Why George Bush Should Win

I've noticed a disturbing trend among the Bush haters, as Bill Sammon calls them. They are dead set on making President Bush out to be a deceptive guy — something they cannot provide any real evidence for. John Kerry dove right into this last night. Numerous times, he suggested that the President mislead Americans on the Iraqi situation prior to the regime change. Kerry refused to respond to President Bush's point that they both looked at the same intellegence.

He refuses to realize that it was the law of the land since 1996, as signed into effect by President Clinton, that Saddam Hussein was to be ousted. He refuses to recall his 1997 Crossfire position that unilateral removal of of the Baathist regime was acceptable if the world wouldn't join the cause. He refuses to admit he has had nine distinct opinions on the war in Iraq since announcing his run in the presidential race. He feels he can say it was the “wrong war, at the wrong time, in the wrong place,” but at the same time there have been numerous points since the fall of Baghdad that he has supported the war, just like many of the other top Democrats that now oppose it.

He talks about bringing in allies while he attempts to ruin John Howard. He trivializes the contributions of Poland, Australia, Britain and 27 other nations as the coalition of the coerced and the bribed. Not perhaps completely out of character for one who once spent his time testifying to the Congress that Vietnam vets were “war criminals.” Kerry loves to glory in things as he attacks and demeans them (he sure loved playing up his part in “war crimes” at the Democratic Convention).

The French and the Germans have said even a shift to Kerry will not get them to enter the fray in Iraq. Look, they don't want to get involved, that's their prerogative and it is not likely they will flip-flop just because a guy who says he opposed the war while he supported it gets elected. What about other allies? As President Bush noted, “So what's the message going to be: 'Please join us in Iraq. We're a grand diversion. Join us for a war that is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time?'”

Without veering too far off my point, consider this: do we want a president who advocates potentially disastrous treaties like Kyoto and the International Criminal Court merely to increase the respect of the world? Kerry's argument for Kyoto was not its merits but how it made us look in the world community — what is this nation sized peer pressure? Or is it better to have a president like President Bush who can strongly disagree with leaders such as President Putin of Russia while maintaining a good rapport with him (the warm relationship between the two presidents is no secret)? President Bush wisely pointed out this last night — a president should get along with the world without compromising to the world.

But back to my main points. In this debate, as John Kerry fired off baseless attacks on the very policies he advocated, I became even more convinced that John Kerry is the wrong leader at the wrong time and the wrong place. President Bush may not be right on everything, he might not be able to beat Kerry on an IQ test either… but his sincerity is clear and he isn't a dummy that should be misunderestimated either. Every bit of sincerity and truthfulness that was apparent in him last night was doubly apparent when I saw him in person in July. President Bush is the “real deal.”

If John Kerry came out and said, “I made a mistake on the intelligence, the president made a mistake, now lets move on. I have a plan and this is what it is…,” I could respect him. Instead, he is doing quite the opposite — he places all the blame, including that entitled to him, on the president. Someone who lies and misleads (even, I would note, on the claim he made that he had never called the President a liar using that word) to try to present an anti-war facade over his support of the war, even before Bush was president, is hardly praise worthy.

That is why George Bush should win.