Here is an interesting perspective on “war hero” John Kerry: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jaybryant/jb20040303.shtml

My apologies for hitting the “Enter” key before the URL in my last posting. I am usually careful not to do that. Everyone at VFR should note that if you just leave a single space before a URL and do not break the line with the Enter key, you will avoid that annoying disconnect in the Comments column on the right side of the VFR home page.

I keep receiving e-mails from friends talking about how Bush is likely to be defeated this year. That would be true—IF Bush were facing a decent opponent. But he is not. He is facing the most unsuitable candidate for president in history, including Dole and Clinton. Therefore, absent some cosmic anomaly, I think Bush will be re-elected. So all our discussions at VFR from early January on about the urgent need to oust Bush are now moot. It’s not a matter of what we want, or of my disliking Kerry. It’s a matter of realizing that Kerry is so off-the-charts awful in himself that there’s no realistic chance he will be elected president.

We need to accept the fact that from our point of view, there is no good outcome to hope for in this election. We need to accept the overwhelming likelihood that Bush will be re-elected, and organize our further thoughts and activities within that framework.

However, the long time between now and the election introduces other possibilities. If Kerry has any flexibility at all, he will begin to see during this period what an unbelievable loser he is, and try to re-tool himself. But I doubt he’s capable of doing that, even if he wanted to. From his early 20s on, his whole political character has been formed around his hatred of American power combined with his overweening love of himself. This is not a man who has grown intellectually. This is a man who lives forever in that golden moment of the past where America is forever the despicable father figure and all the best people are anti-American. So Kerry can’t conceal his contempt for America, which he describes as “outside the community of nations” (!), or his contempt for Republicans, whom he describes as the most crooked, lying people he’s ever seen, or his revulsion at the thought of the use of force by this country in pursuit of its national defense. And there is no way that he can give any satisfactory accounting of his contradictory, outrageously dishonest record on the Iraq war, which by itself will disqualify him for the presidency in the minds of most people.

Clinton in ‘92 engaged in a lot of put-downs of Republicans, but there was more subtlety to it, it was nothing like the full-bore contempt that comes from Kerry, which makes it impossible for him to sound presidential, notwithstanding his Lincolnesque height.

Still, the long period before the election introduces the _possibility_ that Kerry may alter his character and so improve his chances.

In response to Mr. Auster:

If that is true, then we might as well vote our conscience and support third-party candidates, in the hope that if they make a showing, it will strengthen their party over the long run and thus either displace, or force changes in, the GOP.

I will be more specific after I have done al ttile more research. I am leaning toward Peroutka, but I need to find out a little more before I am certain.

I agree with Mr. Jose.

I do not aver to gambling in any form but I will predict far in advance that George W. Bush will be handsomely elected to a second term. Do your posters realize that 2.8 million prayer partners are beseeching the God of the Heavens to bring victory for their candidate? Stack that against that liberal bunch who will resort to almost anything to get their choice into office. It’s the white hat against the black stetson. And every child knows that the wearer of the white hat invariably wins. To Mr. Auster I say: If I am proven wrong, you pick the restaurant and I’ll pay the check!

Dick Morris disagrees. He thinks Bush is in big trouble, at the moment, being 11 points behind the awful Kerry. He thinks Hillary will be Kerry’s running mate for the following reasons: it appears Kerry will win, Hillary could never be president under such circumstances, the Clintons know this, the Cintons would therefore insist on a vice-presidency (i.e., a chance at the presidency), and the Clintons would savage Kerry to political death if Kerry did not accept Hillary.

Personally, I think Edwards would beat Bush but not Kerry.

