I used to read Jonah Goldberg from the National Review Online a lot. He seems like a pretty reasonable guy, even if I occasionally disagree with him.
What disgusts me are those people who say toppling Saddam and fighting the terror war on their turf rather than ours is a mistake, not because these are bad ideas, but merely because your vanity cannot tolerate the notion that George W. Bush is right or that George W. Bush's rightness might cost John Kerry the election.Here's just another instance of propaganda going over the top. I'm telling you, you can't tell who's been affected. You never know who's reporting an opinion not based on bias; without an agenda.
There are little things that opinion makers like to do. They like to take quotes out of context. They like to leave out salient details.
What I get really tired about is the rationale that these folks apply to Kerry’s voting record. They can’t know what he was thinking when he voted unless he’s told them. And I think he’s told them many times that there were provisions of the additional spending that he couldn’t vote for.
Assume that you are a senator and your country is fighting a war that you believe is not headed in the right direction. Here are your choices: Approve legislation to fund the military to continue the offensive in the way that seems ineffectual, or vote against that legislation. What other way do you have to change the course of how our military is applied? There is no other check or balance for the command of our military other than congress telling them that they won’t get their money unless things change.
What irritates me most about pundits is how they like to leave out the nuances of senatorial voting works, and trick people into thinking something that’s not true.
Anyway, Jonah has a point about the war. Had the war gone well, we all would have lauded the senator’s voting for the funds in the first go-around. But the trick is that the war hasn’t gone well, and it’s perfectly within the rights of the American people to want change in how their military is applied.
I’m not sure where he gets the idea that we only want to fight at home. I think that Kerry was very clear during the debates that he plans on better training Iraqis to police their own country so that we can bring our military home from their country. This is something that doesn’t seem to be happening fast enough or well enough under the current administration.
I wish there was some way to sort through the half-truths and get to the facts. There is a lot more to governing the country than applying the military.
We really need to consider balancing the budget and affecting laws that help promote jobs, education, and environmental cleanup. We need a president that can tell us straight out what his plans are for these issues, not just that he has one and it’s great while waving his arms around to create the illusion that this thing exists.
You’re right, Jonah, I don’t care about the war in the sense that you describe. It’s an issue for me, but just one important issue among many. And it’s not a score in the Bush column.
