Christopher Hitchens on Bush's legacy

Christopher Hitchens writes in Slate Magazine that he's not sorry Bush beat Gore and Kerry.

In Oliver Stone's not very good but surprisingly well-received film W., there is an unnoticed omission, or rather there is an event that does not occur on-screen. The crashing of two airliners into two large skyscrapers isn't shown (and is only once and very indirectly referred to). This cannot be because it wouldn't have been of any help in making Bush look bad; it's pretty generally agreed that he acted erratically that day and made the worst speech of his presidency in the evening, and why would Stone miss the chance of restaging My Pet Goat?

....

We are never invited to ask ourselves what would have happened if the Democrats had been in power that fall. But it might be worth speculating for a second. The Effective Death Penalty and Anti-Terrorism Act, rushed through both Houses by Bill Clinton after the relative pin prick of the Oklahoma City bombing, was correctly described by the American Civil Liberties Union as the worst possible setback for the cause of citizens' rights. Given that precedent and multiplying it for the sake of proportion, I think we can be pretty sure that wiretapping and water-boarding would have become household words, perhaps even more quickly than they did, and that we might even have heard a few more liberal defenses of the practice. I don't know if Gore-Lieberman would have thought of using Guantanamo Bay, but that, of course, raises the interesting question—now to be faced by a new administration—of where exactly you do keep such actually or potentially dangerous customers, especially since you are not supposed to "rendition" them. There would have been a nasty prison somewhere or a lot of prisoners un-taken on the battlefield, you can depend on that.

We might have avoided the Iraq war, even though both Bill Clinton and Al Gore had repeatedly and publicly said that another and conclusive round with Saddam Hussein was, given his flagrant defiance of all the relevant U.N. resolutions, unavoidably in our future. And the inconvenient downside to avoiding the Iraq intervention is that a choke point of the world economy would still be controlled by a psychopathic crime family that kept a staff of WMD experts on hand and that paid for jihadist suicide bombers around the region. In his farewell interviews, President Bush hasn't been able to find much to say for himself on this point, but I think it's a certainty that historians will not conclude that the removal of Saddam Hussein was something that the international community ought to have postponed any further. (Indeed, if there is a disgrace, it is that previous administrations left the responsibility undischarged.)

The party of tolerance and compassion strikes again

(Story via Bill's Comments.)

Steve Gardner had a story to tell about John Kerry.

His superior, for four months, was none other than Lt. j.g. John F. Kerry. "I had confrontations with him there. He nearly got us rammed by the VC one night because he wasn't watching the helm. I heard the motor coming close, turned on the spotlight, and the boat was only 90 feet away, coming fast. The VC was aiming an AK47 at us. I shot him out of the boat. We pulled a woman and a baby off the boat. Kerry wrote it up that we captured two VC and killed four more on the beach. None of that was true. The only thing true on Kerry's report was the date. The woman was catatonic and wouldn't call her baby VC and there were no VC on the beach. If we had seen that report before Kerry sent it up the chain of command, he would have been court-martialed and never allowed to run for office. And that's just the San Pan incident.

Well, if this is slander, Kerry could sue. Apparently no lawsuit was ever filed. Instead,

Gardner said he received a call from Douglas Brinkley, the author of Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. Brinkley told Gardner he was calling only to "fact check" the book -- which was already in print. "I told him that the guy in the book is not the same guy I served with. I told him Kerry was a coward. He would patrol the middle of the river. The canals were dangerous. He wouldn't go there unless he had another boat pushing him." Days later, Brinkley called again, warning Gardner to expect some calls. It seems Brinkley had used the "fact checking" conversation to write an inflammatory article about Gardner for Time.com. The article, implying that Gardner was politically motivated, appeared under the headline "The 10th Brother." Twenty-four hours later, Gardner got an e-mail from his company, Millennium Information Services, informing him that his services would no longer be necessary. He was laid off in an e-mail -- by the same man who only days before had congratulated him for his exemplary work in a territory which covered North and South Carolina. The e-mail stated that his position was being eliminated. Since then, he's seen the company advertising for his old position. Gardner doesn't have the money to sue to get the job back.

