"Why not Kerry?" Redux Part II

There's a Bob Novak column in today's Chicago Sun-Times that piques my curiosity: when will the people who are currently screaming about Fox News' claim to be "fair and balanced" run this huge story?

Let's do a walk-thru of the last 4 years of Democratic rhetoric, shall we?

1. The President failed to act on pre-9/11 intelligence reports that Bin Laden was planning major terrorism attacks in the US.
2. The President acted upon faulty intelligence reports that Iraq had WMDs.
3. The President lied to the American people about Iraq's intentions, saying that Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain uranium from Africa.
4. The President acted unilaterally against Iraq, thus costing us the good will of people around the world.
5. The President used the Iraq war as a pretext to give lucrative contracts to his Vice President's former company, Halliburton.
6. The President used the Iraq war as a pretext to get back at Saddam Hussein for trying to kill his father.
7. The President lied to the American people about a link between Al Qaida and Iraq, when his own intelligence said there was none.
8. The President diverted troops from Afghanistan (where they should have been seeking Osama Bin Laden) to Iraq.
9. The President is only a puppet for Dick Cheney and major oil interests.
10. The President is a low-functioning, semi-illiterate drooling moron.

Oh, yeah, one more:

11. The President stole the election from Al Gore.

Now, in a move sure to infuriate Democrats everywhere, let's look at the truth about each of these statements:

1. There were, in fact, no predictable reports prior to 9/11 about Bin Laden's operational plans. One of the few bipartisan agreements is on the lack of good operational intelligence about Al Qaida due to a severe lack of humint -- human intelligence. The reason for this lack is that a liberal congress and a liberal president (Clinton) and a now-dismissed intelligence officer (Richard Clarke) for years curtailed recruitment of field agents in the CIA in favor of electronic surveillance operations. This move away from human operatives infiltrating Al Qaida cost us dearly on 9/11, and continues to cost us as we await subsequent terrorist attacks upon our country. In fact, if anyone is truly to blame for not having acted upon available intelligence, it would be President Clinton, who had reliable humint about Al Qaida terrorist training camps and refused to take action.

2. The fact that we have not yet recovered intact WMDs in Iraq does not mean that they were not there. In fact, UNMOVIC (the UN agency charged with monitoring Iraq's compliance with its disarmament agreement after the first Gulf War) recently reported that surveillance photography and ground follow-up finds substantial evidence of WMD transfers to Syria and Jordan before and during the recent war, and even some missiles themselves (in violation of cease-fire protocols) sent as scrap metal to the Netherlands. The fact is that the United Nations found compelling evidence of Iraq's dangerousness to sanction this recent incursion into Baghdad, and there's not much US-flag-waving going on down on 1st Avenue!

3. See Novak's column today (above).

4. This war was (a) the resumptin of the first Gulf War, and (b) sanctioned a second time by the UN. How anyone can say it was unilateral is beyond me.

5. The red herring of Halliburton's contracts bothers me enormously. First of all, the Vice President served (rather briefly, actually) as a director of this company, and when he entered public life again, he put all his non-divested holdings into a blind trust, as do all public officials. The suggestion that he is somehow benefitting from this war must be enormously offensive to him -- it certainly is to me! Not only are we taken for idiots, to presume guilt by less-than-association, we are asked to believe that the Vice President of the United States is so evil that he would waste American and Iraqi lives for sake of a dollar. That is preposterous in itself, and says a whole lot more about the accusers than it does about the accused. That said, the contracts were awarded to the only company able to handle them! Nobody contests the fact that Halliburton is uniquely qualified to take on the task of rebuilding Iraq -- and I use the word "uniquely" as it is intended. No other conglomerate has Halliburton's resources. Full stop.

6. Please! Iraq under Saddam Hussein has a long and documented history of playing poorly with others. Israel bombed their nuclear reactors a long time ago because they were seen as a threat. During the first Gulf War, Iraq lobbed missiles toward Israel, a non-combatant! Iraq fired at US and coalition aircraft daily as we tried to enforce the conditions of his surrender. Hussein brutally put down the Kurdish rebellion by gassing his own people. And someone has the audacity to suggest that this war is the result of the President acting out some personal vendetta?

7. This one's a good example of media bias. Even a Congressional committee (loaded with Democrats) could only say that there was no direct evidence of a collaboration between Saddam Hussein and the attacks on 9/11. That's a whole lot different from saing that there was no collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaida. When a body like the Congress (or even a single politician -- see Novak's column, again) uses limited language like this, it must be read restrictively. The press, however, knowing that fact as much as I do, trumpeted the news that "there was no connection." How disingenuous can you be?


8. Afghanistan's oppressive -- and Al Qaida helping -- government has been overthrown. We believe strongly that Bin Laden has moved into Pakistan because he can no longer find refuge in Afghanistan. He is said to be completely surrounded and isolated, running out of time. And we needed those extra troops for . . . what?

9. and 10. These are both the smug, elitist dismissals of a man who doesn't fit their bourgeois model of someone who should be in the upper echelons of society. It's the Cambridge snob's immediate dismissal of the Dorchester pipe-fitter. It's the Georgetown elitist's disdain for the Silver Spring plumber. It's the Berkeley professor's instinctive sense of superiority over the Oakland construction worker. It's the pooh-poohing by those who "know" of those who, they're sure, don't know.

What it is is disgusting. It's class snobbery. And it's wrong.

First off, George W. Bush is not stupid by anybody's standards. He's a graduate of Yale and of Harvard Business School (and not even a famous father could get him through the course work there). Because he's not "glib" is not a reason to doubt his intelligence, and I am insulted that others try to make me think that it IS a reason to do so.

Secondly, though, I personally find incredible intelligence, awesome intelligence in many who are not formally educated. To dismiss people who might not be articulate as unintelligent I think is worse than snobbery; it's un-American.

And finally,

11. Get real, will you please? Even the Gray Lady found that, upon recount of all the votes, G.W. Bush won Florida. And would you really want Al Gore in the White House today anyway?

I guess the point of this whole long rant is that, if Kerry is politicking based upon the above, why would any thinking person vote for him?