their party, Arthur Vandenberg and other Republican Senators worked with Democratic President Harry Truman to forge the containment strategy against Communism. Where is today's Democratic Vandenberg?

Sic Temper Tyrannis
1649 and now.

By Arthur Herman

National Review Online


In the raging debate about the meaning and significance of the Iraqi election on Sunday, no one has noticed a strange fact. This election, which many hope will spark a democratic revolution for the Middle East, falls on the same day — January 30 — as the event which set in motion the modern West's first democratic revolution more than 365 years ago. It was on that day in 1649 that King Charles I of England was beheaded after his formal trial for treason and tyranny, an epoch-shattering event that destroyed the notion of divine right of kings forever, and gave birth to the principle that reverberates down to today, from President Bush's inaugural address last week to the Iraqi election this Sunday: that all political authority requires the consent of the people. Although few like to admit it now, it was Charles's execution, along with the civil war that preceded it and the political turmoil that followed, that established our modern notions of democracy, liberty, and freedom of speech. When Thomas Jefferson wrote that "the tree of liberty must sometimes be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants," he was thinking primarily of the legacy of the English civil war.


Charles I's trial and execution followed years of violence which dwarf anything happening in Iraq today. Still, the parallels between Iraq in 2005 and England in 1649 are striking. While Charles I was no Saddam Hussein, he had jailed and even tortured his opponents to exact obedience to his autocracy, and had used his army to wage war on his own subjects. It took six years of bloody fighting across England, Scotland, and Ireland to finally topple him and his regime, in a civil war costing thousands of lives — more in a proportional sense, than died in the First World War.

This was also a conflict shaped by religious rivalries, with Catholics and Anglicans, the equivalent of Iraq's Sunnis, fighting against Presbyterians and other radical Protestant sects who, like Iraq's Shias, had lived for decades under the heel of their oppressors. And like Iraq, the war invoked fierce ethnic hatreds, pitting Englishmen against both Irish and Scots and leading to atrocities on all sides. Nor was there a United States to step in to shape events or to guarantee security against hostile neighbors, like Spain and France, who tried to prop up Charles's cause and prevent the democratic revolution unfolding in England from reaching their shores.

Yet in spite of the chaos and instability, the defeat of the English monarchy shattered once and for all the idea that had governed Western political institutions since the Middle Ages, that a king's authority was divine and beyond question. When Charles I went to the execution block on January 30, a brave new world was born, that of sovereignty of the people. The declaration of a self-governing English commonwealth took place the following March, while debates and discussion had already taken place across England about whether popular sovereignty literally meant one man one vote or required a property qualification; or meant the abolition of property as radical groups like the Levelers argued; or even whether women should have a role.

Few of the participants in these debates, and in the pamphlet explosion which the king's death set off, were intellectuals like John Milton or Thomas Hobbes. Most were soldiers, ministers, farmers, and ordinary working men-the equivalent of the bloggers in today's post-Saddam Iraq. Yet the ideas they forged in the flames of revolution would inspire the writings of John Locke and later the Founding Fathers.

They included the idea that human beings have a "natural right" to liberty; that a free commonwealth requires a free and open public square for debate and deliberation, a affirmation of free speech which John Milton passionately defended in his Aeropagitica; and that politics is about human needs and issues, not divine dictates and ordinances. Although participants on both sides freely quoted the Bible to support their positions, they also recognized that if freedom was to reign, political authority must be detached from religious authority. This was the original formulation of our doctrine of the separation of Church and State: 366 years ago, Englishmen had come to realize that the mullah must yield to the magistrate, and that both must ultimately yield to the people.

Not bad for a decade of chaos and turmoil. And although the throne was restored eleven years later in 1660, it was for a king who admitted the principle of parliamentary consent. England had become Europe's first true constitutional monarchy. Will anything as important and influential come out of Sunday's election in Iraq? Hard to say. But just as Milton and Algernon Sidney and John Locke, and later Jefferson and Adams, translated the ideas of the English civil war, along with those of the Greeks and Romans, into the idiom of modern democracy and freedom, so this generation of Iraqi democrats may do the same for Islamic political thought in the Middle East. No one should underestimate the revolutionary power of the ballot box-or the executioner's axe.

— Arthur Herman is the author of To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, published by Harper Collins.

"We will build a statue for Bush,"
said Ali Fadel, the former provincial
council chairman.
"He is the symbol of freedom."






NY POST

By JOSH WILLIAMS

January 30, 2005 -- BAGHDAD — The man replacing the mayor of Baghdad — who was assassinated for his pro-American loyalties — says he is not worried about his ties to Washington.
In fact, he'd like to erect a monument to honor President Bush in the middle of the city.

"We will build a statue for Bush," said Ali Fadel, the former provincial council chairman. "He is the symbol of freedom."

Fadel's predecessor, Ali al-Haidari, was gunned down Jan. 4 when militants opened fire on his armor-covered BMW as it traveled with a three-car convoy.

Fadel said he received numerous threats on his life as the council chairman, and expects to get many more in his new post.

"My life is cheap," Fadel said. "Everything is cheap for my country."

As Iraq prepared for a volatile election that is being watched across the world, Fadel heaped praise on the United States.

Fadel acknowledged that many in his country appear ungrateful for America's foreign assistance. He said most Iraqis are still in "shock" over the changes, and need time to adjust.

Any public monument to Bush is likely to further incense terrorist forces, who have attacked American troops and their supporters for months.

Fadel said he is undaunted.

"We have a lot of work and we are especially grateful to the soldiers of the U.S.A. for freeing our country of tyranny," Fadel said.

As for his own protection, the new mayor will be traveling in a new $150,000 SUV complete with bulletproof windows and flat-resistant tires.

IRAQ PESSIMISTS' REAL FEAR






January 26, 2005 -- IN just four days, Iraqis will go to the polls to vote in an election that could prove to be a hinge moment in history. All indications are that some 80 percent of Iraq's electorate will go to the polls, a level of turnout that would put most of the world's established democracies in the shade.
For the sake of contrast, consider that turnout in this year's presidential election was 60 percent of all those eligible to vote — and that was the most substantial rate of participation in 36 years.

Even in Israel, where everybody talks politics the way we talk about the weather and turnout is routinely the highest in the world, only 62 percent of the population voted in the last major election.

Yet a deep pessimism pervades the discussion of the coming election in the English-language press.

read the whole article,


Now, it will certainly be tragic if Sunnis who wish to vote are forcibly prevented from doing so by the terrorists in their midst. But those Sunnis' best chance to secure their freedom to vote at a later date will emerge from a viable result in Sunday's elections.

Why? Because once a legitimately elected Iraqi assembly is seated, the insurgents will have no argument left with which to advance their cause — except for the open hatred of liberty.

The latest tape from Iraq's terrorist master, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, made that point crystal clear.

"We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who
follow this wrong ideology,"

Zarkawi says.

"Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part of it."

the MAP

President Bush won a historic victory

President Bush won a historic victory yesterday by defeating John Kerry by more than 3.5 million votes, 58.6 million to 55.1 million (51% to 48%) and winning the Electoral College 286 to 252. In doing so, President Bush:

Becomes the first presidential candidate to win more than 50% of the popular vote since 1988.
Received the most votes by any presidential candidate in history — over 58 million, even breaking President Reagan’s 1984 mark of 54.5 million votes. [Updated figures actually show over 59.6 million — Beldar]
Becomes the first President re-elected while gaining seats in the House and the Senate since 1936, and the first Republican President to be re-elected with House and Senate majorities since 1924.
Received a higher percentage of the popular vote than any Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.
Garnered 7 million more popular votes than in 2000 — more than twice the amount that President Clinton increased his vote between 1992 and 1996.
Increased his percent of the vote from 2000 in 45 out of 50 states, including a 4 percent increase in John Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts.
President Bush ran just as strongly in the key battleground states as he did nationally. In the 14 most competitive states (AR, CO, FL, IA, MI, MN, MO, NH, NM, NV, OH, PA, WI, and WV), President Bush won 51% of the vote to John Kerry’s 49% — an improvement of 2 points from his 2000 performance in those states. Yesterday also revealed that the Republican Party has made historic gains with minority voters and women. Exit polling revealed that President Bush won 42% of Hispanics (up from 35% in 2000), 11% of African-Americans (up from 9% in 2000), 24% of Jewish voters (up from 19% in 2000), and 47% of women (up from 43% in 2000). In Florida, 55% of Hispanic voters supported President Bush, an increase of 6 points from 2000.

Just as we predicted, undecided and late-deciding voters went to the President Bush by a small margin. Despite media predictions that Kerry would win up to 90% of late-deciding voters, exit polling reveals that President Bush won voters who decided in the week before the election, 51% to 48%.

Furthermore, as we predicted, yesterday was the first time in modern political history that an equal number of Republicans and Democrats turned out for a presidential election. The Democrats’ 4-point advantage in 2000 evaporated, with Republicans and Democrats both at 37% of the electorate in 2004.

Beldarblog

So Much to Savor

A big win for America, and a loss for the mainstream media.






Opinion Journal.com,


God bless our country.

Hello, old friends. Let us savor.

Let us get our heads around the size and scope of what happened Tuesday. George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States, became the first incumbent president to increase his majority in both the Senate and the House and to increase his own vote (by over 3.5 million) since Franklin D. Roosevelt, political genius of the 20th century, in 1936. This is huge.

George W. Bush is the first president to win more than 50% of the popular vote since 1988. (Bill Clinton failed to twice; Mr. Bush failed to last time and fell short of a plurality by half a million.) The president received more than 59 million votes, breaking Ronald Reagan's old record of 54.5 million. Mr. Bush increased his personal percentages in almost every state in the union. He carried the Catholic vote and won 42% of the Hispanic vote and 24% of the Jewish vote (up from 19% in 2000.)

It will be hard for the mainstream media to continue, in the face of these facts, the mantra that we are a deeply and completely divided country. But they'll try!

The Democrats have lost their leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle. I do not know what the Democratic Party spent, in toto, on the 2004 election, but what they seem to have gotten for it is Barack Obama. Let us savor.

The elites of Old Europe are depressed. Savor. The nonelites of Old Europe, and the normal folk of New Europe, especially our beloved friend Poland, will not be depressed, and many will be happy. Let's savor that too.

George Soros cannot buy a presidential election. Savor. "Volunteers" who are bought and paid for cannot beat volunteers who come from the neighborhood, church, workplace and reading group. Savor.

The leaders of the Bush effort see it this way: A ragtag band of more than a million Republican volunteers who fought like Washington's troops at Valley Forge beat the paid Hessians of King George III's army. Savor.





As I write, John Kerry is giving his speech. He looks hurt. Who wouldn't? He fought to the end, for every vote, untiring and ceaseless. I told some young people recently who were walking into a battle, "Here's how to fight: You fight until they kill you, until they kill you and stop your heart, and then you let them carry you out of the room. But you fight until they carry." I think that's how the Democrats fought. Good for them.
To admit defeat with attempted grace is a moving sight. Kerry did well. His talking about his "good conversation" with the president was gracious and helpful. He was honest about the facts of the vote in Ohio. When he thanked his people from the bottom of his heart it was a real thanks. "Thanks to Democrats and Republicans and Independents. . . . Thanks to everyone who voted." "Don't lose faith, what you did made a difference . . . and building on itself . . . the time will come when your votes, your ballots, will change the world. And it's worth fighting for." A lot of pundits and editorialists are going to say, "His best speech of the campaign was his last." But that's not the point.

Mr. Kerry graced democracy today. He showed his love for it. Savor.

And now the president is speaking. He looks tired and happy. He looks as if the lines on his forehead are deeper. Maybe it's the lighting. "We had a really good phone call," he said of Mr. Kerry. "He was very gracious . . . and he and his supporters can be proud of their efforts." Good for them both. He announced his agenda: reform the tax code, privatize Social Security, help the emerging democracies of Iraq and Afghanistan. "And then our servicemen and -women will come home with the honor they have earned."

"Today I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. . . . I need your support. . . . I will do all that I can do to earn your trust. . . . We have one country, one Constitution, and one future that binds us." All good. Savor.





Who was the biggest loser of the 2004 election? It is easy to say Mr. Kerry: he was a poor candidate with a poor campaign. But I do think the biggest loser was the mainstream media, the famous MSM, the initials that became popular in this election cycle. Every time the big networks and big broadsheet national newspapers tried to pull off a bit of pro-liberal mischief--CBS and the fabricated Bush National Guard documents, the New York Times and bombgate, CBS's "60 Minutes" attempting to coordinate the breaking of bombgate on the Sunday before the election--the yeomen of the blogosphere and AM radio and the Internet took them down. It was to me a great historical development in the history of politics in America. It was Agincourt. It was the yeomen of King Harry taking down the French aristocracy with new technology and rough guts. God bless the pajama-clad yeomen of America. Some day, when America is hit again, and lines go down, and media are hard to get, these bloggers and site runners and independent Internetters of all sorts will find a way to file, and get their word out, and it will be part of the saving of our country.
Last note. As much as anyone, the POW wives of Vietnam, who stood against the Democratic nominee for president and for the Republican, can claim credit for the Bush victory. Everyone with a computer in America, and a lot of people with TVs, saw their testimony about the 1970s, and their husbands, and John Kerry. You could not come away from their white-haired, soft-faced, big-eyeglasses visages without thinking: He should not be commander in chief.

Oh, another last note. Tuesday I heard three radio talkers who refused to believe it was over when the ludicrous, and who knows but possibly quite mischievous, exit polls virtually declared a Kerry landslide yesterday afternoon. They are Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. The last sent me an e-mail that dismissed the numbers as elitist nonsense and propaganda. She is one tough girl and they are two tough men. Savor them too.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag" (Wall Street Journal Books/Simon & Schuster), a collection of post-Sept. 11 columns, which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore.

The Kerry Nightmare

Last night I had the strangest dream. I guess it was a nightmare, really. I remember most of it, except how it ended.





The American Spectator,


First I dreamed Kerry won the election. That wasn't so bad in itself. He seemed Presidential enough for the job. He had a dignified bearing, spoke well, didn't mangle his phrases. People were weary after four years of uncertainty under George Bush and ready to try something new.

