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ARE YOU ALL NUTS?
Which raises a simple question: ARE YOU ALL NUTS?
Jews, the old stereotype suggests, earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans ?— that is, for Democrats.
Al Gore beat George Bush 4-1 among Jews in 2000. But this election, Jews have more to lose than ever.
Sorry, but I need to be shrill: As Ed Koch (a Jewish Democrat backing Bush) said about Jesse Jackson, Jews would be crazy to pull the lever for John Kerry.
Let's face it: A vote for Kerry is a vote for European anti-Semitism. And terrorists. In Iraq . . . and Israel. It's a vote for Hamas and Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. Al Qaeda. And Arafat, if he's alive. Think that's over-the-top? Then why are all these monsters praying for a Kerry win?
Why, in a new tape, do terrorists threaten to massacre Americans for ''electing George Bush'' and in another does Osama bin Laden deride Bush specifically? I'll tell you why: Because they fear Bush and see weakness in Kerry. They believe Kerry will defer to terror-appeasing, Jew-hating France. And ''negotiate'' with terrorists.Certainly, there'll be no more ''wrong wars in the wrong place at the wrong time'' in their sacred Middle East.As my mom might warn: Who exactly, my co-religionists, do you think they'll come for first? New York was targeted because it symbolizes Western capitalism and freedom. Such, to Osama & Co., is a product of the Jews (more of whom, by the way, live in New York than Jerusalem). And speaking of Israel, don't Jews care that it's Target No. 1 for Islamists? To them, Zionists are blaspheming dogs who had the nerve to survive the Nazis and invade the Muslim Middle East.
They must be eradicated.Will Kerry, a lifelong dove, stop them? Ha.
He wants to defer to the Europeans and the Zionism-is-racism United Nations. ''Negotiate'' with Iranians. Handcuff U.S. agents by scrapping the Patriot Act.
Kerry spent 30 years trying to cut defense and intelligence spending. He wants Israel to restart a ''peace process'' that led to a bloody Intifadah. He sees Israel's fence, which has saved lives, as ''a barrier to peace.''
Kerry may not jettison the Jewish state right away, as Europe hopes. But he'd likely ?— as Charles Krauthammer, William Safire, Edward Lasky and others note ?— move alarmingly in that direction.Why do Jews support Kerry? Because they don't like Bush.
They fear the born-again Texan will stack the Supreme Court with anti-abortion zealots.
He'll force Christianity on schools. And give tax cuts to the rich, including (gasp!) Jews.
It's nonsense, of course. Bush hasn't pushed domestic policy far in that direction, and he's not likely to. Congress, the Constitution and a split electorate won't let him. It would take decades, for instance, to roll back Roe v. Wade, even if it were Bush's top priority. Meanwhile, Israelis think the world of Bush for his support ?— and for taking out Saddam. (You should have heard those I talked with while in Israel this month.) And no U.S. shuls (let alone cities) have been hit since 9/11. For everyone, Jews most of all, the terror-fire that's raging should dwarf all else.
Kerry wants Americans to vote their hopes, not fears ?— lest he lose. Yet 2,000 years of Jewish history argues otherwise. In an old joke, two Jews face a Nazi firing squad. The first accepts a blindfold, but the second refuses, prompting his friend to warn, ''Don't make trouble.''
Bush will make trouble. And save lives. It's a powerful reason for Jews, and everyone else, to back him.
By Al Gore beat George Bush
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A question of character
A question of character
IF YOU were to choose just one vignette to illustrate John Kerry's worst character flaw as a public official -- his lack of political courage -- what would it be?
You might pick the speech on ''Race, Politics, and the Urban Agenda'' that Kerry gave at Yale in 1992 -- the first, he said, of a series on race and urban issues. His speech drew attention because of its mild criticism of affirmative action, which had led, in his words, to ''a reality of reverse discrimination that actually engenders racism.'' For uttering the obvious, Kerry was instantly condemned on the left. One Boston paper accused him of having ''embraced tactics that . . . widen the country's racial divide.'' Because of him, a journalist wrote, blacks felt ''stabbed in the back.''