I wouldn’t write Kerry off so soon. Nor, for that matter apparently, would Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, each already operating in overdrive with daily 3-hour rants against the presumptive Democratic nominee. More significantly, however, I heard a representative from the Gallup Organization speak of their most recent poll results showing Kerry leading Bush, and noting how in the past seven presidential elections no incumbent who was behind at this stage came back to win. Bring several other factors into the picture and I think George W. will be joining Poppy back in Texas. Start with the ongoing demographic shift, which more and more, over time, favors the Democrats. Then consider the differing situations of Kerry and Gore for their respective presidential runs: Gore was the inheritor of the Clinton legacy, a legacy which even many Democrats had grown somewhat tired of and embarrassed about, leading to a complacency which allowed many to vote for Nader and ultimately give Bush the election. Kerry, on the other hand, will be the beneficiary of an intense dislike among Democrats toward Bush—however rational or irrational—and the thirst they must feel for regaining the presidency. Remembering how close the last election was, these factors alone seem sufficient to allow Kerry to win handily. Plus I’d add that however poor a candidate Mr. Auster believes Kerry to be, which I don’t actually agree with, what exactly did Al Gore have over him? Listening to Kerry’s defiant refusal to apologize for his off-the-record comments of a few days ago which mistakenly went out over the air, I believe Kerry is a different breed of cat. He’s got the genuine military background and in previous elections, particularly against Weld in 1996, demonstrated a toughness which at the end of the day will carry him through.

Well, all I can say to Dan is, it’s interesting how two people can look at the same thing and see it so differently. You seem to regard Kerry as just another Democratic candidate, not that different from other candidates in the past, from, say Gore in 2000. I see him very differently. Only time will tell who is right. But if you are right, if America is ready to elect an arrogant, openly anti-American appeaser, then America has changed even more than I thought.

For those people who still see Kerry as just another Democratic candidate for president rather than someone unprecedently awful, here’s a good summary of Kerry from Lucianne.com:

“Reply 84 - Posted by: Bluestocking, 3/13/2004 3:58:35 PM

“One of the most arrogant things about John Kerry is his belief that he can act as mean-spirited and offensive as Howard Dean yet, unlike Howard, still be electable. Why? Because he has more experience than Howard Dean? But his experience consists almost entirely of tons of negative baggage.

“An underlying message of this article in the New York Times is that even the most pro-Democratic newspaper can’t find anything positive to say about John Kerry. This was the best they could do. There IS nothing positive to say about John Kerry. Even his allegedly heroic war experience has been tainted by his refusal to release his records.

“Even during the worst Monica-obsessed moments of the Clinton administration, the liberal media could find some good things to say about Bill Clinton – he was charismatic, intelligent, etc. Even the hapless Al Gore had the positive attribute of being a good husband and father. But John Kerry seems uniquely devoid of any quality that can even remotely be spun into anything resembling an admirable quality.”

The standard fare you’d expect from the Bush idolators at Lucianne.com and fairly similar to the case Rush makes against Kerry, that no one “likes” him. Nonetheless he has two daughters, product of a divorce, who are out there actively campaigning for him, and a wife with whom he appears to share a deep mutual affection. Yes, Kerry is an arrogant kind of guy, but politics has a way of softening that quality. Could it still be his downfall? Yes. Yet speaking of Al Gore, if you’ve heard any of his comments lately, they put the remarks of Kerry in the minor leagues of anti-Americanism. Sure, that’s the present-day Al Gore, but all these politicians move with the times, and for these times John Kerry is, relatively speaking, a somewhat moderate Democrat. A scary thought, especially when the “right wing” conservative Republican President is a Lyndon Johnson liberal fanatically devoted to dismantling our borders.

If one believes that Kerry has a good chance of winning, what are the practical consequences of that belief for one’s own behavior, as distinct from those of us who do not share that belief? Most of us who oppose Bush will be voting for some third-party candidate, regardless of how we see the two main candidates’ respective chances. So the only practical difference I see between Dan’s position and mine is that Dan will (presumably) vote for a third-party candidate with the expectation that Kerry could win, and that I will vote for a third-party candidate with the expectation that Bush will win.

But here is a more significant difference that occurs to me. Those who, like myself, see Bush as a disaster and also see no realistic chance of Kerry’s winning, accept it as extremely likely that a president we regard as a disaster is going to be re-elected to a second term. I’ve said many times that the only possibility of turning back the GOP from its leftward course is through the defeat of Bush. But if people now think, as I now think, that that’s simply not going to happen, that would lead them to think about other ways besides the defeat of Bush to strengthen conservatism within and without the GOP. But those who persist in seeing Bush’s defeat as the only hope, are putting their thoughts into something that (as I see it) is very unlikely to happen, and so are setting themselves up for a huge disappointment. Life is going to continue after November, even if Bush is re-elected. What do we do then? That is the question.

