QandO

July 27, 2004

Convention Quotes - Night 1
Posted by McQ

Some snippets from last nights speeches at the Democrat convention which caught my ear. First Jimmy Carter:

In the meantime, the Middle East peace process has come to a screeching halt. For the first time since Israel became a nation, all former presidents, Democratic and Republican, have attempted to secure a comprehensive peace for Israel with hope and justice for the Palestinians.

The achievements of Camp David a quarter century ago and the more recent progress made by President Bill Clinton are now in peril.

Instead, violence has gripped the Holy Land, with the region increasingly swept by anti-American passions. This must change.

Elsewhere, North Korea's nuclear menace, a threat far more real and immediate than any posed by Saddam Hussein, has been allowed to advance unheeded, with potentially ominous consequences for peace and stability in Northeast Asia.

I'm not sure what Carter was smoking before his speech, but "violence has gripped the Holy Land?"

Where? Since Israel's unilateral withdrawl has begun and the wall has been going up, the intifada has all but ended. Violence is down ... way down.

The problem isn't with Israel but with apologists for the Palestinians like Carter. This is a region (read: Palestinians) which couldn't be more anti-American, a place where they danced in the streets on 911. What is Carter talking about?

As for North Korea, how has its "nuclear menace" been allowed to advance "unheeded" by this administration? It was certainly given lip service by the last administration as NoKo outfoxed them with promises while continuing to build toward nuclear weapons. But this administration has confronted the problem left by the last administration and engaged the region (unlike Kerry's plan to unilaterally engage NoKo) in confronting the NoKo nuclear problem. It seems to be on the road to success.

Always fun to hear a failed former president tell others how they should do their job.

Al Gore, on the other hand, was rewriting history as usual.

Let's make sure not only that the Supreme Court does not pick the next president, but also that this president is not the one who picks the next Supreme Court.

I agree Al. If we have to let's do precisely what we did last time and keep the Florida Supreme Court from changing election law on the fly.

We have to be crystal clear about the threat we face from terrorism. It is deadly. It is real. It is imminent.

But in order to protect our people, shouldn't we focus on the real source of this threat: the group that attacked us and is trying to attack us again -- al Qaeda, headed by Osama Bin Laden?

Wouldn't we be safer with a President who didn't insist on confusing al Qaeda with Iraq? Doesn't that divert too much of our attention away from the principal danger?

I delt with this yesterday, but obviously the Democrats are intent on pushing this theme as a "truth" regardless of the fact that going into Iraq was little if any distraction from going after al Qaeda. Apparently Al Gore's Vietnam tour of duty didn't endow him with the wealth of military knowledge John Kerry's did for him.

Clinton was, well, vintage Clinton. Charming, affable and dissembling to the max. I'm sure the party faithful missed the irony in this statement:

On the other hand, the Republicans in Washington believe that American should be run by the right people -- their people -- in a world in which America acts unilaterally when we can and cooperates when we have to.

They believe the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their economic, political and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on important matters like health care and retirement security.

Now, since most Americans aren't that far to the right, our friends have to portray us Democrats as simply unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America.

But we don't.

But you do. In fact, you just did the dividing Bill. The usual class warfare right there for anyone to see who can take the blinders off for a second and look.

Rich vs. poor, strong vs. weak, isolationist vs. globalist, unilateralist vs. cooperative.

It isn't the Republicans who are preaching about "two America's" on the stump, Bill, it's the Democrats. And it is critical to the Democrat's game plan that the divisions be perceived as real so they can exploit them as they always have in past.

I'd be interested to know whether Clinton thinks Washington should be run by the right people as well .... his people. The answer, of course, is "yes".

A night of red meat for the left (although not quite as vitriolic as in the past and thus more of a hamburger night in that regard instead of a steak) but not much new or of substance, at least for a political junkie. Pretty much what I expected. Pushing the myths, pushing the talking points, pushing the party line ... regardless of the truth. Welcome to the Democrat Convention.

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