So much for the Democrats' belief in free speech.

Rhetoric again

John Ray has quotes at the bottom of each day's entries. Here's one that seems apt:

That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule. Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

Arrogance, Lies, and Weakness of Intellect

Orson Scott Card, again.

I have been puzzled for some time by the behavior of the Left, not just in this election but in the past decade.

Among issues he has with the Left, we have:

Gore tried every trick to win Florida, including blocking the counting of absentee ballots from military personnel overseas, yet the Left claims the Bush administration tried to suppress votes.

The Left claims the Republicans lie. What they call "lies" would not be called lies if uttered by any non-Republican.

When they trumpet examples of Republican "lies," they usually turn out to be in the following categories: 1. Statements that turn out to be wrong, though they were believed to be right at the time they were spoken. (In the rational world, we call these "mistakes.") 2. Statements that interpret legitimate data in ways that support the Republican view. (In the rational world, we call these "differences of opinion.") 3. Statements that point out obvious contradictions between what the Democratic candidates say and what they have said and done in the past. These are called "negative campaigning" and "mudslinging" and "distortions" and, of course, "lies," but these countercharges are offered instead of coherent explanations. Meanwhile, the Democrats engage in wholesale, flat-out lying, ranging from Kerry's false charges against America's soldiers in Vietnam, his phony claims about Christmas in Cambodia and what it was he threw over the fence when he said they were his medals, to present charges that Bush has blocked stem-cell research and that if Kerry were president, paralytics would rise up and walk.

The Left claims to have a monopoly on intellectuals, but who actually carries out intellectual analyses?

I get letters that are endless variations on the same theme: Mr. Card, I like your books and you seem so wise, but yet you're supporting Bush. Why don't you look at the evidence and realize that Bush is the devil and Kerry will save us from the disaster that Bush is leading us toward? Yet when I choose to answer these letters and ask them to get specific, it becomes obvious that none -- no, not one -- of these people has actually examined the evidence at all. These "intellectuals" show not even the slightest sign of ever having questioned their own opinions. Now, I have to regard this as the minimum standard for being regarded as a genuine intellectual -- that you have questioned your own beliefs and subjected them to rigorous tests of logic and evidence. <snip> I actually find better reasoning about and evidence in support of the Leftist point of view, and more skeptical but serious examination of Rightwing ideas, in magazines like Commentary and The Weekly Standard than I do in Leftist publications like Harper's and The New Yorker. What I find from most self-styled "intellectuals" in American public life is a laziness so profound as to be frightening. These are our opinion leaders and university professors? Have they forgotten that "the never-doubted opinion is not worth speaking"?

And arrogance? The Left believes it's the only faction that deserves to rule.

But I no longer believe it. Because the double standards of the Left today are not prompted by any sense that the lies and misbehavior they are concealing are wrong, but rather by the fact that the exposure of those lies and misbehavior would be politically inconvenient. Indeed, the whole question of right or wrong is irrelevant to the thinking of the Left. They speak the language of morality, declaring Bush to be evil (or variations on that theme), but in fact the Left lives in a moral universe in which there is only one moral virtue, and here it is: It is good and right for power to be in the hands of the Left. All "morality" on the Left and all "reasoning" on the Left flow from this unspoken axiom.

I've noticed that Kerry's criticisms of the Bush administration are vague, at best ("too many notes"). When specifics are mentioned, they are basically the same things the Bush administration has done or is already doing. The only difference is that Kerry will do these things in a "better and smarter" fashion. Why will Kerry's implementation be "better and smarter"? Because he's not a Republican.

The Left is firmly convinced that good is only possible in the world when they are in power; therefore they can do any number of unfair, indecent, or dishonest things in pursuit of that goal.

What should voters be scared of?

Alan Reynolds, with the Cato Institute, has a list of things Kerry believes he can use to scare voters away from Bush.

When it comes to unfair gamesmanship, Sen. John Kerry hit a new low lately with campaign claims that President Bush is somehow responsible for contamination of flu vaccine at a plant in England, that the president's re-election portends a military draft and that the president plans, as January surprise, to slash Social Security benefits by 30 percent to 45 percent. An astute Washington Times cartoonist suggested Mr. Kerry might as well have also accused the president of eating puppy dogs.