Mr. Auster: like yourself, the thought briefly occurred of voting for Kerry, so great is my desire to see Bush punished with a reelection defeat. A few words of Kerry on the stump, however, was enough to shake me out of that daze and disabuse me of the idea (and I OPPOSE the war in Iraq). So, yes, you are right: I will be voting for a third party with the expectation Kerry will win.

I will not be “hugely” disappointed if Bush should win, but will no doubt feel a bit more depressed about prospects for the next four years, with a Republican Congress continuing to rubber-stamp Bush’s liberal legislation—the types of proposals which Rush assures us “takes the issue away from the Democrats”—and likely four more years of the present malaise. In contrast, my hope has been that with a Bush defeat the Republicans, as the opposition party, would necessarily have to go back to voting against similar (and worse) policies when raised by Kerry, opening the door again for a genuine conservative point of view. Or maybe not, as the experience of the Clinton years suggests.

So what do we do? Albert Jay Nock comes to mind, with the idea of the “remnant,” those who see things very differently from the establishment parties but who are marginalized, in practical political terms, by the forces of the day. We can hang around patiently and, as a recent Chronicles cover suggests, try to lead a rewarding life in decadent times. However, I don’t think it’s that bad yet. The majority of Americans are still very upset over Bush’s immigration amnesty proposal and I believe something can be accomplished there. While it would probably have to be done as a non-partisan enterprise, a significant defeat for Bush on that issue could lay some groundwork for a conservative revival later on. I see significant common threads running through the sites of VFR, VDARE, LewRockwell.com, American Renaissance, Chronicles, and others, but whether the differences between these parties, also significant, can be overcome to possibly coalesce into a third party would be the question. Any way you look at it, it’s going to be rough, and we’re going to have to get used to it. This is not the America we grew up in.

It is a real possibility that Kerry will prove to be unelectable. However, we should remember that Bush was well ahead and in a very strong position a few months ago. Now, Bush trails the not-very attractive Kerry in the polls.

In January, Bush unveiled his amnesty plan. He started dropping in the polls at that point. Mr. Sutherland said a few months ago, that while GWB is sly, he’s not very smart. Bush thought his reelection was in the bag, so he makes the most radical open-borders proposal in history. Sly, but not smart.

When we say, “Kerry can’t win,” we mustn’t forget that GWB may not be finished antagonizing the GOP base. What if Bush spends the whole campaign pandering to hispanics? That’s what he really wants to do.

We need to plan, as Mr. Auster says, for more than one eventuality. Even if Bush wins, a strategy must be developed for the next election cycle to present a strong traditionalist-conservative response. GWB will be a lame duck even if he wins.

It’s instructive to consider the second-oldest tendency in U.S. politics. Since the Civil War, the Democratic candidate almost always has more votes against him than for him. The highly unusual FDR accounts for four of the six exceptions. The other two, Lyndon Johnson and (by a hair) Jimmy Carter, got a great deal of help from their opponents. (As did FDR.)

Kerry may indeed win— again, with a great deal of help from his opponent— but as with Clinton, Kennedy, Truman, Wilson, and Cleveland, more folks will have said “No” than “Yes”.

A Kerry administration would thus hold a weak mandate, and without the compensating charisma of a Wilson, Truman or Kennedy. The real disaster of a Kerry presidency would be the continued corruption of the federal courts. Only half of GOP appointments are sociopaths.

(The oldest tendency in U.S. politics? Why, Democratic paternalism toward “people of color”!)

After Secretary Powell criticized Kerry for his comment that foreign leaders have told him they want him to beat Bush, Kerry re-affirmed the assertion more strongly than before. He said:

“The point is that all across the world, America is meeting with a new level of hostility.… There are relationships that have been broken. I have heard from foreign leaders elsewhere in the world who don’t appreciate the Bush administration and would love to see a change in the leadership of the United States.”

