The New Senator From Virginia is a Real Jerk

Not only is Virginia's new Jr. Senator a socialist and the author of some questionable materials, but apparently he is also an incredibly pompous jerk.

November 30, 2006
Webb Offends Bush & the English Language
By George Will

WASHINGTON -- That was certainly swift. Washington has a way of quickly acculturating people, especially those who are most susceptible to derangement by the derivative dignity of office. But Jim Webb, Democratic senator-elect from Virginia, has become a pompous poseur and an abuser of the English language before actually becoming a senator.

Wednesday's Washington Post reported that at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress, Webb "tried to avoid President Bush,'' refusing to pass through the reception line or have his picture taken with the president. When Bush asked Webb, whose son is a Marine in Iraq, "How's your boy?'' Webb replied, "I'd like to get them (sic) out of Iraq.'' When the president again asked, "How's your boy?'' Webb replied, "That's between me and my boy.'' Webb told the Post:

"I'm not particularly interested in having a picture of me and George W. Bush on my wall. No offense to the institution of the presidency, and I'm certainly looking forward to working with him and his administration. (But) leaders do some symbolic things to try to convey who they are and what the message is.''

Webb certainly has conveyed what he is: a boor. Never mind the patent disrespect for the presidency. Webb's more gross offense was calculated rudeness toward another human being -- one who, disregarding many hard things Webb had said about him during the campaign, asked a civil and caring question, as one parent to another. When -- if ever -- Webb grows weary of admiring his new grandeur as a "leader'' who carefully calibrates the "symbolic things'' he does to convey messages, he might consider this: In a republic, people decline to be led by leaders who are insufferably full of themselves.

Even before Webb's studied truculence in response to the president's hospitality, Webb was going out of his way to make waves. A week after the election, he published a column in The Wall Street Journal that began this way:

"The most important -- and unfortunately the least debated -- issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country.''

Well.

In his novels and his political commentary, Webb has been a writer of genuine distinction, using language with care and precision. But just days after winning an election, he was turning out slapdash prose that would be rejected by a reasonably demanding high school teacher.

Never mind Webb's careless and absurd assertion that the nation's incessantly discussed wealth gap is "the least debated'' issue in American politics.

And never mind his use of the word "literally,'' although even with private schools and a large share of the nation's wealth, the "top tier'' -- whatever cohort he intends to denote by that phrase; he is suddenly too inflamed by social injustice to tarry over the task of defining his terms -- does not "literally'' live in another country.

And never mind the cavalier historical judgments -- although is he sure that America is less egalitarian today than it was, say, 50 years ago, when only about 7 percent of American adults had college degrees? (Twenty-eight percent do today.) Or 80 years ago, when more than 80 percent of American adults did not have high school diplomas (85 percent have them today), and only about 46 percent owned their own homes, compared with 69 percent today?

But notice, in the second sentence of Webb's column, the word "infinitely.'' Earth to Webb: Words have meanings that not even senators can alter. And he has been elected to be a senator, not Humpty Dumpty in "Through the Looking Glass.'' (When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.) America's national economic statistics are excellent; Webb could actually tell us how
much richer the "top tier'' has become, relative to other cohorts, over a particular span. But that would require him to actually say who he is talking about, and that takes time and effort, and senators -- Webb is a natural -- often are too busy for accuracy.

Based on Webb's behavior before being sworn in, one shudders to think what he will be like after that. He already has become what Washington did not need another of, a subtraction from the city's civility and clear speaking.

Apparently, he is also an all-around unpleasant character, as we see in this article by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., posted on CNN's site.

WASHINGTON (CREATORS) -- When Ronald Reagan's former secretary of the Navy, James Webb, eked out victory against the Republican Sen. George Allen in Virginia, what did the Democrats gain? To be sure they gained control of the Senate. That has been widely noted. Less widely noted is the fact that they gained something infinitely more subtle, but delightfully more amusing as will become apparent in the months ahead. In Webb they gained yet another very unpleasant person as a conspicuous member of the party hierarchy. He will not be easily obscured. Webb now takes his place with Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dr. Howard Dean, Al Gore, Jean-Francois Kerry and so many other Democratic notables as a rebarbative blowhard with whom you would not want to share a gondola. Nor would a civilized American want to have any of these churlish cads to dinner or even as neighbors down the block. Just the other day one of Sen. Clinton's neighbors turned up with a gunshot wound. I would not be surprised if it were self-inflicted.

