Dark Days for Saddam

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11325 ^ | December 15, 2003 | Lowell Ponte

[GiovannaNicoletta]

A “CLOUD OF DOUBT, FEAR AND UNCERTAINTY” that had darkened America’s prospects for success in Iraq vanished Sunday with the capture of Saddam Hussein, bearded and looking remarkably like fellow leftist tyrant Fidel Castro.

And simultaneously a cloud of doubt, fear and uncertainty appeared over the heads and on the faces of Democratic presidential candidates. Most of them had tied their prospects for victory in 2004 to bad news from Iraq dragging down the popularity of incumbent President George W. Bush. Sunday’s good news for America was bad news for their political ambitions.

Saddam had come back from defeat before, reasserting his power in the wake of the Gulf War and exacting terrible revenge on those who cheered his defeat. During the eight months since American troops captured Baghdad, Saddam remained at large.

This left millions of Iraqis afraid to celebrate his ouster or openly cooperate with American, British and other allied forces lest, when the Western forces leave, Saddam could return to power again and launch another reign of rape, torture and mass extermination.

The more extreme Democratic candidates such as former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, by suggesting that if elected they would withdraw from Iraq, fed this Iraqi fear that Saddam could return to power.

A cynical syllogism suggests that the Dean attack on President Bush is calculated. For a Democrat to win, things in Iraq must go badly. By hinting that they might withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, Democrats such as Howard Dean make Iraqis afraid to cooperate with the U.S. This lack of cooperation leads to things going badly in Iraq. This Leftist Democratic criticism of the Iraq incursion, by cynical and deliberate calculation, could therefore become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The same Democrat cynical calculation has been aimed at the economy. For a Democrat to win, the economy must do badly. By saying that they will raise taxes and impose new regulations to punish business, Democrats such as Howard Dean make business people more reluctant to invest in companies and new jobs. This brake on investment leads to more unemployment and a weaker economy, which the very Democrats who caused the problem then cite to the ignorant as a reason to elect them.

Sunday brought nightmare news to such Democratic users and causers of bad news. The capture of Saddam demonstrates America’s success and will bring millions of Iraqis, freed of any fear that Saddam or his sons could return, rushing to help the United States and our loyal allies. In today’s psychobabble, Sunday brought the Iraqis to “closure” with their latent fear of Saddam. The evil witch is dead. The bogeyman is under arrest and can never frighten them again.

Wall Street and world stock markets should rally strongly on news of Saddam’s capture, in part because it takes Iraq a huge step closer to becoming a modern democratic state and a major pro-Western oil producer. This, in turn, should produce a more stable Middle East and more peaceful, prosperous world.

But another key reason for the rejoicing in world markets is that Saddam’s capture virtually guarantees President Bush’s 2004 re-election. This means that America’s once-dominant socialist party, the Democratic Party, is becoming less and less likely to regain its previous power to raise taxes, confiscate private property and restrict economic freedom.

The “cloud of doubt, fear and uncertainty” that for most of the 20th century Democrat-socialists cast over the lives, savings and investments of productive Americans is now dissipating. The forecast for economic liberty in the 21st Century is, as of Sunday, sunnier and brighter.

Even prior to Sunday’s capture of Saddam, the Dow had climbed back above 10,000. Polls showed popular support for President Bush’s resolve in Iraq again growing strongly.

Democrats were already bracing for disaster in 2004, not only with defeat of their likely extremist candidate Howard Dean but also with the potential loss of up to half a dozen Senate seats and more than a dozen House seats, with much of this loss in the South.

As the news spread Sunday that the Iraqi dictator had been “caught like a rat” in a hole in the dirt beneath a mud farmhouse, Democrat candidates scrambled to save their tails. Senator John “F-word” Kerry, D-MA, whose vile attacks on the President’s Iraq policy in recent weeks had sunk to the level of using a four-letter expletive, rushed Sunday to make a statement to reporters that began: “Those of us who were on the President’s side….”

