Don't you dare question my patriotism!
"Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry lashed out at top congressional Republicans...after they assailed him for saying the United States, like Iraq, needs regime change," reported the Associated Press back in April.
"The Republicans have tried to make a practice of attacking anybody who speaks out strongly by questioning their patriotism," complained Kerry, who has tried to make it a practice of attacking anybody who speaks out strongly against Kerry of questioning his patriotism.
Kerry, whose speech compared Bush to Saddam Hussein, hotly denied his speech compared Bush to Saddam Hussein. Or that his speech didn't really mean it.
'And so what if it did?' Democrats ask. Questioning someone's patriotism is simply beyond the pale, they say, hoity-toity. Indeed, the vaguest hint that someone's loyalty might be open to question is deemed unacceptable -- unbecoming of a democracy which should welcome differences of opinion so long as such differences of opinion don't include opinions questioning the wisdom of yelling *Regime Change in America!* while America is at war and soldiers are dying.
'Don't you dare question my patriotism!' screams Kerry. (Incidentally, that's not what Republicans were doing.)
So, how committed is Kerry to this principle -- the notion that questioning someone's patriotism is, in political debate, beyond the pale? Very!
In fact, just to prove how beyond-the-pale he finds it, Kerry Wednesday accused the President of taking America to war based on intelligence that we only now learn was deliberately faked. And Bush likely knew it was faked.
Kerry, fielding "several questions about Iraq from a small group of anti-war Democrats" (AP report, 6/18/03) called Bush a liar -- he "misled every one of us."
'I was dumbfounded, heartbroken and outraged that I'd believed him at all! I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him: 'What do you mean? Why did you lie to me?' As a Senator, I wanted to ring George's neck! It was the most devastating, shocking and hurtful experience of my life!' /Kidding.
"Kerry said Bush made his case for war based on at least two pieces of U.S. intelligence that now appear to be wrong, that Iraq sought nuclear material from Africa and that Saddam's regime had aerial weapons capable of attacking the United States with biological material."
Bush is, in other words, not only a liar -- he's a traitor! A traitor who waged a war that alienated powerful allies like France -- all based on contrived "evidence" wrongly incriminating Saddam! Kerry, in other words, questioned Bush's patriotism. Ah, I love the consistency.
Do we know for a fact that Bush is a traitor? Do we know for a fact that Bush deliberately shaded U.S. intelligence just to send our fighting men and women needlessly to die in Iraq for the sake of Halliburton and Harken energy? Do we know for a fact that Bush sold out his country to corporate interests? Or was he acting "on poor, distorted" intelligence?
Well, we don't know anything for a fact, Kerry admits. Not yet. "I don't have the answer. I want the answer and the American people deserve the answer." Kerry vowed to "get to the bottom of this."
"I believe I can hold President Bush accountable if they have misled us," he promised. "I will not let [liar Bush] off the hook throughout this campaign...because if he lied he lied to me personally." Kerry noted how he's led the charge demanding full congressional investigation.
Kerry, who waged war against the Vietnam war after serving in the Vietnam war, "said his service in the Vietnam war and his experience as a member of the of the Foreign Relations Committee and former member of the Intelligence Committee," asleep at the switch before 9/11, "make him the Democrat best suited to question Bush's efforts on foreign policy." And best suited to question Bush's patriotism in the bargain!
To be fair, Kerry might have noted that, as a Democrat, the party which proudly raised lying to an art-form, he speaks as an expert on lying, one with vast experience.
The White House, reached for comment Thursday, said "Kerry who?"
"A rocket-propelled grenade slammed into a U.S. military ambulance Thursday, killing one American soldier and wounding two others," the AP reports Friday, calling the attack "the latest in a series of attacks on U.S. personnel or their offices."
"The ambulance was transporting a wounded American soldier to a medical facility when it came under fire on a highway about 20 miles south of Baghdad," says the AP.
