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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (27991)	2/5/2004 8:17:24 AM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793927

"Kerry's long history of waffling or changing is not because of changing circumstances. He waffles to pander to different factions within his party for personal gain" That may be part of it but waffling for these reasons is not uncommon among pols. I think it goes deeper with Kerry and has to do with his experience in and post vietnam. Folks who have experienced war are very cognizant of what making the decision to go to war entails and that is good. But some folks who came of age during the vietnam war however, may suffer paralysis by analysis. Kerry is both a politician and conflicted about that war and thus all war, so peace becomes the prime motivation. And otoh being for liberty is great but the US does not have the power to effect liberty everywhere at all times. So again going to war should occur while fighting for liberty but only in times when national interest are affected and/or when we have the power to act. I am probably far less willing to play the role of world cop (the latter example) than you are, so i will concentrate on the national interest justification for US action. Iraq meets bpth criteria imo but given what we now may know about wmds, the war didnt have to be rushed the way it was and thats 20/20 hindsight i know so it is not meant as a critique of bush. Mike

To: unclewest who wrote (27991)	2/5/2004 1:01:29 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 793927

The 'Real' Real Deal INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY investors.com Media: Politics, they say, is a blood sport. So it isn't surprising when some pretty big lies get told. Like the one about President Bush being a deserter. What isn't surprising is that the charge came from Michael Moore, the writer/filmmaker whose relationship to the truth in the products he himself turns out is open to challenge. Moore made the charge at a New Hampshire rally in support of Gen. Wesley Clark. And Clark, failing one of the key tests to be president — honesty — didn't correct him, though he certainly knew the charge was wrong. Not that finding the truth was hard to do. In fact, a number of media outlets, hoping for a juicy anti-Bush story, leapt at Moore's charge. What they found was disappointing for the Bush bashers. As The Boston Globe noted, Bush was honorably discharged from the Air National Guard with a sterling reputation: "Those who trained and flew with Bush . . . said he was among the best pilots in the 111th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron. In the 22-month period between the end of his flight training and his move to Alabama, Bush logged numerous hours of duty, well above the minimum requirements for so-called 'weekend warriors.' " Bush ultimately served long enough to be granted an early discharge from the military so that he could attend the Harvard School of Business. That's it. End of story. Or so one might think. In recent weeks, this old canard has resurfaced. John Kerry, the Democratic front-runner and decorated Vietnam War veteran — a fact he lets anyone within earshot know — has hinted there are questions about Bush's service the media should look into. It's already been done. There's nothing there. If there are questions about anyone's service, it's Kerry's. We're not talking about his military record, for which he deserves respect and admiration. It's his other service — in the Senate. From the time he entered the Senate 19 years ago, Kerry often has tried to have it both ways. The man who calls himself "the real deal" on the campaign trail also portrays himself as a centrist. But his lifetime rating from Americans for Democratic Action, the liberal group that rates lawmakers on their voting patterns, is 93%. That, as GOP National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie recently pointed out, is five percentage points higher than Ted Kennedy's lifetime rating. Kerry likes to pound Bush for his ties to "powerful interests" and "big oil." In fact, the Center for Responsive Politics notes Kerry has raised twice as much from lobbyists as any Democratic rival. Kerry voted for the No Child Left Behind Act, the Patriot Act and the resolution supporting war in Iraq — all Bush initiatives. And why not? Those conservative bills were popular when proposed. And, though he's a liberal, Kerry went with the flow. But today, you'll have trouble hearing him defend, or even admit to, those votes on the stump. Just as you'd have trouble knowing he once supported taking Saddam out — but changed his mind as polls shifted. Kerry's record of flip-flops on key issues, his history of cozy ties to lobbyists and his dissembling about his 19-year record in the Senate all deserve closer scrutiny by the media. Let's find out the real deal — before the primaries are done.

To: unclewest who wrote (27991)	2/5/2004 4:27:24 PM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 793927

Well said uw, I would also like to add, GWB's decision was not only based on liberty, it was also based on creating the environment in which terrorism loses its grip on the people in that region. From Kerry, Dean and the others, they offered and continue to offer no reasonable solution to the long term problem of changing the climate in which terrorism breeds. It's partly economic, partly informational, partly ignorance, and partly opening up the society to outside influences. These are all linked to expanding liberty. I remember Patti Murray commenting right after 9/11 that we needed to build more schools, build more day care centers and build more hospitals etc. Well, we're doing just that now. Kerry and Dean and the other leftists who opposed the intervention would have done nothing. How would they have realistically began building roads and schools and hospitals in Iraq? They had no plan, and they had no hope of achieving their goal with a murdering selfish dictator like Saddam Hussein in power. Building those schools and creating the long term environmental shift necessary to lesson the conditions which breed terrorists, first meant the removal of Saddam from power. Any other strategy not beginning with that basic premise was doomed to failure from the start. In addition, look what has happened since our invasion to the financial markets in the Middle East. They have soared. As markets advance more opportunities for the creation of wealth expand. We're seeing that happen now. These things won't change in the blink of an eye. It may take two or three more decades before we see the obvious economic benefits to the region. But we're that much closer now. We are that much closer now because we had a leader willing to take a risk for freedom. He was willing to take that risk, because the long term risk of doing nothing was far greater after 9/11.