Hugh Hewitt
<font size=4>John Kerry's conduct as an anti-war protestor comes under scathing attack in the documentary StolenHonor, which debuts today.
There isn't time for a documentary to be made about it, but Kerry's reckless trip to Managua in April of 1985, is as excellent a predictor of his policy of appeasement should he become president as any other event in his senate career, and it is the subject of my WeeklyStandard.com column, "One Weekend in April, A Long Time Ago." Given Kerry's past actions and his present incoherence, I think more and more people are agreeing with my conclusion regarding him: The wrong man with the wrong ideas at the wrong time.
Day 39 since Kerry sat down with a major American journalist for an extended interview with the cameras rolling. Now the long, long list of questions which begins with Christmas Eve in Cambodia, the magic hat and the gun-running that never happened, must include as well some questions about the wisdom of his mini-Munich in Managua.
Howard Kurtz has a nice summary of the various attacks on Bush that allege various things about his air national guard service. Kurtz correctly id's the main thrust of this barrage of non-news, represented by Nichols Kristof's closing paragraph in today's New York Times: <font color=blue>"Does this disqualify Mr. Bush from being commander in chief? No. But it should disqualify the Bush campaign from sliming the military service of a rival who still carries shrapnel from Vietnam in his thigh."<font color=black>
What Kristof amazingly doesn't seem to understand --aside from the fact that the Swift Boat Vets and the StolenHonor POWs couldn't care less if the president wants them to stop-- is the very crucial and very obvious fact that Mark Steyn made on my program yesterday. Bush already is Commander-in-Chief. He has a record of action in that role that people can evaluate.
Kerry has no such record, so voters have to look to his past conduct to infer how he would act in that job. Not only can they not figure out how he would act as Commander-in-Chief from his speeches, as even the editors of the New York Times admit this morning, Kerry's record of anti-war radicalism, Senate pacifism and appeasement, and his now well-documented rich fantasy life are all reasons to fear --fear-- a Kerry presidency.
Go back to that 1986 speech on the floor of the Senate, the one in which he talks about how his Christmas Eve in Cambodia adventure was <font color=blue>"seared, seared"<font color=black> into his memory. In that speech he used that fantasy to make an argument for abandoning the contras in Nicaragua, or as Howard Kaloogian puts it, Kerry based policy on fantasy. That is nothing short of deeply troubling.
Some small slice of the fever swamp left may persuade itself that missing documents make Bush a loafer in 1972, but there's nearly three years as a war president against which to measure the president in the voting booth. About John Kerry one can only wonder: <font color=green>"How weird is this guy, and will he be jetting off, umbrella in hand, to negotiate with the French over America's national security?"<font color=black>
Even the silliest of people understand the box Kerry has built for himself. Recycling fever swamp allegations from 1972 and Kitty Kelly are not going to get Americans to trust this guy with the national defense in a 9/11 world that throws up Beslan last week and another Jakarta bombing today. Mark Steyn is right that most of the world doesn't seem to grasp the nature of the war we are in, but I think a healthy majority of American voters do, and that it isn't the sort of war that John Kerry is equipped to lead.
We are told that if the world could vote, they would elect Kerry. Of course the world would prefer that America return to its Clinton-era, supine target status. If terrorists can get here and murder Americans, they are far less likely to do so in other countries. Like Churchill said, appeasement is like feeding the alligator all your friends in the hope it will eat you last.
This poll may be the very best evidence that Bush is waging exactly the right sort of war, and why he is likely to win big. Read George Will's latest. It is an election about security --our security, not Indonesia's or Mexico's or any of the other countries polled.
Which brings me to today's Denver Post story on libertarian presidential candidate Joe Bagodonuts. In this age of terror, could anything be a greater marker of silliness than a vote for the libertarian candidate? Millions will of course proudly cast their ballot for him and his colleagues down ballot, which has the effect of helping John Kerry keep it close and Senate Democrats keep blocking power in the upper chamber. Why not just wear a sign reading: <font color=blue>"AS THICK AS A BRICK"?<font color=black>
Be sure to read this post from Mudville Gazette.<font size=3>
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