Kerry started off well. On January 22, in a burst of world optimism, he went to the U.N. and laid down his mea culpa. America had gone it alone too long, he said. We were ready to cooperate with the rest of the world. The General Assembly gave him a 15-minute standing ovation. His speech was cheered wildly in cities from Paris to Berlin to Peshawar. A new day had dawned. Peace was at hand.

The only concrete result that came out of his U.N. visit, however, was that Poland decided to accelerate its troop withdrawal, already scheduled for 2005. Other allies said that since Kerry was throwing in the towel, they were going to leave sooner than later as well. Everyone but Great Britain packed up and headed home. Meanwhile, Kerry visited France and Germany to hold long talks with President Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder. The main outcome, however, was that they told him Iraq was his problem and wished him well. Meanwhile, terrorists in Iraq stepped up their operations

By the time President Kerry got back from Europe, things had taken a turn for the worse. Both Sunni and Shi'ite leaders announced that, despite the January election of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, both now regarded his victory as illegitimate. Democracy was a foreign system that America was trying to impose on the Muslim world. Both recommended a return to the Ummah, with religious leaders at the helm. Since each sect claimed to the rightful heirs of Mohammed, each claimed the right to the position.

The opposition became bolder. Several suicide bombers penetrated the Green Zone and American casualties started to rise. With our allies pulling out, our soldiers were also required to take over key positions in the South. Suddenly we found ourselves stretched way too thin. Rioting broke out in several cities of the Sunni Triangle.

All the pretty plans of the campaign were evaporating and President Kerry now found himself facing the basic contradiction of his position. Was Iraq the wrong war at the wrong place and the wrong time? Or were we actually undermanned? For two long weeks, Kerry mulled the problem while fierce debate was waged in Congress. Half of Kerry's constituency called for a pullout and peace demonstrations took place in New York and Washington. Many Democrats in Congress said our troops were endangered, however, and call for a draft.

Kerry solved the problem by going to the United Nations. A high level conference was arranged in Baghdad with all sides attending. A truce was called and for three weeks an international panel debated the issue. Finally, it was decided that 140,000 American troops would be given safe passage out of the country. They would leave in an orderly fashion and then Iraqis would continue to meet under U.N. supervision to decide how they would govern themselves.

Like the Indians watching the British march out of Fort William Henry, however, once the terrorists saw their enemies defeated they could not restrain themselves. Before the American soldiers had even begun to pack their bags, they were under daily attack. General fighting broke out in several cities, even as the U.N. panel continued to meet. Then a suicide bomber rammed the home of Prime Minister Allawi and killed him. The elected government collapsed. Civil war broke out between Sunni and Shi'ite militias, both claiming religious authority, while the Kurds withdrew completely, declaring their own state..

Like so many a President before him, John Kerry found himself at the mercy of events. All the pretty plans of his election campaign -- the diplomacy, the conferences with our allies -- were forgotten. Suddenly he was a commander-in-chief trying to rescue a stranded army.

Events didn't wait. Now convinced that America was abandoning the Middle East and no longer content to watch Iran develop a nuclear weapon that in two years would be able to hit Jerusalem, the Israelis sent a fleet of F-16s to drop bunker-busting weapons on three nuclear complexes at Bushehr, Natanz, and Arak. Rioting broke out in every Middle Eastern capital. Terrorists streamed into Baghdad from every direction. Syrian and Egyptian armies prepared for a retaliatory attack against Israel.

That's when I woke up.

I've been walking around in a cold sweat all day thinking about these things. But that's silly, I suppose. After all, it was only a dream. The American people couldn't possibly elect John Kerry President, could they?


William Tucker is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator and a contributing writer to the American Enterprise.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 /U.S. Newswire/ —

Today Chuck Canterbury, the President of the nation’s largest police labor organization, called on John Kerry to stop making misleading statements regarding his support from the law enforcement community. Both on the campaign trail and in Wednesday night’s debate in Tempe, AZ, Senator Kerry has alluded that he has the support of the majority of these brave men and women.


little green footballs,



“As the elected leader of the largest organization representing America’s Federal, State and local law enforcement officers, I believe it’s important to point out yet again that we do not support his candidacy for President,” Canterbury said. “And to be perfectly frank, the groups which do support him actually share the same membership rolls and, taken together, probably comprise less than one-quarter of our nation’s police officers.”

Canterbury further noted that unlike the organizations which Senator Kerry touts, F.O.P. members as a whole decided that the Fraternal Order of Police would endorse the reelection of President George W. Bush. They based their decision, he said, on the record of the Bush Administration in supporting America’s first responders-including helping to secure passage earlier this year of H.R. 218, the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, the organization’s top legislative priority. Bush also successfully fought to greatly enhance the benefits for the families of officers killed in the line of duty.

“While Kerry was flying around the country campaigning and leaving the actual work of the nation to his colleagues in the Senate, the President was out there working on our behalf,” Canterbury said. “Senators Kerry and Edwards have missed so many crucial votes this Congress that I was beginning to believe there were only 98 members of the U.S. Senate.”

Canterbury also said it was the height of irony that Kerry would use his position on the reauthorization of the assault weapons ban as a reflection of his support from police.

“First, if a police officer is killed by an AK-47, Kerry would oppose the death penalty for the killer,” Canterbury said. “In addition, where was he when this issue was being discussed in the 108th Congress? Where was he when we were working to pass H.R. 218? When it came time to help push for final passage of legislation important to law enforcement, Senator Kerry was regrettably A.W.O.L.”

“Given the facts, I would greatly appreciate it if Senator Kerry would refrain from making similar whimsical assertions regarding his support from the law enforcement community,” Canterbury said. “The real majority of my fellow officers are standing behind President Bush, because he has been there for us.”

The Fraternal Order of Police is the nation’s largest law enforcement labor organization, with more than 318,000 members.

“The Age of Liberty”

President Bush is making the world safe for democracy.


By Paul Kengor -NRO,


Over the last week, something enormously important has happened — something deserving of much more than the routine news-cycle coverage. To put it bluntly, the presidential election in Afghanistan is a seminal event, and those who don't understand how or why are sleepwalking through history.


Next to September 11 — which began the sequence of events that made this election possible — the vote in Afghanistan is the most far-reaching occurrence of the young 21st century, holding profound implications for future generations. Mercifully, the one person who understands the ramifications as well as if not better than anyone is the so-called dummy in the White House.


A DEMOCRATIC PEACE
Here's the big picture: The great story of the past three centuries is the spread of democracy. The spirit of 1776, the launching of the American experiment, was the pinnacle event of the 18th century, eventually offering a beacon that continues to inspire and change the world to this day. The most important development of the 19th century was the preservation of that extraordinary democratic republic through the Civil War period, as the nation persevered to play a more significant role than any other in the "American century" ahead. The decisive change of the 20th century was the spread of liberty to Western Europe after WWI, to Germany and Japan after WWII, and to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia after the Cold War.

The one area of the world painfully immune to this contagion of freedom is the Middle East: the least democratic region on the planet. A survey by Freedom House at the end of the 20th century found that while 63 percent of nations are technically democracies, an astonishing zero of the 16 Arab countries in the Middle East were democratic. George W. Bush's vision is to change that condition not just for the betterment of the Middle East but to the benefit of the world, and he hopes that the transformation has just begun in Afghanistan.