The vaccine shortage is the result of the closure of a plant in England. The reasons the supply of vaccine is so precarious that one plant can make that much of a difference are costly regulations which make it more expensive to produce vaccines, and Government agencies hold vaccine prices down to a low level.

The draft was introduced by a Democrat. When it came to a vote, the Democrat who introduced the bill didn't have the soldierly virtues to vote for his own legislation. The voices that are calling for more troops in Iraq have all been Democratic voices.

Social Security benefits may well be cut – for those born after 1980. In exchange for lower benefits from Social Security, workers will receive more benefits from private retirement accounts. Studies have shown that even a bad investor can beat the returns available from Social Security, and unlike Social Security, a private account doesn't disappear when the recipient dies. It can be willed to heirs.

So what should voters be scared of?

In a well-informed world, such obviously deceitful tactics ought to backfire, and they probably will. Mr. Kerry has clearly been willing to say just about anything to scare people into not voting for his opponent. If that doesn't scare you, it should.

An Objectivist says, "Vote for Bush"

(Hat tip: Instapundit.)

Summary: The nature of this campaign is set, and the meaning of this election is: independence vs. dependence. The Bush policies favor America retaining its sovereignty--cooperating with allies as and when they are willing--and America on the offensive. The Kerry program favors America surrendering that independence to curry favor with the bribed French and the America-hating despots at the United Nations.

Bush IQ higher than Kerry's?

(Hat tip: Command Post.)

Two different sets of tests have been used to estimate George W Bush's IQ as "in the mid 120s". Kerry's IQ is estimated at 120.

Now recall the standard deviation on any given test is going to be a few points in either direction, and the two estimates are within the margin of error. The two could be equally intelligent.

And recall, also, the left does not believe IQ tests mean anything unless Republicans score low on them, in which case they determine all.

There was a rumor going around that Bush had an IQ score of 91. The same people who assure us that IQ means nothing thought this number was very meaningful in Bush's case.

It occurs to me that if we assume the number was in base 14, that works out to 127, which is right in the ballpark. Though why Bush would have taken an IQ test administered by Hogan's Ganymean aliens is another question entirely.

Yes, let's train more Iraqi police.

They're doing a hell of a job.

And the results came in quick and positive operations beginning in the Haifa Street area of Baghdad, where two battalions hauled away 58 foreign fighters attacking Iraqi and multinational forces in the city. The first two battalions also hauled away another large force of foreign fighters in Samarra operations. When immediately attacked in North Babil by anti-Iraqi force small arms fire, mortar, and improvised explosive devices, the unit efficiently and methodically negotiated the attacking force before continuing on to their objectives, according to multinational advisors familiar with the action in their advisory roles. <snip> Despite having been together for only a few weeks, the then 400-man force successfully deployed and within 24 hours commenced coordinated multinational force operations with success. In addition, in all three operations thus far employed, the unit has only sustained one minor injury. And, according to Thabit, have the ability to respond for movement with a single hour’s notice.

If Kerry can implement a plan to train these guys faster, I'll be impressed.

Who was "outed"? And as what?

Tammy Bruce has an article out with her take on the "compliments" John-John paid to the Cheneys at the debates.

Reports from those in the auditorium indicated a general gasp from the mixed Republican and Democratic crowd. The gut instinct of the people in the room, and the millions watching, was that Kerry’s use of Cheney was more than inappropriate—it smacked of exploitation and an agenda based in something other than respect. <snip> To disabuse you of the notion that Edwards and Kerry meant to ‘compliment’ the Cheneys (which simply piles on the insult) consider Kerry campaign director Mary Beth Cahill’s interview remarks immediately after the debate. When asked if Kerry’s remarks about Cheney were appropriate Cahill said Mary Cheney was out so “it is fair game.” Others in the campaign have used the same phrasing. Gee, “fair game.” A fascinating term to use when paying compliments. And remember, for the Democrats “it” in this instance is a woman. The issue here is one of integrity and the intentions of Kerry.

So What are John-John's intentions?

