Dangerous Dan

Posted by Dan Ewert : 7/29/2004 11:26:00 PM (Archive Link)
Kerry, Kerry, Quite Contrary

I just caught Kerry’s speech at the DNC. (transcript here) Here are the points.

First, Max Cleland’s intro. I only saw the last few minutes of it, but he made sure to mention how we’ve alienated our allies. Why is it always us who has alienated them? Personally, I think they fairly well alienated me with their behavior. If I were Bush, I would’ve started hitting that line a long time ago, that they’ve separated themselves from us and our alliances. Put the onus on them for it.

Yet again, Kerry’s Band of Brothers. This is very exploitative of his military service and this is likely not representative of the leanings of the military at large, especially considering that most of Kerry’s former comrades-in-arms are preparing to launch a major offensive against Kerry. Also, is this the length that he has to go to in order to not make himself seem weak on defense? Ok, one more point… Kerry talks endlessly about Vietnam and the lessons he learned there and on and on. He was in Vietnam for just 4.5 months. Now, I don’t want to denigrate his service or what he did there. I respect him for that. This, however, was not a very long time by casual or war standards. I just find it creepy that somebody would place such an emphasis on such a short period of his life. What, did he not gain wisdom or experience at any time since then? It’s like that was the pinnacle of his life and when he climbed the mountain and there’s been nothing since then.

Cleland also mentioned the Boston Massacre and gave the obligatory nod to Crispus Attucks, ‘cause, of course, you can never talk about the Boston Massacre without also noting that a black man was the first to fall. Can anybody even name another person who died in the incident? This isn’t to lessen Attucks’s role, just that he’s been elevated to some bizarre secular saint. It’s a good thing Kerry wasn’t around back then… he would’ve reenacted the event.

Ok, on to Kerry’s speech. He started really poorly, but picked it up about halfway through and finished strong. Man, he was getting sweaty, though. Somebody needed to hand that man a towel.

-He made his entrance to Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender,” lyrics here. This seemed like an odd choice of song considering Kerry’s attitudes towards Vietnam and Iraq, which, instead of “No retreat, baby, no surrender,” can be roughly summarized as “Retreat and surrender.” Or perhaps surrender first and then retreat. Anyway, it seemed far less ironic once I led the lyrics because the last stanza runs as follows:

Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in
There's a war outside still raging
You say it ain't ours anymore to win
I want to sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover's bed
With a wide open country in my eyes and these romantic dreams in my head

Ah, yes. Let’s pretend the war outside isn’t really there and let’s dream sweet, ignorant dreams instead. Besides, the war is no longer ours to win. How appropriate. How fitting for John Kerry and the Democrats’ attitude in general.

-He began by saying “John Kerry, reporting for duty.” Huh? Was he in the military or something? What, he was in Vietnam? Why hasn’t he ever mentioned that?

-He gave a brief shout-out to environmentalism and feminism, but he did so by using an absolutely horrible segue from his mother to them. It just didn’t work.

-“I ask you to judge me by my record.” Oh, he asked for it. John Kerry’s record is full of flip-flops, speeches and votes that contradict a great many things he said tonight. The Republicans have already started exploiting Kerry’s voluminous record in this regard. They should keep pressing their case because Kerry’s record stinks. I have a feeling that that line and a clip of him saying it are going to make their way into many a pro-Bush ad. He may wind up regretting he said it.

-He’s hitting on the economy. By most all indicators, the economy is doing quite nicely, thank you. Hey, even unemployment is running at just 5.6%. It was 5.4% in 1996 when Clinton touted his miraculous abilities with all things economic. I think Jonah Goldberg has it right when he says that the Democrats are racing against time. Eventually, despite the rhetoric and negative reporting, Americans are going to realize that the economy isn’t nearly as bad as some folks are trying to make it seem. When that happens, the issue will dry up for the Dems and that’s a problem for them.