In the academic field of international relations, one of the few useful debates is the "democratic peace" argument. It postulates a crucial reality: Democracies tend not to fight one another. Consequently, to the extent that the hostile Middle East becomes more democratic, it may become more peaceful. George W. Bush subscribes to this hope.

The president's most far-reaching address was his November 6, 2003, speech to the National Endowment for Democracy, which ought to be required reading for every poli-sci class. The president that day reminded the crowd that in the early 1970s there were only 40 democracies. As the 20th century ended, there were 120. "[A]nd I can assure you," he said to applause, "more are on the way." Bush said the world had just witnessed, in just over a generation, the quickest advance of freedom in democracy's history. Historians will search for explanations for this shift; yet, said Bush, we already know some of the reasons they will cite. Among them, he said, tellingly, "It is no accident that the rise of so many democracies took place in a time when the world's most influential nation [America] was itself a democracy." After World War II, reported Bush, the United States made military and moral commitments in Europe and Asia that protected free nations from aggression and created conditions for new democracies to flourish. Now, in the Middle East, under his administration, America seeks to do so again.


"THE CALLING OF OUR TIME"
That progression of liberty, said the president, is "a powerful trend" that, if not defended, could be lost. "The success of freedom," said Bush, "rests upon the choices and the courage of free peoples, and upon their willingness to sacrifice." Because the United States and its allies were steadfast, Germany and Japan became democratic nations that no longer threatened the world. Bush then explicitly affirmed his belief in democratic peace: "Every nation has learned, or should have learned, an important lesson: Freedom is worth fighting for, dying for, and standing for — and the advance of freedom leads to peace." "And now," he continued, thinking of the Middle East, "we must apply that lesson in our own time. We've reached another great turning point — and the resolve we show will shape the next stage of the world democratic movement." He continued:

In many nations of the Middle East — countries of great strategic importance — democracy has not yet taken root. And the questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? ... I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free.
Some skeptics of democracy assert that the traditions of Islam are inhospitable to representative government. This "cultural condescension," as Ronald Reagan termed it, has a long history. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, a so-called Japan expert asserted that democracy in that former empire would "never work." Another observer declared the prospects for democracy in post-Hitler Germany are, and I quote, "most uncertain at best." ... Seventy-four years ago, The Sunday London Times declared nine-tenths of the population of India to be "illiterates not caring a fig for politics." ... Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or that people, or this group, are "ready" for democracy — as if freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards of progress.


Seeing the Islamic nations of the Middle East as no exception, Bush contended that "in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace." The "freedom deficit" in the Middle East had to be changed.

Bush conceded that while democracy is not perfect and not the path to utopia, it is "the only path to national success and dignity." Importantly, he added that democratic governments in the Middle East "will not, and should not, look like us." They should reflect their own cultures; they could be constitutional monarchies, federal republics, or parliamentary systems. Equally significant, Bush urged that "working democracies always need time to develop — as did American democracy." America must be "patient" with those nations at different stages of the journey.

In the most controversial part of the address, Bush claimed: "It should be clear to all that Islam...is consistent with democratic rule." Actually, it is not clear at all. Nonetheless, for doubters, he singled out examples of democratic progress in predominantly Muslim countries: Turkey, Indonesia, Senegal, Albania, Niger, and Sierra Leone. He said that Muslim men and women were good citizens of India and South Africa, the nations of Western Europe, and the United States. According to Bush, over half of all Muslims live under "democratically constituted governments," and they succeed in democratic societies, "not in spite of their faith, but because of it." He identified signs of democratic progress in Morocco, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Yemen, Kuwait, and Jordan.

If such countries become 21st-century democracies, historians will struggle to explain how impossible democracy's prospects once seemed in these nations, and thus how boundless and rare was Bush's optimism. His assessment may have been more farfetched than Ronald Reagan's predictions on the end of Communism in the early 1980s, which Bush referred to in this speech. Speaking specifically of Reagan's June 1982 Westminister Address, as well as Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, Bush concluded: "The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country.... We [Americans] believe that liberty is the design of nature; we believe that liberty is the direction of history.... [T]his is, above all, the age of liberty."

He finished by stamping his blessing on the work of all cheerleaders for liberty at the National Endowment for Democracy: "May God bless your work." That parting reference to God should not be dismissed as a throwaway line: Indeed, George W. Bush believes that God has implanted the desire for freedom deep within the hearts of all human beings, regardless of religion or ethnicity, Muslim Arabs included.


THE TOAST OF HISTORY
The speech's revolutionary sentiments were not new for Bush, and were also not post-Iraq War window-dressing. Since the first days after September 11, he had argued that what the terrorists hated most was freedom. A week after September 11, he promised: "We're going to lead the world to fight for freedom." He told Bob Woodward: "I truly believe that out of this [September 11] will come more order in the world — real progress to peace in the Middle East."

George W. Bush assigned himself the role of catalyst. A year after September 11, and over a year before the National Endowment for Democracy speech and the invasion of Iraq, his administration released its sweeping National Security Strategy, which promoted the spread of democracy to nations held hostage to despots. This objective, Bush wished, could bring long-term peace to regions like the Middle East. In a parallel not lost upon Bush, historian John Lewis Gaddis noted that by seeking to spread democracy everywhere, Bush aimed to finish the job Woodrow Wilson started a century earlier. "The world," writes Gaddis, "quite literally, must be made safe for democracy, even those parts of it, like the Middle East, that have so far resisted that tendency." (This was the kind of thing that liberals once championed, before blind rage at Bush precluded their better angels.) In July 2001, in his Proclamation 7455 marking Captive Nations Week, Bush had declared: "The 21st century must become the 'Century of Democracy.'"

Against incredible odds, George W. Bush may have laid the ground for Middle East democracy in the two most unlikely places, the Taliban's Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq. Nowhere were women more repressed than in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Nowhere were humans generally more repressed than in Iraq under Saddam. Between the two, Saddam was the biggest destabilizer in the world's most unstable neighborhood.

How will George W. Bush have achieved this? In both cases, by force — military force issued in reaction to September 11. September 11 handed him the opportunity. We can be certain that on that awful morning, as Osama ghoulishly smiled from a cave in Afghanistan, a rout of radical Islamic terror, defeat of dictatorship in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a potential wave of democratic freedom in the Middle East was not what Mr. bin Laden had in mind. But neither did he have in mind the response of George W. Bush.

To the extent that the Middle East becomes democratic, and peaceful — a very big "if" that remains to be seen — President Bush will have sowed the seeds in Afghanistan and Iraq. One man will have changed the course of history, making the 21st century rosy instead of bleak. And if such a monumental transformation happens, George W. Bush will be the toast of history, quite a change from today, where he is the focus of dripping hatred from millions in America and around the world. If only the haters could briefly put aside their passions and pause to see the remarkable stage of history possibly unfolding before their eyes. And if only our media could put aside partisanship and superficiality to ponder and relay the big picture.

Some quotes from kerry's pals

Jackson told worshippers their political concerns are issues that touch their everyday lives, not gay marriage.


