Yesterday i posted about al Qaqaa, one of three major issues that have been monopolizing the news during this last week before the election. The second major issue is bin Laden's videotaped message to America, and the third is the apparent "dead heat" as shown by the polls. Here's my take on issue number two.

Syphilitic Camel Monkey's Message To America

i think this latest video by Osama bin Laden is very unusual. As far as i know this is the first time he has directed an entire message to the American people. i've heard a lot of analysis about what exactly he was trying to accomplish, and i disagree with pretty much all that i've heard.

The radio and TV pundits i've heard seem to have missed two important points that are obvious to me. One, why did bin Laden send a videotaped message instead of attacking? To me, this was very much out of character for al Qaeda. Although there are still two days left (and i hope i'm not proven wrong), it seems logical to me that bin Laden chose to send a video message because he was unable to attack us.

If that's true, all the credit goes to our law enforcement, intelligence and military communities. i think the War on Terror, as it has been prosecuted so far, has done so much damage to al Qaeda that they simply have not been able to do to us what they did to Spain. i've no doubt that al Qaeda wanted to attack us before our election. Nor do i doubt that they misunderstand Americans so much that they probably thought an attack might achieve the same outcome. But instead we got this message from OBL.

The other thing the pundits seem to have misinterpreted is the intent of bin Laden's message. Most pundits insist on analyzing the message through the prism of this question: "Will the bin Laden video help George Bush or will it help John Kerry?" The question misses the point completely because it assumes that bin Laden has a preference for one candidate over the other. And here i will probably be departing from the Republican party line, but i don't think bin Laden gives a rat's ass who wins.

He said so himself:

Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda.

Your security is in your own hands, and each state that does not harm our security will remain safe.

If you people think you will be safer under a Kerry administration than with Bush, think again. The only thing that will keep you safe is for your leader, whoever he is, to do as I say.

If Kerry wins, the world might see America withdraw from Iraq sooner than otherwise. And some have surmised that Kerry would indeed be less supportive of Israel, not because of al Qaeda, but to placate the Europeans and the U.N. But whatever happens, OBL probably won't be around to watch. Because much as i dislike Kerry, i'm still pretty certain that even with his "more sensitive" War on Terror, that Syphilitic Camel Monkey is gonna be toast.

(But Kerry's not going to win. And you'll see how confident i am about that tomorrow when i discuss issue number three: the polls.)
_______________

* If OBL really thinks John Kerry won't go after al Qaeda, he's mistaken. Although his national security policy is weak, misguided and wrong for America, Kerry is not dovish on getting OBL. But since so many of Kerry's supporters are hate-America cut-and-run wackos, it's easy to see where OBL might get that impression.

Posted by: annika at 09:13 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 803 words, total size 5 kb.

Three days left before the election, and i'm tired of all the nonsense. There are three huge stories that i have been too busy to comment on until now. Here's my take on one of them:

Al Ca-ca:

Who knows whether the explosives were there or not? i do know that the mainstream media and Kerry rushed to judgment on this story, when the facts were still hotly disputed. What do you expect? Kerry's losing, and the liberals are desperate for some kind of last minute surprise scandal that will keep them within the "cheater's margin" in a couple of battleground states.

Assuming the truth of the charge - that the explosives were there after our troops arrived and we somehow allowed them to be spirited away under our noses - i don't see that as the huge scandal the left seems to think it is. It's certainly not a reason to reject George Bush this Tuesday.

Mistakes happen in war. Nobody who's not been on the ground during offensive combat - least of all those effete nattering nabobs of negativity, the reporters - can truly understand what is called "the fog of war." Hell, i certainly don't. i only know it exists, and that's only from seven years of studying history and a lifetime of reading books and watching war movies.

In war, especially during fast moving offensive operations, there are no time outs. Not everything that you'd want to get done, actually gets done. Kerry ought to know this, since he's such a big military man. i'm not saying i believe the charges, i actually don't. Today's U.S. armed forces are the most professional in the history of the world. But even if the story were true, Kerry's criticism of George Bush for not sufficiently micromanaging this war makes me worry more about what he'd do at the reins.

