Comrade
Kerry Unspun
By Rachel Marsden | Bio
The
Democratic National Convention in Boston last week looked like it was sponsored
by the same purple fruit juice that figured prominently at the “Jonestown
convention” in Guyana back in 1978. Now that the confetti has settled and the
balloons have finally dropped onto the convention floor (after a little vocal
encouragement from the convention director that seemed to be heavily sponsored
by the letter “f”), it’s time to cut through the spin.
Certainly
the major news networks won’t do it for you. That is, offer up an objective
analysis of the event. If they had any intention of doing so, then they would
have had actual “conservative pundits” offering up, their critique of John
Kerry’s acceptance speech--not just ones who tacked on the label, only to then
sit there alongside CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Jeff Greenfield and Judy Woodruff,
nodding their heads like automatons and saying what a great job Kerry did. It
was the baseball equivalent of the New York Yankees showing up to a Boston Red
Sox practice and saying, “Damn, these guys are amazing! Nothing but great
stuff going on here!”
By
the way, here’s a quick tip for determining the objectivity of a news or
current affairs program: If they refer to all the guests on the program as
“commentators”, but feel the need to stick the qualifying label of
“conservative commentator” on those without a leftist-bent, then it should
tell you everything you need to know about the folks who put together that
broadcast.
John
Kerry is a master at passing himself off as whatever happens to be convenient at
the time. When he spoke at the recent NAACP meeting, he did the black-power,
fist-in-the-air salute--meaning that he’s either (a) black, or (b) just a
pandering, opportunistic white guy. He came out of the gate at the Democratic
Convention with a soldier’s salute, saying
“I’m
John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty.” Again, different strokes for
different folks.
After
that salute and the subsequent speech, it would be tough to blame someone who
doesn’t know John Kerry for believing that he spent 20 years in Vietnam and
only 4 months in the Senate (instead of the reality, which is the other way
around). It would also be easy, based on Kerry’s speech, to believe that
he’s a lot of other things that he isn’t (like, for example, a
Republican)--and forget that the man is a master of saying one thing and doing
the complete opposite.
John
Kerry says that he will reform the intelligence system whose failures ultimately
led to the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Real reform means that the CIA
has to get back on the ground overseas and start acting like spies, instead of
‘patrolling’ these countries via satellite from their office in Virginia
like a bunch of kids playing X-Box spy games from their home computers. It’s
time to get over that post-Cold War complacency. But real spy work requires big
bucks, and John Kerry has a track record of cheaping out on intelligence: In
1994, Kerry proposed and voted to cut $1 billion from intelligence. In 1995,
Kerry introduced a bill in the Senate to reduce the intelligence budget by $300
million in each of fiscal years 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000.
Kerry
declared in his speech, “On my first day in office, I will send a message to
every man and woman in our armed forces: You will never be asked to fight a war
without a plan to win the peace….To all who serve in our armed forces today, I
say, help is on the way.” Here’s one of the many critical differences
between John Kerry and President George W. Bush: Both felt strongly that going
into Iraq and getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do (both John
Edwards and John Kerry voted in
October
2002 to give Bush the authority to go into Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein), but
George Bush is actually willing to use America’s economic might to cover those
soldiers in their efforts. Kerry, on the other hand, recently voted against $87
billion in much needed funding for the troops.
It’s
a pattern that has been prevalent in Kerry’s record ever since he proposed
cuts as his overall defense strategy when he first ran for office in 1984.
In
his acceptance speech, Kerry promised that he wouldn’t raise taxes for the
middle-class. Tough to believe, coming from a guy who has voted for higher taxes
more than 350 times. He also said that he’d put more cash into government
coffers by “rolling back [Bush’s] tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals
who make over $200,000 a year.” If this was such a big priority for Kerry,
then maybe he should have showed up for work on
June
17th, 2004, to actually vote in the Senate on the Biden Amendment, which
proposed essentially the same thing. According to Congressional Quarterly, John
Kerry missed 72% of 119 recorded votes held in 2003 on issues that President
Bush had taken a position on. By contrast, fellow Massachusetts Senator Ted
Kennedy only missed 3% of votes.
Speaking
of missed votes, Kerry missed 36 of 38 votes dealing with medicare reform and
prescription drug benefit, including final passage of the bill. But now he has
identified fixing the health care system as a priority. Kerry sat on his hands
for two decades while Ted Kennedy and the Democrats were busy destroying health
care. Kennedy created the HMO monster, and now wants to yank all of its teeth
out and allow people to go after HMOs that deny patients payment for medical
care, thereby raising the premiums for everyone. Why would we expect Kerry to
suddenly make an appearance on this issue now when he’s been AWOL for 20
years?
John
Kerry gave a rah-rah speech at the Democratic Convention that would have sounded
great coming from a Republican, but not out of the mouth of one of the most
liberal politicians in Washington. Comrade Ketchup has been Monday morning
quarterbacking it for years now, critiquing the play from the sidelines instead
of getting into the game. Now, he’s doing the same thing with President
Bush--someone who has shown decisive leadership on every issue, fighting the war
on terrorism while taking measures to improve things on the domestic front.
Kerry has yet to identify a single thing he would do better--and that he could
also back up with his 20-year record. He’s like the kid who puts on an
oversize NBA jersey and plays the ‘3-pointer contest’ during the half-time
show: It’s amusing to watch him get out there and grandstand, pretending
he’s something he’s not, but you certainly wouldn’t want to have him
leading your team in a full-court press.
Rachel Marsden is a political strategist, columnist and talk show host whohas worked in politics and the media in both the USA and Canada. Her website is www.rachelmarsden.com