This is truly amazing, truly unprecedented—a major party candidate for President of the United States openly claiming the political support of foreign leaders who are hostile to the foreign policy of the U.S. government. Kerry’s underlying attitude is, if the U.S. is asserting itself in any way that makes some foreign leaders or foreign people unhappy, then Kerry will side with the foreigners against the U.S. policy. So, if he had been president in the early 1980s when there was a vast campaign by leftists in Europe and America against the deployment of the Pershing missiles in Europe, Kerry would have reversed the decision to deploy the missiles, NATO would then have been thrown into demoralization and confusion, and the Soviet Union might very well still be in existence today.

By the way, this is not the first time that a high level Democrat has sided with a foreign government against the U.S. government. The Jeffersonian/Republican party in the 1790s (the precedessor of today’s Democratic Party) sided with revolutionary France against President Washington’s neutrality policy. James Monroe, a follower of Jefferson, was Ambassador to France in the late 1790s at the time that Washington signed the Jay Treaty with Britain which the Jeffersonians felt made made too many concessions to Britain. While he was still ambassador, Monroe expressed himself to the French against President Washington’s policy. Of course that was not public. Kerry is the presidential candidate, publicly announcing his disloyalty to the U.S. Kerry has hated any manifestation of American power since he was in his twenties. Now that he’s become the top dog in the Democratic Party, he can express his true self—i.e., his disdain for America—on a larger stage than he ever has before. I think that expressing his true self is more important to him than considerations of political pragmatism.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=3&u=/ap/20040314/ap_on_el_pr/powell_kerry

Pat Buchanan has a good summation of where the election is at, in his column today: “Bush’s problem is that America is coming to believe that, perhaps, his time is past. Kerry’s problem is that, given his lack of convictions and his Barney Frank-Teddy Kennedy voting record, he does not look like the fellow who can close the sale.”

Mr. Auster asks what life will be like after the Bush victory in November, and what practical plans we can make. I believe we should each have a short list of core issues that we contact congressmen about, putting pressure on them when that is needed, and encouraging those who are standing up for our issues. We can also email the President about those same issues, respond to RNC fundraising letters with our concerns, etc.

My short list, with realistic assessment of Bush: (1) Immigration: Bush is beyond hope; we can pressure congressmen to at least hold the line for four years, maybe even make a little progress with some legislation. (2) Defending the country against foreign threats: Bush is far superior to Kerry or any other Democrat; nation building is dubious, but the rest of Bush’s plans are sound and we should be grateful. (3) Freedom of political speech: Bush the Coward signed the campaign finance reform law while winking at us that the Supreme Court would overturn it. Backfired. Cannot publicly support legislation to overturn his own cowardice and duplicity, so we have to endure the status quo until the next election cycle in 2008. (4) Freedom of religion: indirectly threatened by big-government conservatism approaches of Bush (e.g. faith-based welfare initiatives). Bush’s focus has left this area since 9/11 and nothing new seems to be happening. (5) Gun control: NRA is making progress in Congress; razor-thin GOP margins fail to hold up after turncoats reach compromises with Democrats; not something Bush fights publicly; pressure needed (and more conservatives elected to Congress). (6) Reducing size of government: Bush is a total disaster; voter backlash is reaching GOP ears, and second term could be significantly better than the first just because free spending is backfiring with the public. Constant pressure needed.

Judicial appointments affect many of these areas, and Bush is looking reasonable so far, but there is a tendency for GOP presidents to appoint conservatives to the district and appellate courts, whose names are provided to him by conservative judicial watchdog groups, and then appoint a “moderate” when a Supreme Court vacancy arises. Don’t know if there is any realistic way to pressure the party or its leader on this one.

I was very impressed, although not perhaps in the way intended, by Mr. Caesar’s remark that “only half of GOP appointments (to the bench) are psychopaths.” Is this damning with faint praise, or praising with faint damns?