“If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, not in prison,” said Senator Joseph Lieberman, D-CT, the only one of nine Democratic presidential candidates moral enough to be a saving remnant of his formerly pro-American party. But Lieberman this past week was stabbed in the back by Al Gore, who did not even bother calling his 2000 running mate before endorsing Howard Dean. Lieberman – the last moral man in a now-immoral party – sadly has no chance of winning its 2004 nomination.

As many of us predicted, the Democratic candidates – partly to reclaim the Ralph Nader voters whose desertion cost Gore the 2000 election, and partly to show their true colors – have gone so far out on a Left limb that they have no hope of regaining center ground before the 2004 election. Sunday’s capture of Saddam sawed that limb off, and those who recorded nasty, snotty things about the President and the Iraq incursion are now trapped by their own extremism. The gravity of mainstream American politics will now bring them crashing down.

In Iraq the Saddamites are in a panic, not knowing what that letter or other information in Saddam’s possession will expose about them. They are dispirited, demoralized and anxious. But they also know they must launch their own Tet Offensive, inflicting enough harm on Americans to give hope to their supporters and to demonstrate that they are still alive and a threat.

Some attacks in coming weeks will doubtless also come from al-Qaeda terrorists whose links to Saddam Hussein’s regime have become more and more evident. The Saddam-Osama bin Laden connection effectively links Saddam to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and justifies President Bush’s successful overthrow of this dangerous tyrant.

In America the Democrats are also in a panic. If their power wanes in 2004, the downward spiral that would follow could pull their entire party into the garbage disposal of history.

Democrats in recent decades have depended on having enough power to extort money from corporate contributors and to intimidate people into supporting (or at least not opposing) them.

Perhaps the rawest expression of this was made by California Congressman Tony Coehlo, who would later resign amid scandal and thereafter become Al Gore’s campaign chairman in 2000. Rep. Coehlo, in his capacity as head of the Democrats’ House campaign fundraising, appeared before a group of businessmen and told them, “You had better take a big interest in contributing to the Democratic Party, because if you don’t I guarantee you that we can take a big interest in your business.”

Coming from a leader of a political party with a long, ugly track record of using the Internal Revenue Service and government regulatory powers against those it disliked, Coehlo could put fear into the hearts of those whose money he coveted. Under the Clinton-Gore Administration Democrats used government power as both carrot and stick to extract huge “contributions” from an ever-widening circle of individuals and businesses.

But as Democratic power continues to wane, the Democrats’ power to extort money and support will keep shrinking….which will mean less power, which means less money, which means less power…until, poof, the party spirals down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Its evil power could vanish forever.

In recent months the frantic, desperate position of Democrats is evident in their use of filibusters and gimmicks through which a minority can prevent a vote on judicial and other Bush nominees by the full Senate. Bush would win full Senate votes, and his judges would not use their power to advance the Far Left agenda that empowers Democrats.

So Leftist Senators have put themselves in the disreputable position of violating democracy and the will of the people expressed at the ballot box in a last, desperate illegitimate attempt to cling to power (much as Saddam’s socialist cadres are trying to do through terrorist intimidation in Iraq). After the 2004 election this arrogant Democratic minority in the U.S. Senate will probably no longer have enough votes to go on spitting in the voters’ face.

But for now, to help restore democracy and justice, President Bush would be entirely justified in following the example of his predecessor Bill Clinton. Over the Christmas-Hanukkah holiday, the President should make year-long recess appointments to the bench to Miguel Estrada and other Roman Catholics denied a full Senate vote by Democrat religious bigots.

Republicans, Libertarians, and even Ralph Nader supporters actually have values, ideas, beliefs, and principles. The only thing today’s leftist Democrats have is a residue of their former power and a constituency of greedy special interest groups, each voting for its own selfish desires instead of the national interest.

Nobody actually “believes” in the Democratic Party anymore, because the Democratic Party stands for nothing but selfish, raw power used to transfer wealth from productive Americans to Democrats. If the Democrats lose power, therefore, they are finished. Without power, there is nothing left to their coalition.

The Democratic Party is much as the Rev. Jesse Jackson once, in a rare moment of candor, described Bill Clinton. At Clinton’s core, what Jackson says he found were not values or ideals or principles but instead “just an appetite.” Come to think of it, this also sounds like megalomaniac Saddam Hussein.

