74Who loves a good debate?!
Oh yes my friends, I am back in the saddle again!
It has been some time, I know, but I am back with a vengeance. This essay section has gotten pretty boring and repetitive, so I think it's about time I stepped back into the fray and bestowed you all with my wonderful writings. With that being said, if I'm not mistaken, September 30, 2004 had something going on…oh that's right! The very first presidential debate in my backyard! Yes, if you didn't know already, I live in South Florida—where the hurricanes didn't hit directly—and the debates were held at the University of Miami (Go 'Canes!) in Coral Gables, a place that is about 30 minutes or so from my house. On top of that, I got to go to the Republican Party's Debate Watch Convention in Coconut Grove and I got to shake the hand of the President of the United States of America—a huge honor!
But enough about me. I want to talk about the debate. It was fun, was it not? Now, as a Republican, I will proudly admit John Kerry was more articulate than my candidate, George W. Bush. No doubt in my mind John Kerry was brilliant on style—but I expected nothing less. Kerry was on the debate team at the Ivy League school of Yale University. He was a prosecuting attorney at one point. I would expect the man to perform like he did. So I was not surprised at how Kerry came off.
But sadly, Kerry's amazing abilities to lace his answers with mounds of bullshit has allowed for some Americans to believe Kerry came out as a clear cut winner. However, as history showed in the JFK/Nixon debates, when the voter watches the candidates, they miss the content and substance of what is said. They're paying attention to emotional reactions, mannerisms, etc. and not as much as to what is said. During the Kennedy/Nixon debates, Richard looked like crap under the lights of the stage, and because of that those polled who watched the debate believed JFK won. Conversely, those who listened to the debate on the radio believed Nixon had won. Strange, isn't it?
So with that, I've decided to do my civic duty as a happy, proud-as-hell American and bring to you, the reader (who are not only Americans, but Europeans, Australians, Canadians, and South Americans as well—and I know one Filipino), the substance of the debate.
I'll start with the very first question asked by PBS moderator Jim Lehrer (who was pretty unbiased I'd say): "Do you believe you could do a better job than President Bush in preventing another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States?"
After going on about alliances, Kerry said this: "I have a better plan for homeland security. I have a better plan to be able to fight the war on terror by strengthening our military, strengthening our intelligence, by going after the financing more authoritatively, by doing what we need to do to rebuild the alliances, by reaching out to the Muslim world, which the president has almost not done, and beginning to isolate the radical Islamic Muslims, not have them isolate the United States of America."
Is that plan laid out? No. Something to keep in mind. But look at what he says. He says the President has not reached out to the Muslim world. Since when? If I'm not mistaken, we've held several meetings with the Palestinian Authority, several with the Egyptians, Jordanians, the Libyans (who gave up their WMD programs), the Pakistanis, and the Saudis, to name a few. Is there another Muslim world to which we don't know about?
Kerry continued:
"I know I can do a better job in Iraq. I have a plan to have a summit with all of the allies, something this president has not yet achieved, not yet been able to do to bring people to the table."
Two things. 1) How in the hell is going to do that? Say "Oh, I'm sorry about the other guy, but I'm nice and I'll let you have our money even though you didn't do a damn thing to help us before"? Or maybe because he's John Kerry the Almighty that just his presence in the White House will be enough to get countries to "come to the table." And 2) What the hell is a summit going to do?! When did a summit (which the dictionary defines as a "meeting of heads of government") ever solve anything? How is a summit going to bring total peace to Iraq? Anybody know?
Continuing…
Kerry was then asked whether or not the re-election of Bush would cause us to be hit again by terrorists. He said: "…the 9/11 Commission confirms there was no connection to 9/11 itself and Saddam Hussein, and where the reason for going to war was weapons of mass destruction, not the removal of Saddam Hussein."
Yes, the 9/11 Commission said there was no connection to Hussein and September 11…so what? Terrorism is not spelled A-l-Q-a-e-d-a and that's something Kerry and the liberals need to understand. And no, the reason for going to war was not just for weapons of mass destruction, something John Kerry himself has admitted to. I present my proof:
KERRY: "I think we clearly have to keep the pressure on terrorism globally. This doesn't end with Afghanistan by any imagination. And I think the president has made that clear. I think we have made that clear. Terrorism is a global menace. It's a scourge. And it is absolutely vital that we continue, for instance, Saddam Hussein." (CNN's "Larry King Live," 12/14/01)
KERRY: "I agree completely with this Administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq ..." (Sen. John Kerry, Speech To The 2002 DLC National Conversation, New York, NY, 7/29/02)
Then Kerry name-dropped to fill up his time…I guess that was supposed to impress everyone. Then he said this:
"Unfortunately, he escaped in the mountains of Tora Bora. We had him surrounded. But we didn't use American forces, the best trained in the world, to go kill him. The president relied on Afghan warlords and he outsourced that job too."
