Category: Politics

A number of blogs (Kausfiles, Michelle Malkin) say that largely invisible Democratic Party candidate John Kerry had his Sister Souljah moment at the convention of a racialist group in Phoenix:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry talked up pro-Hispanic immigration reforms when he was in Phoenix earlier this week at annual meetings of the National Council of La Raza.

But the Massachusetts senator also told Spanish language media outlet Telemundo that he opposes giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Kerry told Telemundo that obtaining driver’s licenses is something that is for legal residents of the U.S.

This is somewhat distinct from Clinton’s original moment in that Kerry didn’t have the balls to make the driver’s license remarks directly to the convention, choosing the back-door route instead.

About all I get from this is Kerry’s attempting to keep the voters informed that he’s still breathing, a matter that has been the focus of some debate recently.

The scurrilous critics of the liberation of Iraq are fond of trotting out irrelevant polling data to bolster their case that Saddam should have been left to torture his people and support terrorist networks in peace. The latest example is the Gwynne Dyer attempt to paint the new government of Iraq as Al Qaeda would like us to see them (see previous posting by Mumon.) This is a dishonest exercise.

We all know that the Iraqis are tired of the violent attacks organized and carried out on their streets by the dead-enders, the Baathists, the religious fanatics, and the friends of Al Qaeda, and that they feel the attacks will only stop when American troops have left their country. But does their dissatisfaction with the Occupation automatically translate into mistrust or hatred of the interim government as Dyer asserts? In other words, is the average Iraqi in the same mindset as a Democratic Party hack who still seethes over the loss of the 2000 election?

Probably not. Indigenous polls show broad support among Iraqis for the interim government:

A poll cited in a Defense Department document called “Five Steps to Sovereignty” said 68 percent of Iraqis have confidence in the interim Iraqi government, and 79 percent think the interim government will make things better for Iraq. The new government has an 80-percent approval rating among Iraqis, 73 percent of whom approve of Allawi, and 84 percent of whom approve of Yawar.

So with all due respect to our dark-minded conspiracy theorists (who’ve now sunk to calling Iraq a “quagmire” and blaming it on the J-E-W-S), things in Iraq aren’t really all that bad.

Even occupation-era polling showed that the vast majority of Iraqis thought their lives the same or better than they were under Saddam, not actually a shock to most of us.

UPDATE: John complains that I’ve labeled him an anti-Semite by equating his remarks on Israeli control of George W. Bush with Billy McKinney’s famous remark on the American media. Fair enough, he doesn’t mean what he says.

But this brings us to a problem with carpet-bombing as a method of argument: the Moore-inspired partisans attack the President using a variety of arguments, many of them contradictory to other arguments they employ, with no apparent regard for the inconsistencies. At the same time, according to this logic, Bush is a tool of the Saudis, the Carlyle Group, the International Zionist Conspiracy, the Christian Right, and Karl Rove, yet he’s so stupid he can’t be relied on to remember who’s his master at any given time, and yeah, he’s evil to boot. We first heard this line of self-contradictory whining after the Florida recounts of recounts of recounts, when the Democratic Party’s dead-enders said Bush was a moron who somehow managed to steal the election from their much more brilliant candidate.

It would be nice if these people would make up their alleged minds, but not as humorous as watching them step on themselves.

See: Iraq the Model for an inside view of Iraqi sovereignty:

Another friend approached me. This one was not religious but he was one of the conspiracy theory believers. He put his hands on my shoulders and said smiling, ?I must admit that I?m beginning to believe in what you?ve been telling us for months and I?m beginning to have faith in America. I never thought that they will hand us sovereignty in time. These people have shown that they keep their promises.?

It’s not the promises that count, it’s the follow-through.

The Paul Krugman column John cites today is a variation on a theme that’s been a staple of extreme left wing criticism of the war on terror since about Sept. 12, 2001. The theory holds that we have to understand that the terrorists hate us because we didn’t sign the Kyoto Treaty, we didn’t join the International Criminal Court, we support Israel, and our commitments to recycling, women’s rights, and affirmative action for all victim groups aren’t what they should be.

Krugman’s variation highlights an ideological obsession with state-run enterprises, attacking Bremer for even considering privatization of Saddam’s fascist machine:

By making Iraq a playground for right-wing economic theorists, an employment agency for friends and family, and a source of lucrative contracts for corporate donors, the administration did terrorist recruiters a very big favor.

(It’s interesting that Krugman calls the terrorists “insurgents” until this paragraph, where he needs to demonize them to make his anti-Bush point of the day, but I digress.) Of course, we understand what Krugman’s beef with Bush is – he was the fair-haired economist of the Clinton/Gore machine, and stood to make mega-profits had Gore won the 2000 election. Instead, he’s relegated to an obscure teaching post and a part-time newspaper job.

In this piece, he effectively endorses a path to economic development that’s failed mightily throughout the third world in the last 50 years, giving rise to the hopelessness, poverty, and squalor from which terrorist (not “partisan”) movements arise.

Krugman either fails to grasp or chooses to ignore the fact that economic development in Iraq is a vital part of securing the region against terrorism. It’s not going to be enough to establish another permanent welfare state in Iraq, another Egypt or Saudi Arabia. If the new Iraq is to serve as a buffer against the terrorist movements it will need not only a secular and representative government, it will need a thriving, free-market economy.

The politics and the economics are intertwined there just as they are everywhere, so pursuing a capitalist, free-market aim in our nation-building isn’t a distraction, it’s a vital piece of work.

If Krugman weren’t blinded by hate and self-interest, he’d say just that.

UPDATE: Roger L. Simon has some insight into the people Krugman attacks today.

Check out the latest Pew poll on the presidential race and, once you get past the spin, notice how weak Kerry’s support is. Only 46% say they support Kerry, which breaks down into 27% who are anti-Bush and only 17% who are actually pro-Kerry. So Kerry is simply the “anybody but Bush” candidate, which is not worth enough votes to win an election, not by a long shot.

Based on this poll, it’s going to be tough sledding for Democrats in November, because the ABB folks who are lukewarm on Kerry himself won’t vote in large numbers.

I’m personally much less enthusiastic about Bush than I once was, and if it weren’t for the rabid hatred of Bush and all things American on the Left, I probably wouldn’t even vote this year. But every time I read something about Michael Moore’s movie or Richard Clarke’s book, I realize that I have to get out and vote for Bush just to flip a digit in the general direction of the charlatans of the left who are doing their best to run this country into the ground.

Link via Kausfiles.

So the Pistons won it in 5, just as I predicted. That bit of forecasting was obvious, so now let’s go out on a limb and predict a Bush victory in November based on NBA logic. The Pistons are the working class team without a superstar, guys who follow their coach’s leadership and play as a well-oiled machine. They beat the flashy, pampered, narcissistic Lakers by putting their heads down and doing what had to be done, and Kobe’s team had no dramatic come-from-behind moves left by the last game.

Hollywood’s team lost in Detroit, and Hollywood’s candidate will lose as well.