"I see disturbing signs today that some of our churches have been confused by wolves in sheep's' clothing," Jackson said. "How did someone else put their agenda in the front of the line?"


"November 2, the power is in your hands, hands that once picked cotton," Jackson said.


Added Sharpton: "Everything we have fought for, marched for, gone to jail for — some died for — could be reversed if the wrong people are put on the Supreme Court."


Speakers avoided criticizing President Bush by name, since they were in church, but he was indirectly vilified.


Former Rep. Carrie Meek said Kerry is "fighting against liars and demons. ... He challenges the man who walks with a jaunty step." She rocked her hips in an imitation of Bush's swagger as the congregation cheered and Kerry laughed from his high-backed seat behind the pulpit.

The left and the Taliban

I love to argue politics. I think that arguement is what makes this country great. I do not think that those who disagree with me are evil or crazy. The Taliban and other fascist fundamentalists brlieve it is Gods will that they succeed, and they may do anything to make this happen. So does the left in this country believe they may do anything to win, that the future depends on defeating the evil Right. Unlike the Taliban the left does not believe in God and wants to erase any mention of Him from our lives but they are religous zealots nonetheless. The supreme court ruled that secular Humanism can be defined as a religion. The left will do anything, Voter intimidation, attacking Bush campaign headquarters is many states, voter fraud in Chicago, LA, and St. Louis. All these tactics ar tactics used by the Taliban in Afghanistan! The only thing we have not seen is the left blowing something up. The left is dying just like the Taliban and as they die they will strike out, fight, scream and do other irational things. I wish they would step back from the edge od oblivian and just talk about it. I believe in the two party system, I just wish they did.
Neil

In enemy territory?

An interview with Christopher Hitchens

Islamofascism and the Left

Johann Hari.com,


To many of Christopher Hitchens' old friends, he died on September 11th 2001. Tariq Ali considered himself a comrade of Christopher Hitchens for over thirty years. Now he speaks about him with bewilderment. "On 11th September 2001, a small group of terrorists crashed the planes they had hijacked into the Twin Towers of New York. Among the casualties, although unreported that week, was a middle-aged Nation columnist called Christopher Hitchens. He was never seen again," Ali writes. "The vile replica currently on offer is a double."

This encapsulates how many of Hitchens' old allies - a roll-call of the left's most distinguished intellectuals, from Edward Said to Noam Chomsky - now view him. On September 10th, he was campaigning for Henry Kissinger to be arraigned before a war crimes tribunal in the Hague for his massive and systematic crimes against humanity in the 1960s and 1970s. He was preparing to testify in the Vatican - as a literal Devil's Advocate - against the canonisation of Mother Theresa, who he had exposed as a sadistic Christian fundamentalist, an apologist for some of the world's ugliest dictatorships, and a knowing beneficiary of corporate fraud. Hitchens was sailing along the slow, certain route from being the Left's belligerent bad boy to being one of its most revered old men.

And then a hijacked plane flew into the Pentagon - a building which stands just ten minutes' from Hitchens' home. The island of Manhattan became engulfed in smoke. Within a year, Hitchens was damning his former comrades as "soft on Islamic fascism", giving speeches at the Bush White House, and describing himself publicly as "a recovering ex-Trotskyite." What happened?

When I arrive, he is reclining in his usual cloud of Rothmans' smoke and sipping a whisky. "You're late," he says sternly. I begin to flap, and he laughs. "It's fine," he says and I give him a big hug. On the morning of September 11th, once I had checked everybody I knew in New York was safe, I thought of Hitch who had become a friend since he encouraged my early journalistic efforts. He had been campaigning against Islamic fundamentalism for decades. I knew this assault this would blast him into new political waters - and I buckled a mental seatbelt for the bumpy ride ahead.

I decide to open with the most basic of questions. Where would he place himself on the political spectrum today? "I don't have a political allegiance now, and I doubt I ever will have again. I can no longer describe myself as a socialist. I miss it like a lost limb." He takes a sip from his drink. "But I don't regret anything. I'm still fighting for Kissinger to be brought to justice. The socialist movement enabled universal suffrage, the imposition of limits upon exploitation, and the independence of colonial and subject populations. Its achievements were real, and I'm glad I was part of it. Where it succeeded, one can be proud of it. Where it failed - as in the attempt to stop the First World War and later to arrest the growth of fascism - one can honourably regret its failure."

He realised he was not a socialist any longer around three years ago. "Often young people ask me for political advice, and when you are talking to the young, you mustn't bullshit. It's one thing when you are sitting with old comrades to talk about reviving the left, but you can't say that to somebody who is just starting out. And what could I say to these people? I had to ask myself - is there an international socialist movement worth the name? No. No, there is not. Okay - will it revive? No, it won't. Okay then - but is there at least a critique of capitalism that has a potential for replacing it? Not that I can identify."

"If the answer to all these questions is no, then I have no right to go around calling myself a socialist. It's more like an affectation." But Hitch - there are still hundreds of causes on the left, even if the ?socialist' tag is outdated. You used to write about acid rain, the crimes of the IMF and World Bank, the death penalty... It's hard to imagine you writing about them now. He explains that he is still vehemently against the death penalty and "I haven't forgotten the 152 people George Bush executed in Texas." But the other issues? He seems to wave them aside as "anti-globalisation" causes - a movement he views with contempt.

He explains that he believes the moment the left's bankruptcy became clear was on 9/11. "The United States was attacked by theocratic fascists who represents all the most reactionary elements on earth. They stand for liquidating everything the left has fought for: women's rights, democracy? And how did much of the left respond? By affecting a kind of neutrality between America and the theocratic fascists." He cites the cover of one of Tariq Ali's books as the perfect example. It shows Bush and Bin Laden morphed into one on its cover. "It's explicitly saying they are equally bad. However bad the American Empire has been, it is not as bad as this. It is not the Taliban, and anybody - any movement - that cannot see the difference has lost all moral bearings."

Hitchens - who has just returned from Afghanistan - says, "The world these [al-Quadea and Taliban] fascists want to create is one of constant submission and servility. The individual only has value to them if they enter into a life of constant reaffirmation and prayer. It is pure totalitarianism, and one of the ugliest totalitarianisms we've seen. It's the irrational combined with the idea of a completely closed society. To stand equidistant between that and a war to remove it is?" He shakes his head. I have never seen Hitch grasping for words before.

Some people on the left tried to understand the origins of al-Quadea as really being about inequalities in wealth, or Israel's brutality towards the Palestinians, or other legitimate grievances. "Look: inequalities in wealth had nothing to do with Beslan or Bali or Madrid," Hitchens says. "The case for redistributing wealth is either good or it isn't - I think it is - but it's a different argument. If you care about wealth distribution, please understand, the Taliban and the al Quaeda murderers have less to say on this than even the most cold-hearted person on Wall Street. These jihadists actually prefer people to live in utter, dire poverty because they say it is purifying. Nor is it anti-imperialist: they explictly want to recreate the lost Caliphate, which was an Empire itself."