While the Kerry behavior seems bizarre at best, there is a method to his and Leftist madness in general. First, Mary Cheney is hated by the Gay Elite. There are discussions and direct efforts to make life uncomfortable for her. Why? Because she dares to be different. She has made the same mistake as I — she refuses to have her sexuality be the singular defining aspect of her identity, and she has had the gall to be her own person and not bow down to the leftist agenda. Yes, she commits the fatal mistake of not conforming to the conformist Gay agenda. Cut to John Kerry on debate night. Here is a man who is trying to maintain the traditional base of Democratic party support. Women are abandoning him as they realize having a passive internationalist in the White House is not the best protection against a Beslan horror on American soil. <snip> Now consider that supposed political monolith of homosexuals. Kerry says he’s opposed to gay marriage but supports civil unions, a position identical with the president’s. I contend Kerry was in part pandering to the Gay Elite to make up for his position on marriage. The targeting of Mary Cheney by the Gay Elite is a well known effort by liberals, and Kerry’s comment was his way of saying “I’m with you,” by attempting to further their punishment of her on international television. <snip> Secondly, and perhaps even more revealing of how disconnected the Kerry gang really is, his campaign truly feels that Christians will reject the Bush and Cheney families because of this issue.

Makes sense to me. Problem is, it seems to have backfired.

In the decade-plus of my work as a radio talk show host and writer, I have spoken with thousands of Christians from across this country. What I found from them, coming from the feminist establishment as I do, is that while they hold religious beliefs against homosexuality, they are the most tolerant, understanding and kind people I have ever met. Oh sure, there are fringe extremists on the right, just as there are on the left, but the hundreds of Christians and others I heard from by e-mail and on my radio program were insulted, but by Kerry’s presumption that they were as shallow as he.

And to those who are still aware of the importance of foreign policy in a world of extremist groups that want to blow up more of our buildings – cities if possible, remember this is the same deft touch Kerry and his cohort will bring to international relations.

Terrorism as a nuisance

(From Tech Central Station)

Harvard Law Professor William J. Stuntz declares that Kerry's comparison between terrorism and organized crime (particularly activities such as gambling and prostitution) is surprisingly apt. And it leads to lessons that may surprise Kerry.

To be sure, people in organized crime were prosecuted for prostitution and gambling, but this is not because that's the worst things they did. They were simply the most prosecutable things they did. Organized crime figures were often jailed after pretext prosecutions to get them off the streets.

Likewise, terrorists are often prosecuted for other crimes, because the terrorism is either hard to prove in advance, or would require compromising intelligence assets. Or both.

And criminal prosecutions are not a promising option. No one is willing to wait for a nuclear weapon to blow away an American city and then prosecute the conspirators who survived the blast. Nor does it make sense to devote massive resources to building cases for small-potatoes crimes that will put away would-be murderers for a year or two, after which they can resume their homicidal careers. Perhaps that is why military and intelligence services have played such a large role in the war on terrorism. Some crime problems are intractable. Seen as a crime problem, terrorism is intractable too. It makes sense to redefine the problem, to look for other tools. This war needs to be fought by the Army and the CIA, not merely the Justice Department. Therein lies the real problem with Kerry's comments. Kerry thinks America's seventy-year-long battle against the Mafia was a success story. He is wrong. Tolerating Mob bosses (which is what we did for most of those seventy years) was very costly. Tolerating terrorism -- or leaving it to police and prosecutors, which amounts to the same thing -- would be a disaster.

Orson Scott Card on Kerry

Mr. Card doesn't have nearly as many good things to say about J.F.Kerry.

Orson Scott Card on the war in Iraq

Orson Scott Card looks at how Bush is doing in Iraq, saying the best answer is a book called The Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror, by Richard Miniter.