All of the above are demonstrably unpleasant individuals, known for their public temper tantrums, their rudeness to staff, their slipperiness with the truth and their occasional bizarre outbursts. The Republicans have a few such stinkers, for instance Newt Gingrich, but not nearly as many. It almost seems that to be a Democratic notable one has to be ill-tempered and, as I say, unpleasant.

Think back to Dean's historic scream and frequent public demonstrations of bile. Think of Clinton's and Gore's mendacious moments and lapses into self-absorption when public matters were at issue, for instance 9/11. Think of how often all of them have played the role of the bad sport after a failed election or, in Hillary's case, a visit to a grand jury.

Recall, if you will, Sen. Kerry's recent catastrophic joke on the campaign trail. To many Americans he seemed to be saying that our solders serving in Iraq are dolts. Call me naive, but personally I accepted his explanation that he merely botched a joke meant to imply that President George W. Bush is a dolt -- Bush, who, incidentally, graduated from Yale with a higher grade point than this intellectual mediocrity. Nonetheless, it was in Kerry's defense of his botched joke that he revealed his unpleasant essence. He snarled that, "I apologize to no one." In his hastily called press conference he went on to pout, "I'm not going to stand for it." And he went on in his bullying diatribe to thunder, "I'm sick and tired of a bunch of despicable Republicans ... Enough is enough. We're not going to stand for it." For what? For perceived mistreatment from "these Republican hacks who've never worn the uniform of our country ... " blah, blah, blah.

As I say, Kerry is an unpleasant fellow in a party increasingly led by unpleasant fellows and fellowesses. Consider incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who blustered to Time magazine not long ago, "Anybody who's ever dealt with me knows not to mess with me." Again, is this someone you would care to dine with or even pass in a hallway?

As it happens I did dine with Webb, sometime after his brief stint at the Department of the Navy. He is a pretty good novelist and in print at the time had expressed some ideas of which I approved, particularly his scruples against women in combat, though other of his references to women strike me as coarse. At any rate, I invited him to dinner for what turned out to be a gruesome evening. Webb is one of those people of whom it is said he is uncomfortable in his skin. At first I thought his discomfort might come from the fear he was going to have to pay his way. It was a classy eatery. I reassured him that he was my guest. I went on to make clear I considered him a fine writer. Nothing I said reassured him, not even my insistence that he have dessert. I left baffled. Most of the military men I have known are gents. Many writers are cads, but I thought a writer who had also served high up in the Reagan administration might be civilized. After that dinner I never made the mistake of inviting him anywhere again.

His campaign was a prolonged demonstration of his caddishness. He who had called President Bill Clinton's administration the most corrupt in modern history invited Clinton to campaign with him. He actually exploited his own son's present service in Iraq for political advancement. While campaigning he paraded around in his son's combat boots! There were others in the 2006 election with sons in Iraq. One is a leading opponent of the war. None put a son in such an embarrassing and potentially dangerous position. Once elected, Webb took his boorishness to the White House.

Invited there with other freshmen members of Congress, Webb refused to stand in the presidential receiving line. He would not have his picture taken with the president. "How's your boy?" the Washington Post reports the president asking him later during the reception. Webb replied that he would like to get the troops home, a point appropriate for the campaign trail but not at a White House social event. "That's not what I asked," the president persisted, "How's your boy?" "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," the unpleasant Webb replied, and he cut his host. This the Post portrayed as part of Webb's "unpolished style." "I'm not particularly interested in having a picture of me and George W. Bush on my wall," he told a reporter. Well, then a gentleman does not accept the president's invitation to the White House and no one told him he would have to display the picture anywhere.