He continues, "I just reject the whole mentality that says, we need to consider this phenomenon in light of current grievances. It's an insult to the people who care about the real grievances of the Palestinians and the Chechens and all the others. It's not just the wrong interpretation of those causes; it's their negation." And this goes for the grievances of the Palestinians, who he has dedicated a great deal of energy to documenting and supporting. "Does anybody really think that if every Jew was driven from Palestine, these guys would go back to their caves? Nobody is blowing themselves up for a two-state solution. They openly say, ?We want a Jew-free Palestine, and a Christian-free Palestine.' And that would very quickly become, ?Don't be a Shia Muslim around here, baby.'" He supports a two-state solution - but he doesn't think it will solve the jihadist problem at all.

Can he ever see a defeat for this kind of Islamofascism? "This kind of theocratic fascism will never die because we belong to a very poorly-evolved mammarian species. I'm a complete materialist in that sense. We're stuck with being the product of a very sluggish evolution. Our pre-frontal lobes are too small and our adrenaline glands are too big. Our fear of the dark and of death is very intense, and people will always be able to profit from that. But nor can I see this kind of fascism winning. They couldn't even run Afghanistan. Our victory is assured - so we can afford to be very scrupulous in our methods."

But can he see a time when this kind of jihadist fever will be as marginalised as, say, Nazism is now, confined to a few reactionary eccentrics? "Not without what that took - which is an absolutely convincing defeat and discrediting. Something unarguable. I wouldn't exclude any measure either. There's nothing I wouldn't do to stop this form of fascism."

He is appalled that some people on the left are prepared to do almost nothing to defeat Islamofascism. "When I see some people who claim to be on the left abusing that tradition, making excuses for the most reactionary force in the world, I do feel pain that a great tradition is being defamed. So in that sense I still consider myself to be on the left." A few months ago, when Bush went to Ireland for the G8 meeting, Hitchens was on a TV debate with the leader of a small socialist party in the Irish dail. "He said these Islamic fascists are doing this because they have deep-seated grievances. And I said, 'Ah yes, they
have many grievances. They are aggrieved when they see unveiled woman. And they are aggrieved that we tolerate homosexuals and Jews and free speech and the reading of literature.'"

"And this man - who had presumably never met a jihadist in his life - said, ?No, it's about their economic grievances.' Well, of course, because the Taliban provided great healthcare and redistribution of wealth, didn't they? After the debate was over, I said, ?If James Connolly [the Irish socialist leader of the Easter Risings] could hear you defending these theocratic fascist barbarians, you would know you had been in a fight. Do you know what you are saying? Do you know who you are pissing on?"

Many of us can agree passionately with all that - but it is a huge leap to actually supporting Bush. George Orwell - one of Hitchens' intellectual icons - managed to oppose fascism and Stalinism from the left without ever offering a word of support for Winston Churchill. Can't Hitch agitate for a fight against Islamofascism without backing this awful President?

He explains by talking about the origins of his relationship with the neconservatives in Washington. "I first became interested in the neocons during the war in Bosnia-Herzgovinia. That war in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstiutution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent - or even take the side of the fascists."

"It was a time when many people on the left were saying ?Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, ?Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region.'", he continues. "And I thought - destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco?"

"It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position - leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism," he elaborates. "So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying ?Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting[ital] Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region."

"That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act." He continues, "Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that - like Chomsky - looked ridiculous. So now I was interested."

There are two strands of conservatism on the US right that Hitch has always opposed. The first was the Barry Goldwater-Pat Buchanan isolationist right. They argued for "America First" - disengagement from the world, and the abandonment of Europe to fascism. The second was the Henry Kissinger right, which argued for the installation of pro-American, pro-business regimes, even if it meant liquidating democracies (as in Chile or Iran) and supporting and equipping practitioners of genocide.

He believes neoconservatism is a distinctively new strain of thought, preached by ex-leftists, who believed in using US power to spread democracy. "It's explicitly anti-Kissingerian. Kissinger hates this stuff. He opposed intervening in the Balkans. Kissinger Associates were dead against [the war in] Iraq. He can't understand the idea of backing democracy - it's totally alien to him."

"So that interest in the neocons re-emerged after September 11th. They were saying - we can't carry on with the approach to the Middle East we have had for the past fifty years. We cannot go on with this proxy rule racket, where we back tyranny in the region for the sake of stability. So we have to take the risk of uncorking it and hoping the more progressive side wins." He has replaced a belief in Marxist revolution with a belief in spreading the American revolution. Thomas Jefferson has displaced Karl Marx.

But can we trust the Bush administration - filled with people like Dick Cheney, who didn't even support the release of Nelson Mandela - to support democracy and the spread of American values now? He offers an anecdote in response. There is a new liberal-left heroine in the States called Azar Nafisi. Her book ?Reading Lolita in Tehran' documents an underground feminist resistance movement to the Iranian Mullahs that concentrated on reading great - and banned - works of Western literature. "And who is this book by an icon of the Iranian resistance dedicated to? [US Deputy Secretary of Defence] Paul Wolfowitz, the bogeyman of the left, and the intellectual force behind [the recent war in] Iraq."

With the fine eye for ideological division that comes from a life on the Trotskyite left, Hitch diagnoses the intellectual divisions within the Bush administration. He does not ally himself with the likes of Cheney; he backs the small sliver of pure neocon thought he associates with Wolfowitz. "The thing that would most surprise people about Wolfowitz if they met him is that he's a real bleeding heart. He's from a Polish-Jewish immigrant family. You know the drill - Kennedy Democrats, some of the family got out of Poland in time and some didn't make it, civil rights marchers? He impressed me when he was speaking at a pro-Israel rally in Washington a few years ago and he made a point of talking about Palestinian suffering. He didn't have to do it - at all - and he was booed. He knew he would be booed, and he got it. I've taken time to find out what he thinks about these issues, and it's always interesting."

He gives an account of how the neocon philosophy affected the course of the Iraq war. "The CIA - which is certainly not neoconservative - wanted to keep the Iraqi army together because you never know when you might need a large local army. That's how the US used to govern. It's a Kissinger way of thinking. But Wolfowitz and others wanted to disband the Iraqi army, because they didn't want anybody to even suspect that they wanted to restore military rule." He thinks that if this philosophy can become dominant within the Republican Party, it can turn US power into a revolutionary force.

I feel simultaneously roused by Hitch's arguments and strangely disconcerted. Why did Hitch so enthusiastically back the administration's bogus WMD arguments - arguments he still stands by? I think of the Bush administration's denial of global warming, the hideous ?structural adjustment' programmes it rams down the throats of the world's poor (including Iraq's), its description of Ariel Sharon as "a man of peace"? Why intellectually compromise on all these issues and back Bush?

Bosnia was not the only precedent for Hitch's reaction to 9/11. He was disgusted by the West's slothful, grudging reaction to the fatwa against his friend Salman Rushdie. Back in 1989, he was writing about the "absurdity" of "seeing Islamic fundamentalism as an anti-imperial movement." He was similarly appalled by the American left's indulgence of Bill Clinton's crimes, including the execution of a mentally disabled black man and the bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan that led to the deaths of more than 10,000 innocent Sudanese people. This brought him into close contact with the Clinton-hating right - and made him view their opponents with disgust.

And so the separation of Hitch and the organised left occurred. Is it permanent? Nobody was a better fighter for left-wing causes than Hitch. Nobody makes the left-wing case against Islamofascism and Ba'athism better than him today. Yet he undermines these vital arguments by backing Bush and indulging in wishful thinking about the Republicans.

