Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Who asked you?

Presidential loser John Kerry reprises his campaign stump speech and writes in the NY Times “The speech the President should give.” Essentially, his solutions to Iraq involve everything we’re doing now, only faster. Here’s the best part of the article:

John F. Kerry is a Democratic senator from Massachusetts.
That’s as far as you’re going to go: Ted Kennedy’s understudy.

Extra - Little Green Footballs on the pretender to the throne: "In an example of truly monumental chutzpah, John F. Kerry’s editorial for the New York Times spews the same nonsense that lost him the election, laughably dictating to the elected President what he should say in tonight’s speech."

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is one interesting bit in there. If I counted correctly it's in the fifth paragraph. Kerry challenges the President to state that he has no intention of maintaining a permanent military presence in Iraq.

This is a direct reference to the real story behind all of this: the hijacking of GOP foreign policy by the neoconservatives.

The neoconservative movement has existed for years (it was established long before the terrorist attacks of 2001). Prominent neoconservatives such as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, et al., are on record during the Nineties as advocating regime change in Iraq:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

One of the stated goals of the neoconservative movement is to enforce what they themselves refer to as a "Pax Americana," an historical allusion to the Pax Romana, an extended period of relative peace in the Mediterranean maintained by the overwhelming power of the Roman legions. Ah, the Roman Empire; what a swell role model for the greatest democracy in the history of mankind.

A key part of the neoconservative strategy is the establishment of permanent military bases in that region of the world. The terrorist attacks in 2001 provided the necessary cover for an operation that would otherwise have been unpalatable to the American public. Consider this: we sent a relatively small force into Afghanistan, where OBL and hundreds of Al Qaeda actually were, but sent a massive expeditionary force into Iraq, where they weren't. In fact, about the only terrorist they could come up with who was in Iraq at the time was Zaqarwi, whose focus up to that point had been on Jordan, and whose ties to OBL were tenuous at best.

Some of the best commentary on this issue comes from a source that should be near and dear to conservatives: Pat Buchanan. And he's vein-poppin' mad about it, too.

Anonymous said...

Yeah! How dare a 21-year U.S. Senator who got 59 million votes go shooting off his mouth about what he thinks the country should or shouldn't do? That job properly belongs to faceless bloggers!

Brian said...

I am sure every one of those 59 million waited with baited breath to hear Kerry's thoughts. I think the 62 million who voted for Bush don't care what Kerry thinks.

I am interested in hearing Kerry's thoughts on Iraq as I am asking the LA Clippers owner how to build an NBA championship team.

Anonymous said...

And by that "logic," there are 220 million Kerry voters and non-voters who don't care what George W. Bush has to say, so he should shut his yap, too. Come to think of it, imposing a total moratorium on speaking for shallow mediocrities like Kerry and Bush would be something I could strongly get behind.

Anonymous said...

This is one of the two patented "Kerry Methods" exposed during the campaign.

This one is the Kerry Plan Version A: "My plan is to do the things that are already being done."

The second is the Kerry Plan Version B: "I have a secret plan to solve this but of course I can't reveal it until I'm elected."

He's a citizen so he has a right to think and say what he wants. He's prominent so he gets space on the NYT Op-Ed page to show the world just how bad a president he would have been.

Dusty said...

There's the left again making presumptions.

In 2000, they felt capable of divining how spoiled punchcard ballots could be interpreted.

Now they deem themselves qualified for knowing the opinions and preferences regarding Bush of the 100-odd million people who didn't vote last November.

Of course they can't do simple arithmetic either, but why let that get in the way of the left's logic?

Anonymous said...

U.S. population: 295 million
Bush voters: 62 million
Kerry voters: 59 million
Other: 174 million

However, the big number includes children and other ineligibles. 214-218 million people could have voted in 2004. But, taking "non-voters" at face value, the "220 million" figure cited underestimates the total by 13 million. Conversely, the "100-odd million" figure overestimates the eligible non-voters by 3 to 7 million.

Forget each side's numbers. The rhetorical logic is backwards. The Bush voters cared a lot more about Kerry's statements than the Kerry voters did (and vice versa).

And out of 295,000,000+ Americans, Bush's speech changed the minds of 8.

Dusty said...

Not to belabor the point unnecessarily, Archie, but I would have hoped that in an adult debate on politics, we wouldn't be counting infants and children as non-voters. If the CIA Factbook estimates are used, you got the 295 million right. However, those aged 15 and over totals 234.9M. If you lop off 13M for those still too young to vote, I skipped ineligibles, you have the 220M, (Dolly's number) but you haven't subtracted the Bush voters which is 62M. So, Dolly Kos is off by at least that much (158M vs 220M) which is a rather large 28%. Like I said, not very good arithmetic.

Thanks, though, for bumping up the "does care" count from 0 to 8. Much appreciated. May I presume you were able to offer those from the "non-voter" group because you have a better crystal ball or was that just an estimate at the number of babies born in the last minute of the speech?