According to The Hill, Webb even told a source for the paper that "he was so angered by this (encounter) that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief." Webb claims that one of his heroes is President Andrew Jackson. I too admire Old Hickory, but I at least recognize the rough ways of the early 19th century are not to be reprised in the 21st century. What next, will the junior senator from Virginia begin challenging those who arouse him to a duel? What century does Webb think he is living in? Believe me Sen. Webb is going to be a vast source of amusement, and he will fit in nicely with the unpleasant pols whose political base is the Angry Left.

I have said it before and I shall be saying it again, often politics is not a rational act. Increasingly, especially in the Democratic Party, it encourages behavior that is abnormal: politicians windsurfing to assure their constituencies that they are just like them or ranting to show how genuinely human they are. These pols play on the fantasies of mildly delusional voters. In the case of the unpleasant Webb, the delusions are a bit over the top. It makes me wonder why his stay at the Department of the Navy was so brief. Did the Reaganites shove him out? Did one of them make the mistake of taking him to dinner? Or did they catch him acting up at a White House reception that has gone unreported? Some reporters should have looked into this.

Webb's predecessor was most certainly a flawed candidate, but he was an excellent Governor and a good Senator as well. He payed for Maccaca and the war in Iraq with his political career.

I expect that it won't be long however until we see "Don't Blame Me I voted for Allen" bumper stickers all over the Old Dominion.

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Kristol Clear #2 w/ Robert Kagen

Surrender as 'Realism'
Retreat would win us no friends and lose us no adversaries.
by Robert Kagan & William Kristol
12/04/2006, Volume 012, Issue 12

Foreign policy realism is ascendant these days, we are told. This would be encouraging if true, because our foreign policy must indeed be realistic. But what passes for "realism" today has very little to do with reality. Indeed, if you look at some of the "realist" proposals on the table, "realism" has come to be a kind of code word for surrendering American interests and American allies, as well as American principles, in the Middle East.

Thus, the "realists" advise us to seek Syria's help in Iraq even as the Syrian government engages in a concerted campaign of assassinating every Lebanese political leader who opposes the return of Syrian hegemony in Lebanon. Presumably, the "realist" position is that we should give Lebanon back to Syria, or at least turn a blind eye to its murderous efforts to regain control there, as an incentive to Syria to help us in Iraq, where Syria is also engaged in supporting terrorists. "Realism" is letting dictators get away with terror and murder--and, in particular, letting them get away with the murder of our friends.

The "realists" advise seeking Iranian help in Iraq as well. They are coy about suggesting what the United States could give Tehran as an inducement for such assistance, but the implications of their position are clear. After all, the Bush administration has already offered to talk to Iran, provided the Iranians agree to suspend enrichment of uranium. That has also been the position of the Europeans. The Iranians have refused.

So the "realists" are
adapting to the reality of Iranian intransigence. They are in effect suggesting that the administration drop its long-standing position and begin negotiating with Iran despite the Iranian regime's refusal to agree to the common U.S.-European demand. What the realists have in mind, then, is that the United States should turn a blind eye to Iran's nuclear weapons program, in exchange for Iran's help in easing our retreat from Iraq. Who cares if this would destroy U.S. credibility, weaken those in Europe who are trying to be strong, undermine the effort to prevent Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, and lead to a cascade of additional nuclear states in the region? It would at least make possible further "realistic" accommodations to these new and deadly realities.

The "realists" also advise putting pressure on Israel to deal in a more forthcoming way with the Hamas-dominated Palestinian government. Israel should be induced to make concessions despite the ongoing violence and the refusal of Hamas to ratify even Yasser Arafat's acceptance of Israel's right to exist. Thus, in order to conciliate Arab dictators and radicals, Washington should retreat from long-standing principle and hand a dramatic victory to the forces of violence and extremism in Palestine.

So let's add up the "realist" proposals: We must retreat from Iraq, and thus abandon all those Iraqis--Shiite, Sunni, Kurd, and others--who have depended on the United States for safety and the promise of a better future. We must abandon our allies in Lebanon and the very idea of an independent Lebanon in order to win Syria's support for our retreat from Iraq. We must abandon our opposition to Iran's nuclear program in order to convince Iran to help us abandon Iraq. And we must pressure our ally, Israel, to accommodate a violent Hamas in order to gain radical Arab support for our retreat from Iraq.