Civil war example: Abraham Lincoln's military expertise was negligible when he took office. He was president during our worst war, our biggest crisis, when the actual existence of our country hung in the balance. Lincoln made plenty of mistakes as a wartime commander-in-chief. i can name a dozen off the top of my head. If John Kerry had been around back then, i can imagine the rhetoric:

Lincoln rushed to war without a plan for reconstruction!

He ignored the advice of General McClellan who said we needed more troops!*

He failed to provide the troops with the latest quick firing weapons!

He allowed General Lee to join the secession, and then he let General Lee escape when we had him in our grasp at Malvern Hill!

The bottom line is that Lincoln won the war, and despite all the criticism leveled at him during the war, he's now widely considered our greatest president. And my point is, that like FDR and both George Bushs, Lincoln was a great wartime president because he did not micromanage the war.

By contrast, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was proud of his military background. After graduating from West Point, he served as a lieutenant in the cavalry with a modest record. After a short retirement and marriage,** Davis fought in the Mexican War where he was wounded and returned home as a hero. Later he served in the U.S. Senate*** and as Secretary of War.

Yet despite his military training and expertise, and arguably because of it, Jefferson Davis was a horrible wartime president. His micromanagement of the war cost the Confederacy too many brave and valuable soldiers, ensuring their defeat. Davis often rejected the advice of his generals, believing that his military background made him their equal. And his insistence on offensive Napoleonic tactics at a time when the rifle had made those tactics obsolete, increased casualties and lost the war for the South. Not that that's a bad thing mind you, but it's absolutely true.****

Back to our day. Kerry criticizes our President for not making sure that some bunkers on the tip of the spear were not secured and placed under guard as soon as we got there? Would Kerry have ordered that all offensive operations proceed only after every "i" was dotted and "t" crossed? i remember the ruckus in the media after the so-called "operational pause." You'd think we had lost the war, the way the media carried on about that. How many more "operational pauses" would there have been under a Kerry presidency?

Oh, that's right, none. Because it was the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time. Kerry would rather have left Saddam in control over all his explosives.
_______________

* McClellan, the only general i know of who managed to lose consistently when his force outnumbered the enemy's by almost two to one.

** Like Kerry, ambition might have led Jefferson Davis to marry "up." His first wife was the daughter of President Zachary Taylor.

*** Interestingly, Jefferson Davis was a Senator before he became a traitor, while John Kerry did it the other way around.

**** For more on how Davis's micromanagement of the war lost it for the South, i highly recommend this book.

Posted by: annika at 09:11 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 881 words, total size 5 kb.

Forget those guys throwing pies at Ann Coulter, (which, as my crim law professor will tell you, is both an assault and a battery), forget Elizabeth Edwards tacit approval of rioting as blackmail, SOMEONE TRIED TO KILL KATHERINE HARRIS.

i have no evidence to support this theory, but i blame the lying, hateful, disgusting, race-baiting video, which has been circulating on the internet (which i will not link to), and which demonizes Katherine Harris so severely that it literally made me wince.

And this creep, true to liberal form, says he was merely exercising his right to political expression.

Posted by: annika at 07:03 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 115 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Unfortunately, liberals don't have a monopoly on that sort of thing.

Posted by: Xrlq at October 27, 2004 09:27 PM (6DLYC)

2 BTW, is there anything actually known about this man's politics? And, it appears he was not trying to kill her, since he turned away away and did not even hit her. It would seem that if he were trying to kill her he could have. Not that that would be a loss, mind you, but why call it something it is not? Oh, I forgot, it suits your purpose and really, then, what has the truth to do with it? http://www.ericblumrich.com/gta.html See why she should have gone to jail rather than become a congressperson.

Posted by: mike at October 28, 2004 03:11 PM (0ZdtC)

3 "...which, as my crim law professor will tell you, is both an assault and a battery..." I don't remember: did they hit? It wouldn't be a battery if they missed. Speaking of assault, Mike, yes, he's a Dem (shocker, I know) and has properly been charged with aggravated assault. "I didn't intend to kill you" gets you out of attempted murder, but not out of being a serious felon. Whether it's a car or a gun, pointing a deadly weapon at someone to scare them by threatening their life is hardly just (in his own words) "political expression."

