Michele says it all.
Note to Karl Rove: use this in an ad. Nothing speaks more powerfully about the self-centered idiocy of the Democrats than this.
Why The Democrats Are Clueless On National Security
Published
Michele says it all.
Note to Karl Rove: use this in an ad. Nothing speaks more powerfully about the self-centered idiocy of the Democrats than this.
Not only does this quote reveal how clueless the Dems are on national security, it also reveals how they have put political ambition above national security.
The Democrats really have been reckless with our security, and deserve to be punished at the ballot box. Let’s all make it happen.
Ann Coulter said that liberals are a bigger threat to America than Islamic terrorists. If Ted Kennedy’s comments reflect the singular Democratic Party worldview as both of you infer, then Coulter must represent the singular Republican Party worldview, right?
Except for the part while Coulter doesn’t represent the majority view of the Republican Party while Kennedy clearly does represent the worldview of the Democrats. Given that every poll shows Democrats consistantly rate terrorism as a lesser priority than beating Bush, considering that Democrats have embraced Michael Moore and MoveOn.org, and given the composition of delegates to the Democratic Convention and their views on the war, it’s clear that Kennedy was speaking for the majority of Democrats.
Not to mention that the whole argument is an tu quoque argument. The existance of Ann Coulter does not in any way make Kennedy’s argument any less stupid. Last time I checked, Ann Coulter isn’t being invited to speak at the RNC Convention in New York…
Mark: One huge difference between Coulter and Kennedy:
Coulter is nothing more than a private citizen expressing her opinions…granted, she gets paid for expressing those opinions, but she is still just one person with her own opinions…she holds no elected office, and has no official position within the Republican party.
Ted Kennedy, on the other hand, is not only an elected Senator in the Democratic party, he is regarded as a leader of the Democratic party, he is given a prime time speaking slot at the Democratic convention, he is honored at the Democratic convention, he is often used as a spokesperson for the Democratic party, he is one of the main advisors to the Kerry campaign, and many of Kennedy’s staff are now working for Kerry. In short, Kennedy has enormous influence on the Democratic party, and on Kerry in particular.
It is quite misleading to compare Coulter with Kennedy. Kennedy is a legitimate source of influence inside the Democratic party; Coulter holds no such claim within the Republican party.
Jay, Ann Coulter considers liberals more dangerous than Islamic terrorists and Ted Kennedy considers George Bush more dangerous than Islamic terrorists. Your hypothesis that Ted Kennedy is more representative of the Democratic Party than Coulter is of the Republican Party is merely amateurish partisan speculation. During the Homeland Security debate two years ago, the majority of Republicans argued that union workers with collective bargaining rights were more dangerous to America than terrorism, I would say the GOP is at least as likely as the Dems to view their domestic political opponents as being the “real enemy”.
Ted Kennedy is John Kerry’s mentor, confidante, advisor, coach, and head cheerleader. Ted Kennedy has held Kerry’s hand for his entire career in the Senate.
Let’s face it…a Kerry presidency would be the closest that Ted Kennedy ever could get to actually being president himself. In many ways it would be a shadow Ted Kennedy presidency. If we thought it was bad having Hillary as a “co-president”…it would be far more awful with Teddy as such a “co-president.”
In fact, I’d say yet one more reason to vote down Kerry is due to this fact: a Kerry presidency would bear a very close resemblance to a Ted Kennedy presidency, in large part because Teddy would be pulling the strings.
Mark writes that “Your hypothesis that Ted Kennedy is more representative of the Democratic Party than Coulter is of the Republican Party is merely amateurish partisan speculation.”
No, Mark, it’s not speculation…it’s fact…consider the facts mentioned above: Ted Kennedy holds many official positions of influence within the Democratic party, and clearly has close ties to their nominee, Kerry.
There is no comparison; Coulter is a private citizen who works as a commentator; Kennedy is one of the main voices of the Democratic party and has been for years.
As Jay pointed out, this difference is symbolized in the fact that while Ted Kennedy gets a prime time slot at the DNC Convention, Coulter will not get any position at the RNC Convention.
So, Mark, your assertion that this is “speculation” is absurd.
Mark writes “During the Homeland Security debate two years ago, the majority of Republicans argued that union workers with collective bargaining rights were more dangerous to America than terrorism…”
Wow, you really had to contort the facts to try to rescue your argument, now that we’ve punctured your Coulter response.
Mark, you try to rewrite history with your assertion regarding the Homeland Security bill. It was the Democratic party who put collective bargaining rights above homeland security…and apparently, large numbers of Americans agreed and that is why the Dems lost so badly in the elections of 2002.