This is what passes for realism these days. But of course this is not realism. It is capitulation. Were the United States to adopt this approach every time we faced a difficult set of problems, were we to attempt to satisfy our adversaries' every whim in order to win their acquiescence, we would rapidly cease to play any significant role in the world. We would be neither feared nor respected--nor, of course, would we be any better liked. Our retreat would win us no friends and lose us no adversaries.

What our adversaries in the Middle East want from us is very simple: They want us out. Unless we are prepared to withdraw, not just from Iraq but from the entire region, and from elsewhere as well, we had better start figuring out how to pursue effectively--realistically--our interests and goals. This is true American realism. All the rest is a fancy way of justifying surrender.

--Robert Kagan and William Kristol

This is the first big battle of the Pelosi era and we have to win it.

When we left Vietnam it lead to the deaths of an additional 3 million in Southeast Asia. It also legitimized a political class to whom the answer, when faced with a difficult situation, is to quit.

You got crazy Charlie Rangel who wants to bring back the draft. Conyers wants to impeach the President even though Pelosi knows that the Dem's don't have anything to impeach him over, and a wackadoodle, bribe taking, impeached judge ready to take over the intelligence committee (once again, affirmative action at work.) I'm ranting here I know, but this is what happens when you bend over backwards to satisfy the insane, Congressional Black Caucus.

Oh, and this is too funny "....who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?" Yeah Charlie. Everyone's just dying to get a flat in Harlem.

Anyway, my point is that Kristol is dead on as usual.

I interviewed voters coming out of a polling station in a heavily Democratic part of Sherman Oaks on Election Day. It was an assignment for a journalism class and it shocked me how many people actually wanted an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

Joe Six pack has absolutely no concept of the consequences that such a move would have. This is because Joe Six Pack doesn't read articles by Bill Kristol.

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LET THE LIBERALISM BEGIN

Politics is full of highs and lows. Around this time two years ago Republicans celebrated after successfully defending their President from constant, dishonest and unjustified attacks which the far left bellowed for four straight years without coming up for air. We won that election, and knowing what we now know about John Kerry it was probably a very good thing.


You can’t keep winning forever. The GOP lost last Tuesday after 12 years of almost uninterrupted electoral victories.

Unlike some political parties, we aren’t going to call the American people stupid for handing us a loss. We aren’t going to create fantasies of stolen elections.

Mike DeWine and Kenneth Blackwell lost big in Ohio despite the fact that all Diebold machines are rigged to give 100 votes to the GOP for every one vote cast by an African American.

No, we’re better than that. We’re good losers. And we lost.

After almost six years of one party government, the people have once again divided power among the parties. But will they get what they wanted from their new liberal congressional leadership? Probably not. Let’s examine.

First off, lets make it clear what the American people said a week ago. The message they sent was a clear rebuke of the President’s handling of the Iraq war and Congressional corruption and scandal.

It was not about the President’s domestic agenda or the economy.

Had the American people been upset about those things the GOP would have lost 50 seats in the House instead of 28. Of course despite this fact, newly elected Democrats like Missouri Senator-elect Claire McCaskill continued the class warfare, by promoting boneheaded economic policies like repealing tax-cuts for the top wage earners and putting it towards a tax cut for the middle class. Pretty talk, bad policy.

It’s also incredibly ironic that the day the folks decide to kick the GOP out on their rears was the same day the Dow Jones hit a record high.

By the way, the people did not vote for national health care Senator Clinton. Didn’t you learn anything the last time Congress changed hands.

Next up, Iraq.

After telling us for months leading up to election day that they did not want to “cut and run” Pelosi endorses the king of the “cut and runners” for the post of House Majority leader in John Murtha. So much for moderation.

This is borderline retarded.

If I were Nancy Pelosi, I would be constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure that Steny Hoyer wasn’t following me with a meat cleaver.

We should have known that feel good policy ideas like immediate troop withdrawals and timetables would be the first ones brought forward by the party, which has thus far put forth no sensible solution to our problems in Iraq. That’s just what Democrats do during war- time. But they should tread much more lightly if they want to hold on to their majority for more than two years and have a shot at taking back the White House in ’08.
They don’t yet appear to realize that Ned Lamont lost by 10-points on Election Day.