-He has nice turn of phrase, though one without substantiation or content, when he accuses the Republicans of being pessimists towards the economy. “And they say that anyone who thinks otherwise is a pessimist. Well, here is our answer: There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better.” Nice, except when has anybody on the Right ever said that we can’t do better? The basis of capitalism, economic growth, and wealth creation is that you can always do better. The Repubs have merely said that the economy is healthy and not nearly as bad as the Dems claim. They’d never say that it’s not as robust as it could be, though.

-“We can do better and we will. We're the optimists. For us, this is a country of the future. We're the can do people. And let's not forget what we did in the 1990s. We balanced the budget. We paid down the debt. We created 23 million new jobs. We lifted millions out of poverty and we lifted the standard of living for the middle class. We just need to believe in ourselves and we can do it again.”

Whoa! What’s this “we” stuff, bucko? As I recall, it was a Republican congress during the bulk of the 90’s that deserves a lot of the credit here. Where do the Democrats as a whole get off saying it was all their doing? The budget was balanced, for example, only after extreme pressure from Gingrinch and company. Clinton resisted it. Most of the credit, though, should go to the free market. A booming economy that results from natural market forces is what did most of the work. And as for that last line, about believing in ourselves enabling another boom… is fairy dust required for this?

-John Edwards is a son of a mill worker. Again, why is all this secret information just now coming out? Of course, Kerry has to mention it to offset his own life of wealth and privilege. Keep in mind that Kerry was educated in Europe, married a millionaire heiress, divorced her and later married a billionaire heiress who herself inherited her money through marriage. That’s real blue collar for ya.

As for Edwards, he made his millions by suing obstetricians for malpractice. He would accuse the doctors of being responsible for a child’s developmental problems because the mother’s difficult labor was putting the unborn in danger and the doctor didn’t perform a C-section soon enough. He made these claims despite the fact that there was no evidence or data backing them up. There simply hadn’t been any studies performed about it. Now there have and they all say that there isn’t a lick of evidence supporting the notion that an early C-section reduces the rate or risk of childhood developmental disorders. So Edwards built his wealth and career on a falsehood and the work of his ilk have made C-sections far more common since doctors don’t want to get sued. As a result, women receive an unnecessary, risky surgery that can cause further problems down the road. It also sent the malpractice insurance rates of Ob-Gyn’s skyward. This has led to there being a lot fewer doctors who want to get into the field and fewer practices that will deliver babies since it’s too expensive and too open to frivolous litigation. Thanks, John Edwards! You’ve done a real service to the community!

-Theresa Heinz Kerry is defended as “speaking her mind.” This is in reference to how she told a man to “shove it” for being a conservative reporter who was asking her to elaborate on something she said but later claimed she did not say. It’s nice to know that unwarranted rudeness can get a free pass.

-He said that there were no Democrats or Republicans on 9-11, just Americans, and “how we wished it had stayed that way.” Yes, it was all the fault of those nasty Republicans that the parties went their ideological ways once again. How dare they, the dividers!

-“Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't make it so.” Uh-huh… wasn’t it John Kerry who voted against the $87 billion for the war and tried to force the prez to fight it on the cheap? And oh, he brought up the Mission Accomplished banner. How the Dems love to mock it. I still don’t have a problem with that banner or its message. The major combat was over, we won, and the Enterprise was heading to its home port after accomplishing its mission. The Left sure did an excellent job of co-opting and distorting the message, though. Just prior to the quote, he also mentioned WMD’s. I have a big beef with how pretty much everybody, Left and Right, is approaching this issue and I’ll get into it in a later post.

-He said the only justification for going to war is for a threat that is real and imminent, alluding that Iraq was neither. Funny… I’ve watched several clips of him saying the Iraq threat was actually both. Oh, but that was before the war. He changed his tune afterwards. What it comes down to is that he would never make the call for war until after we were already attacked.

-“I know what we have to do in Iraq. We need a president who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home. Here is the reality: that won't happen until we have a president who restores America's respect and leadership-- so we don't have to go it alone in the world. And we need to rebuild our alliances, so we can get the terrorists before they get us.”

