Captain's Quarters -

CQ Flashback: Why I Support George Bush (3/1/04)

Mark asked me a direct question yesterday in response to my post about the laughably transparent Iranian attempt to influence the election Friday:

And what do you have against Kerry? Or has Bush really fought to improve your way of life?

I wrote later that his question was valid, and rather than point to a collection of earlier posts on various incidents, I think it would be more honest for me to put together a comprehensive argument for my position on this election. I will address this in two parts, just as Mark asked: why I oppose John Kerry, and why I support George Bush.

Primarily, I don't trust John Kerry, and I never have. He's spent most of his Senate career carrying Ted Kennedy's water and regularly competes with Kennedy for the most liberal voting record -- a contest he won last year, according to the National Journal. He rarely writes legislation, preferring to follow rather than to lead. He's been mostly a non-entity for the past 19 years.

His sudden aspiration for the Presidency hasn't brought out any coherent philosophy of governing, either, except to continually state over and over that he would be the Anti-Bush. For example, he's continually carped over and over that Bush "lied" to him when Kerry voted for military action in Iraq, and derided Bush's attempts to gather UN support for an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein (which he spent five months negotiating before finally giving up on France and Russia). However, as soon as Haiti popped up, Kerry derides Bush for taking five days to get a UN resolution creating the multinational force that Kerry insisted Bush should have waited for in Iraq!

Kerry (D-Mass.) said he would have sent troops to Haiti even without international support to quell the revolt against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. "President Kerry would never have allowed that to get where it is," Kerry said, though he added he's not "a big Aristide fan." (via Tim Blair)

This is part of a pattern of equivocations by a completely reactive Kerry, who keeps playing both sides of every argument. He voted against action to expel Iraq in 1991 and later claimed he supported it in concept but felt the timing wasn't right. In 2002 he voted for military action, and spent all of the latter half of 2003 claiming he opposed the war. He has made a great deal out of his support for the troops in Iraq and his determination to keep America secure, but was one of only 14 Senators to vote against the spending appropriation to keep the troops supplied.

During the campaign, he has repeatedly thundered about his staunch opposition to "special interests", famously saying in Iowa that he was coming, they were going, and don't let the door hit them on the way out. But Kerry's own record demonstrates his hypocrisy, as he has gone way out of his way to use his influence to benefit his contributors. In one instance, he personally wrote 28 letters on behalf of a company that made several thousand dollars in illegal contributions to his 1996 re-election campaign. In another, he used his influence on the SEC to arrange a meeting for a contributor's friend -- who turned out to be a Chinese spy. Kerry's raged about Benedict Arnold CEOs who move their corporations offshore for tax shelters and send jobs overseas, but then has received more than half a million dollars from the same CEOs he excoriates. That's not counting his wife's fortune, which relies on a company that locates most of their manufacturing facilities overseas.

In short, Kerry is Clinton without the charm. He doesn't just attempt to triangulate his opponents -- he triangulates himself. Someone who twists himself into these kinds of pretzels isn't the kind of man who will stand up to the challenges that face this country. Not to say that he's a coward, but that he won't lead; instead, he'll take polls and follow the political winds of the moment, which is what leaders without vision do.

Which brings me to why I support George Bush. He's not the most accomplished politician, and in 2000 I was a McCain supporter. I've been a Republican for most of my life, except a short period when I registered Libertarian. My social philosophy doesn't match up well with Bush; I'm a laissez-faire man for both economics and social issues. I think that the government which governs and spends least governs best, and we got precious little of that philosophy so far in the Bush Administration. However, on the most pressing issue not of this time, not of the past couple of years, but over the past three decades, Bush grasps the issue completely: the rise of Islamofascistic terror and its targeting of America and Americans.