Within a week of their victory, the Democrats have mistaken the American people’s understandable displeasure with the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy, with an endorsement of the far-left’s anti-growth, anti-War on Terror agenda.

The Democrats who gave the party its new House Majority are mostly moderates. They are not in any way ideologically similar to the Democrats who make up the new House leadership.

These Democrats are now in the precarious position of having to explain to their constituents why the first two things they did when they got to Washington was to vote for a San Francisco liberal as Speaker of the House and give up in Iraq, two things that the American people don’t want.

The situation is similar in the Senate. Again, Jim Webb and John Tester are the two candidates who gave the Dems their Senate majority. They are fairly conservative guys and won by a very slim margin in both of their races. One death in a state with a Republican governor, one unhappy Democrat who decides to jump parties (I’m looking in your direction Senator Lieberman) and everything changes.

In the House, the GOP must detach itself from the leadership that blew it for them in the first place. There are plenty of good candidates out there, but new blood is the key. Hastert is already out and John Boehner should follow.

Same thing in the Senate. Bill Frist is gone as are Rick Santorum and George Allen, who would have been in line for leadership positions. The party needs a friendly center-right face. Sorry Mitch McConnell. Your'e just too grumpy.

Lamar Alexander would be an excellent choice on this front. The capable Kay Bailey Hutchinson or Liddy Dole would also be good choices, bringing a prominent female into the GOP leadership to help counter the media’s love affair with Ms. Pelosi.


President Bush has lost much of his power to push through legislation, but he pushed through most of the important stuff in his first term so it’s not that big of a deal.
He will have to make some concessions. Rumsfeld’s resignation was the first one, and a modest increase in the minimum wage is another mostly harmless compromise.

While he only has two years left, Bush can use the innate power of his office, as well as the fact that he is ideologically more in step with the electorate than The House leadership, to win battles on the federal budget and veto any tax increase that they manage to get to his desk.

As Clinton showed us in his battles with Congress in the mid-nineties, it is far easier for a president to appear moderate than it is for a 435-member body which must appeal to dozens and dozen of different factions to get anything done. Especially a Congress whose leadership is as far to the left as that of the 110th promises to be. Bush could benefit significantly from this.

Bush also has the power to finally be a real Republican and curb spending. If you thought the last congress loved to spend, wait until you see this one go. It would not surprise me the least bit if Democrats intentionally tried to run up the shrinking budget deficit in order to use it as a tool against Republican’s next time around. Remember, the President gets the blame for bad economic news. Especially a Republican President.

The dynamics of the presidential sweepstakes have also morphed significantly as a result of the election.

George Allen is done. John Kerry is even more done than he was after the ’04 cycle.

Hillary’s stock has risen dramatically among Democrats who owe her big for her help in winning a handful of House seats in New York, and for raising ungodly amounts of cash.
As long as she doesn’t fall into the health care trap again she should be fine.

She wont be anywhere near the Senate for the next two years. She will be in Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina, so she doesn’t have to worry about voting, taking positions or any of that messy stuff.

Speaking of senators with no positions. The Democrats have remained true to the principles of Affirmative Action, by continuing to gush over the possibility of Barack Obama running for President. His qualifications for being made the leader of the free world? He’s black and speaks in complete sentences.

Therefore I’m proposing that freshman Senator Jim DeMint consider running for the Presidency in ’08 as well.

Who? You ask.

Exactly. He’s white.



John McCain is the one who stands to gain the most from the GOP’s election debacle. He can now position himself as the one who can successfully lead the GOP out of the political wilderness. He can say that if nominated he would have coattails, and he would probably be right. Republicans want to win. If McCain can convince them that he is the only one capable of doing that, then conservatives may hold their noses and choose him over Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, the two men who appear to be emerging as the biggest obstacles to McCain’s presidential ambitions.

Despite all of the changes that have come to pass over the last week however, one thing has not changed. Bush is still the President. He still must do whatever he feels necessary in order to win The War on Terror, and should not be deterred on that front by the political posturing of the opposition party. A bad idea is a bad idea, even if supported by an electoral mandate.