As I luxuriate in the warm bath of his charisma, I want to almost physically drag him all the way back to us. He might be dead to the likes of Tariq Ali but there is still a large constituency of people on the left who understand how abhorrent Islamic fundamentalism is. Why leave us behind? I stammer that I can't imagine him ever settling down on the American right. He pauses, and I desperately hope that he will agree with me. "Not the Buchanan-Reagan right, no," he says. There is a pause. I expect him to continue, but he doesn't.

Back in the mid-1980s, Hitch lambasted a small US magazine called the Partsian Review for its "decline into neoconservatism". I don't think Hitch is lost to the left quite yet. He will never stop campaigning for the serial murderer Henry Kissinger to be brought to justice, and his hatred of Islamic fundamentalism is based on good left-wing principles. But it does feel at the end of our three-hour lunch like I have been watching him slump into neoconservatism. Come home, Hitch - we need you.

John Kerry Made At Least 16 Inaccurate Statements

John Kerry Made At Least

16 Inaccurate Statements

During Last Night's Debate

1. Kerry Inaccurately Claimed Cuts In Homeland Security Funding Caused NYC Subway To Be Closed During The RNC Convention. "In an early exchange about homeland security, Kerry got it wrong when he claimed President Bush's cuts in funding for infrastructure protection was 'why they had to close down the subway in New York when the Republican Convention was there.' The only problem is that no subway service beneath Madison Square Garden was suspended during the convention, even as buses were diverted and gridlock ruled the streets." ("Subway Flub Derails Challenger," The New York Post, 10/1/04)
   
2. Kerry Falsely Claimed He Had “Made A Mistake In How” He Talked About His Vote Against The $87 Billion, Despite Previously Saying It Would Be "Irresponsible" To Vote Against Funding For Our Troops. (CBS’ “Face The Nation,” 9/14/03)
   
3. Kerry Claimed He's "Never, Ever" Used Word "Lying" In Reference To President Bush On Iraq, But In December 2003 Kerry Told A New Hampshire Editorial Board Bush "Lied" About Reasons For Going To War In Iraq And In September 2003 Kerry Said Bush Administration "Lied" And "Misled." (Patrick Healy, "Kerry Camp Lowers N.H. Expectations Behind In Polls, Senator Now Seeks Spot In 'Top Two,'" The Boston Globe, 12/8/03; Sen. John Kerry, Campaign Event, Claremont, NH, 9/20/03)
   
4. According To FactCheck.Org, Kerry's "Cost" For The Iraq War Is Off By $80 Billion. ("Distortions And Misstatements At First Presidential Debate," FactCheck.org, 10/1/04, http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=271, Accessed 10/1/04)
   
5. According To FactCheck.Org, Kerry "Overstated The Case" On Osama Bin Laden's Alleged Escape At Tora Bora. ("Distortions And Misstatements At First Presidential Debate," FactCheck.org, 10/1/04, http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=271, Accessed 10/1/04)
   
6. Kerry Made Assumption The UN Was Willing To Continue Sanctions Against Iraq Despite The Fact They Were Becoming "Increasingly Unpopular With Key Nations." (Glenn Kessler And Walter Pincus, "Few Factual Errors, But Truth Got Stretched At Times," The Washington Post, 10/1/04)
   
7. Kerry Misspoke And Said Weapons Of Mass Destruction Were "Crossing The (Iraq) Border Every Single Day." "The AP noted that Kerry misspoke when he said 'we got weapons of mass destruction crossing the (Iraq) border every single day, and they're blowing people up.' Kerry meant terrorists were crossing the border, not nuclear weapons." ("Distortions And Misstatements At First Presidential Debate," FactCheck.org, 10/1/04, http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=271, Accessed 10/1/04)
   
8. Kerry Claimed U.S. Soldiers Are "90 Percent Of The Casualties In Iraq," But The Wall Street Journal Puts U.S. Casualties Closer To 50% When You Include Iraqis Helping To Secure Their Own Country. (Editorial, "Our Kerry Iraq Guide," The Wall Street Journal, 9/30/04)
   
9. Kerry Falsely Claimed President Bush Diverted Forces From Afghanistan To Iraq; Gen. Tommy Franks Said It's "Absolutely Incorrect" That Resources Were Diverted From Afghanistan. (General Tommy Franks, ABC Radio's "The Sean Hannity Show," 9/21/04)
   
10. Kerry Falsely Claimed The Bush Administration Has Not Organized An International Summit To Discuss Iraq. "Reality Check: The administration has, in fact, organized just such a conference, in consultation with Iraqi and other Arab allies. It will be held in Cairo late in November, with the foreign ministers of the G8 countries (i.e. including antiwar countries such as France, Germany and Russia), China, the countries of the Arab League, Turkey and Iran invited to attend. If it goes ahead, it will mark the most significant attempt to forge a political consensus on Iraq since the war." (Tony Karon, "Reality Check: John Kerry," Time.com, http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,703913,00.html, 10/1/04)
    
11. Kerry Falsely Claimed The President Is "Cutting The COPS Program," When The Truth Is President Bush Has Already Met And Exceeded The COPS Program's 100,000 Officer Goal By 18 Percent. (http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=1056)
    
12. Kerry Claimed Gen. Shinseki Was Retired For Testimony On Iraq When In Fact Shinseki's Retirement Was Announced In April 2002, Long Before He Testified About Potential Conduct Of Iraq War. (Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, "Inside The Ring," The Washington Times, 4/19/02)
    
13. Kerry Misleadingly Claimed He Can Bring More Allies Into Iraq. "Reality Check: It wasn't the President's credibility that kept most of the international community out of Iraq; it was, and is, the policies pursued by the U.S. in Iraq. But Kerry is broadly committed to the same policies. And if, as he says, other countries will participate because they have a stake in the outcome, the presumably they would do so no matter who was President of the United States." (Tony Karon, "Reality Check: John Kerry," Time.com, http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,703913,00.html, 10/1/04)
    
14. Kerry Claimed To Have His Own Four-Point Plan For Iraq, But It Mirrors The President's Plan. "Kerry's plan… is pretty much a checklist of recent initiatives adopted by the Bush Administration." (Tony Karon, "Reality Check: John Kerry," Time.com, http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,703913,00.html, 10/1/04)
    
15. Kerry Falsely Stated The Agreement With North Korea Broke Down Because The President Didn't Continue The Clinton Administration's Policy. "Reality Check: While the Yongbon facility was under scrutiny and the fuel rods were sealed, North Korea has since admitted to running a secret parallel uranium-enrichment program to create weapons-grade fissile material in the years following the agreement reached with the Clinton administration, in violation of that agreement." (Tony Karon, "Reality Check: John Kerry," Time.com, http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,703913,00.html, 10/1/04)
    
16. Kerry Falsely Claimed The "Reason For Going To War Was Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Not The Removal Of Saddam Hussein," But The 2002 Use Of Force Resolution Kerry Voted For Specifically Recognized Longstanding Regime Change Policy. (Public Law No. 107-243, Signed Into Law 10/16/02)
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

Masked revelers prefer Bush

Get this one: Halloween mask sales predictor says incumbent will beat Kerry in November.





