October 10, 2004

Kerry Calls Terrorists “a Nuisance” (And What Bush Can Do To Appeal To Skittish Dems)

Reported today by AP:

In Washington, Republican Party chief Ed Gillespie criticized Kerry for saying in an interview in The New York Times Magazine that, “We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.”

So he’d like us to consider terrorists “a nuisance.”

Let’s try to make some excuses for Senator Kerry. Surely he doesn’t mean the 3,000 deaths of 911 are a nuisance. Surely he’s just referring to pre-911 terrorists. Let’s see a few of the events that would include:

He dares to call all those murders, a nuisance. (Or he just wants us to ‘get back to the place where we can think of them as a nuisance’). Does he think to the loved ones of all those dead Americans, it was just a small annoyance? A minor irritation?

Those deaths may not have made a ripple in the little pond of Senator Kerry’s sheltered existence, but many of the rest of us who care about our fellow Americans, felt otherwise.

The reason this talk from Kerry is being accepted by many of the Democratic base, is that they would like to be reassured that we are all just as safe now as ever. That’s all. They just like being told that there’s no danger to them from terrorists. It makes them feel better. It’s what they want to believe.

And if wishing we were safe could make us safe, it would be great. However, terrorists continue to cut off heads, kill children, and look for ways to repeat 9-11 (or to do far worse) here.

There are those on the Left who are not hiding their heads in the sand; who know that wishing for a thing to be so, doesn’t make it so. On September 29th Dick Morris noted:

...poll data from Scott Rasmussen underscores Kerry’s dilemma. Should we commit more military force, the same amount or less to Iraq? Of Kerry’s voters, 40 percent want less force, 15 percent want the same – and 28 percent want more.

So this latest outrage from Kerry may well cost him votes.

In the meantime, the more reassuring Bush can be about our future safety given his leadership, the more it will help him win the votes of skittish Dems.


Update. See also these follow-up articles:

Saddam’s Chief Nuclear Physicist Confirms Saddam’s Drive to Acquire WMDs

Dem Leadership Exploits the Loyalty of their Rank And File

This great post is up on RadioBlogger:

After blogging last night, it was really bothering me that I couldn’t put my finger on how the left can be so ignorant of facts and logic, and blindly support John Kerry. While watching the Angels/Sox game, which is currently tied in the 8th, screening calls, and tweaking with a You’re So Vain, John Kerry parody, I finally had one of those A-HA! moments.

Up until 9/11, America really had two passions…sports and politics. And you can actually make the case that the lines often blurred between the two.

...Then 9/11 happened. And the two teams went two different directions. The red team decided the fooling around was over, and it’s not a game anymore. It’s deadly serious. By and large, most of the Bush supporters realize that we are now in a global war that is very real, against a real enemy that is continually changing tactics and locales.

The blue team took their hats off during the national mourning of 9/11, then after a short period, put their hats back on and to them, the game resumed. Guys like Paul Begala and James Carville, who is the blue team’s television color commentators, and the beat reporters, which are the lefty blogs and most newspaper columnists and editorial boards, are still playing the game. The war to them is not real. They consider it a new play by the red team that they haven’t figured out how to defend, so they are trying to spin and win the PR battle to keep the “fans” in the seats.

Here’s the problem. There aren’t as many fans of the blue team as there used to be. Actors like Ron Silver, Roger L. Simon, and a whole gaggle of Democrats also figured out that this isn’t a game anymore.

I agree, and I’d like to add a thought to this.

I was talking to a girl yesterday, who opposes the war in Iraq. I gave her five good reasons why it’s making America safer. She tried to respond, but she seemed to came up short and stop short. I said:

“You just ran out of facts. You just realized that you have no facts to support the position. Most people on the Left are saying ‘I may not have all the facts, but this isn’t my expertise. Our leaders have this all figured out. They’ve looked into it. They know what the facts are. They’ve got that all under control.’ But the leaders on the Left have defrauded you. They don’t have the facts to support their positions.”

So I’d like to add to what RadioBlogger said. It is a team thing. Democrats come from families that have voted Democratic for generations. They don’t know politics, but they have faith in their leadership, and trust them and rely on them.

The leadership on the Left is taking advantage of this loyalty and good faith, blatantly repeating silly things like, “The U.S. is going it alone in Iraq,” (discussed here ) or, “Killing terrorists creates more terrorists” (discussed here ).

The list of absurdities proposed by the Left is lengthy. There’s also:

• France and Germany will help us in Iraq. (Refuted by the French and Germans themselves. )


• Let’s give nuclear materials to Iran. (So silly Kerry himself has stopped repeating it).


• Let’s rely on the U.N. to take care of our problems dealing with the world’s dictators (40% of the governments represented by the U.N. are dictators themselves.)

Without the honest loyalty of the rank and file on the Left, these nonsensical positions wouldn’t fly. Their honest and even praisworthy loyalty, is being exploited by their leadership.