So, how do you plan to do this, President Kerry? The only possible way to get the Euros, i.e. France and Germany, to go along with us is to let them have a say in our foreign policy and in how we handle our international affairs. That effectively means they’ll get a say in how we do things and that will be through the UN. Oh, but he says, “I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security.” Well, then how to rebuild the alliances? We have to give them something. The jaded politicians of the Chirac model aren’t going to come running to us just because of Kerry’s charm. We have to give them something and the only thing they really want is America’s compliance in military affairs.

-Kerry said any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. This just smacks of Bill Clinton who often said roughly the same thing. His swift and certain response meant a lot of bluster followed by firing off some cruise missiles. If this is what Kerry has in mind, it does not inspire me with confidence.

-He’ll add 40,000 active duty troops. Now, seeing as that the armed forces don’t overfill their recruitment quotas by such a wide margin, this would mean forcing new and current recruits to stay on active duty longer. This isn’t a real big improvement over the current method of calling up the Reserves.

-He’ll fight against nuclear proliferation. How? He’s banned a military response unless we suffer an attack first and diplomatic efforts in this area have been resounding failures… see North Korea and Iran. The only dangerous country that has recently given up its nuclear ambitions was Libya and that was in response to American military action in Iraq. But Kerry wouldn’t do what we’ve done in Iraq. I guess we’ll need more fairy dust.

-“Strength is more than tough words.” This is doubtless an allusion to Bush’s “cowboy” talk, like “Bring ‘em on.” Yes, Bush talks tough, but the man backs it up. He doesn’t say something he doesn’t intend on following through on.

-He’ll immediately implement the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission. Prior to tonight, he criticized Bush for not already doing so. That was just 5 days after the report was released. Well, there’s a reason the country is led by a president and a congress instead of a panel. Since they’re responsible for what happens, they need to review things and decide what’s best. Just because the panel is bipartisan and all, it doesn’t follow that all their recommendations are good or even workable. There needs to be a little time to review things. Again, Kerry provides no comfort when he shows he’ll let other people do his job.

-His line about opening firehouses in Baghdad while closing them in the U.S. just evaporated any possible sympathy for him in Iraq. Not that they’re a constituency, but he showed them, and Americans, that he doesn’t much care about that country’s well-being.

-I appreciated the irony when he talked about patriotism. He accused others of wrapping themselves in the flag and closing their ears to others’ opinions by questioning their patriotism. And how did he do that? He wrapped himself in the flag and closed his ears to other’s opinions by questioning their patriotism.

-I can sum his section about family values as follows: “Only government can save the children!!”

-“We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America. Not narrow appeals that divide us, but shared values that unite us. Family and faith. Hard work and responsibility. Opportunity for all so that every child, every parent, every worker has an equal shot at living up to their God-given potential.”

These hardly seem like planks of the Democratic platform. Family? They’ve been destroying it for years through the welfare state. Faith? ACLU zealots are trying to remove all semblance or reference to Christianity in the public realm. Dems on the Senate Judicial Committee have all but said that Christians or persons of faith are unfit to serve as judges. Other Dems heavily criticize politicians that do demonstrate beliefs and faith. Hard work and responsibility? Welfare state again. Opportunity for an equal shot? Not with affirmative action. Also, the Left desires an increasingly socialized state. In almost every case, opportunity is inversely proportional to how socialized a state is.

-I mentioned this in a previous post, but it’s contradictory that the Dems, like Clinton, praise globalization, economic strength, and the interdependence of the global economy, but then they cry bloody murder when the natural and necessary effects of it occur. Also, they’ll talk all day about improving the quality of life for people in other places but then decry that it comes at the expense of a few American jobs. Which is it, guys? No, I don’t like jobs leaving, but I don’t believe in being overly protectionist. Much as a rising American economy is good for all Americans, a rising global economy is good for all countries, including America. Free markets work if you let them. He calls for a fair playing field, but what he really means is that he’ll tilt it way over towards America and create an artificial job market that ultimately hurts companies, the economy, and then the overall job market itself.