Posted by: Dave J at October 28, 2004 03:19 PM (VThvo)

4 Mike, i don't know if you are a long time visitor or not. But i hope people who come here have noticed my commitment to scrupulous intellectual honesty. If i make a mistake, i will acknowledge it. And i hope i never make a false statement simply to "suit my purpose." (humorous posts excepted, of course) Driving a cadillac into a crowd of people satisfies the elements of Attempted Murder. The word "attempt" is synonymous with "try," therefore i am correct in saying that the asshole "tried to kill Katherine Harris." It's still attempted murder even if you argue that, since he swerved at the last minute, he did not intend to kill anyone. The "intent" element of the crime is satisfied by his "reckless disregard" for human life when he drove a car over the curb, at a crowd of people. The DA apparently made a tactical decision not to charge Attempted Murder, but that doesn't mean his act doesn't fit the legal definition.

Posted by: annika at October 28, 2004 04:10 PM (zAOEU)

5 Hmmmmm...a quick search of the case law by this non-criminal Florida attorney finds that you are, indeed, correct: under the facts of this case, it does appear that the State Attorney could indeed have charged Attempted Second-Degree Murder. See Brown v. State, 790 So.2d 389 (Fla. 2000); Gentry v. State, 437 So.2d 1097 (Fla. 1983). Nonetheless, I personally find Justice Harding's dissent in Brown vastly more convincing: the Florida Supreme Court's jurisprudence on criminal attempt seems to be all over the place, holding inconsistently that it is both a general intent crime and a specific intent crime; moreover, he finds the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions treat attempt as a specific intent crime, with only Colorado joining Florida, and Colorado at least conceding that it is at variance with most of the country. Harding explains why "general intent attempted murder" is logically impossible: "An attempt, by nature, is a failure to accomplish what one intended to do. Attempt means to try; it means an effort to bring about a desired result." Keys v. State, 104 Nev. 736, 766 P.2d 270, 273 (198 . The concept of attempt seems necessarily to involve the notion of an intended consequence, for when one attempts to do something one is endeavoring or trying to do it. Hence, an attempt requires a desired, or at least an intended, consequence. Paul H. Robinson & Jane A. Grall, Element Analysis in Defining Criminal Liability: The Model Penal Code and Beyond, 35 Stan. L. Rev. 681, 747 n.290 (1983). The nature of an attempt, then, is that it requires a specific intent. ... here is a substantial distinction between a completed crime and an attempt. In a case involving a completed crime, the State is punishing a defendant for conduct which was carried out to completion. In contrast, in a case involving an attempt, an inchoate crime, there is no completed offense, so the State is punishing a defendant for conduct preparatory to the offense coupled with the intent to commit such an offense. Unlike the completed offense, mere preparatory conduct without any intent should not be enough to establish an attempt. Therefore, based on the reasons stated above, I would recede from Gentry and conclude that all attempt crimes require a specific intent to commit the underlying offense... ... Murder is a result-oriented crime which cannot be proven without first establishing the "result element" that a person is dead. In light of the conclusion that attempt is a specific intent crime, it follows that a person cannot be convicted of attempted murder if that person did not intend the result of death. It is not enough that the defendant simply intended certain conduct without also intending the result (i.e., although a defendant may have intended to fire a gun at a house, if the defendant did not intend to kill, this should not amount to an attempted murder). See, e.g., [United States v. Roa, 12 M.J. 210, 212] ("Appellate defense counsel have suggested that the government's theory would produce some anomalous results.... [A]n accused who had fired into [a large] crowd with no intent to kill anyone but with a wanton disregard for human life and had injured no one could, under the government's theory, be convicted of a separate attempt to murder every person in the crowd.").