A practical step forward in the near future is suggested by the “527 organizations” such as the leftist MoveOn.org, which is running ads against Bush in various places. Take a look at the analysis at http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/basham200403150905.asp of how such organizations are ascending, and the major parties descending, in relative inportance, and then picture traditionalist conservatives directing all future political donations to immigration reform advertising groups, monolingual English groups, etc.

Excellent suggestion by Mr. Coleman in the post of 3:50 p.m. We shouldn’t be giving one red cent to the Republican Party or the Bush
Re-Election Campaign. I like to send their propaganda, including donation requests and phony “surveys”, right back to them with a few choice comments. Of course, don’t put a stamp on, make them pay for it! On the other hand, sending money to a reliable candidate or issue-oriented organization is money well spent.

A lucianne.com commenter on the news that Al Qaeda No 2 Zawahiri is surrounded and facing death:

Reply 11 - Posted by: DontTreadOnMe, 3/19/2004

Looks like Kerry will be missing another foreign supporter soon.

During his infamous testimony before a Congressional committee in 1971, John Kerry was asked to assess the threat of international Communism. He replied: “I think it is bogus, totally artificial. There is no threat. The Communists are not about to take over our McDonald hamburger stands.”

Of course, the next few years saw numerous Communist victories and invasions around the world and several additional countries subjected to Communist slavery.

Kerry’s contemptuous dismissal of any possible Communist threat employed the false reasoning that, because the Communists are not _at this moment_ about to take over our country, therefore the Communist threat is bogus. This is similar to Patrick Buchanan’s denial of the idea that Islam poses a threat to our civilization, which I discussed in my recent article on him at Front Page. Buchanan’s reasoning goes, “Islam _can’t_ destroy our civilization, therefore we don’t have to worry about Islam’s _attempt_ to destroy our civilization. We should just sit tight and wait for this to pass. Any actions taken by us will only make things worse.”

Right. Islam is not powerful enough to destroy our civilization. It would be nothing to worry about if they only destroyed 10% of our civilization, right?

I’m sure Mr. Coleman read the Buchanan statements on this issue that I quoted. And what he said was even worse than Mr. Coleman’s characterization. Japan and Germany, he said, had both undergone destruction of many cities, millions of deaths, ruin of industry; but a decade later, they were back, and therefore, by Buchanan’s argument, their respective civilizations had not been destroyed. So, his argument concludes, if the U.S. were to go through a similar experience, then Perle’s warnings of a “holocaust” and the destruction of our civilization would be shown to be hype that we can dismiss.

In the April 13 Washington Post, Kerry has a column on Iraq which includes this classic Kerryism:

“Finally, we must level with our citizens. Increasingly, the American people are confused about our goals in Iraq, particularly why we are going it almost alone.”

This is a staggering comment, yet utterly typical of the man. The reality is that, beyond Bush’s generalities of “advancing freedom in the Mideast” and setting up some kind of government in Iraq, lots of people are truly confused about the substantive goals of our Iraq policy and how Bush expects to get there, also about the obstacles we face and how we should deal with them. These are all vast questions. But in John Kerry’s mind, the main question that people have about Iraq is: WHY AREN’T THE U.N. AND FRANCE AND GERMANY MORE INVOLVED? The slogans of “cooperation” and “internationalism” are the template Kerry automatically imposes on every conceivable issue. He is a politician who literally has no grasp of political realities. Present any issue to him, and his answer will automatically be “U.N.”, “multilateralism,” “diplomacy.” But diplomacy and multilateralism toward what end? That, he cannot answer. For Kerry, multilateral process is the end in itself. His mind is that of an EU bureaucrat.

Also, Kerry’s question is out of touch with reality for another reason. Everyone already knows why we don’t have more international help from certain quarters. France and Germany vociferously opposed America’s toppling of Hussein, and the U.N. pulled out of Iraq as soon as domestic violence started up there and has no intention of returning until it’s completely safe. But these simple facts don’t register with Kerry. Since the god of international cooperation is the _only reality_ for him, a kind of gnostic fulfillment, there can be no rational reason for any failure to realize it. Only dark forces, namely the dark forces in America and in its current president, can explain it.

This is Kerry’s view of the world.