I will leave you this week with an interesting observation made by Michael Barone, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite journalists. For a good quick read check out the Almanac of American Politics.



President Bill Clinton tried to create a natural majority for his party but fell short. George W. Bush attempted the same for his party but has also missed the mark. The 2002 and '04 Republican majorities were too small to withstand the winds of 2006.
For a dozen years, our politics has been bitterly polarized, dominated by two baby boomer presidents who happen to have personal characteristics that people on the other side of the cultural divide absolutely loathe. Clinton in 1992 and Bush in 2000 both made genuine efforts to run as unifiers, but once in office proved to be dividers.

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Panda Predictions

HOUSE : Dems + 19

SENATE: Dems + 3

MO: Talent (R)
The mobilization of GOP voters will make the difference here.

VA: Allen (R)
A repeat of the 1996 Warner vs Warner race. Don't be surprised if Webb leads early.

TN: Corker (R)
Ford meltdown. He should never of confronted Corker at that press conference.

MT: Burns (R)
Big Comeback. Kerry's comments will tip the balance in this red state.

PA: Casey (D)
This race has been over since last year.

RI: Whitehouse (D)
Keep an eye on this race. Some polls have Chafee closing the gap. One even has him ahead.

OH: Brown (D)
The problems with the Ohio GOP are going to cost that state a great Senator in Mike Dewine

MD: Cardin (D)
Could be an upset, but Maryland will reject two excellent GOP candidates in Steele and Governor Erlich in favor of liberal tradition.

NJ: Menendez (D)
If Satan rose from the bowels of the earth and ran as a Democrat in New Jersey he would still win by 10-points

AZ: Kyl (R)
National trends will not be enough to oust Arizona's other Senator.

CT: Leiberman (I)
He's going to owe the GOP big time.


Keep checking back. This could change.

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LETTERMAN AND KERRY EXPOSE THE LEFT'S TRUE FACE

And here we are. This week Republicans and Conservatives will have to come to grips with the fact that Democrats will most likely gain control of The House of Representatives and probably the Senate as well.

The majority of the mainstream media is aiding, abetting and cheering those Democrats, on, in a fashion which has never been seen before during a mid-term election, with stories on the big three networks, CNN and most of the print press that keep with tradition and run negative towards the GOP and positive towards Democrats at a rate of about 5 to 1.

http://www.mrc.org/realitycheck/2006/fax20061031.asp

While Democrats will likely have much to cheer about on election night, the last few weeks of this election cycle have exposed a great deal in regards to the psyche of those who are rooting for a Democratic takeover as well as those lawmakers who will benefit from a Democratic majority.

In the last month Bill O’Reilly has been hawking his latest book “Culture Warrior” all over the place, including shows on which the hosts are well-documented left-wingers, or “secular-progressives” as Bill would say.

This says a lot about O’Reilly in that he is not afraid to be challenged and that he can back up his points without being made a fool of by a hostile host or a anti-O’Reilly audience. This is perhaps why O’Reilly is the most powerful individual in the news media today.

On two of these shows, “The View” and “The Late Show With David Letterman” O’Reilly did very well. He stood his ground. When challenged with snide remarks or sweeping generalizations, he hit back with facts. Many believe he also out-funnied a visibly angry David Letterman.

The most telling moment however, happened on both shows and exposed a common trait among this nation’s liberals.

Bill O’Reilly asked both Rosie O’Donnell and David Letterman a very simple question which both talk show hosts either could not or would not answer. The question: Do you want the United States to win in Iraq?

To his credit Wolf Blitzer answered it immediately when asked the same question by Lynne Cheney who rightfully confronted the CNN host on his network's recent showings of political bias.

“The answer, of course, is we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There’s no doubt about that. You think we want terrorists to win?” Replied Blitzer. Of course if he had answered in anything other than the affirmative he probably would have lost his job.

Rosie and Dave however are not held to the same standard as Wolf Blitzer. They are a part of Hollywood’s inner-circle of leftists and their views are shared by many Bush–haters, left wing bloggers and my guess is, many who will hold leadership positions in a Democratic congress.