Cute little quip with that "outsourcing" comment. But back to the substance, there is no proof that Osama bin Laden was ever surrounded, just a theory. On top of that, yes, Afghan soldiers were sent into the mountains—that's just strategically smart. The last time a foreign military chased after mujahadeen into the mountains of Afghanistan, they were spanked (or does everyone forget the 1979 Soviet invasion?) It was only natural for us to send those who know the landscape to get our target. It was something we did in Vietnam from time to time too—surprisingly, Kerry the War Hero forgets that…
Kerry was then questioned about what "colossal misjudgements" did Bush make? He responded:
"And Iraq is not even the center of the focus of the war on terror. The center is Afghanistan, where, incidentally, there were more Americans killed last year than the year before; where the opium production is 75 percent of the world's opium production; where 40 to 60 percent of the economy of Afghanistan is based on opium; where the elections have been postponed three times."
A quote of John Kerry's"
KERRY: "I think we clearly have to keep the pressure on terrorism globally. This doesn't end with Afghanistan by any imagination. And I think the president has made that clear. I think we have made that clear. Terrorism is a global menace. It's a scourge. And it is absolutely vital that we continue, for instance, Saddam Hussein." (CNN's "Larry King Live," 12/14/01)
So which is it? Kerry is saying in the debate that Afghanistan is the center of the war on terror and not Iraq, yet in 2001 on Larry King he's saying that in no way is terrorism restricted to Afghanistan! He even brings up Saddam Hussein!
Later, Kerry responded to the President about moving from Bin Laden to Hussein. He said: "The president just talked about Iraq as a center of the war on terror. Iraq was not even close to the center of the war on terror before the president invaded it."
Take a look, once again, at the quote from Larry King. Then this one:
KERRY: "He is and has acted like a terrorist, and he has engaged in activities that are unacceptable." (Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," 12/11/01)
Does that sound like a man who doesn't believe Iraq is involved in the war on terror? Or does it sound like a man who has to flip his position to get the Democratic base on his side? This is a man who will later say how his position on Iraq never changed…more on that later.
A new question from Lehrer. LEHRER: "We'll come back to Iraq in a moment. But I want to come back to where I began, on homeland security. This is a two-minute new question, Senator Kerry. As president, what would you do, specifically, in addition to or differently to increase the homeland security of the United States than what President Bush is doing"
KERRY: "Jim, let me tell you exactly what I'll do. And there are a long list of thing. First of all, what kind of mixed message does it send when you have $500 million going over to Iraq to put police officers in the streets of Iraq, and the president is cutting the COPS program in America?
What kind of message does it send to be sending money to open firehouses in Iraq, but we're shutting firehouses who are the first- responders here in America. The president hasn't put one nickel, not one nickel into the effort to fix some of our tunnels and bridges and most exposed subway systems. That's why they had to close down the subway in New York when the Republican Convention was there. We hadn't done the work that ought to be done.
The president - 95 percent of the containers that come into the ports, right here in Florida, are not inspected. Civilians get onto aircraft, and their luggage is X-rayed, but the cargo hold is not X- rayed. Does that make you feel safer in America?
This president thought it was more important to give the wealthiest people in America a tax cut rather than invest in homeland security. Those aren't my values. I believe in protecting America first. And long before President Bush and I get a tax cut - and that's who gets it - long before we do, I'm going to invest in homeland security and I'm going to make sure we're not cutting COPS programs in America and we're fully staffed in our firehouses and that we protect the nuclear and chemical plants.
The president also unfortunately gave in to the chemical industry, which didn't want to do some of the things necessary to strengthen our chemical plant exposure. And there's an enormous undone job to protect the loose nuclear materials in the world that are able to get to terrorists. That's a whole other subject, but I see we still have a little bit more time.
Let me just quickly say, at the current pace, the president will not secure the loose material in the Soviet Union - former Soviet Union for 13 years. I'm going to do it in four years. And we're going to keep it out of the hands of terrorists."
HE DIDN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION! Lehrer said SPECIFICALLY! What would Kerry do, SPECIFICALLY, to homeland security! And he even began with "I'll tell you exactly what I'd do," followed with a laundry list of things he accuses Bush of doing! Is that an answer?! All I can see from that answer (besides a lie about not spending money on police and firefighters…Bush has spent $3.1 billion on both) is that to protect the homeland, Kerry will go to the Russians and somehow get them to secure their own weapons (which are secured for the most part) in four years. The same guy who criticizes Bush for telling other countries what to do is going to go to the Russians (which he referred to as the Soviet Union still, before he realized his mistake…Freudian slip maybe?) and MAKE them secure their own weapons. Are you kidding me? That's his "long list of things" to protect the country? Is to bitch about Bush and then somehow get the Soviets—er, I mean Russians—to secure their weapons in four short years?
Read on, this only gets better.