CNN


NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Forget about the guesswork from the political pundits and ignore all those election polls.

The real key to predicting the outcome of the presidential election is this year's face-off of the Halloween masks.

It's as unscientific as it gets, but the theory, according to some people in the costume business, is that the winner in every election since 1980 has been the candidate whose masks were most popular on Halloween.


So far this year, Bush masks have been outselling those of
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry by a 57 percent to 43 percent margin, according to one outfit, BuyCostumes.com, the online arm of Wisconsin-based costume marketer Buyseasons Inc.

BuyCostumes.com says Halloween sales figures from manufacturers, national store chains and its own efforts have accurately picked the last six presidential elections.

So does this mean W. gets a second term in office?

"It hasn't failed us yet," Daniel Haight, chief operating officer at Buyseasons, said in an interview. "The masks are a great way for people to express their political leanings at a Halloween party or at a political gathering."


Haight declined to disclose just how many Bush and Kerry masks the company has sold so far, saying only that several thousand had been sold of each candidate.

The company's most popular presidential mask? That of former president Ronald Reagan in 1984, Haight said.

"Bill Clinton masks are still very popular and masks of Bush cabinet members such as Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell are also gaining popularity."

"As a company, we're neutral in terms of affiliation," Haight said. "We're just having lots of fun with the mask predictor. We're not here to influence people one way or the other on how to vote. We want the customer to influence the outcome through their wallets."

Flirting With Disaster

The vile spectacle of Democrats rooting for bad news in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Sept. 27, 2004, at 11:35 AM PT




There it was at the tail end of Brian Faler's "Politics" roundup column in last Saturday's Washington Post. It was headed, simply, "Quotable":

"I wouldn't be surprised if he appeared in the next month." Teresa Heinz Kerry to the Phoenix Business Journal, referring to a possible capture of Osama bin Laden before Election Day.

As well as being "quotable" (and I wish it had been more widely reported, and I hope that someone will ask the Kerry campaign or the nominee himself to disown it), this is also many other words ending in "-able." Deplorable, detestable, unforgivable. …

The plain implication is that the Bush administration is stashing Bin Laden somewhere, or somehow keeping his arrest in reserve, for an "October surprise." This innuendo would appear, on the face of it, to go a little further than "impugning the patriotism" of the president. It argues, after all, for something like collusion on his part with a man who has murdered thousands of Americans as well as hundreds of Muslim civilians in other countries.

I am not one of those who likes to tease Mrs. Kerry for her "loose cannon" style. This is only the second time I have ever mentioned her in print. But I happen to know that this is not an instance of loose lips. She has heard that very remark being made by senior Democrats, and—which is worse—she has not heard anyone in her circle respond to it by saying, "Don't be so bloody stupid." I first heard this "October surprise" theory mentioned seriously, by a prominent foreign-policy Democrat, at an open dinner table in Washington about six months ago. Since then, I've heard it said seriously or semiseriously, by responsible and liberal people who ought to know better, all over the place. It got even worse when the Democratic establishment decided on an arm's-length or closer relationship with Michael Moore and his supposedly vote-getting piece of mendacity and paranoia, Fahrenheit 9/11. (The DNC's boss, Terence McAuliffe, asked outside the Uptown cinema on Connecticut Avenue whether he honestly believed that the administration had invaded Afghanistan for the sake of an oil or perhaps gas pipeline, breezily responded, "I do now.")

What will it take to convince these people that this is not a year, or a time, to be dicking around? Americans are patrolling a front line in Afghanistan, where it would be impossible with 10 times the troop strength to protect all potential voters on Oct. 9 from Taliban/al-Qaida murder and sabotage. We are invited to believe that these hard-pressed soldiers of ours take time off to keep Osama Bin Laden in a secret cave, ready to uncork him when they get a call from Karl Rove? For shame.

Ever since The New Yorker published a near-obituary piece for the Kerry campaign, in the form of an autopsy for the Robert Shrum style, there has been a salad of articles prematurely analyzing "what went wrong." This must be nasty for Democratic activists to read, and I say "nasty" because I hear the way they respond to it. A few pin a vague hope on the so-called "debates"—which are actually joint press conferences allowing no direct exchange between the candidates—but most are much more cynical. Some really bad news from Iraq, or perhaps Afghanistan, and/or a sudden collapse or crisis in the stock market, and Kerry might yet "turn things around." You have heard it, all right, and perhaps even said it. But you may not have appreciated how depraved are its implications. If you calculate that only a disaster of some kind can save your candidate, then you are in danger of harboring a subliminal need for bad news. And it will show. What else explains the amazingly crude and philistine remarks of that campaign genius Joe Lockhart, commenting on the visit of the new Iraqi prime minister and calling him a "puppet"? Here is the only regional leader who is even trying to hold an election, and he is greeted with an ungenerous sneer.

The unfortunately necessary corollary of this—that bad news for the American cause in wartime would be good for Kerry—is that good news would be bad for him. Thus, in Mrs. Kerry's brainless and witless offhand yet pregnant remark, we hear the sick thud of the other shoe dropping. How can the Democrats possibly have gotten themselves into a position where they even suspect that a victory for the Zarqawi or Bin Laden forces would in some way be welcome to them? Or that the capture or killing of Bin Laden would not be something to celebrate with a whole heart?

I think that this detail is very important because the Kerry camp often strives to give the impression that its difference with the president is one of degree but not of kind. Of course we all welcome the end of Taliban rule and even the departure of Saddam Hussein, but we can't remain silent about the way policy has been messed up and compromised and even lied about. I know what it's like to feel that way because it is the way I actually do feel. But I also know the difference when I see it, and I have known some of the liberal world quite well and for a long time, and there are quite obviously people close to the leadership of today's Democratic Party who do not at all hope that the battle goes well in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I have written before in this space that I think Bin Laden is probably dead, and I certainly think that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a far more ruthless and dangerous jihadist, who is trying to take a much more important country into the orbit of medieval fanaticism and misery. One might argue about that: I could even maintain that it's important to oppose and defeat both gentlemen and their supporters. But unless he conclusively repudiates the obvious defeatists in his own party (and maybe even his own family), we shall be able to say that John Kerry's campaign is a distraction from the fight against al-Qaida.


Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His new collection of essays, Love, Poverty and War, is forthcoming in October.

Kerry Interview On "Imus In The Morning"

IMUS: "Well he's urging you to admit the war was a mistake and then start attacking these people."

KERRY: "Well I think the war ..."

IMUS: "Why can't you do that?"

KERRY: "But I do. It's exactly what I am doing. I think the war ... I said it a hundred times, I think it was a huge mistake for the President to go to war the way he did. I've said that a dozen times. I mean, the fact is that I ..."

IMUS: "Do you think there are any circumstances we should have gone to war in Iraq, any?"

KERRY: "Not under the current circumstances, no. There are none that I see. I voted based on weapons of mass destruction. The President distorted that, and I've said that. I mean, look, I can't be clearer. But I think it was the right vote based on what Saddam Hussein had done, and I think it was the right thing to do to hold him accountable. I've said a hundred times, there was a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. The President chose the wrong way. Can't be more direct than that."

Can Anyone explain to me what he just said?