Hollywood Saddamites – a term coined by this column – such as Barbra Streisand strove to keep Saddam from being overthrown. Once upon a time Streisand supported Israel, at least when it was run by the Labor Party instead of religious Jews. Hussein paid $25,000 to each Palestinian family whose child died as a suicide bomber against Israelis – giving away at least $35 million to reward terrorism in Israel.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat opposed the 1991 Gulf War to oust Saddam’s forces from Kuwait. And during that war, as Reuters reported, “Palestinians cheered when Iraqi Scud missiles crashed into Israeli cities.”

On Sunday Palestinians were bewailing the capture of Hussein as a “Black Day” in history – and so, in all likelihood, was Barbra Streisand, who in 2000 gave more than a million dollars to the Democratic Party.

Days before Saddam’s capture, Democrats and their media allies had unleashed a new torrent of snide attacks on President Bush. Their target was the President’s declaration that none of our taxpayer-funded major contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq would go to nations that had actively opposed our effort to liberate Iraq – specifically France, Germany and Russia, each of whom had cozy commercial deals with Saddam and who worked to keep this dictator in power and the Iraqi people enslaved.

“How unsophisticated,” the media leftists sniffed. “How boorish of Mr. Bush.”

Perhaps the most surreal of these criticisms came from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, who had the chutzpah to argue that taxpayers would benefit from letting these three bidders into the process to bid down the cost of contracts.

Waxman, after a career as one of the farthest Left members of Congress, an avowed enemy of the free marketplace, and a card-carrying member of the “Progressive Caucus” allied with the Democratic Socialists of America, defended letting these three socialist nations bid because “this is capitalism!”

President Bush was right. It would undermine our systematic, positive construction of democracy and freedom in Iraq to bring in nations and other entities that supported and empowered Saddam’s murderous regime.

But, for practical and legal reasons, President Bush did not go far enough. I would like to see taxpayer dollars withheld from all those who worked against our effort to liberate Iraq. And for that reason, my unrealistic utopian side believes that President Bush should also have cut off all taxpayer dollars from corporations and other entities that in any way supported the Democratic Party’s extremist presidential candidates.

“Red Dawn” was the code name of the military operation that caught Saddam. Americans in November 2004 will have a similar opportunity to affirm the liberation of our nation. We can vote out of office all those who oppose America, and who wanted nations such as France and Germany to have a veto power over our own national defense interests. Call next November’s election “Operation Red Sunset.” Red skies at sunset, as the saying goes, are a sign that tomorrow’s dawn will bring sunnier skies with few clouds.

[Main Street]

Another great article by Mr. Ponte! He cuts no corners and always tells it like it is. Good man!
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"Mr. Ponte hosts a national radio talk show Saturdays 6-9 PM Eastern Time (3-6 PM Pacific Time) and Sundays 9 PM-Midnight Eastern Time (6-9 PM Pacific Time) on the Liberty Broadcasting network (formerly TalkAmerica). Internet Audio worldwide is at LibertyBroadcasting .com. The show’s live call-in number is (888) 822-8255. A professional speaker, he is a former Roving Editor for Reader’s Digest."
Go to:
http://www.libertybroadcasting.com/hosts/lowell_ponte.shtml PONTE

[Holly_P]

Democrats such as Howard Dean make Iraqis afraid to cooperate with the U.S. This lack of cooperation leads to things going badly in Iraq

"Things going badly in Iraq" = American lives being lost.

[judywillow]

This guy obviously gets it. The demoshit party has become a party of gangsterism and racism, The sooner America can rid itself of this monstrosity, the better.

The main thing which is needed is a law or constitutional ammendment requiring runoff elections for all public offices, i.e. a guarantee that nobody holds any office with less than 50% of the vote, nobody need ever fear to vote his first choice, and that third parties have a legitimate chance.

[uncbob]

Sunday’s good news for America was bad news for their political ambitions.

American voters have the attention span and memory of a 2 year old and the TV media will make sure this fades away
By Nov 2004 they will forget who Saddam even was