"Let's Not Duck the Issue: Trading Rhetoric for Substance"

Lege.

Et vide et vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 04/22/04 05:46:29 PM
Categorized as Political & Religious.

The Leafing of the Trees

One of my favorite times of the year — it lasts only a couple of weeks — is the time of the leafing of the trees, when the leaves first come out showing the colors they will wear again in the Fall. This year, it's happening around here right now. Here are a couple of photos I took in 1998 that capture the look.

See also The View from the Core - Poetry 03/25/02 and The View from the Core - Image 03/25/02.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 04/22/04 05:27:39 PM
Categorized as Other & Photos.

"God Made Us For Something Better"

Denver's archbishop Charles Chaput continues writing about Catholics in public life, taking dead aim at John Kerry:

.... Vatican II can never be invoked as an alibi for Catholics ignoring grave public evil or failing to act on their faith in the political sphere. That's a distortion of the council's message. It also misreads the U.S. Constitution. America's Founding Fathers did not say, and never intended, that religious faith should be excluded from civic debate. They intended one thing only: to prevent the establishment of an official state church. A purely secular interpretation of the "separation of church and state" would actually result in the "separation of state and morality." And that would be a catastrophe for real pluralism and the democratic process.

If we're sincere about our faith, "conscience" can never be used as an excuse for dismissing what the Church teaches by pointing to her theological critics, voter surveys or public opinion polls, and then doing what we find more convenient. That's dishonest. And God made us for something better than that.

See also "How to Tell a Duck From a Fox".

(Thanks, Steve.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 04/22/04 08:27:03 AM
Categorized as Political & Religious.

"How Bush Caused 9/11"

Another very sensible article by Orson Scott Card at The Ornery American, Apr. 11:

For the past two years, I could have sworn it was a bunch of fanatical Muslims under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden that hijacked four planes and crashed three of them into American buildings.

But now I learn that these events were actually caused by George W. Bush. I know this because I've heard noble patriots like Richard Clarke come forward and blame him for it.

It's time for a few doses of reality....

When George W. Bush and his national security team took office, they immediately began to make preparations to eliminate the threat of terrorism, instead of just slapping bandaids on the wounds.

They recognized that Saddam posed a continual threat, to his neighbors and to his own people. Something would have to be done about Iraq — they were firing on or targeting our planes several times a week, and thanks to greedy "allies" like France and Germany and "friends" like Russia, the so-called sanctions were giving Saddam plenty of money to keep his hideous regime alive.

Likewise, they knew that the Taliban in Afghanistan was harboring Al Qaeda; that Pakistan was also helping the Al-Qaeda cause; that Iran and Syria were actively funding and training anti-Western and anti-Israeli terrorists and sheltering them from international police efforts; and that other nations like Sudan, Libya, and Yemen were playing footsie with the terrorists and getting away with everything they thought they could.

The trouble was, war is not just a military action, it's a political one as well. There was no way, prior to 9/11, that the Bush administration could have got Congressional support for a preemptive attack on Afghanistan.

And Iraq always required exactly the solution that we have been imposing for the past year. This is why President Bush's father did not take out Saddam when he had the chance back in 1991: without Saddam's repressive regime, every would-be dictator in Iraq would have made his play for the top spot then, just as they're doing now.

So we couldn't get rid of Saddam until we had the national will to stick with the job until a strong government with popular support could fill the power vacuum.

It is not a "failure" of our policy that Iraq is suffering from attempted rebellions — the best hope for Iraq's future is for these warlords to make their play while our troops are still there to slap them down and clean them out.

Likewise, it's not a "failure" of our policy that now, absent the Taliban, opium production in Afghanistan is twenty times higher than it was under the Taliban. That sort of thing always happens in times of uncertainty and transition.

The question is never between a choice that is all good and a choice that is all bad. Every good choice has bad consequences, too, and every bad choice was made because it seemed to offer benefits.

Even though the Bush administration understood that the only way to eliminate terrorism was to transform the governments that sponsored it, they could not take action until they could marshal the political will.

In other words, the only way of preventing something like 9/11 was not possible, politically, until after something like 9/11 had galvanized the public into supporting drastic action....

RTWT.

The question is never between a choice that is all good and a choice that is all bad. Every good choice has bad consequences, too, and every bad choice was made because it seemed to offer benefits. Good heavens, Faithful Reader: what kind of world do we live in when it is actually necessary to come out and say something like that? And it is necessary. It really is.

See also "Humpty Dumpty Logic" and "The Campaign of Hate and Fear".

(Thanks, Charles.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 04/22/04 06:51:24 AM
Categorized as Political.

Kerry Forthcoming With Vietnam Records: Or Is He?

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXVI

The Boston Globe reports, Apr. 20:

The day after John F. Kerry said he would make all of his military records available for inspection at his campaign headquarters, a spokesman said the senator would not release any new documents, leaving undisclosed many of Kerry's evaluations by his Navy commanding officers, some medical records, and possibly other material.