Kennedy “holds many official positions of infuence within the Democratic Party”? And here I thought he was a lone Senator from Massachusetts who was neither the Senate Minority Leader or the Minority Whip. Kennedy holds about as much power in the Democratic Party today as Jesse Helms had in the Republicans two years ago. While not a sitting member of the Republican Party, Coulter has far more influence on the Republican rank-and-file than Kennedy has on the Dems rank-and-file.
As for Kennedy’s “prime time slot”, even Barrack Obama and Teresa Heinz Kerry failed to make “prime time” outside of cable news networks. After all, for the networks to live up to their broadcast responsibility would mean pre-empting “Big Brother 5”. Obviously that’s out the question! With the GOP convention interfering with the networks unveiling their fall lineups, I wouldn’t be surprised if your guys got an even smaller profile.
You are correct about 2002. The patriot police were victorious in pistol-whipping dissent into submission. It will take a decisive victory in 2004 to validate the public’s “agreement” over Republican wartime policy..and the early indicators are not looking favorable for you.
Mark: You just won’t accept the fact that your Kennedy-Coulter comparison is totally invalid.
Kennedy is not just a typical Senator, although that alone would mean he carries more official status within the Dem party than Coulter does within the Republican party.
Kennedy is one of the most influential US Senators, as anyone in DC will tell you. He also hails from a very well known and well connected political family. He also is a main advisor to Kerry, and many members of Kerry’s staff are direct imports from Kennedy’s staff. In fact, Kerry’s campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, was previous to that Kennedy’s chief of staff. Another Kennedy favorite, Bob Shrum, is one of Kerry’s main speechwriters.
In short, one sees the hand of Ted Kennedy all over Kerry’s campaign, just as we have seen that same hand all over Kerry’s senatorial career.
Your assertion that “While not a sitting member of the Republican Party, Coulter has far more influence on the Republican rank-and-file than Kennedy has on the Dems rank-and-file” is what is sheer speculation on your part.
It’s interesting that you take the typical liberal view of what happened in 2002: not a fault of your message or your candidates, but simply the stupid ol’ public being duped by those evil Republicans.
Bottom line: Ted Kennedy is the puppet master of presidential wannabee John Kerry. One should pay very close attention to what Ted says, because that is probably an accurate reading of what a Kerry presidency would bring.
Another Thought, are you saying that an elected official automatically wields more power on a party’s rank and file than does any unelected mouthpiece? Would you thus argue that Rush Limbaugh has less influence on Republicans as Zell Miller has on Democrats? If not Miller, how about Ron Wyden? Or Debbie Stabenow? Are all these low-profile and/or dissenting Democratic Senators more influential on their party’s collective constituency than is any revered national mouthpiece on the right who happens to be a private citizen? Does this extend to House members as well? How about state legislators? Does Minnesota District 27 Senator Dan Sparks have more influence over the national Democratic constituency than does George Will over the Republicans merely because Sparks was elected to public service while Will is a private citizen?
At what point is the line drawn? It’s absurd to suggest that Ted Kennedy controls the Democratic Party in the year 2004. He’s a nostalgic figure that rallies the base, but alienates the swing voters….just like Jesse Helms was for years with the Republicans. I suppose it’s fair to say that Kennedy will have a certain level of influence on John Kerry since they’re from the same state, but that still doesn’t qualify Kennedy as a representative sample of one speaking the Democratic platform when he asserts that “the only thing we have to fear is four more years of George Bush” as Jay suggests.
As for my assertion about the “stupid public” of 2002, it’s no different than conservatives on this board ridiculing the intellect of the millions of moviegoers who’ve made Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” one of the most successful movies of the year.
Mark: your spin is amazing.
Here’s logic 101: for me to assert that one elected official has more influence on a party and is more representative of that party than one media personality does not mean that I assert that all elected officials are in a similar situation.
But it’s interesting that you downplay Teddy’s influence just at the time when the DNC convention is honoring him. It’s amazing that the Dem party doesn’t seem to agree with you.
Plus, the argument really is about who is most representative of their party…and clearly, Ted Kennedy is a much more legitimate representative of the Dem party than Coulter is for the Republicans. And no doubt that Kennedy has far more influence on the Dem nominee for President than the Republican nominee. Again, you try to soft-peddle that.