I view Kerry’s comment as a typical politician’s answer to a tough question. He wants to capitalize on public unease over the recent escalation in violence in Iraq, but not by actually proposing an alternate strategy, which would commit him to a policy that could, in turn, be criticized just as Bush’s policy is being criticized.

So, instead, he just turns it all into a “woe is me” whine: “We are over there suffering these casualties all alone!” In addition to the fact that several other countries are over there and are also suffering casualties (“unilateralism” has been redefined by the Orwellian left to mean not a single country acting alone, but a country acting with fewer partners than it originally preferred), Kerry’s comment begs for the reply:

“So what? If Germany and France were there with us right now, THEN what would you do differently? Would you then be forced to reveal your own policy proposals?” Kerry comes across as a real lightweight every time he opens his mouth. I disagree with some presuppositions of Bush and his advisers, but they are not lightweights. In this regard, one can examine a somewhat surprising (to me) column by Paul Weyrich at http://www.freecongress.org/commentaries/040308pw.asp

I read the article linked by Mr. Coleman, and I ask, how can this be? How can this embarrassingly inarticulate, repetitive, and uninformed president be so smart and on top of things when speaking in private? It just doesn’t scan.

OUR President “inarticulate, repetitive, and uninformed”? Consider the brilliance and eloquence in just one segment of his latest press conference:

“One of the interesting things people ask me, now that we’re asking questions, is, can you ever win the war on terror? Of course, you can. That’s why it’s important for us to spread freedom throughout the Middle East. Free societies are hopeful societies. A hopeful society is one more likely to be able to deal with the frustrations of those who are willing to commit suicide in order to represent a false ideology… .

“… So long as I’m the President, I will press for freedom. I believe so strongly in the power of freedom. You know why I do? Because I’ve seen freedom work right here in our own country. I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this country’s gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom… . we have an obligation to work toward a more free world. That’s our obligation. That is what we have been called to do, as far as I’m concerned.

“And my job as the President is to lead this nation into making the world a better place… And my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course; we’ll complete the job. My message to our troops is: We will stay the course and complete the job …”

(Another possibility is that Mr. Weyrich is losing his mind.)

Well, this part is cogent (and why not, since it’s an idea he’s repeated many times):

“I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this country’s gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom….”

This is a new civil theology, in which the U.S. is the agent of God on earth. The new twist is that America is not itself the source of the truth of freedom. God is the source. But since America is the freest and most powerful nation, our mission is to spread God’s freedom to all. This kind of theological belief could make it very difficult for Bush to admit that his democratization agenda may be failing.

Mr. LeFevere is right.
Nothing freedom repetitive freedom about THAT freedom segment freedom of Bush’s speech. ;-)
For a funny take on it:
http://www.criticalviewer.com/archives/000057.html

The President’s press conference was, in my opinion, the best delivered and the most inspiring under the severe conditions in which he met these reporters. With the media examining every word and seeking an opportunity to ‘read’ the President in a different light, I thought he handled it beyond all expectations. Who of us could have performed as well. My heart went out to him as I felt the suffering he had gone through in the past, agonizing week. Sure, there is plenty of fault all around. But this President is committed and resolute and for that, we should go to our knees and thank God for such a brave and good man.He appeared tired and spoke rather humbly. I suppose the liberals out there just cannot stand a President who will not give in to their tantrums. I say, God bless, Mr. President, for a great job of leadership!

If this was the best Bush could do, I’d hate to see the worst. His rhetoric was thoroughly cliche-ridden, written on the level of a high-school student, and it was apparent he was rambling to fill up time. His vision of America has little to do with the Constitution. Instead, we are now out to “liberate” the various peoples of the world: “A free Iraq is vital because 25 million Iraqis have as much right to live in freedom as we do.” He even used the race card: “Some of the debate really centers around the fact that people don’t believe Iraq can be free, that if you’re Muslim or perhaps brown skinned, you can’t be self-governing and free. I strongly disagree with that.” I find the man to be an embarrassment. On a personal level I just cannot bring myself to believe that he’s the one really in charge (yes, the Weyrich column was as astounding to me as it was to others here), and as a conservative I’m always reminded of Mr. Auster’s line, “the liberal who conservatives adore.” And then there’s the issue of immigration….