Some money quotes:

Contrary to Kerry's deliberate deception, Bush did not "let Osama get away" at Torah Bora. It was winter in extraordinarily rugged country. All the forces that could be brought to bear were deployed, but no one, not even Bush, can defeat weather and terrain all the time. Nor is Iraq is a distraction. In fact, there is simply no doubt among honest people who know anything at all that Iraq under Saddam was a sponsor of terror, that it had ties to Al Qaeda, and that it was a dangerous source of shelter, training, weaponry, and funding to international terrorism. The Iraq campaign has diverted nothing and distracted no one. The work being done against terrorism has vastly increased and improved during the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. The Bush administration is using appropriate levels of force and funding. There are times when pumping more money and manpower into a particular area does not make things go better, it makes them go worse.

...and...

The point is that irresponsible politicians like Kerry are free to make false accusations against President Bush -- about how he is distracted from the real war, etc. -- and they know he can't answer, because he cannot prove how well the war is going without exposing and, probably, ending secret cooperation from Muslim governments. In other words, Kerry is free to be irresponsible, dishonest, and unfair precisely because he knows that President Bush puts national security ahead of his own political advantage.

...and

Naturally, most of what President Bush has personally done is to choose from the many alternatives presented to him by his advisers. The president doesn't go out and personally collect information; he does not personally develop weapons systems; he does not lay out specific military campaigns. Bush has, however, made clear strategic choices that made it possible for our forces to be effective in the war on terror. For one thing, the decision to hold state sponsors of terror accountable transformed the war into something that we might win. Without the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, governments would still behave as if they could thumb their noses at us with impunity; those campaigns are the foundation of the newly cooperative attitude of many governments.

...and finally,

Kerry is the enemy of American military power, even when used multilaterally in support of international law. He will never, ever be capable of using our military effectively or carefully, despite the lies he tells during the process of a campaign. And I call them lies because they so obviously are lies. Democrats speculate without evidence about President Bush's and Vice-President Cheney's motives all the time, accusing them of deception without a shred of evidence. But Kerry's claim to being tougher and smarter about military matters than Bush is so obviously false that we should be laughing whenever he makes it. He has been wrong on every defense system, on every vote in his entire political career. If Kerry's will had prevailed, we would have no military that was capable of resisting our enemies. And that is precisely the reason why the fanatic left wing of the Democratic Party is so eager to elect John Kerry. Because they know he's lying about his intentions concerning the war. They're counting on it. If they believed that he actually meant what he says about the war on terror, they would never vote for him.

...but read the whole thing.

Unfit for Command – Epilog

(Hat tip: David Limbaugh)

This link sends you to a page where you can have the epilog e-mailed to you. It details how Kerry has changed his story in response to the Swift Vet ads, and the rest of the book.

The mainstream media have been stating, without any sort of backup, that the stories of the Swift Vets have been discredited. Well, if the MSM continue to ignore the fact that Kerry's story has changed significantly over the past few months, and refuse to look at inconsistencies in the records, I suppose they'll be right.

At the very least, though, the change in Kerry's story is evidence that Kerry gives the Swift Vets a lot of credence.

Kerry's discharge

(Hat tip: David Limbaugh)

Thomas Lipscomb of the New York Sun has been investigating John Kerry's records. He's found some documents that are very hard to explain if we assume Kerry was honorably discharged.

Of course, Kerry could fill out a form 180 and clear this whole thing up.

Bush, Kerry, and Iraq

Orson Scott Card sounds off on Iraq as seen by Bush and by Kerry.

What President Bush knows about Iraq comes from the reports of sober professionals, who have the perspective of what's happening in the whole country.

(snip)

A friend of mine who is in Baghdad right now agrees that yes, the insurgents and terrorists are redoubling their efforts -- but that doesn't mean we're losing.
"These people are getting desperate," he says, "because the latest [poll] numbers show that the people are turning against the insurgents, especially as the reconstruction projects have increased significantly."

(snip)

Meanwhile, however, when President Bush sounds optimistic about the war in Iraq and Kerry and his friends sound cynical and pessimistic, remember that (a) Kerry has a vested interest in making things appear as dark as possible and (b) President Bush is accurately reporting the assessments of our excellent and honest military on the ground in Iraq.

(snip)

Meanwhile, John Kerry may have presented the right image in the debate, but the substance of what he said is terrifying.

(snip)

John Kerry is and always has been the enemy of the U.S. military. He got out of his duty as quickly as possible; he slandered his fellow soldiers when he returned from Vietnam; he voted against every weapons system that is now making our military irresistible on the field of battle; and he believes our enemies more than he believes our own sources of information.