As for your theory of the “stupid public” in 2002 vs. what conservatives have said about the people who view Moore’s F911…again, a false analogy. The group of people you denigrate represented a majority of voters in 2002…a far greater number than those who have seen F911 (especially taking into account repeat viewers). Also, most conservative commentary on F911 has concentrated on shredding Michael Moore and his lies…a far bigger (no pun intended) and more ripe target than the audience who views the movie.
But I’ve noticed a trend in your arguments, Mark. Whenever someone makes a point of criticism about a Democrat or some other representative of liberalism, your response is simply to accuse others of doing the same. That is not really a logical argument, as Jay points out.
There is no doubt that what Teddy Kennedy said last night must trouble even you, Mark, because I notice you don’t defend his statement but instead seek to distance the Dem party from it. But that is hard to do when Kennedy has such a prominent role in the convention, in the party, and in the Kerry campaign.
Correx from above:
“And no doubt that Kennedy has far more influence on the Dem nominee for President than the Republican nominee.”
should be
“And no doubt that Kennedy has far more influence on the Dem nominee for President than Coulter does on the Republican nominee.”
Mark is once again trying to confuse the issue.
It’s a prima facie case – Kennedy was selected to represent the DNC while Coulter was not selected by the RNC. End of story. Arguing that somehow being invited to speak at the national convention isn’t an endorsement is simply disingenous.
This DNC Convention only makes it more apparent how far left the Dem party has veered.
They have Teddy Kennedy as their guest of honor, Michael Moore is the buzz of the place and even gets seated in the presidential box next to an ex-President, and their nominee is the most liberal member of the US Senate.
Another Thought, I agree with the nature of Ted Kennedy’s comment to an extent. As I’ve stated before, the policies of George W. Bush are more likely to ruin a greater number of people than are just about any attacks Islamic terrorists can devise. I don’t necessarily agree that four more years of Dubya is the “only thing we have to fear” which was merely a symbollic slogan. Obviously, we have good reason to fear Islamic terrorism regardless of who is President, but like Kennedy, I fear Bush more.
Now….just because I agree with Kennedy that Bush is more dangerous to Americans than Islamic terrorists doesn’t mean most Democrats do. It’d be interesting to see a poll of Democrats to see what percentage agree with Kennedy’s comment. Something tells me the poll results would shoot holes through your theory that Ted Kennedy is the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party is Ted Kennedy…..just as I don’t believe most Republicans would agree with Ann Coulter that liberals are a greater threat to America than terrorists.
As for F-9/11, Jay and Spoons both degraded Americans’ collective intelligence the weekend after the film made $23 million in only 900 theaters. Is this numerically comparable to my speculation of “stupid voters” being duped by the Republican patriot police in 2002? Actually, it’s probably not that far off. The voter turnout in 2002 was somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% (feel free to show me official turnout numbers if these are in error) and barely half of the 30% of Americans who voted cast ballots in favor of Republicans. Only in your mind could this constitute a “majority”. Ultimately, more people will watch “Fahrenheit 9/11” than voted Republican in 2002, despite your preposterous claims that F-911 ticket sales are being propelled by a tiny number of people going to see the film over and over and over.
Another Thought, John Kerry the most liberal member of the Senate? And you accuse me of spinning?
Didn’t Sen. Santorum, just the other day, say that the spectre of gay marriage was more dangerous to America than terrorism?
Surely a US Senator can be said to represent the mainstream Republican party? Where was all the outrage then? Maybe you guys should shore up your glass houses before you throw stones.
By what criteria would we say that terrorism was the most dangerous threat to America? You’ve still got a better chance of being killed by an accidental gun discharge than by a terrorist attack, unless you’re in Bush’s army.
I’m not saying there’s no terror threat, but when you guys say it’s our number one priority, by what means do you arrive at this non-obvious conclusion?
No he didn’t. The Democrats made that argument for him:
Democrats this week charged that Bush and Senate Republicans were deflecting attention from ignoring more important issues, such as terrorism and U.S. intelligence failures, by focusing on gay marriage.
Of course, their argument is foolish, considering that the Senate is more than capable of dealing with more than one issue at a time, and the vote on the marriage amendment has no relevance to the issue of terrorism, except when it can be used as a political battering ram. Given that the Democrats have stalled on nearly bill in the Senate in order to obstruct the President from getting things done, they’re hardly ones to talk.