Starting in 1979 with the sacking of our embassy in Teheran, Islamofascism has pressed its attack against the "Great Satan" in a number of ways -- and successive American administrations have retreated in the face of it, both Republican and Democrat. Starting with Carter's paralysis in the face of a clear act of war, proceeding through our retreat from Beirut, negotiating for hostages in Lebanon, the shameful bug-out in Somalia, and our complete failure to respond in any meaningful way to the attacks on our African embassies and the USS Cole, American Presidents have continually communicated that we were less interested in protecting our assets than in covering our ass. For instance, shortly after taking office, Clinton discovered an Iraqi plot to assassinate former President G.H.W. Bush. That is an act of war, and Saddam only held power due to a cease-fire that he already was continually violating. Instead of taking decisive action, Clinton followed his polls and tossed a few missiles at Baghdad, solving and resolving absolutely nothing. The lesson we taught our enemies -- and that is what they are -- was that we would not risk anything to protect ourselves and our interests, that we were paper tigers who would not risk open war in case an American got hurt.

After 9/11, the rest of the country realized we were at war, but I don't think it's really settled in that we've been at war for 25 years against Islamist terror. But George Bush got it. He understood that we weren't dealing with a law-enforcement problem. Serious people wanted to kill Americans by the thousands, by the millions if possible, and they were being funded and sheltered by hostile governments. Bush also understood that in order to beat those dictatorships and kleptocracies, America would have to create a new reality on the ground in Islamofascism's breeding ground. That's why Phase I was Afghanistan -- to specifically go after al-Qaeda -- but Phase II had to be Iraq. A good portion of our military in the area was already pinned down there, enforcing a sanctions regime that had already become riddled with holes, and provided yet another example of American and UN vacillation in the face of provocation.

The Democrats, with the notable and honorable exceptions of Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, fail to understand the lessons of the last 25 years, and in John Kerry's words, continue to see terrorism as a law-enforcement issue. Ironically, even the one law-enforcement approach all of them supported, the Patriot Act (which passed in the Senate 95-1, with Kerry and Edwards voting yes), they have spent the last year vilifying when even Joe Biden, Ed Koch, and Dianne Feinstein called such criticism unwarranted. The problem with using a law-enforcement model is that law enforcement takes place after a crime has been committed. We arrested a dozen or so people after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 even though we had intelligence that other governments and terror networks were involved, got our convictions, and stuck them in prison. How effective was that? Take a look at the New York skyline and see for yourself.

Finally, instead of campaigning on issues and his record, Kerry has missed no chance to make this campaign personal. He started by explaining his law-and-order philosophy as "John Ashcroft won't be the Attorney General" and explicitly equating Bush's Guard service with draft dodging and implying it was morally inferior to it, egged on by his party's national chairman. Every time his voting record in the Senate comes up for discussion, he hides behind Max Cleland and cries about attacks on his patriotism. He throws his fine service record around on the campaign trail but insists that discussing his politics on his return -- which he played out on a national stage -- is nothing but "dirty politics".

George Bush has his flaws, no doubt; everyone does, including (and especially) me. John Kerry has his virtues. But when it comes to securing the United States and creating a better world, I'm going to vote with the man who liberated 50 million people in the Middle East and got Moammar Gaddafi to knuckle under. I'm going to vote for the man who finally resolved the 12-year quagmire of Iraq and the multibillion-dollar drain it represented on our military. I'm going to vote for the man who woke up on 9/11 and saw the danger that our country and the Western world faces, and who has remained consistent in his determination to fight and beat that danger regardless of the polls and the calls for appeasement from weak and corrupt allies.

That's my answer, Mark. You may not agree, and that's why we have elections. But you asked me an honest question, and you deserved an honest answer. Thank you for reading, and thank you for asking.

CQ Flashback: The Man Who Can't Say No

For a man who claims not to be beholden to special interests, John Kerry certainly appears to enjoy thir fruits as often as possible. The Los Angeles Times -- not exactly big boosters of the Right -- reports today that Kerry wrote 28 letters on behalf of a defense firm that filled his coffers with illegal campaign contributions:

Sen. John F. Kerry sent 28 letters in behalf of a San Diego defense contractor who pleaded guilty last week to illegally funneling campaign contributions to the Massachusetts senator and four other congressmen. ... Between 1996 and 1999, Kerry participated in a letter-writing campaign to free up federal funds for a guided missile system that defense contractor Parthasarathi "Bob" Majumder was trying to build for U.S. warplanes. ...