-His economic plan won’t work. Government can’t force the markets. Manufacturing doesn’t revitalize without the market for products and labor that will produce them at reasonable rates. Investment in technology is nice but they have to be producing something marketable or will lead to that goal. Otherwise, it’s just more research. Closing tax loopholes is small incentive for a company to keep employees here if they can save even more money by going elsewhere.

-Taxes. Ah, yes. Soak the rich. Those filthy rich buggers driving around in Bentleys, smoking the finest cigars and relaxing on Caribbean beaches. Wait, the rich are those who make just $200,000 or more? Sure, that’s a comfortable chunk of change, but it doesn’t mean their walking around in top hats either. There are plenty of folks who just barely fit into this category and who worked very, very hard to get there. They already pay a percentage of the government’s take in income taxes that is far out of proportion to their actual demographic representation. Why make them pay more?

-Let me make this clear. College is not a God-given right to humanity. Neither is health care. If you want or need either one, though, the opportunities are already there to obtain it. You don’t need Uncle Sam jumping in for you. I’ll elaborate on this in a later post. I will hit on prescription drugs, though. People always complain about how expensive they are. You have to understand the economics of it. From the time a drug compound is first discovered to the time it hits the market, it can easily cost a drug company ten years and $1 billion. This includes research, animal testing, human trials, FDA approval, and various other items. Now, the company patents the compound when they first discover it. This is before they know if it will ever be useful, but on the chance that it is, they can’t risk somebody else getting the patent first. The patent lasts for 17 years, I think. So, since it takes the company ten years to get the drug to market, they have just seven years to recoup their investment and make a profit before generics slice into their market share. Not to mention that it costs money to make the drug, market it, ship it and that they need income from their current products to research and produce the next wonder drug. That’s why some drugs cost so much. Not because the companies are greedy, but because of market forces. If the government starts regulating drug prices, you’re going to start seeing a lot less new and fancy drugs because the companies won’t have the necessary capital for research and development. For ones that do come out, most people won’t even see them. In fabled Canada, the provinces don’t allow the newest, fanciest, and most effective drugs because they’re also the most expensive. Thus, the government won’t pay for them. So while you have American senior citizens taking buses north to get cheaper drugs, you have their Canadian counterparts coming south to get the newer and better ones. Do you really want the government interfering in your health care like that? Gambling with your health?

-He mentions us relying on the Saudi royal family for oil and how we’re held hostage to the Middle East. This sounds like Fahrenheit 9-11. Michael Moore’s hold on the Democrat party is almost complete. Alternative energies are nice, I’ll admit. But they need to be made so that they’re both practical and cheap enough for everyday use. We’re not there yet and the new technologies aren’t cheap enough to replace gas. Trying to force them into the market will not be effective. They need to make themselves competitive enough to belong there.

-“And whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for others and for our country.” In Democrat lingo, that means you’ll give of yourself in the measures they prescribe whether you like it or not.

-In addressing George Bush concerning the running of their respective campaigns, he says, “let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States.” This was a big applause line, but for the life of me, I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

-Finally, he wraps up trying to seem like the big man, the uniter. He wants a race on big ideas and not personal attacks. It sounds like he’s trying to set up an interesting strategy. Bush will hit Kerry for his inconsistencies, his flip-flops, and his record. Then Kerry will cry out, “Woe is me, for the cruel Bush is attacking me and not addressing the issues. When will it stop?! WHEN?!?!” Of course, he’ll make attacks on Bush, but those will go largely ignored. It looks like Kerry is trying to set his character, his person, his history, and his record off-limits because he knows those are all weak-points. The Repubs can’t allow Kerry to set the rules of the game.

-One last point… I was rightly amused at how the balloons malfunctioned and failed to fall on cue.