Posted by: Dave J at October 28, 2004 06:00 PM (GEMsk)

6 Interesting. But i hasten to remind you that the quoted language is a dissent, and therefore it is not law. Furthermore, this is the exact same Florida Supreme Court that screwed up the 2000 election. And in fact, there's a pretty glaring misspelled word in the 3rd paragraph of the Brown opinion, which does nothing to change my low regard for that particular court. Anyways, i read the case, and while the dissent does seem persuasive, it does not address the issue as i see it: whether depraved heart or reckless disregard is sufficient to establish intent for the crime of attempted murder. i hold that it is, whether the crime be classified as one of specific intent or one of general intent. In the context of attempt, the distinction between specific intent crimes and general intent crimes, according to the dissent, is that in general intent crimes the state has to prove intent to do the crime only, while under the standard of specific intent, the state would also have to prove intent to commit the overt act in furtherance of the attempt. So as you can see, the Brown court was not asked to decide whether depraved heart or reckless disregard satisfies the mens rea element for the crime of attempted murder. Bottom line: i'm still right.

Posted by: annika at October 28, 2004 06:54 PM (CDVJq)

7 Believe me, you don't have any need to convince me of the shortcomings of the Florida Supreme Court; I've been dealing with their nonsense practically nonstop for the past three years. In fact, you probably have NO idea just how bad they are and, yes, Harding was practically in Gore's pocket throughout the 2000 election debacle, which was hardly one of their most egregious fuckups. The House was getting ready to impeach most of them over Armstrong v. Harris, 773 So.2d 7 (Fla. 2000), when the whole recount mess conveniently (for the justices) intervened. By the time that was all over, the legislators were all either too exhausted to deal with it or had just forgotten about it. Don't even get me started on how term limits undercut separation of powers in favor of the judiciary. I agreed with you, of course, Brown is the law in Florida and thus a defendant can be charged here with "attempted second-degree murder," despite the fact that that still makes no logical sense to me, and would also appear to never be distinguishable from aggravated assault. But when you say you're right, I expect that would vary from one jurisdiction to the next.

Posted by: Dave J at October 28, 2004 08:05 PM (GEMsk)

8 Annika, I was not truly looking for the legal definition of attempted murder; since you said in your lead in that "someone tried to kill KH" I was more interested in what he was thinking about (assassination?) and why you thought he was tiring to kill her. Not whether a prosecutor would be able to make the case for attempted murder. Without any information to contradict his statement confessing to wanting only to scare her, I still maintain that we/you cannot say with certainty "someone tried to kill KH." Also, in my cursory reading about the event, I did not see where he mentioned exercising his right to free speech?

Posted by: mike at October 29, 2004 03:34 PM (0ZdtC)

9 Mike, i think it's freakin hilarious that you can say attempted murder is not the same as "trying to kill someone." Seriously, that's very funny. Did you type that with a straight face. Only a liberal would say something like that. And only a liberal would be "more interested in what he was thinking about" than in the criminal act itself. One of the reasons why i'm not a liberal. Oh, and read the link again. (For pete's sake, it's only five paragraphs long.) In paragraph four you'll find the quote: "I was exercising my political expression."

Posted by: annika! at October 29, 2004 05:46 PM (rJOua)

10 Hi Annika, Well, yes I did miss the fact he said he was exercising his right to political expression. My apologies. But, I am not particularly interested in the ravings of a fellow who does not seem to have his head on straight. I think you have hit an important issue that divides what we loosely refer to as the liberal way of thinking from the conservative. The mind set that will execute children and the mentally deficient. The mind set that views compassion as the joke Bush played to help win the 2000 election. It is what I see as a rigid mind, a law and order perspective that treats all acts as defined by law equally v. a mind set that is interested in motivation and circumstance before determining punishment. The former, the mind set that came up with the Rockefeller drug package in NY or is against removing the federal sentencing guidelines. I recognize that this man can be charged with attempted murder as can an enraged, disenfranchised voter who enters KH's house armed with a length of rebar. He whacks her once and only refrains from killing her because his back goes out and he falls writhing to the floor. I am not an attorney, but I suspect that the charge, ignoring the B&E, is the same as the driver who swerved to miss hitting her. Are they deserving of the same penalty? And did they both try to kill KH? BTW, why did you assume that the car driver was a liberal? And why do you assume it take a race baiting video of KH to make one wince? I winced the first time I saw her. A woman who's psychological damage was worn plainly around her eyes.