Kerry, in an interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press," was asked whether he would follow President Bush's example and release all of his military records. "I have," Kerry said. "I've shown them — they're available for you to come and look at." He added that "people can come and see them at headquarters."

But when a reporter showed up yesterday morning to review the documents, the campaign staff declined, saying all requests must go through the press spokesman, Michael Meehan. Late yesterday, Meehan said the only records available would be those already released to this newspaper.

"He is releasing all military records he has released to The Boston Globe," Meehan said in a telephone interview. In a follow-up e-mail, Meehan said it was those particular records to which Kerry was referring on "Meet the Press."

Kerry has not released the formal evaluations from superior officers, although his campaign has given a letter from a commanding officer that recommended him for service aboard Navy patrol boats and also reports for the Silver and Bronze stars that laud Kerry's actions in combat. By comparison, retired Army General Wesley K. Clark released hundreds of pages of his records during the Democratic primary campaign, including all evaluations of him by his superiors.

Bush earlier this year released 300 pages of documents after media outlets raised new questions about the extent of his National Guard service. Those records, which Bush promised during a Feb. 8 appearance on "Meet the Press" to make available, included many military evaluations and medical records....

Here's the transcript (embedded ellipsis in original):

.... MR. RUSSERT: The Boston Globe reports that your commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Grant Hibberd has suggested that you perhaps didn't earn your first Purple Heart and question whether you should have left Vietnam after six months. In order to deal with those kinds of issues, when I asked President Bush about his service in the Texas Guard, he agreed to release all his military records, health records, everything. Would you agree to release all your military records?

SEN. KERRY: I have. I've shown them — they're available to you to come and look at. I think that's a very unfair characterization by that person. I mean, politics is politics. The medical records show that I had shrapnel removed from my arm. We were in combat. We were in a very, very — probably one of the most frightening — if you ask anybody who was with me, the two guys who were with me, was probably the most frightening night that they had that they were in Vietnam and we're...

MR. RUSSERT: But you'll make all your records public.

SEN. KERRY: They are. People can come and see them at headquarters and take a look at them. I'm not going to--but I'll tell you this. I'm proud of my service. I'm proud of what we did. I know what happened. And the Navy 35 years ago made a decision and it's the Navy's decision and I think it was the right decision....

Reuters reports, yesterday, that Republicans jumped on the issue:

Opening a new campaign front, President Bush's Republican Party on Tuesday called on Democrat John Kerry to release his Vietnam-era military records.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie made the demand after the Boston Globe reported the Kerry campaign was refusing to give up more of Kerry's military records even though he had promised to do so on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

Kerry has cited his military service during the Vietnam war as a major reason why he has the strength and fortitude to serve as president.

Kerry, a Massachusetts senator and the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, became a leader of the anti-war movement after returning from Vietnam where he was decorated with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. He served in the Navy from 1966 to 1970.

Bush surrendered his National Guard files from the Vietnam war period in February to try to stamp out election-year charges from Democrats that he shirked his duty....

BG follows up yesterday:

After a day of heated criticism from Republican Party officials, the campaign of Senator John F. Kerry yesterday switched course and said it would release more of Kerry's military records.

An initial distribution of 13 pages to the Associated Press last night did not include any previously unavailable documents. A campaign official said in a press release that more records would be posted online by today....

Yesterday, Republican officials blasted Kerry as failing to live up to what they considered to be his promise to release all military and medical records. The Republican Party chairman, Ed Gillespie, mocked Kerry's refusal to release all records, saying, "Guess it depends on what your definition of the word 'all' is."

Late yesterday, after Kerry's stance and the Republican taunts became the subject of numerous media reports, the campaign announced that it would release more records than it had given to the Globe, but it did not say what additional records would be made available....

Note, especially, the weasel words with which the article concludes:

In the interview on CNN, correspondent Judy Woodruff asked Shaheen whether Kerry would release "all of the material, evaluations by his commanding officers? All of his medical records?"

"Our intent is to make all of those records available," Shaheen responded. "Most of them are — they're all available on the website that we have today."

When Woodruff asked whether "everything [is] going to be put out," Shaheen said, "we intend to put out everything that we have."

They "intend" to put out everything they "have"?

Honestly, Faithful Reader, I am astounded that this issue has received as much attention as it has. I thought all of mainstream media would look away and act as if Russert and Kerry had never talked about it. So, what's up?

I think the Democratic Establishment was very upset that hound-dog reporters got everything about Bush's ANG service out into the open by February: I'm sure they would rather have saved all the ginned-up controversy until October. Conversely, I think they'd rather get any controversy about Kerry's record out into the open long before October.

Or, they really, really don't like the guy.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 04/22/04 06:24:38 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & John Kerry.