A Summary of the Last Eight Days

Courtesy Hugh Hewitt:

In the past eight days, John Kerry has:

• Announced to a national audience that American actions in defense of national security must pass a "global test";
• Announced that he would sell nuclear fuel to Iran;
• Could not answer, and badly filibustered a question on what he would do if Iran continued to push towards nuclear weapons acquisition;
• Denounced as unilateralism the coalition that George Bush put together to overthrow Iraq, and called for unilateral appeasement of North Korea;
• Compared Iraq to Lebanon, but insisted a summit could entice other countries to join the effort in Iraq, even after the French and the Germans announced they would not do so even if Kerry was elected;
• Twice identified the most pressing proliferation problem as the American effort to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons capable of destroying deep bunkers, thus equating the United States with rogue states like North Korea and Iran and proclaiming hostility to modernization of the American arsenal --vintage Kerry defense thinking;
• Announced plan after plan for which no details exist;
• "Absolutely" pledged not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $200,000 annually, a pledge that even his most ardent admirers know is either a bald lie or a repudiation of most of his spending plans (e-mailer LL suggests a new Kerry slogan: "Read my flips: no new taxes!");
• Ignored the creation of 1.9 million jobs over the past 13 months and ignored the economic consequences of the Clinton recession and 9/11 attacks while attacking Bush's tax cuts;
• While calling attention to his Catholic status, defended his vote against banning partial birth abortion, called for taxpayer support for abortion, argued that "parental notification" was connected to dads raping daughters and defended the wholesale harvesting of frozen embryos for research purposes --four positions completely opposite of Catholic Church teaching and far outside the American consensus opinion on abortion;
• Actually said "John Edwards and I are for tort reform," and told the American people that lawsuits against doctors are 1% of the health care problem;
• Defensively denied being "wishy washy," a "flip flopper," and a "liberal," while complaining about being branded such by the president;
• Embraced the Kyoto Treaty and called for its resuscitation with amendments;
• Told America that General Shinseki had been fired by Bush and that the firing had a "chilling" effect on all generals, and one day later said Shinseki had been "retired" --not fired-- and left off the "chilling effect" argument --a record one day flip flop;
• Saw his running mate get woodshedded and his campaign try to reverse that blow by arguing that the Vice President should have remembered meeting Edwards;
• Heard his wife assert that American troops were fighting for oil and many other stunning things;
• Watched as Bush did not make a single memorable error in two debates while effectively underscoring Kerry's "global test" pratfall, focusing on Kerry's did-nothing time-serving two decades in the Senate, wrestle the ISG report to its appropriate place in the discussion of the Iraq War, persuade by repeated argument (which the Vice President also helped along) that coalitions can not be led or maintain by derision or democracies built by indecision;
• Watched as Bush effectively and accurately branded KerryCare as an expanded form of HillaryCare;
• Watched as Bush simply and devastatingly branded Kerry as not credible on taxes, spending and most important of all, defending the United States.
  
  

And to top it all off, this killer line:

If this was a good eight days for Kerry, then November 11, 1864 was a fine day for Atlanta.

The entire Hewitt post can be found here. Excellent.

I have a Dream Plan!

Mark Steyn on last night's debate:

INSTANT DEBATE REACTION!



WINNER: BUSH! (and whoever loaded his percolator)



The unasked questions: Is there anything you can ask John Kerry that he doesn't have a plan for? Is his plan to have a plan for everything? If you ask him whether he's concerned that something might come up that he doesn't have a plan for, does he have a plan to deal with things he hasn't planned? Has he planned for the possibility that he might misplace one of his plans?

More good news for the War on Terror:

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Prime Minister John Howard scored a convincing victory in Australia's federal election Saturday, winning a historic fourth term in a vote ensuring the staunch U.S. ally keeps its troops in Iraq.



With more than 70 percent of votes tallied, Howard appeared likely to increase his government's majority in parliament, exceeding most analysts' predictions that the result would be very tight.

"Exceeding" is a laughable misstatement of what the Australian liberal press "analysts" wanted, which was for Howard to get crushed. "Destroying" would have been a better choice. Lesson: Don't blindly accept the press poll numerology.



UPDATE: Kerry plans have been found! [Hat tip: Power Line]

Kerry's Foreign Policy Collapse

With Kerry's widely unreported and ignored admission that he would not be able to convince France or Germany join the United States in Iraq -- despite his campaign promises-- we now have the famous 1,000 page report from the Iraq Survey Group which contains the following conclusions:

Saddam Hussein believed he could avoid the Iraq war with a bribery strategy targeting Jacques Chirac, the President of France, according to devastating documents released last night.



Memos from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war.

...

To keep America at bay, he focusing [sic] on Russia, France and China - three of the five UN Security Council members with the power to veto war. Politicians, journalists and diplomats were all given lavish gifts and oil-for-food vouchers.



Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, told the ISG that the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. Total, the French oil giant, had been promised exploration rights.



Iraqi intelligence officials then "targeted a number of French individuals that Iraq thought had a close relationship to French President Chirac," it said, including two of his "counsellors" for his re-election campaign. [Emphsis added]

May I agree with Glenn Reynolds (aka "Instapundit")?

It's hard to pass the "Global Test" when the people grading it are being bribed to administer a failing grade. Perhaps Kerry should change his stance, and promise that a Kerry Administration would "outbid the bad guys." That approach is more likely to succeed than the one he's been touting, which even he has admitted is doomed.

Claudia Rosett , seemingly the only journalist interested in the UN Oil-for-Fraud scandal, had this to say:

As Duelfer documents, Oil-for-Food allowed Saddam to replenish his empty coffers, firm up his networks for hiding money and buying arms, corrupt the U.N.'s own debates over Iraq, greatly erode sanctions and deliberately prep the ground for further rearming, including the acquisition of nuclear weapons. As set up and run by the U.N., Oil-for-Food devolved into a depraved and increasingly dangerous mockery of what was advertised by the U.N. as a relief program for sick and starving Iraqis.

So here we have Saddam Hussein, murderer of 500,000 Kurds, working with UN Security Council members to undermine the United States so that he could later resume production, acquisition, and eventual use of biological, chemical, and, yes, nuclear weapons. But naturally, the decision to remove Saddam was, according to Kerry, "wrong."

The New Soldier - Now Available Online

(Hat tip to Little Green Footballs)



John Kerry has been trying to buy up copies of his 1971 book "The New Soldier" for a number of years. As a service to those who may be curious, FreeKerryBook.org gas created a PDF version of the book which you can download for free here.