Posted by: mike at October 30, 2004 09:33 AM (0ZdtC)

11 "I recognize that this man can be charged with attempted murder as can an enraged, disenfranchised voter who enters KH's house armed with a length of rebar." The latter has specific intent to kill. That makes it attempted first degree murder rather than attempted second degree murder. "I am not an attorney, but I suspect that the charge, ignoring the B&E, is the same as the driver who swerved to miss hitting her." No, see above. Moreover, that's not just breaking & entering: it's first-degree burglary. See Fla. Stat. § 810.02(2)(a). "Are they deserving of the same penalty?" No, since they didn't commit the same crime.

Posted by: Dave J at October 30, 2004 11:51 AM (GEMsk)

12 Joanne Jacobs has a less serious example of knee-jerk liberalism turning into violence on a college campus: A part-time instructor at Fort Lewis College in Colorado kicked the leg of a student wearing a College Republicans sweat shirt at an off-campus restaurant. According to student Mark O'Donnell, his assailant, Maria Spero, then said "she should have kicked me harder and higher." Spero, a visiting instructor of modern languages, apologized to O'Donnell in a letter dated Oct. 29. "I acted entirely inappropriately by kicking you, giving vent to a thoughtless knee-jerk political reaction that should never have happened," she wrote. "Before the incident, I did not know you and that you are a Fort Lewis student."

Posted by: markm at October 30, 2004 05:30 PM (5nK/L)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Robert Dallek is a popular Democratic leaning historian. Perhaps you've seen his toothy grin on TV. i own his thick tome on LBJ, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. In a column for USA Today, he presents a pretty good recap of electoral history, while exhibiting an astounding lack of analytical ability.

If voters pay as close attention to a president's record as I think they do, Bush will likely sink on Nov. 2. Like Taft, Bush is vulnerable to charges of being in the pockets of corporate interests. Like Hoover, he has presided over an administration that has lost jobs. Not since the Great Depression has any other president had to run on a record of shrinking rather than expanding employment. However mindful he has been about the economic causes of his father's defeat, Bush does not seem well positioned to avoid his father's political fate.

Dallek conveniently cherry-picks his analogies to justify his own wishful thinking, and reveals his typical liberal Democrat myopia:

Like Ford, who unrealistically denied Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and Carter, who could not manage to rescue American hostages from Tehran or control rising oil prices, Bush's blundering policy in Iraq, alienation of so many other governments and peoples around the globe, and uncertain formula for dealing with terrorists raise doubts about his stewardship of foreign policy, which can work to deny him a second term.

i also thought it was funny how Dallek ended his column by hedging his historical bet, with this bit of prospective sour-grapes:

That a president with so questionable a record is still running a competitive race is a little startling. If Bush wins the election, it would seem to represent the triumph of spin politics.

Posted by: annika at 11:00 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 439 words, total size 3 kb.

[i thought Helen Hunt got killed at the Pyongyang Peace Conference. Apparently not.]

What really pisses me off about the new Helen Hunt political TV spot is the arrogant assumption that all single women are lock-step liberals. i can tell you, we are not.

However, i do agree that "We can make the difference. We are the difference." In fact, i think the unholy alliance of media-entertainment-academic elites may be surprised at the difference we make, when women voters help deliver the election to George W. Bush next week. Perhaps very surprised.

While i still think that overall, Kerry will win a majority of the female vote, i don't think it will be by the Clintonian margins Democrats took for granted in the 90's. The Christian Science Monitor noted in September:

Democrats have long held an edge among women voters, a slight majority of the electorate, and grown to count on them to offset the Republicans' persistent advantage among men. Traditionally, women have given extra care to issues that favor Democrats, such as healthcare, education, and Social Security. Now, the war on terror - and the way Bush is playing it - appears to have shifted that calculation somewhat.

'Bush is trying to reassure them on healthcare and education, saying those things are important, but really it's security,' says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. 'Women give him a 23-point advantage on security, and that's what's really driving their vote.'

Posted by: annika at 12:51 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 300 words, total size 2 kb.