Kerry could have stuck to his guns. But he backed down. He delivered no more speeches on the subject and has obediently endorsed affirmative action ever since.
Another episode involved the questionnaire Kerry answered during his first Senate race in 1984. The questions came from Freeze Voter '84, an antidefense group whose endorsement Kerry sought in the Democratic primary. To get it, he said he would vote to cancel a host of weapons systems: the B-1 and Stealth bombers, cruise and Pershing missiles, many others. He excepted only the Trident submarine, whose development he supported. Then he was told that if he stood by the Trident, the endorsement would go to his main opponent, who had come out against all the weapons on the questionnaire.
''Dear Senator Kerry,'' it began. ''I urge you to support President Bush's request that Congress approve the `use of all necessary means' to get Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. To deny the president's request would encourage further aggression.''
On Jan. 22, Kerry replied
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''Dear Mr. Carter,'' he wrote. ''Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to the Bush administration's additional deployment of US military forces . . . and to the early use of military force by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns. On Jan. 11, I voted in favor of a resolution that would have insisted that economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a resolution giving the president immediate authority to go to war.''
Nine days later, he replied again.
As his glaringly inconsistent responses to Carter -- both form letters, of course -- make clear, Kerry's habit of coming down firmly on two side of controversial issues didn't begin with his presidential campaign. It has been a hallmark of his political career.
All thinking people change their minds occasionally. But it is one thing to alter an opinion because of new information or further reflection. It is something very different to do so out of a compulsion to tell each audience what it wants to hear. Kerry has many gifts, but political courage is not among them. As president, could he take a tough stand and stick with it, even if there were a price to pay for doing so? All the evidence to date says no.
George W. Bush is far from perfect. He refuses to admit mistakes. He resists constructive criticism. His humor can be petty or cutting. His administration is secretive and self-righteous -- traits that presumably start at the top.
But Bush, unlike Kerry, has the courage of his convictions. He can take a strong stand and not run away from it when the political winds shift. On the big issues, the crucial issues, he is a decisive man who means what he says -- and isn't afraid to say it even when his listeners disagree.
For a nation going to the polls in wartime, no issue matters more than character. Kerry has much to recommend him, and Bush's flaws are many. But Bush has the character and backbone of a leader. And Kerry doesn't.
By his lack of political courage --
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Why we must beat Bush
US election mesmerizes Europe
PARIS -- Europeans have become obsessed with the American presidential elections to a degree unequaled in previous campaigns, speculating on the future of the United States as if it were their own.
''There's a huge interest in it this year. You'd think it was a British election,'' said Martin Fletcher, foreign editor of the Times of London, a newspaper that has been reporting extensively on the U.S. election.
In Poland, one of a handful of Eastern European countries that sent troops to Iraq, people likewise are following the race with unprecedented attention, albeit with a different twist.
A Bush defeat would have negative consequences for Poland, as it takes its place as the most prominent of 10 new members of the 25-nation European Union.
''If Kerry wins, the anti-war countries in the European Union will say Bush lost because of Iraq, which means everyone who supported Bush in Iraq is also a loser,'' said Bartosz Weglarczyk, foreign editor at Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's largest newspaper.
''If Poland is seen as a loser on the debate on the war in Iraq, obviously our position in the EU will be weakened,'' he said.
Given the dispute between the United States and France and Germany over the war in Iraq, the antipathy is hardly surprising. A recent poll found nine out of 10 Frenchmen would vote for Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry over Mr. Bush if they had the opportunity.
The feeling is shared by several other countries in Europe that are frustrated with Mr. Bush over a range of issues, including American unilateralism, the war in Iraq, the risk of terrorism and perceived neglect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Britain's liberal Guardian newspaper began a campaign several weeks ago in which it urged Britons to write to voters in Ohio's Clark County -- one of several highly contentious counties in the swing state -- to help undecided voters make up their minds.
As much as they dislike the American president, Europeans also are captivated by him.
As the leader of a political, economic and military superpower that long has fascinated Europe, Mr. Bush's rather un-European approach to leadership feeds the caricature of a tough-guy cowboy with Bible Belt rhetoric.