On Wednesday, "A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in a drive-by shooting in central Baghdad" (AP report, 6/18/03), while on Tuesday, "The American military reported that a sniper had gunned down one of its soldiers in Baghdad with a single shot fired in his back" (AP report, 6/17/03).
This has been going on for weeks. Liberal anti-war types felt exhilarated, thrilled at the news of a "burgeoning" Iraqi "resistance" knocking off one U.S. soldier per day. It was like their "One-A-Day" Vitamin. With visions of Vietnam and falling Bush job approval ratings dancing in their heads, they'd seized the news of one grenade attack here, one grenade attack there, as proof -- proof! -- they were right, that Saddam should not have been ousted.
During the 3-week long war -- 3 weeks of horrible "quagmire" and "operational pauses" with U.S. troops hopelessly "bogged down" as "fierce" Iraqi resistance repelled the U.S.-led invasion, forcing U.S. and British war-planners back to the drawing board -- the Left wanted defeat so badly they could taste it. When Baghdad fell April 9, they were crushed. It was gut-wrenching painful, excruciating beyond description. Especially given that Gulf War II saw fewer U.S. casualties than Gulf War I -- not the tens of thousands the Left so desperately craved.
The newsies, however, were bound and determined to downplay the U.S.-led victory, if only to contain the damage to their credibility and limit Bush's victory bounce in the polls. First, it was alleged looting at the Baghdad museum. A gazillion stories crossed the wires, blaming Bush for not providing adequate security. 'Surely, this will sour the American people on the war!' the presstitutes gleefully thought. The presstitutes then commissioned a gazillion polls, and a gazillion polls showed just the opposite -- Americans were more pro-war after the war than before the war! And Bush's approval rate was sky-high as ever. Even after wall-to-wall coverage of looting at the Baghdad museum. We now know the 'Baghdad museum looting' was an inside job that pre-dated the war. No gazillion stories about that.
Then it was how Iraq was plunging into total chaos. A gazillion stories crossed the wires, blaming Bush for not providing adequate security. 'Surely this will sour the American people on the war!' the presstitutes gleefully thought.The presstitutes then commissioned a gazillion polls and a gazillion polls again showed the very opposite -- Americans were unmoved by the all gloom and doomery, Bush's approval rate soaring sky-high as ever.
Then came the endless -- and phony -- handwringing about "failure" to uncover WMD in Iraq. A gazillion stories crossed the wires about "failure" to uncover WMD in Iraq, and how this "proved" Bush was a liar worse than Nixon and that Saddam all along told the truth and that, therefore, war was unjustified. 'Surely this will sour the American people on the war!' the presstitutes gleefully thought. The presstitutes then commissioned a gazillion polls and a gazillion polls again showed the very opposite -- Americans were unmoved by all the Watergate talk nor the torrent about how Bush was a liar, a con-man, a manipulator, a fabler, a trickster, a scoundrel, a shyster, a swindler, a bastard who loves war because war means death, blood and destruction and Bush just relishes death, blood and destruction.
A new FOXNEWS Opinion Dynamics Poll shows that, after weeks and weeks of media handwringing about WMD and Bush's credibility 'gap,' only 12% agree with Democrats and Big Media that Saddam was clean, while 79% maintain Iraq currently has WMD or moved/destroyed WMD before the war (54% believe Iraq either moved or destroyed WMD before the war, only 24% believe Iraq currently has WMD). Only 8% believe "President Bush exaggerated the dangers of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," while 65% give Bush a positive job approval rating -- a figure which hasn't changed in two months. Media pundits predicted Bush's numbers would plummet after a short post-war honeymoon (2 or 3 weeks).
Big Media and the Democrats had hoped that, after weeks and weeks of stories of U.S. soldiers being killed daily in Iraq, the public mood would sour and American resolve might finally crack. Well, the latest polls show their track record for predictions and gauging the public mood remains untainted by facts.
God Bless our troops -- our thoughts and our prayers are with them at all times.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"