Here's the very first paragraph you will find on the homepage of the official Kerry website today, which i found insulting:

John Kerry will strengthen and expand the middle class and help working women by strengthening the economy. In todayÂ’s economy, too many hard-working women are falling further and further behind. Instead of offering help, George Bush has turned his back, broken his promises and in some cases, taken no action at all.

Wouldn't strengthening the economy help all Americans, not just "working women?" And wouldn't strengthening the economy help non-working women too? You know, the kind Kerry's wife insulted the other day?

This type of pandering, supposedly directed at me, is a complete turn off. Someone in the campaign reads a poll that says Kerry needs more points from the "working women" category, and so they take out their economy template and plug the words "working women" into it.

i'm sorry, but i don't buy it. i know that a Kerry administration would lose jobs by increasing the minimum wage and increasing taxes on the entrepreneurial class that creates jobs. And i plan to be looking for a job in about three years, just when the effects of a Kerry economic downturn will take effect.

So i don't appreciate the shameless pandering, as if women were all idiots who got all goose pimply, saying: "Oooh Kerry just mentioned our interest group! Isn't he the dreamiest?"

Posted by: annika at 10:25 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 255 words, total size 2 kb.

Charles Krauthammer's latest op-ed contains this thought provoking paragraph:

John Kerry says he wants to 'rejoin the community of nations.' There is no issue on which the United States more consistently fails the global test of international consensus than Israel. In July, the U.N. General Assembly declared Israel's defensive fence illegal by a vote of 150 to 6. In defending Israel, America stood almost alone.

Hat tip to commenter Shelly.

Posted by: annika at 10:03 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 90 words, total size 1 kb.

i'd like to take time out from my ongoing coverage of Election-Fest 2004 to submit the following Statement of Undisputed Facts.

If George W. Bush wins, the left will spend the next four years complaining, they will remain as obstructionist as ever, and they will blame everything on Bush.

If John Kerry wins, the left will spend the next four years complaining, they will remain as obstructionist as ever, and they will blame everything on the Republican congress.

Posted by: annika at 03:41 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 94 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Unless, fingers crossed, there ain't a Republican Congress anymore!!!

Posted by: Dawn Summers at October 21, 2004 05:12 PM (HLOeu)

2 i walked right into that one, lol!

Posted by: annika! at October 21, 2004 05:52 PM (kske/)

3 LMAO!!! Thanks for the first hearty laugh of the day. I needed it!

Posted by: Amy at October 22, 2004 07:33 AM (RpVKX)

4 man that's quote of the month material, there

Posted by: ken at October 22, 2004 03:57 PM (xD5ND)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Not much to add to this story. It's pretty freakin' funny as is:

Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom took the stage at Thursday night's big Empire State Pride Agenda fund-raiser.

Guilfoyle Newsom was a last-minute sub for her husband at the gay rights event, which drew 1,100 guests. By all accounts, Guilfoyle Newsom -- who lives in New York and is a regular on Court TV -- gave an inspired speech.

But what really brought the house down was when she started talking about her hubby.

'I know that many of you wanted to see my husband and some of you had questions out there,' Guilfoyle Newsom said.

'Is he hot? Yeah.

'Is he hung? Yeah.

'Is he (she waved her hand to suggest bisexual)? Not unless you can give a better (she mimicked eating a banana) than me,' Guilfoyle Newsom said.

From SFGate.

Update: Here, Bill and Gavin seem to disagree on what the definition of "hung" is.

Posted by: annika at 10:20 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 170 words, total size 1 kb.

These two quotes from John Kerry at last night's debate are so beautiful, all i can do is sit back and admire them.

Quote 1:

He's trying to attack me. He wants you to believe that I can't be president. And he's trying to make you believe it because he wants you to think I change my mind. Well, let me tell you straight up: I've never changed my mind about Iraq. I do believe Saddam Hussein was a threat. I always believed he was a threat. Believed it in 1998 when Clinton was president. I wanted to give Clinton the power to use force if necessary.

I don't think you can just rely on U.N. sanctions [to contain Iran], Randee. But you're absolutely correct, it is a threat, it's a huge threat. And what's interesting is, it's a threat that has grown while the president has been preoccupied with Iraq, where there wasn't a threat.