Kerry's letters were sent to fellow members of Congress � and to the Pentagon � while Majumder and his employees were donating money to the senator, court records show. During the three-year period, Kerry received about $25,000 from Majumder and his employees, according to Dwight L. Morris & Associates, which tracks campaign donations.

Court documents say the contractor told his employees they needed to make political contributions in order for him to gain influence with members of Congress. He then reimbursed them with proceeds from government contracts.

As in the Liu Chaoying case, which is mentioned in this article but curiously doesn't mention Liu or her status as a spy, there is no indication that Kerry was aware of DR. Majumder's illegal activities. However, this clearly demonstrates the extent to which Kerry can be bought. After Majumder began sending contributions to Kerry's campaigns, Kerry clearly wanted to keep that funding channel open and spent an enormous amount of time throwing his weight around to make sure Majumder stayed in business.

It worked. Majumder managed to wring $150 million in government contracts over the past several years, helped along by his friend in high places, the man who can't be bought but is available for lease, and the man who wants to be President, John Kerry. Read the entire article. Clearly, if the Democrats nominate Kerry, they will have to forfeit their normal "holier than thou" approach, and unfortunately for the Dems, Kerry has none of Bill Clinton's warmth and charm.

CQ Flashback: Champion Against Special Interests? (2/4/04)

The AP reports an "exclusive" on an apparent conflict of interest involving Senator John Kerry from four years ago, when he blocked legislation and later received cash from a beneficiary of his action:

A Senate colleague was trying to close a loophole that allowed a major insurer to divert millions of federal dollars from the nation's most expensive construction project. John Kerry stepped in and blocked the legislation. Over the next two years, the insurer, American International Group, paid Kerry's way on a trip to Vermont and donated at least $30,000 to a tax-exempt group Kerry used to set up his presidential campaign. Company executives donated $18,000 to his Senate and presidential campaigns.

The colleague was John McCain and the project involved was the Big Dig, a highway project often cited as an example of cost overruns and government inefficiency. McCain wanted some government funding of the Big Dig stopped in order to put an end to American Insurance Group's overbilling on the project, which eventually totalled over $125 million, as well as create legislation to prohibit the abuse from occuring again. Instead, Kerry convinced McCain to hold hearings instead, and the legislation was never submitted. As a result, AIG continued to collect government funds, and Kerry collected thousands of dollars in contributions from AIG and its management.

Is this Kerry's idea of fighting special interests?

A few months later in December 2001, several AIG executives gave maximum $1,000 donations to Kerry's Senate campaign on the same day. The donations totaled $9,700 and were followed by several thousand dollars more over the next two years.

The next spring, AIG donated $10,000 to a new tax-exempt group Kerry formed, the Citizen Soldier Fund, to lay groundwork for his presidential campaign. Later in 2002, AIG gave two more donations of $10,000 each to the same group, making it one of the largest corporate donors to Kerry's group.

The insurer wasn't the only company connected to the Big Dig to donate to Kerry's new group. Two construction companies on the project — Modern Continental Group and Jay Cashman Construction — each donated $25,000, IRS records show.

The Big Dig sounds exactly like what you need when Kerry starts talking about how he fights special interests when election records show that he's taken more special-interest money that anyone in the Senate in the past 15 years. As this boondoggle's history shows, Kerry's contributors get their money's worth.

CQ Flashback: Voting In Bizarro World (1/26/04)

On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, John Kerry's inconsistencies seem to be catching up to him on the stump, if not quite yet in the polls. Facing a challenge from Howard Dean on his votes in 1991 against military action in Kuwait and in 2002 to authorize military action in Iraq, Kerry has come up with a novel explanation -- his votes meant the exact opposite of what they were:

Kerry said Sunday that he supported the Iraq resolution 15 months ago because he believed President Bush would use force only as a "last resort."

"The vote I cast was not a vote to go to war immediately," he said. ...

