SCARY KERRY
The Great Debater...Equivocator...Prevaricator?
By Marilyn M. Brannan, Associate Editor
Unravelling The New World Order

I keep wondering about the “undecided” voters that have become the fevered focus of both political parties in the weeks winding down to the election. With the differences between the candidates and the parties so clearly delineated at this point, why is it so hard for these people to make up their minds? Is the obvious really so obscure?

No one need agonize over what kind of president George W. Bush would be. We already know his position on most of the significant issues, based on his nearly four years in office and the consistent positions he has taken during the current campaign.

But what about John Kerry? Do we know what direction John Kerry would take if he were to become president?

“I have a plan . . .”

Kerry insists he “has a plan” to solve just about every problem that confronts us as a nation. But he has taken so many different positions on the Iraq war, for example, that each one cancels out another.

What is his plan? Would he dispatch more troops to Iraq (which he said on October 8 that he would do) in order to start pulling them out in six months (which he promised some weeks back)? How does he propose to win this “wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place”? How does he plan to persuade more allies to join in this “colossal misjudgment” and “grand diversion,” as he has labeled the war in Iraq? Does he plan to shift more responsibility for the outcome in Iraq to Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whom he dismissed as a mere “puppet” of George W. Bush when he visited America recently and addressed the Congress of the United States to thank us for our sacrifices in Iraq?

During the second presidential debate, Kerry crowned his months of conflicting rhetoric with one mind-boggling statement that he no doubt believed would clarify his position on Iraq once and for all: “Let me tell you straight up, I’ve never changed my mind about Iraq.” The “anti-war candidate” who voted for the $87 billion for the Iraq war before he voted against it says he has had only one position all along.

 The Un-Patriot?

I have been amazed at the lengths to which Republicans have gone to avoid questioning Kerry’s loyalty to America. However carefully one steps around the issue of “Kerry as Patriot,” his track record is clear. I can only conclude that Kerry’s conduct over a period of 30 years, along with his expressed philosophy on a wide range of issues throughout that time period and in recent months is not only ultra-liberal, but glaringly inconsistent at best—and un-American at worst. Consider the following:

Kerry’s performancein the Senate has clearly revealed his anti-defense posture and his obsession with cutting defense spending. He opposed many of the major weapons programs that are in use now by our military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and voted for huge cuts in the intelligence budget. He voted against the first Gulf War resolution back in 1991, and his inconsistencies with respect to supporting the current war and our troops in Iraq are well publicized.

According to records of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Kerry missed most of the public hearings when he sat on that committee between 1993 and 2000. In all, according to records, Kerry missed 38 of 49 public hearings (more than three-fourths) during the eight years he served on the intelligence panel.

One of those hearings (which Kerry missed) occurred about a year before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States and focused on warnings of possible terrorist strikes and how those warning should be handled.

In February 2004, the National Journal claimed Democrat frontrunner John Kerry has the “most liberal” voting record in the Senate. National Journal's scores, which have been compiled each year since 1981, are based on lawmakers' votes in three areas: economic policy, social policy, and foreign policy.

The report stated, “ The results of Senate vote ratings show that Kerry was the most liberal senator in 2003, with a composite liberal score of 96.5—far ahead of such Democrat stalwarts as Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.”

Kerry’s anti-American activities when he returned from his four-month stint in Vietnam are abhorrent to most veterans and loyal Americans. Whether John Kerry was a naive, horribly misguided tool of the communist government of North Vietnam—or a calculating opportunist who saw an opportunity to build a political career on the anti-war sentiment that he helped foment—is not entirely clear. In either case, his anti-war, anti-American activities of the early 70’s do not present the picture of a man fit to serve his country—even thirty years later—as Commander in Chief.

The controlled liberal media have attempted to quash efforts by veterans groups to bring to light Kerry’s record as an anti-war protestor and his outrageous, fabricated tales of atrocities on the part of his fellow Americans fighting in Vietnam. While American POWs endured torture at the hands of the North Korean communists rather than give false admissions of war crimes to their captors, John Kerry basked in his fifteen minutes of fame before Congress and the world, recounting tales of American soldiers raping, “cutting off heads, cutting off limbs,” burning villages of innocent Vietnamese, and on and on.

I believe Jane Fonda has apologized for her involvement in the anti-war movement that lengthened the war by giving hope to the enemy and caused prolonged suffering for our American prisoners of war. To my knowledge, John Kerry has never publicly expressed any remorse for his actions.

Kerry’s glaring inconsistencies on all major issues of the current campaign signal that he is not competent to lead the world’s most powerful nation. Kerry sees himself as a “sensitive” and “nuanced” thinker with a unique capacity to see all sides of all issues. In trying to appeal to all sides, Kerry appears inept and inconsistent. He has publicly taken positions on a vast array of issues, only to take a new approach later that contradicts the earlier one. He has contradicted himself even within the space of one debate or one campaign speech.