Via Paul at Wizbang.

Posted by: annika at 06:14 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 169 words, total size 1 kb.

i wanna do this without listening to any of the TV pundits, so my opinion won't be tainted. Which means that i may end up modifying my opinions later after i've taken in the insights of people wiser than i am. Plus, we finished another couple of bottles of that chianti, and i'm on my second glass of Port. So waaatchout!

more...

Posted by: annika at 08:44 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
Post contains 868 words, total size 6 kb.

Dear President Bush,

Have you seen the latest Electoral College map? i took the liberty of turning it into a gif file so i could highlight some important areas of concern for me, and i hope, for you too.

more...

Posted by: annika at 03:34 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 920 words, total size 5 kb.

i live blogged the debate on my crappy laptop. i don't think i'll be doing that again. It's too hard to watch and type at the same time. Here's my notes: more...

Posted by: annika at 11:18 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
Post contains 2212 words, total size 13 kb.

Last night John Kerry 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."

If Kerry thinks Afghanistan is the real center of the War on Terror, it occurs to me that Iraq is just on the other side of Iran. Maybe that's not close enough for Kerry, but i think Iraq is definitely in the right neighborhood. And that's why Iraq is so important.

Kerry also said: ". . . I would not take my eye off of the goal: Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, he escaped in the mountains of Tora Bora."

If you examine Kerry's insistence on finding Osama as the real goal of the War on Terror, you'll see the central flaw in his thinking. He still looks at this conflict as a law enforcement and containment problem. i believe most Americans realize we can't play that game anymore, just as most Europeans think that the law enforcement model is the only possible solution.

Europeans think that way because they lack the military strength for any alternative strategy. We don't suffer from that limitation. We can fix the problem of terrorism with a real long term solution. Our might allows us to do what the Europeans cannot. Like Bush said, it's hard work, but it's not an impossible task for Americans.

But Kerry thinks like a European; we all know that. He's an internationalist at the core, and always has been. Despite his hawkish double-talk, he mistrusts the use of American power the same way Europeans do. We - and i mean you and i - can't afford to mistrust our own power. The stakes are too high now.

Why? Because our enemy wants to kill us.

This is a new kind of war. Our enemy isn't like Imperial Japan in WWII. They don't want access to oil so they can create a new Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Our new enemy's goal is much simpler: They want all Americans to die.

Capturing Osama will not solve the problem of terrorism. The bad guys will still have the capability and the desire to kill Americans, with or without Osama. John Kerry must not win because if he is elected, we will lose our focus on the real goal of the War on Terror.

The real focus is long term. It is the transformation of the Islamic world. The only way - the only way - we can stop this enemy is to change the societies in which they live into free and democratic societies.

If the Islamic world does not change, we will be forever on defense in the War on Terror. Bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq is the first step in a long term strategy to protect America from future 9/11s. That's what i mean by being on offense.

John Kerry and his followers miss that very important point. They would have us abandon Bush's strategic goal and substitute the short term tactical goal of hunting down the sick and probably dying Osama bin Ladin. Not that we shouldn't bring him to justice, but it won't solve the problem of terrorism. Bush's strategy is designed to be a permanent solution.

Hugh Hewitt wrote:

Would the many terrorist attacks since 9/11 in Bali, Madrid, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Beslan and elsewhere have occurred had the United States focused all of its efforts on Afghanistan? Yes. Would Zarqawi still be roaming freely throughout Iraq and the middle east, building his parallel networks? Yes. Would killing Osama at Tora Bora have stopped the Islamist fanatics around the globe? No.

John Kerry does not understand the enemy. He does not understand the war we are in, or how it must be waged. He doesn't understand the reason Libya disarmed. He doesn't get what's going on at all.

One more point. Despite Kerry's occasional hawkishness, don't forget that something like seventy percent of Kerry's support comes from the ant-war left. That's a big umbrella that contains few reasonable people, and a lot of kooks. We cannot allow Kerry to open the government up to this anti-American fifth column, which he will undoubtedly do. Remember, he was one of them once.

Posted by: annika at 04:55 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 764 words, total size 4 kb.