Yet—and I’m afraid I’m going to annoy some people when I say this—notwithstanding Bush’s staggering inadequacies and delusions, there is a core of common sense, character, and decency in him, qualities that are manifestly lacking in his presumptive opponent. In my view, this is the underlying reality of the election, deeper than the headlines and troubles and shifts of opinion of each passing week. And therefore I view it as an extremely high probability that Bush is going to be re-elected.

And there’s also a core of common nonsense, just from last night, as compiled by Jeffrey Tucker of the Mises Institute:

http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/004213.html#more

I’m reminded of Nixon’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Harold Carswell, regularly dubbed by the press as “mediocre.” With the passage of 30+ years I’m unable to recall whether it was actually Carswell, or a friend of mine debating the issue in class, who said “well, the mediocre deserve to be represented too.”

Perhaps Bush’s common nonsense will prevail over Kerry’s lack of common sense. Given the continually changing demographics in favor of the Democrats, and the motivation of the Democrats to get rid of Bush, I don’t think so, but we’ll know in 202 days.

Mr. Auster writes: “… there is a core of common sense, character, and decency in [Bush] …”

I simply don’t see it. You, Mr. Auster, have devoted much of your effort, in fact, arguing the opposite for most of the past six or seven months. Is it common sense to allude constantly to war … and leave the borders of your country wide open to anyone who wants to walk in, while claiming you’re going to “change the world” with your Napoleonic “wars of liberation”? Is it a sign of character to … endorse affirmative action and “diversity” mandate as well as import any willing worker from the Third World at any wage that at least reaches minimum legal requirements? Is it an indicator of decency to value African, Arab, Mexican, and Indian lives over American ones, which he is doing through his African AIDS initiative; his preference to “bomb” our enemies with food, instead of the real thing; his willingness to amnesty disease ridden, illiterate, crime prone Mexican peasants; and his belief that outsourcing American capital, jobs, and knowledge to India and China is “a good thing”? George Bush is a disaster. He must be voted out—even if that does mean the equally foolish Kerry wins.

Well, I said I would annoy some people. I disagree with almost nothing that Paul C. has said about Bush. But that doesn’t cancel out what I said. It’s incorrect and illogical of Paul to say that my searing criticisms of Bush’s public statements and policies mean that I deny that he has a core of decency and common sense. I’m making a prognostication here, not an endorsement. Notwithstanding my own opposition to him, my intuition tells me that Bush’s relative goodness and solidity relative to Kerry’s utter absence of same will be sensed by most people and will assure his re-election.

Whatever Bush’s flaws and dangerous fantasies, I don’t see the American people choosing an arrogant anti-American appeaser over him. I’m just calling it the way I see it.

>>With the passage of 30+ years I’m unable to recall whether it was actually Carswell, or a friend of mine debating the issue in class, who said “well, the mediocre deserve to be represented too.”<<

Maybe you or a friend said this, but I suspect whichever it was was echoing the remarks of Senator Roman L. Hruska (R-Nebr.): “Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Cardozos, and Frankfurters, and stuff like that there.”

Since that time, the more I read about G. Harold Carswell, the more I am convinced that his nomination was Nixon’s way of displaying an upraised middle finger to the Senate for having rejected his earlier nomination of Clement Haynesworth. Haynesworth was a highly competent (if fairly colorless) jurist who took the law and applied it honestly to the cases before him, but who was borked (back before the term had been invented) by liberals who worried (and were right to do so) that Haynesworth would fail to extend the gains of the Warren Court.

On the other hand, calling Carswell mediocre was way too generous. He should have been appointed a United States district judge, much less nominated to the Supreme Court. If my memory serves me correctly, he resigned from the federal bench to go back into politics, but his political career crashed and burned when he was arrested for propositioning an undercover cop in a Florida men’s room.

