As commenter kdeweb said, "This is HI-larious."
Kerry tried to shake some Marines' hands...

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And I love the caption Duane put on the photo!

Posted by: Sarah at 09:06 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Amritas pointed me to a Nelson Ascher post that I wish I'd seen yesterday.

All this to say that hearing day after day, reading hour after hour, watching minute after minute for months and months all the liberal media, that is, basically all the media telling me that Kerry will win, that Bush doesnÂ’t have a chance is not only exhausting. ItÂ’s just natural that for a couple of minutes or even hours a week my rational defenses will be taking some rest, and if this happens repeatedly, the message about the inevitability of a Kerry victory will begin to grow roots in my brain. And this makes me afraid because I know weÂ’re watching the most complete, worldwide, continuous media effort ever to influence an election. What the world media is doing is the most aggressive, savage campaign of carpet-bombing in human history.

I've succumbed to the carpet-bombing. Many people I know and bloggers I read have also succumbed. We're weary and dejected. I talked to a Soldier who just yesterday -- just yesterday -- found out that Kerry attended anti-war rallies after he came home from Vietnam. Just. Yesterday. The brainwashing the media has done is incredible, and it absolutely makes me want to cry.

My laser beam is in trouble. So is Ascher's, it seems. Nelson, we have to stay strong. We have to refocus. We have to Forget the Idiots Today, like you encouraged me to do on 9-11-03:

I also know I should avoid reading much today, because many, probably most things that are and will be published will make me even angrier. And the problem is not that I don't want to be angrier: I do want. The problem is that I do not want to waste a miligram of my anger on all the idiots who have been getting ready to show us how idiotic they are. We're at a point where to be too angry at, say, Chomsky and the BBC, Old Europe and ANSWER, second and third rate entertainers and academics is to give them a kind of victory. They deserve disdain. Anger needs to remain concentrated like light in a laser beam, we must direct it toward its rightful target: Islamofascism first and foremost. If we spend too much time getting mad at those who are but idiots we run the risk of forgetting, even if only for a second, that it is the Muslim/Arab religious fanatics who are the ENEMY. In a way, that's the idiots' main weapon: to attract a wrath that could be more usefully directed to the really dangerous enemies. Whenever we're not thinking about the Jihadists we are losing some very precious time. And anger.

We need to stay strong. I have so much anger for the media these days that it's starting to cloud my resolve. I need to refocus. That Soldier who just yesterday learned of Kerry's anti-war past got a list of links to follow. He's open to the truth, and he'll find it eventually. And maybe he'll tell a friend.

Posted by: Sarah at 10:13 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment
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Many thanks to Bunker for pointing me in the direction of The Case for George W. Bush. I do not understand the gut feelings of distaste that many have for President Bush, for when I look at him I see a man who is sincere and down to earth. But despite Junod's revulsion, he manages to look past the ad hominem. The part that gave me chills:

In 1861, Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and historians today applaud the restraint he displayed in throwing thousands of American citizens in jail. By the middle of 2002, George W. Bush had declared two American citizens enemy combatants, and both men are still in jail at this writing, uncharged. Both presidents used war as a rationale for their actions, citing as their primary constitutional responsibility the protection of the American people. It was not until two years later that Congress took up Lincoln's action and pronounced it constitutionally justified. Our willingness to extend Bush the same latitude will depend on our perception of what exactly we're up against, post-9/11. Lincoln was fighting for the very soul of this country; he was fighting to preserve this country, as a country, and so he had to challenge the Constitution in order to save it. Bush seems to think that he's fighting for the very soul of this country, but that's exactly what many people regard as a dangerous presumption. He seems to think that he is fighting for our very survival, when all we're asking him to fight for is our security, which is a very different thing. A fight for our security? We can handle that; it means we have to get to the airport early. A fight for our survival? That means we have to live in a different country altogether. That means the United States is changing and will continue to change, the way it did during and after the Civil War, with a fundamental redefinition of executive authority.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:46 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The other night I talked to a group of NRA-belonging, terrorist-hating Soldiers who do not plan to vote for President Bush, and I lost all the wind from my sails. If they're not voting for President Bush, the die-hard capitalist right-wingers from Oklahoma, then who will? This week I've begun to ready myself for a Bush defeat, just to be emotionally prepared. To be honest, I'm disappointed that I'm not more optimistic, but I just see so many factors working against President Bush.

The president plays a major role in my life. Whoever he is, he will be my husband's commander-in-chief and will determine a lot about our life over the next four years. And he will be due the respect that his title deserves. As MAJ Winters said in Band of Brothers, "We salute the rank, not the man."

I therefore take Dean Esmay's pledge:

Now here is my interesting question: I've made myself some friends among conservatives by speaking this way. But I do find myself wondering: how many of you on the right will embrace such a philosophy if John Kerry should carry the election in November?

I don't want to hear why you think it won't happen. Indulge me: pretend it might. How many of you will have the patriotism to say, "I disagree with many of his policy directions, I do not think he is conducting our foreign policy in the right way, but I will do my best to get behind him and support him until elections come around next time?"

I'm genuinely curious. For that is the stance I intend to take. I will refuse to call him traitor, loser, liar, incompetent. He will be my President, my Commander In Chief, the Chief Executive of a great nation, elected by the will of a majority of the electors in these 50 great united States. So even if he does things I disagree with in conducting foreign policy, I will say, "I respectfully disagree with the President's directions, but I will do my best to express my dissent respectfully and hope that I am mistaken and that he has made the proper decisions after all."