Although Kerry said he "believed we ought to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait," uppermost on his mind in 1991, he said, was public ambivalence about sending U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf. "I said we ought to draw a line in the sand, [I] couldn't have been more clear. But we had a very divided nation," he said. "That was actually a vote to go at that time, and I thought we ought to take a couple more months to build the support of the nation." ...

To recap: Kerry voted against military action in 1991 because he believed we should have used military force, and he voted for it in 2002 because he thought we should wait.

And Democrats wonder why we don't trust them with national-security and defense issues ...

Why doesn't he just tell the truth -- that he was against military action in 1991 but favored it in 2002? Because those positions aren't popular with the Democratic base. Instead of running on his convictions, he's running on his focus groups. Of course, Bill Clinton got elected and governed that way, but Clinton didn't have a long Senate record full of inconsistencies like this, either. Expect more Orwellian doublespeak from Kerry in the months ahead.

CQ Flashback: Kerry Calls GOP Racists, Promotes Urban Legends (9/11/04)

John Kerry told the Congressional Black Caucus that the Republicans want to suppress the black vote in November, repeating the canard that a million black votes went uncounted in 2000:

"We are not going to stand by and allow another million African American votes to go uncounted in this election," the Democratic presidential nominee told the Congressional Black Caucus. "We are not going to stand by and allow acts of voter suppression, and we're hearing those things again in this election."

Kerry has a team of lawyers to examine possible voting problems to try to prevent a repeat of the 2000 election disputes. He also has said he has thousands of lawyers around the country prepared to monitor the polls on election day.

"What they did in Florida in 2000, some say they may be planning to do this year in battleground states all across this country," Kerry said. "Well, we are here to let them know that we will fight tooth and nail to make sure that this time, every vote is counted and every vote counts."

The fact that Kerry has hired "thousands" of lawyers to do anything about the election should tell you exactly what a Kerry presidency would look like: a sellout to the trial-lawyer lobby, where lawyers go to court to create Kerry's brand of radical legislation that Congress would never approve. Even worse than Kerry's threat to follow Al Gore's precedent of attempting to sue his way to the Oval Office, though, is Kerry's despicable use of the race card and his painting of the GOP as racist. As a member of the GOP, I take that accusation personally, as I believe it was meant.

The Civil Rights Commission reported that African-American voters in Florida were more likely to have spoiled ballots or be denied a vote than other voters, but never quantified the number of voters. It claimed that 14.4% of African-American voters could not successfully vote in the 2000 general election. The total number of African-Americans in Florida for 2000 was 2.3 million. If half were adults, that would make a potential electorate of 1.15 million. Registration rates for African-Americans in 2000 were about 75%, one of the highest rates for all ethnic groups. Voter turnout for this group in 2000 was 61% of this 75%, or about 526,000 votes. If 14.4% of these voters were unsuccessful, that represents just under 76,000 votes -- nothing to sneeze at, to be sure, but a far, far cry from one million votes.

But let's take a look at where these voters were disenfranchised, according to the USCCR. As the nation painfully learned in the aftermath of the 2000 election debacle in Florida, the counties control the ballot preparation and voting procedures in the Sunshine State. In the executive summary of the report, the commission specifically mentions Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties -- all controlled by the same party: Democrats. In fact, 24 of the 25 counties that had the highest ballot-spoilage rates were run by Democrats, not Republicans.

The only state-level function specifically pointed out by the commission was the felon purge list, which has only been confirmed to have kept three eligible voters from casting ballots on Election Day in 2000. In fact, as USCCR member Peter Kirsanow put it in his minority report:

Whites were actually twice as likely as blacks to be erroneously placed on the list. In fact, an exhaustive study by the Miami Herald concluded that "the biggest problem with the felon list was not that it prevented eligible voters from casting ballots, but that it ended up allowing ineligible voters to cast a ballot."* According to the Palm Beach Post, more than 6,500 ineligible felons voted.

Put simply, the "million black voters disenfranchised in Florida" meme is a fraud, an easily debunked one at that if anyone looks at the Census Bureau reports for Florida in 2000. Kerry has decided to cast his lot with the conspiracy theorists and the race-baiters. His use of a hoary urban legend does not speak well of his intelligence, his ethics, or his judgement. Kerry should be ashamed of himself.

