The Politics of Desperation

Source: NewsMax.com "The Politics of Desperation" by Joan Swirsky
April 2, 2004 http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/4/2/104006.shtml


Joyce Notes: This is the truth. The desperate Democrats do this to a tee. The rhetoric of the Democrats since President George W. Bush has come to office is simply spew vile and hateful language, even after September 11, 2001 changed our country. They do this because the Democrats are well of ideas ran dry 10 years ago and they are not capable of offering any policy proposals.


The Politics of Desperation
Joan Swirsky
Friday, Apr. 02, 2004

Ever since President Bush was elected in 2000, the Democrats have been in a sustained apoplectic state, suffering from what often appear to be public strokes, seizures and protracted episodes of temporary insanity.

It's the word "elected" that drives them to madness – that, and their fall from the one thing they covet more than anything else on earth: power.

Within minutes of Bush’s inauguration, they called upon strategies they had elevated to an art form during the Clinton years, forced as they were to defend the former president’s indefensible personal behavior and string of foreign policy debacles – especially his "fight" against terrorism.

President Bush reached out early to the donkeys, inviting Sen. Ted Kennedy and his family to the White House, while Kennedy, demonstrating his unfailing lack of graciousness, launched into what has now become years of vein-bulging invective, screeching tirades and baseless and irrational accusations.

Joined by DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe and hysteric-at-large James Carville, the Democratic drumbeat of criticism went unabated for the first months of Bush’s presidency.

Until, that is, al-Quad – emboldened by eight years of the Clinton administration’s cutting and running from Somalia, the first World Trade Center bombing and attacks on our embassies in Africa and our Navy’s ship in Yemen – inflicted upon us the devastation of Sept. 11.

To the everlasting horror of Democrats, the country and the Congress united behind the president as he declared war on our enemies, promptly directed our troops to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, successfully enlisted Pakistan as a productive ally, and, in short order, introduced to a God-forsaken land the first freedom it had known in decades.

The Democrats, meanwhile, stewed in their own juices, searching desperately for a way to rekindle their attacks.

Sure enough, their opportunity arrived six months later when Bush decided to strike Iraq preemptively to prevent that terrorist regime from using its weapons of mass destruction, as it already had in gassing thousands of the country’s Kurds and perpetuating Palestinian homicide bombings that Saddam Hussein rewarded with bountiful cash handouts.

The United Nations affirmed to the president that, yes, Saddam had been given at least 17 directives to rid himself of WMD, all of which he violated. And more than a decade’s worth of intelligence reports and public statements – not only by Clinton and his Cabinet but also by anti-war liberals like John Kerry – affirmed once again that, yes, Saddam indeed had WMD.

The Congress, including Sen. Kerry (before he changed his mind), and U.N. members – except those such as France, Germany and Russia, with billions of dollars invested in Iraq – supported the president’s initiative, and today, only a year later, Iraq is free, schools and hospitals are up and running, and the country has already created an interim constitution.

Even more significant is that the world now knows – thanks to the Bush Doctrine of striking our enemies before they strike us – that America has zero tolerance for terrorism. North Korea knows this and is now engaged in unprecedented discussions with its neighbors. Libya knows this and has volunteered to rid itself of WMD. Saudi Arabia knows this and has now joined our fight against terrorism. And Iran and Syria know this and are now quaking in their blood-soaked boots.

But the Democrats, never happy with the president’s successful war against terrorism, decided that in their lust for the White House, giving aid and comfort to our enemies was fair game. While their attacks grew more strident by the day, the president remained amiable and conciliatory.

In fact, after four or five months of Democratic primary campaigning, during which the subject was never – not once – what any of the candidates would do for America but rather how much they hated GWB, Bush called Kerry to congratulate him on his win and to wish the both of them a "spirited campaign."

But Kerry, who is also acutely challenged in the graciousness department, responded not with a simple "Thank you," but rather with the predictably negative "strategies" that he hopes will obscure his astonishingly inconsistent voting record and terminal flip-flopping on issues of national security.

Strategy 1: Pounce on every word, gesture and action by Bush in order to monopolize the media spotlight.

Strategy 2: Repeat, ad nauseam, pejorative terms like "cowboy" and "dumb" and enlist media flacks known for their partisan bias – people like Dan Rather, Katie Couric, Lesley Stahl, Peter Jennings, Mike Wallace, etc. – to "spin" things with a leftist slant.

Strategy 3: To prove that you are a member of the (tax-raising) party of the people, never fail to shriek "Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton!"

Strategy 4: Invoke the mantra "Bush lied about WMDs!" But never remind people what you yourself said on the Senate floor: "… the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real … since the end of the Persian Gulf War we've known this."

Strategy 5: Support the embittered rantings of disgruntled Paul O'Neill and disgruntled and demoted Richard Clarke, no matter the inaccuracy of their claims or the contradictions that prove them liars.

Strategy 6: Insist that Bush "alienated" our allies (that is, France, which only loves us when we are weak or we save them from extinction; Germany, whose leader is known to pander to liberal voters; and Russia, whose president and former KGB leader still yearns for the good old Stalinist days).

Strategy 7: Distort what is genuine and good into what is phony and malevolent by hanging up after the president compliments your primary win and hitting the stump, telling people that the president is "not a uniter but a divider."

Strategy 8: Accuse the president of your own sins by saying that Bush "has run the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country."

Um … arrogant? Isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black?

Inept? According to Democratic senator Zell Miller, Kerry, in his 19 years in elected office, has "introduced 500 pieces of legislation, seven of which have been adopted … two or three of those concerned renaming bridges [and] a couple involved research grants … and a couple were giveaway programs, small loans … but he has voted against virtually every defense weapons system bill that's come down the pike."

Reckless? Isn’t refusing to vote to support our troops in Iraq the definition of recklessness?

Ideological? Okay, no one expects you to know the meaning of the word!

Strategy 9: Go on the offensive. After Bush and a soft-spoken Cheney refute your claims in measured tones and with factual information, always call their responses "the Republican Attack Machine."

Strategy 10: Spray the public with contradictions by, for instance, calling Bush a "warmonger" and then saying that he hasn’t done enough in the war on terrorism.

All of these strategies have one overriding goal: to convince the American public that John Kerry would be a steadier, more reliable hand than President Bush in steering our country to a safe and economically viable future.

Our enemies would love that to happen. They’ve already become de facto cheerleaders for the Democratic candidate. Al Jazeera, the new socialist president of Spain, arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, North Korean madman Kim Jong-il and other unnamed (by Kerry) "foreign leaders" applaud Kerry’s candidacy, the better to get what they want: an end to America’s strength and freedom!

Fortunately, the American public recognizes that Kerry & Company’s rules of campaign engagement come from a play-dirty playbook.

But even the braying of a herd of donkeys can’t put a negative spin on our recovering-going-on-robust economy or the president’s steadfastness and vision in combating terrorism.

Joan Swirsky is a New-York-based journalist and author who can be reached at joansharon@aol.com