Mr. Auster, you are so right on this one.A bouquet of flowers, red, white, and blue, for your inner logic which makes sense considering the non-sense floating around. I understand exactly what you are stating. And it is not reading between the lines. Our President has had a very rough week. As long as the tuunel is still here, we can find our way out. Mr. Kerry, too much in the dark on reality issues, would be a poor choice bearing the light!

Thank you, Joan, but I don’t think we’re actually in agreement on this point, since I gather you’re a supporter of Bush’s, while I’m not.

Seamus, BINGO! Thanks for the clarification (and additional info on Carswell).

I found Bush’s performance last night appalling. He seemed to unable to give a reasoned reply to the criticisms that the Administration had overestimated the extent to which the Iraqis wanted to be liberated, and that it had been wrong about the WMDs.
Unlike Mr. Auster, I find it hard to believe that he will be reelected, don’t see a hard core of common sense or decency in Bush, who is a stumbling, incompetent country club Republican, seemingly always ready to sell out the interests of the American people. I say this though I find contemplating Kerry as President thoroughly nauseating.

I agree that Bush has a core of decency. Common sense, I’m not so sure of.

I didn’t say he had a “hard core” of common sense, just a “core,” by which I meant that it’s a quality of his that manifests in a variety of ways, but not a controlling quality in all circumstances. A “hard core” of common sense suggests that he brings common sense into everything he does. That’s plainly not true.

Thus he was able to articulate very effectively the argument that we could not tolerate the existence of a hostile rogue regime developing weapons of mass destruction. His arguments demonstrated a solid common sense that his domestic enemies utterly lacked, and he led the country into war on that basis. In other areas, such as spreading “democracy,” he has been a Wilsonian utopian. As I said about the neocons before the war, Bush made rational arguments when it came to the necessity of toppling Hussein, and very irrational arguments when it came to the idea of imposing democracy on the whole world. But at least there’s some quality of rationality and common sense there. That cannot be said of anything Kerry has said, which is just lies, arrogant denunciations of Bush, and U.N.-worship.

I’m not certain if I would say that Kerry lies, because that would imply that he has the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood.
Kerry’s entire campaign is based on the fact that he is not George W. Bush. On the war, he believes that Bush is doing it wrong, and he tends to take positions that are at odds to Bush, or that he paints as being at odds with Bush, simply for the sake of being different than Bush.
Bush wants the US in charge, so Kerry wants the UN in charge.
Bush has set up June 30th as the date for the “transfer-of-sovereignty” (which I contend is just a meaningless spectacle), so Kerry insists that the date be postponed.
While Bush has pushed to reduce troop levels, Kerry has wanted to increase them (now that Bush is increasing them, expect Kerry to claim that we have too many troops there).
Strangely enough, though, Kerry and Bush share a trait: neither can ever admit he was wrong. The only difference is that Bush avoids admitting he was wrong by never changing his mind, whereas Kerry never admits he was wrong by changing his mind retroactively, i.e. whatever his beliefs are now, suddenly have always been his beliefs. This is accomplished either by ignoring previous statements to the contrary, or by claiming that when he said “no,” he really meant “yes.”

Interesting theory of Kerry by Mr. Jose. But I would throw in the qualification that, as far as his cult of internationalism is concerned, that is the main constant in Kerry’s political life, not dependent on his opposition to Bush.

“… whatever his beliefs are now, suddenly have always been his beliefs.”

So Kerry is the equivalent of a one-man propaganda department for Orwell’s Oceania. “Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has _always_ been at war with Eurasia.”

It seemed to me that Bush was unable to deal with the problem that WMDs had not been found. He merely babbled on as if the situation we found in Iraq was the one he had expected before the war. That is not very encouraging.
By the way, in considering the mental processes of those running this administration, it may be useful to note that even in the run up to the war they flatly refused to admit that it was a mistake not to finish off Saddam Hussein back in 1991. Cheyney and others went out of their way to deny the obvious point that if war was “necessary” in 2003 it must have been wrong to stop short twelve years earlier. Does that make sense to anyone else? Incidentally, this shows that it is really the country club types, not the neocons, running things in Washington. The latter, I think, would admit that it was a bad mistake to stop in 1991.