Europeans want to know what kind of people would place such a man in power.
The press here has responded by reporting not just on the election, but on the United States as a whole, with special attention on the American psyche.
''We want to understand why so many people are still on Bush's side; it's a kind of mystery to us,'' said Peter Frey, Berlin bureau chief for ZDF television in Germany.
A poll released last month by the German Marshall Fund, a think tank headquartered in Washington that studies trans-Atlantic relations, found that 75 percent of Europeans disapprove of how Mr. Bush handles foreign affairs and 73 percent think the war in Iraq has increased the global risk of terrorism.
The results made headlines in newspapers already thick with election coverage.
Earlier this month, Le Monde, along with nine other newspapers, including the Guardian and Spain's El Pais, conducted their own poll, with predictable results: passable endorsement of Mr. Kerry and overwhelming contempt for the Bush administration.
''If Bush remains, American troops may stay longer in Iraq, and this will immediately impact our internal politics,'' said Jean-Gabriel Fredet, editor of Le Nouvel Observateur, a French weekly that recently featured a cover story headlined, ''Why we must beat Bush.''
By US election mesmerizes Europe
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The Importance of Bush:
The Importance of Bush:
Is the Remnant Adequate to Carry the Day?
So, sir, excuse me: Who are you going to vote for?Bush.
Just like that - Bush? No hedging? No lesser of two evils? No 'buts'?
It's a lay-down.But Kerry -
Kerry is unconscionable. He is a shameless, vindictive, wack-left extrem- ist - a crypto-pacifist. A Kennedy acolyte. A mountebank, a charlatan, a fraud. A con- summate, congenital liar. A self-serving, self-righteous, self-pro- moter - and insufferably arrogant. A fabricator, an embellisher, a credit-taker surpassing even Al Gore.
But Bush is so stup-Bush has character in spades. He is a leader with discernible values the vast majority of Americans share. 9/11 transformed him - even redeemed him - for the second time. He is a man of optimism and locked-on resolve in the war against jihadist terror - the overwhelming issue in this campaign; Kerry is a pessimist and Hamlet-like waffler. Bush believes in taking the war to the enemy rather than allowing the enemy to beat us up here.
Kerry would enlist the UN and our other allies against terrorism.
BALONEY. Kerry says he wants to do that, but waiting on the UN is an invitation to inaction. And what makes you think he would be more successful in enlisting support for removing Saddam than Bush was - in a military enterprise Kerry voted for? Kerry subsequently has voted against supporting our troops and has insulted our most steadfast allies.
Yet Kerry would bring in the important continental Europeans.
The Europeans you're talking about helped set up Saddam. They don't like our destruction of their investment. Nor do they, much, like us. And they won't help because they have neither the manpower nor the will to provide it. They have hardly any stomach for action at all.
Don't you think Kerry's Vietnam experience garners him support in the military, makes him more knowledgeable of military realities, renders him more sensitive to -
Come on. Kerry is insidiously insensitive to the military. His 20-year Senate record reeks of sniveling hostility to military initiatives - with vote after vote against the critical weapons systems now in the Pentagon inventory. No wonder the polls show the military opposes his election in the neighborhood of 80-20.
You have to admit Vietnam gave Kerry a crucial combat hardening . . . .
YOU CAN'T be serious. Let's begin by noting that Kerry brought up Vietnam - made it and his medals central to this campaign, as he has to all his others. Yet he was in country just four months. The book Unfit for Command, written by the officer who took command of his Swift Boat after Kerry departed Vietnam prematurely, makes clear a number of profoundly troubling things about him.Such as?Such as: (1) Kerry evidently wrote up not only his own fitness reports but his own proposed medal commendations - documents often figments, often at war with the facts and the truth. (2) In difficult situations, he usually ran - departed the scene. (3) He clearly was there foremost to establish a story to help him win political races later on. And (4) the vast majority of those who served with him on the Swift Boats detested him then, as they detest him now.
By Just like that - Bush? No hedgin
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