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The following is from an excellent essay by Orson Scott Card, whom I have the honor to call a friend. (Via LFG ):
“Iraq is a mess. And it’s a mess because of two people: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.”
Those words were spoken by John Edwards recently.
...Kerry almost certainly will make the right decision on every issue. After all, if you take every possible position on every question, one of them is bound to be right.
The trouble is that the real President can’t vacillate. He can’t send troops in and at the same time not send them. He can’t go with one plan and at the same time go with another. The President has to commit, and then work with the consequences.
Senator Kerry has never had to do that. Neither has Senator Edwards.
It’s easy to say, “I would have done it better.”
But in all their attack rhetoric, have you ever heard them say exactly what they would have done differently?
More to the point, have you ever seen any evidence that before the fact, they advocated the course of action that would have avoided the problems we’ve had?
But if you’re going to blame the President and Vice-President, and no one else, for every single thing that’s gone wrong in Iraq, then let’s carry that principle all the way. Most of Iraq is recovering quite nicely from the war and already has services that are better than they were under Saddam. They live with far less fear and far more freedom than they ever had, with better to come.
When would-be recruits to the police and military are murdered by terrorists, what do the Iraqis do? They recruit in larger numbers!
It is obvious that the Iraqi people are eager to take responsibility for their own nation. Most of them want us to leave, not because they hate us, but because they want to stand on their own two feet. And our military is working with them to train them and get them ready to do exactly that—so we can go home.
...Here’s the reality check. The mess in Iraq is caused by murderers, rebels, thugs, and self-righteous fanatics. For Edwards to say that the mess is “because of” President Bush and Vice-president Cheney is so monstrously false that it offends not just common sense but common decency for a candidate for such high office to utter such an unspeakable charge.
The murderers are the ones who are guilty of their crimes. The messmakers made the mess. Our President and Vice-president have been doing their job: sticking to the mission they embarked on and seeing it through to a successful conclusion.
And there is no sign whatsoever that Kerry or Edwards know how to make a decision at all, let alone how to stick to a decision and respond to the unpredictable events that always come up in military matters.
Read the whole thing.
The Left holds Bush and Cheney responsible for the actions of those who are trying to kill us. It’s a fantasy in which we have god-like power over the behavior of others. It’s an appealing one, which has been the basis for many Hollywood films. But it’s a fantasy none the less. I believe it was George Bernard Shaw who said:
All the trouble in the world comes from people living down to fiction, instead of up to facts.