CQ Flashback: Kerry Calls McCain A Liar, Erases History (9/7/04)

Two days ago, I wrote that John Kerry called John McCain (and just about everyone else at the Republican Convention) a liar, based on a press release at his website. A number of you wrote to tell me that the page had disappeared from Kerry's website, but it had mysteriously reappeared by the time I checked on it.

Well, it has disappeared once more, as the Kerry campaign tries to keep its candidate from infuriating the one man who has tempered the criticism from the right in this electoral cycle. McCain, who constantly refers to his friendship with Kerry, might take the gloves off if Kerry impugns his character as he did with the Viet Nam veterans who have campaigned against Kerry. The campaign made a smart move taking down that list, especially since they never bothered to factually refute even one of the 143 statements they listed as lies, half-truths, and/or distortions.

Too bad I cached it here.

UPDATE: While we're at it, let's look at another "lie" that Kerry helpfully points out -- this one at #143, right at the bottom:

Bush Lies About Kerry�s View of Coalition.

143. Bush: �In the midst of war, he has called America's allies, quote, a "coalition of the coerced and the bribed." That would be nations like Great Britain, Poland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, El Salvador, Australia, and others allies that deserve the respect of all Americans, not the scorn of a politician. I respect every soldier, from every country, who serves beside us in the hard work of history. America is grateful, and America will not forget.�

Bush lied, Kerry cried? Not quite. Here's John Kerry from March of this year, as reported by the Des Moines Register:

Kerry said during the speech at the downtown Marriott Hotel that Bush has been impatient, which has cost the U.S. support from its allies. "The greatest position of strength is by exercising the best judgement in the pursuit of diplomacy," he said, "not in some trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted, but in a genuine coalition."

It seems to me that the only one who's telling lies, half-truths, and mischaracterizations is the Kerry campaign. Their only defense these days is to be offensive, and calling everyone a liar not only is offensive but smacks of desperation as well.

CQ Flashback: Kerry Flip-Flops On Life (7/5/04)

Despite having a more consistent record on abortion than any other issue in his career, John Kerry yesterday tried to have it both ways again, flip-flopping on the definition of human life. Kerry tried to pander to Catholics and strict Christians but instead raised far more questions than he answered:

But even as he tried to avoid making news Sunday, Kerry broke new ground in an interview that ran in the Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph Herald. A Catholic who supports abortion rights and has taken heat from some in the church hierarchy for his stance, Kerry told the paper, "I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception."

Spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said that although Kerry has often said abortion should be "safe, legal and rare," and that his religion shapes that view, she could not recall him ever publicly discussing when life begins.

"I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist," he continued in the interview. "We have separation of church and state in the United States of America." The comments came on the final day of a three-state Midwest swing, during which Kerry has repeatedly sought to dispel stereotypes that could play negatively among voters there.

Not only does this completely belie every vote Kerry has ever taken on the subject of abortion, including his support of the late-term abortion procedure sometimes called partial-birth abortion, but it demonstrates the intellectual and philosophical bankruptcy of the Democratic nominee. It is true that Catholics and a large segment of Christians overall believe that life begins at conception, which is why these groups oppose all abortion altogether. Other people believe that life begins at "viability", the moving target of when a baby can survive outside the mother's womb. Others still believe that life cannot be defined until birth itself and separation from the mother.

These beliefs and definitions lead to one purpose: to define life so as to protect it. After all, only the lunatic fringe wouldn't try to defend innocent life, once established. Catholics wish to protect life from conception forward, and others seek to protect it from their definition of its inception. John Kerry, in his remarks to the Iowa newspaper, comes up with a completely different raison d'etre -- he seeks to define life so as to protect his political career. Kerry now admits he practices hypocrisy on a scale so monstrous, it boggles the mind.

If life begins at conception, why then does John Kerry not only agree to allow abortion, but campaigns on its behalf? Does he care so l