It's the WAR, Stupid

Lileks hits it on the head. No, I'm not talking about Patrick Stewart. I could care less about an actor's assessment of the wisdom of space travel, and less still about a bunch of feckless D&D retreads going "Oh, Jean-Luc, How could you!" about it.


I mean Lileks' assessment of John Kerry and the Dem's 60's cocoon. Here's the knife-point:

I’m waiting for an ad that simply puts the matter plainly: who do you think Al Qaeda wants to win the election? Who do you think will make Syria relax? Who do you think Hezbollah worries about more? Who would Iran want to deal with when it comes to its nuclear program – Cowboy Bush or “Send in the bribed French inspectors” Kerry? Which candidate would our enemies prefer?

This is one reason why, no matter how much the budget balloons under Dubya, he's got my vote. The Democrats simply do not take terrorism seriously, as a grave threat to our society, as a despicable evil to be fought. As far as they're concerned, 9-11 is like, so three years ago. Their response to it has become a mantra: Of-course-it-was-tragic-and-our-hearts-go-out-to-the-victims-but-it's-time-to-move-on-and-it's-just-too-depressing-and-what-are-you-some-kind-of-warmonger?


Guess what? It's not time to move on. It's not time to hand things over to Kofi Annan. It's not time to let the Arab states hide behind the fig leaf of international law while they feed the terrorists and send them after infidels. It's time to clean house, to give the Arabs a chance to throw off their masters and start fresh, to direct their piercing minds to their own backyards. Until that happens, the Osamas will never be caught.


None of the Democrats see this. Dean and Kerry mouth about "not pulling out," to show how manly they are in their manliness, but there's been nary a word from either so far about what their strategy is for defeating terror. They may have mentioned the UN. They seem to be riding on the proposition that of course they can come up with an amazing, counter-intuitive tactic for undermining Islamofascism. Why, they're Democrats, aren't they? Do you see a cowboy hat anywhere? All right, then.


Yeah, I'm plenty not happy about Medicare and the rising tide of deficits, and I'm more than a little irritated by Bush jumping in on issues that I think don't belong in the federal brief. But I do not believe any of the Democrats' blather on fiscal discipline, and they have no plan on dealing with Social Security or any of the rest of the entitlement mess. The government may not be getting smaller under this administration, but it will never happen while a donkey is in the White House. They don't believe in that, and so will not summon the courage to make it happen. I'm disappointed in Bush in some ways, but not so much that any Democrat offers salve to me. If that makes me a partisan warmonger with the blinders on to you, so be it. But to me, this election is about whether this nation can prove wrong every Pharisee who says that we are too weak and frightened and self-absorbed to fight for ourselves. That makes the choice easy.