Thoughtful Americans have to wonder how John Kerry, who cannot maintain a consistent and reasoned approach even within the mock reality of a political campaign could confront daily in the Oval Office horrific realities such as war and terrorism.

Kerry’s obsequious deference to the opinions and good will of Europeans is an insult to the American people. In his acceptance speech last summer, Kerry said, “ I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security." But during the first debate with President Bush , Kerry flung his internationalist scheme for a “global test” into the ring. After insisting he would never, ever commit American troops to harm’s way under any authority but that of the U.S. Congress, he stated a few breaths later that he would insist that American military action on his watch be subject to a “global test.”

Knowing what we know of Kerry’s long-time love affair with the “international community,” we can be certain his global test would be administered under the scandal-ridden auspices of the UN. We have seen the UN turn a blind eye for decades to the horrendous scandals which it ostensibly exists to prevent. The oil-for-food scam administered by the UN enriched Saddam Hussein and his fellow thieves among the French and the Russians while denying desperately needed food and medicine for the children of Iraq. The genocide in Rwanda that took nearly a million lives during the 1990’s while the UN looked the other way is another. The carnage occurring even now in the Sudan—while the UN quibbles over whether the tens of thousands of murdered Sudanese constitutes genocide—is still another.

Imagine the calamities, should we be subject as a nation to Kerry’s “global test.” It would surely destroy our ability to defend not only our own turf, our citizens, and our interests abroad—but also our ability to go to the aid of other nations experiencing the kind of bloody tyranny that was rampant in Iraq before Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched.

Kerry believes America is the problem. He trusts his cynical friends in Europe and the anti-American voices around the world more than he trusts the American people. He clearly prefers “international” approaches to world problems, such as the Kyoto Treaty and the International Criminal Court. Kerry believes U.S. power should be limited in order to make the world a better place, utterly ignoring the fact that the U.S. is the only great nation in the world that is willing to make sacrifices of blood and capital in order to achieve world peace. If America doesn’t do it, no one else will. Thoughtful Americans understand this. John Kerry clearly does not.

Kerry has a near-casual attitude about the seriousness of terrorism . In a recent New York Times Magazine article (“Special Report: America Votes 2004”) author Matt Bai asked Kerry “what it would take for Americans to feel safe again.”

 Kerry answered, “We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance. . . . As a former law enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.”

That is a stunning revelation of Kerry’s state of denial, and it fits with his earlier statements that President Bush has exaggerated the threat of terrorism. Hate-filled fanatics with deadly weapons and a desperate zeal to inflict huge casualties on innocent people will never be just “nuisances.” President Bush knows that, as do people everywhere who are willing to confront the facts.

Kerry’s position on the Constitution and Court appointments is disturbing. Radio commentator Paul Harvey reported after the second presidential debate that one of his listeners who had watched it called in with an astute observation. John Kerry answered the question about his criteria for selecting Supreme Court judges by saying, “I want to make sure we have judges who interpret the Constitution of the United States according to law.”

The savvy caller asked, "Isn't it supposed to be just the other way around?"

 Yes, it is, but the Lefties don’t see it that way. They do not agree with the founders of this nation that the Constitution was created to be a stable guarantor of American freedoms and difficult to amend for that very reason. Instead, John Kerry and his ilk see the Constitution as a “living document” that must change in response to societal and political change. That is scary.

The debacle over judicial appointments during Bush’s first term is a strong reminder that whoever wins the White House this November will appoint not only federal judges but Supreme Court Justices, as well. The make-up of our courts—and especially, the Supreme Court—will determine whether we reject, or move deeper into, the godless left-wing ideologies of socialism and humanism over the next few decades.

All Style, No Substance

The sophists here and abroad find John Kerry’s “style” far more appealing than Bush’s “Give ‘em hell” approach. John Kerry, of the expensively coifed hair and manicured nails, strolled onstage for the second debate in stark contrast to the feisty Texan of the “what you see is what you get” school of thought that tells it like it is, whether the Europeans like it or not. This writer almost expected to see President Bush pull on his boots and strap on a couple of six-guns during the course of the second debate. He nearly leaped off his chair several times in his zeal to challenge one or other of Kerry’s more preposterous assertions.

Bush’s black and white view of the world and his feisty determination to confront the evils of terrorism—wherever it takes us—are a huge irritant to liberals and elitists here and abroad. We have not had so plainspoken and blunt a president since Harry S. Truman. The effete elites didn’t like him, either.