That's my pledge. How many of you will take a similar one?

I will make that pledge, as I have already pledged before. But I also echo Bunker's dismay:

As long as Kerry, if elected, acts like a President I will support him as one. Too bad Dubya wasn't given that opportunity.

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And it's a good thing I found out about this Vietnam video before he became president, so there's still time to laugh at what a douche he is! Seriously, it's been three hours and I'm still giggling.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:55 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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(via LGF) I wish all those people who spent eight bucks and two hours on Fahrenheit 9/11 would spend 12 minutes watching the Kerry On Iraq Documentary. I heard one person say that Moore's movie made President Bush look incompetent; well, Republicans can put together a series of clips that makes Kerry look just as bad.

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Apparently Kerry already put together his own movie, which makes him sound like a complete tool. I can only imagine what my husband would say if I asked him what he'd think of a soldier reenacting glory scenes for film. Cripes.

(My brother and I used to make fake documentaries about him as a basketball player, with me as the announcer and interviewer. That seems really dorky to me now, and we were 9 and 7 when we did it. I can't believe Kerry was doing these things when he was an adult.)

Posted by: Sarah at 03:49 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I can't find a script online, but this morning I caught a few minutes of Al Sharpton's speech at the DNC. He was talking about how he hopes people have learned this year that anyone can rise up from welfare or a broken home to run for President of the United States, and the crowd went wild.

How much money does John Kerry have again?

Posted by: Sarah at 03:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I consider Den Beste to be one of the keenest thinkers out there, so when he writes so confidently about the Bush campaign, it really boosts my spirits. This election is not only the first one I've followed closely, but it has a direct effect on my life. The president is my husband's boss, and whoever is elected will determine what my husband does for the next four years. With President Bush, I see continued efforts in Iraq, and Iran on the horizon. It certainly won't be an easy four years, but at least I know where we stand. With Kerry, I don't know what I see; I think he'd leave the troops in Iraq, but for how long? I see my husband roped into doing more of the UN's work around the world, being sent on "peacekeeping missions" if Kerry is president. That means instead of the fear of being killed by an insurgent, we can worry that he might get killed by one of his own teammates...

Wives around here seem to be more and more anxious to talk about the election; I keep finding myself roped into conversations with people who somehow think that if Kerry is elected, their husbands will come home from Iraq on Nov 3. If only it were that simple. I sorta fear the military wife vote this year, because so many of them will be voting with their hearts, hoping that a vote for Kerry is a vote for an exit strategy. I think they'll be sorely mistaken and disappointed with the result.

I hope Den Beste is right and the Bush campaign has a suckerpunch coming. I see a lot of ammo piling up that should be used (i.e. Sandy Berger, Joseph Wilson), so I hope President Bush really is waiting for the masterstroke. I don't want this election to be as close as I fear it's going to be.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:56 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Tony Blair is cool.

"No one lied. No one made up the intelligence. No one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services. Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty. That issue of good faith should now be at an end ... But I have to accept, as the months have passed, it seems increasingly clear that at the time of invasion, Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons ready to deploy ... I have searched my conscience, not in the spirit of obstinacy, but in genuine reconsideration in the light of what we now know, in answer to that question. And my answer would be that the evidence of Saddam's WMD was indeed less certain, less well-founded than was stated at the time. But I cannot go from there to the opposite extreme. On any basis he retained complete strategic intent on WMD and significant capability. The only reason he ever let the inspectors back into Iraq was that he had 180,000 US and British troops on his doorstep ... Had we backed down in respect of Saddam, we would never have taken the stand we needed to take on WMD, never have got progress on Libya ... and we would have left Saddam in charge of Iraq, with every malign intent and capability still in place and every dictator with the same intent everywhere immeasurably emboldened. For any mistakes made, as the report finds, in good faith, I of course take full responsibility. But I cannot honestly say I believe getting rid of Saddam was a mistake at all."

(via Andrew Sullivan)

Posted by: Sarah at 04:57 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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A 12-yr-old girl wrote a letter to the editor urging Americans to stand behind the President. She said that she doesn't agree with everything he's done, but he's our elected leader and we should give him the respect he's due and try to put ourselves in his shoes.

Smart kid.

Someone today decided to respond to the girl's letter (scroll to the second entry), beating the dead horse of Not Elected once again. This letter concludes with an absolutely ludacrous paragraph:

For the soldiers who are being shot at in Iraq, for freedom-loving citizens who see our country being turned into a police state, and for the 99 percent of us who haven’t benefited from Bush’s “tax relief” for billionaires, the best remedy is to relieve him of that stress, and his duties, on Nov. 2.

You go, man! Tell that 12 year old!

My husband's best friend said the other day that he's pretty much given up even reading the Stars and Stripes because of all the negative letters to the editor. That's a real shame.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:07 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Sometimes I wonder how I would be voting if there weren't a war on. I much prefer President Bush's personality to John Kerry's, but if 9/11 had never happened, might I vote differently? I have sometimes wondered about that hypothetical, until I read the MSNBC Bush vs. Kerry At a Glance. I have nothing on this list in common with John Kerry.

MORE TO GROK:

Forty Reasons to Vote for George Bush

Posted by: Sarah at 03:37 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Happy Birthday, President Bush!

Posted by: Sarah at 09:07 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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