WASHINGTON — I share the estimable Rush Limbaugh’s assessment
of the soi-disant Independent Vote (IV). It is delusional
and unconvincing. Usually it is composed of voters who do not weld
character to intellect to arrive at an intellectually sustainable
conclusion. The conclusions they usually arrive at are consequently
superficial and wrong. Yet there are times when I find myself in
sympathy with them. There are times when the election debate is so
abundant with repellent sophistries and canards that sensible
citizens would rather avert their gaze from the undignified
proceedings. For observers of the Kerry campaign, it has come to
that. Let’s pull down the shade.
The Kerry Democrats are making our war against Islamofascists
and Saddam bitter-enders a partisan issue like raising taxes on the
rich or extending unemployment benefits. After 9/11 and later our
successful defeat of Saddam I would have thought the thing
unlikely. The solidarity of the American people seemed invulnerable
to partisan bickering. The tiny “peace movement” led by cranks such
as Noam Chomsky seemed doomed to futility and a minuscule
following. Americans had viewed the evidence and found that
elimination of those threatening us was our only alternative. Then
partisan Democrats intent on gaining power began to slip away. They
correctly concluded that they could not gain power by agreeing with
President George W. Bush on the war, and so they broke with him.
Gaining power is for them everything.
Today the Democrats say that Bush squandered the goodwill that
had built up in the country after 9/11, but their very statements
belie them. Their complaints are petty compared with their
consequences, namely, the strengthening of our enemies’ wills.
Their basic complaints are two: 1) there were no weapons of mass
destruction and 2) Bush should have done more to bring the French,
the Germans, and the United Nations to our side. The most generous
response to these complaints is “maybe so.” Still, this does not
justify the ongoing complaints. Historians will someday decide on
the validity of the complaints. For now we have a war to fight, and
any statements that give encouragement to our enemies are damaging
to our national interests.
That has been true during every war we have ever fought. That is
why American politicians followed the old adage “politics stops at
the water’s edge.” It meant that no American politician traveling
abroad ever criticized a sitting president’s foreign policy. It
also chastened American politicians against excessive criticism of
American foreign policy in time of war. With Senator Joseph Biden
claiming he has reason to believe the French will work more closely
with a President John Kerry and with Kerry’s repeated complaints
about our entry into the Iraq War, the “politics stops at the
water’s edge” rule has been abandoned.
The reason for this is that the Democrats’ first concern is
gaining power. Carrying out the war comes second. Their charge that
weapons of mass destruction did not exist will most likely be
refuted in the years ahead. We know Saddam once used such weapons
and that from Bill Clinton on to the French and the Germans
government officials in the West believed such weapons existed and
were a threat. The claim that the French, the Germans, and the
United Nations were ever willing to take action with us in the
Middle East is fanciful. Look at their military establishments.
They have not been ready for war for decades. Their record is
clear. They let the United States do the fighting and then they
come in to criticize us. The French and the Germans are poseurs and
the United Nations is the gaudiest agglutination of anti-Americans
and anti-Semites ever assembled.
The Democrats probably recognize this. Yet they hold these
shirkers up as the saviors of American policy in the Middle East.
One of the discoveries we Independents have made over the years is
that in political debate objective truth does not matter. All that
matters is the pols’ will to power, and the Democrats have an
unscotchable will to power. It has put them in the preposterous
position of making common cause with the United Nations. Maybe they
can all join in singing a few anti-American jingles with their
colleagues at the General Assembly. That ought to be a big help in
getting Senator Jean-François Kerry elected.
