Nov. 1 - We are having a presidential election campaign at a time when our nation is under attack. How stupifying that Anyone But Bush remains the guiding theme of the opposition! Surely this is a sign of shallowness at the least and outright insanity at the most because it means that personal feelings about a candidate are motivating far too many voters at a time when national security is the dominant issue for the first time in their lifetimes.

I don't care if you don't like the President. This shouldn't be a popularity contest because it's an election in a time of war that tests our national character and our ability to look beyond personal likes and dislikes to judge the candidates solely on the basis of how they will address the threat.

This shouldn't be about getting even for the 2000 election. Anyone still angry about that should look at a crater in New York City and consider changing their priorities.

I have some sympathy with those who are having a major ick at the thought of pulling the lever for a Republican. I had never voted Republican in my life before this election. I voted Independent or Democrat without ever considering that a Republican might deserve at least some scrutiny.

That changed Sept. 11, 2001. Ironically, one of my first thoughts was "Thank God a Republican is in the White House" and although I didn't go so far as to decide that hanging chads were instruments of God, I did know that a twist of history had served our country at a time of peril.

I knew instictively that a Republican was more likely to launch a determined counter assault. I knew that something had to break the murderous deadlock at Israel's borders. I knew that we had to deal decisively with Saddam Hussein. Those were my immediate thoughts that fierce day, and I believe more than a few of those who are considering voting for Kerry had those same thoughts until the ongoing propaganda campaign waged by the Michael Moores and Democrats caused them to retreat.

Making fun of Bush may make for clever, cocktail party repartee, but is that actually a strategy for victory?

When we focus on the issues, exactly how does Kerry's platform differ from the president's? Why, he'll do things differently! That is an astonishing statement from the party that had the chance to do things differently for eight years but stayed with a law enforcement approach to international terrorism, and an onimous statement from a man who reminded us that he was a prosecutor and that he wants terrorism reduced to a nuisance comparable to gambling and prostitution.

It is insulting to the survivors and families of the dead from Sept. 11th, Bali, Madrid, Kashmir, Bombay, Jakarta, Moscow, Beslan, the Phillipines, Iraq, Algeria, Tel Aviv, Morocco, and countless other places to realize that a would-be president believes that that they were inconvenienced, not attacked!

We tried the law enforcement approach. We tried the appeasement approach. The Daddy of Terrorism, Yassar Arafat, was a guest in the White House, and you just can't be more accomodating than that.

As for the global test, as events in Rwanda, the Sudan and Iraq failed to pass this global test the less said about it the better.

President Bush did things differently, and the latest bin Laden tape indicates that his approach is working.

Of course that tape too, as with all previous tapes, is pure propaganda. Now we learn that the root cause for Sept. 11 was Lebanon, 1982, not dead Iraqi babies or American troops in Saudi Arabia. It also seems to echo much of Michael Moore's Farenheit 911, and I hope that people are finally making the connection that Moore's work is also propaganda.

We overtly reject OBL's offer of a cease fire, but the Kerry campaign in effect promotes a cease-fire by his failure to embrace the underlying reasons for launching Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Governments in the Mid-east that are governed by consensus, freedom of speech, press and religion will undercut the themes of desperation and impotency that al Qaeda and other Islamists use to encourage terrorist acts.

It's a long shot, admittedly. It's risky. It's one of the biggest gambles in our nation's history (maybe as as big as the one in 1776) and can backfire even now, but attempts to maintain the status quo in the Mid-east have already backfired and only greatened the threat.

We are fighting now so that our children and grandchildren don't have to fight. We are fighting now, when we have a chance of victory, than wait until we are cornered. We are fighting now to save Muslim lives, because if we are cornered there's no telling what we may do to save ourselves.

I voted by absentee ballot for President Bush because if we are to stand for anything it must be defiantly on our feet, not abjectly on our knees.

Note: One person who epitimized defiance in the face of the enemy was Winston Churchill, and Ghost of a Flea has the latest in his Winston Reviews on line. I urge Americans to read his latest, Review No. 17, here, and Canadians to read his Can-con post here.

Posted by: Debbye at 05:41 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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