They want the U.S. to lose in Iraq.

Their hatred of The President is so great, their desire to say “I told you so” to justify their initial opposition to the war, so strong, that they actually want to see us be forced to prematurely pull out of Iraq, making the situation in the Middle East even worse than it is now.

We give a lot of wiggle room to American citizens who genuinely hate this country or who think that we are the bad guys and that the terrorists are justified in their actions.

But, if you want us to lose the war in Iraq, regardless of where you stand on the issue or where you stood when the initial debate took place in 2002 and 2003, then you are a bad American. That’s right, I said it. You’re unpatriotic.

So what to make of Senator John Kerry’s recent comments?

Let’s be clear. Kerry was talking about the troops, not the President.

Kerry claims that the whole incident was simply a botched joke, but this is very hard to swallow given the Senator’s history of undermining our troops in the field from his ivory tower.

Kerry’s anti-military leanings have come out on several occasions, dating all the way back to the Vietnam era, when he stabbed his fellow soldiers in the back by accusing them of atrocities which he said were reminiscent of a fellow whose name sounded kind of like Genghis Khan when pronounced by Kerry. This gave birth to the “Swift Boat Vets” who told America that they hadn’t seen any of this when they were with Kerry in Southeast Asia.

After his electoral loss in 2004, he accused our troops of terrorizing innocent women and children while once again giving no evidence to back up his claims.

Now it comes out that in ’72 he believed that a volunteer army would consist of the "...poor, black and brown." This has not turned out to be the case with our current army, but apparently no one bothered to tell Kerry that.

Now he expects us to believe that the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding, and that he was simply trying to make another joke about how stupid the president is.

Now forget for a moment how tasteless it is for a sitting Senator to joke of the Commander In Chief's stupidty during war time. Remember, Democrat's abandoned any kind of civil political discourse long ago.

So let’s assume that Kerry just badly botched a very unfunny, very unoriginal joke, and that he was referring to the President having not gotten a good education and because of this, he got us stuck in Iraq.


If this is the case then Kerry could have just as easily been talking about himself.

Kerry’s grades at Yale were just as bad, if not worse than the Presidents. In addition to this he voted for the war……before he voted against it, of course.

So either way, Kerry’s statement was boneheaded as all Hell.
But, even given Kerry’s proclivity to make boneheaded remarks around election time, I believe that in this case he meant what he said and said what he believes.

It was a poorly thought out statement, in front of one of the far-left’s greatest constituencies –college kids- in which his elitist, holier than thou attitude was on full display, and in which he expressed his true anti-military feelings.

I have never thought very highly of John Kerry as a person, regardless of his ideological leanings. I also saw no need for Kerry to give an apology, which he finally did yesterday after two days of painful explanations as to how he was misunderstood.

His recent remarks, his past remarks and his voting record are an accurate indicator of how Kerry views the American military, so by all means he should do what we elect our officials to do and tell us what he really thinks. John McCain calls it "straight talk".

Kerry is now the deserving poster child, but these sentiments are not simply a Kerry problem, or a Letterman problem, or a Rosie problem. They are a Democratic problem.

It’s a loathing of the American military and the men and women who serve in it. It is the view expressed at cocktail parties on the upper-west side of Manhattan and in Hollywood, that our troops are brainless dupes. Helpless pawns in a military which is not a force for good in the world, but rather the cause of many of the worlds problems.

This view has been expressed by Democrats such as Bill Clinton Ted Kennedy and Dick Durbin and my guess is that it is shared by Liberals such as Pelosi, Dean, Rangel and many others who want to lead the next congress. Is that what you want?

Even if you're one of those independents who hates Bush, and who believes the smear merchants who accuse him of everything from lying about Iraq to being behind the September 11 attacks, can you really stand for a party that genuinely looks down on the men and women who bravely serve in our military?

Is that better, than the admittedly flawed leadership that we have now?

I think not.

But its out of my hands at this point.

So I'm begging all of you. On Election Day, keep John Kerry in the minority. If you do this Rosie O'Donnell's head will explode and when that happens, everybody wins.

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