I invoke the Blogger's Mantra: "Read the whole thing."

More Swift Boat Vet Activity

Kerry once said, if we wanted to know about him, ask his band of brothers from Vietnam. Well, more of his band of brothers speak out.

Which Candidate do Terrorists Endorse?

One of the memes floating around the blogosphere is, "ten out of ten terrorists prefer Kerry". That phrase, and numerous variations, can be seen just about everywhere.

As I mentioned on Questions and Observations, the only problem I have with that meme can be summed up in two words:

"Reverse Psychology"

WWKD in foreign policy?

John Kerry seems to be racking up foreign policy failures by the dozen, and he's not even President.

Kerry Won the Debate

Dennis Prager simply refuses to understand the utter simplicity and straightforwardness of John Kerry's positions on issues. He's even written an article claiming Kerry takes every position on any given issue, and so people watching the debate heard him offer whatever position they wanted to hear.

I sent this in response to his column, and I'm sharing it with you here.

Dennis: Reconciling Kerry's apparently contradictory points is simplicity itself. All you have to do is re-read Thomas Sowell's book, The Vision of the Anointed, and remember, Kerry's one of the Anounted. We'll never give other nations a veto over our national security, and we'll act alone if needed. But if we do act, we'll pass a "global test". How to reconcile? Simple! If Kerry acts unilaterally, it will be in a way that the world either does support, or should support if it's got its collective wits together. How do we know that? Kerry's one of the Anointed, and therefore smarter, wiser, and more noble than everyone else. If Bush acts unilaterally, it can't possibly be in a way the world supports, or should support. Why? He's one of the benighted, and can't be expected to measure up to the exalted standards of intelligence, wisdom, and nobility that the Anointed meet with ease. Once you look at the rest of Kerry's positions using the same test, all will become clear. Of course, Kerry can't come right out and say this, because to his fellow Anointed, it's redundant. The Benighted, on the other hand, can't be expected to see the utter sensibility of this position.

Did Kerry write the action report?

The Chicago Sun Times has a piece by Thomas Lipscomb that examines the question of just who wrote the action report that led to Bronze Stars for both Kerry and Thurlow.

First of all, Thurlow did not write it, even though it would normally have fallen to him after the incident. The report was written by someone designated "TE 194.5.4.4/1."

Now "TE" is not some person's initials. It stands for "Task Element", which is defined by the numbers that follow. In this case

"194" is Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, commander of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam; "5" is Hoffman's swift boat command; "4" is Lonsdale's command, and the last "4" is Capt. George Elliot's swift boat base at An Thoi, where the boats on this mission were based. The last "1" indicates someone other than the commander of the mission. If the report had been submitted by the mission commander, in this case Thurlow, according to the operations order, it would have begun with a "C" for commander of the Task Element, and the sender would have been "CTE 194.5.4.4."

Thurlow definitely did not write the report. So who did?

According to a Navy communications expert, Chief Petty Officer Troy Jenkins, who has examined the message traffic, the report in question was sent from the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spencer, Lonsdale's command ship, at 11:20 that night. Only three of the officers on the mission that day were on the Spencer, John Kerry, Dick Pease and Donald Droz. Droz took the wounded from the mine explosion to be examined and treated at the Spencer, including the third officer, the severely wounded Dick Pease. Since the Spencer had no helipad for the evacuation of the wounded, Droz then had to return to the USS Washtenaw County, stationed about 25 nautical miles away, leaving only Kerry aboard the Spencer at the time the message was sent at 11:20 p.m. Could Droz have somehow written the report? Lonsdale says command precedence of days in swift boat service alone rules this out. "According to the command procedure I set down, Kerry would have been the only logical candidate. Kerry had been in Vietnam since November. Droz just arrived at An Thoi in February." Thurlow adds, "I never liked the paperwork anyway. I was happy to have Kerry write them up."

The documentary evidence supporting Kerry's account of events that day now becomes what lawyers call a "self serving document". Its probitive value is somewhat diminished, don't you think?