QandO

July 26, 2004

Internal Consistency
Posted by Dale Franks

Mark Steyn is wondering how the debate over the War on Terror has descended into nitpicking about who did what three or four years ago, rather than about what to do in the next four years.

Case in point: former GA Senator Max Cleland, who, last week, declared that President Bush invaded Iraq because "he basically concluded his daddy was a failed president" and he "wanted to be Mr. Macho Man" so he "flat-out lied." This would, by the way, be the same Max Cleland who voted in favor of the Iraq War, and who ran campaign adds in 2002 that declared, "Max Cleland is a respected leader on national security who supports the president on Iraq."

We warmongers didn't start the nitpicking, but somehow the entire landscape of U.S. politics has tilted so that a nation supposedly at war is spending most of its time looking through the rear window sniping about what was said and done in 2002, 2001, 2000, like the falling calendar leaves in a Hollywood flashback. The Democrats will always win on this playing field because, like some third-rate soap opera, their characters are not required to have any internal consistency.

Take, for example, Max Cleland, Vietnam veteran and former Georgia senator. Last week, speaking in his role as Kerry campaign mascot, he said Bush went to war with Iraq because "he basically concluded his daddy was a failed president" and he "wanted to be Mr. Macho Man" so he "flat-out lied."

Blistering stuff, huh? Would this be the same Max Cleland who voted to authorize war with Iraq in the U.S. Senate? Perhaps, as he's so insightful about the president's psychology, he could enlighten us as to his own reasons for wanting war with Iraq? Any daddy hang-ups there, Mr. Macho? This would be unworthy language for any senator to use about the commander-in-chief in time of war but it's especially ludicrous from a senator who ran campaign commercials in the 2002 election boasting that "Max Cleland is a respected leader on national security who supports the president on Iraq.'' What a pitiful clapped-out hack. At least Michael Moore is a consistent Bush-hater.

But, somehow, there is no indictable past when it comes to Democrats. Kerry voted for the war, too? No, no, you misunderstand, Kerry voted to authorize the war as a bargaining chip, to show how serious we were, not to actually, you know, go to war. There was a whole nuance thing there that you're, like, totally missing. Kerry has voted consistently to defund the military to one extent or another for his entire career? What a scurrilous attack on the patriotism of a man who volunteered to serve in Vietnam, and who came home with three purple hearts!

Even more importantly, the Democrats are pretty much immune to the type of hypocrisy charges that are routinely flung at Republicans. In a world where Bill Clinton can lie under oath about getting some pork-snorkeling from a low-ranking intern in the oval office during the business day, and still get to serve out his term, leaving with a final honor guard and troop review after the inauguration of a new president, the careers of Newt Gingrich and Craig Livingston self-destruct instantly because they were getting a little on the side, and we didn't hear any of that "it's only sex" business in their defense from Democrats. Perhaps that explains why, in the "killing young party girl campaign workers" competition, Ted Kennedy leads George W. Bush by 1-0, yet Teddy still gets to be the tireless champion of women's rights, while W ends up as the patriarchy poster boy.

When your party espouses no transcendant moral principles, I guess, there's never anything to be hypocritical about.

The thing is, though, that all this stuff from the past--as interesting as it is, and as important as it may be to learn from it, in order to keep from making the same mistakes in the future--is secondary. Because, really, it doesn't matter if John Kerry got his three purple hearts from nicking himself while shaving because a nearby mortar burst made him flinch. It doesn't matter if George W. Bush missed a few months of weekend guard duty because they would cut too deeply into his drinking and driving practice.

What matters right now--and it's the only thing that truly matters--is who's trying to kill us, how we can stop them, and how we can kill them. And the Democrats simply can't fight on that ground.

Because their answers are the same old September 10th answers that led us straight to 911 in the first place. Make the French happy. Make the UN happy. Try to ensure we never use the military in any way that might conceivably cause us to suffer any casualties. Defer and delay action. Treat terrorism as criminal problem, and be sure you can get an indictment before apprehending anyone, because having to let them go later would be embarrassing.

You can stick that in a nice dress and teach it to dance, but it's still the same old whore of a policy the Democrats have been bringing to the national security party ever since George McGovern. They know it, we know it, and the American people know it, as Bob Dole would say.

No wonder they seem more concerned about picking apart the Bush Administration's distant past, rather than telling us where they expect to take us into the future.

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