Mark writes “Ultimately, more people will watch “Fahrenheit 9/11” than voted Republican in 2002″…
Mark, care to back that up with statistics..keep in mind the number of statewide races held in 2002…right now F911 has taken in about 100 million…figuring about 7 or 8 dollars per ticket, that works out to be about 14 million people, if one assumes that everyone only saw the movie once…even allowing for a small rate of repeat business (unlikely), let’s just say about 12 million people have seen F911…
Now, in 2002 in Fla for Governor over 2.8 million people voted for Jeb Bush.
In fact, according to statistics over 80 million ballots (80,008,764) were cast in the context of 162,613,047 registered voters, for a turnout of 49.20%.
So I would say clearly the number of people voting Republican in 2002 vastly exceeds the 10 to 12 million who’ve seen F911.
Once again, Mark, you make an absurd assumption with no basis in fact.
AT, I’d like to see verification of these statistics showing 49% voter turnout on a non-presidential election year before I’ll buy your premise. In 2000, the voter turnout for a presidential election was 51%. I guess I can’t recall specific turnout numbers outside of Minnesota for 2002, but I find it hard to believe they were only 2% smaller than then 2000.
http://www.leinsdorf.com/2002/turnout.htm
Mark: we will wait for your admission that you were wrong…but I won’t hold my breath either…
I find it amazing that you expect us to swallow your assumption that more people will see F911 than voted Republican in 2002, yet not understand that it’s very reasonable that about 80 million people voted nationwide in 2002…keep in mind that in 2000, the last presidential election year…about 100 million people voted. In 2002 you had the same number of races up for grabs, except the presidency…think of that…the senate races, the races for the house, the state and local and municipal races…and we have a population of about 293 million people…
Geesh, what is silly is thinking more people will see Moore’s movie (or any movie for that matter), than will vote or vote for one of the major parties…
AT, I admit the inaccuracy of my projections of the 2000 voter turnout. But I specifically recall hearing the voter turnout in 2000 being 51% (when 100 million voted). Thus, if the voter turnout was 49% in 2002 when only 80 million voted, somebody’s figures are clearly off.
Whatever the case, I stand by my prediction that more people will have viewed “Fahrenheit 9/11” by the time its theater and video store shelf life runs out than voted GOP in 2002. Let’s assume 41 million Americans voted GOP in 2002, since they did pick up a small majority of voter support that year. Is it unreasonable to expect that a high profile flick like F911 will reach an audience of that magnitude? The TV show “CSI” is watched by 30 million Americans on any given week. I would say it’s far from out of line to suggest just as many people will watch F-911 as watch the average episode of CSI.
No he didn’t. The Democrats made that argument for him:
So, then, you didn’t actually read his comments:
We debate a lot of important issues here, but there is nothing—nothing— more important than the future survival of this country.
and
Yet somehow, just so we can move on to homeland security or to the next bill, we are going to deceive ourselves into believing that everything will be OK if we just do nothing.
Clearly Santorm believes that keeping gay people from marrying is of a higher priority than homeland security.
Oh, and nobody’s answered my question yet – by what criteria do we come to the non-obvious conclusion that terrorism is the no.1 issue before Americans right now? I mean, I’m not saying that it isn’t, but for what reason might we believe this to be the case?
The large hole in Manhattan comes to mind right away…
The large hole in Manhattan comes to mind right away…
Yes, Jay, clearly terrorism is dangerous but you still didn’t answer the question – by what criteria is it the most dangerous? Total lives lost? Likelyhood of an American losing their lives? Cost of property damage? What?
As many people died riding motorcycles in 2001 as was killed in the Trade Center attacks. Does that make motorcycles as high a priority as terrorism?
Do you understand what I’m asking, yet? Your response made it clear that you haven’t, so far.
Mark writes
Response: Yes, it is unreasonable to expect that about 41 million people will watch F911…even you admit that the highest rated TV show gets about 30 million viewers per week…and F911 is not being shown on TV…instead, people have to pay money to see it at the theater…eventually, they’ll have to pay money to buy the DVD…
Also, as hard as it may be for you to accept, there are a whole lot of people who don’t care for Moore very much…it’s not like this is just a high profile entertaining movie like Spiderman or Shrek…I know Democrats who are planning on voting for Kerry who will not go see F911 because of its anti-American tone…
Mark, very few movies end up being seen by even 30 million people, much less 40 million or more (and that includes children, an audience that F911 will not capture)…those are the biggest blockbusters…right now F911 has done very well for a documentary, but as noted has taken in about 100 million, which may be about 10 to 12 million actual viewers, allowing for a very small rate of people seeing it more than once. Because most people who see the movie already buy into its premises, I’d be surprised if the majority of those seeing F911 didn’t see it at least twice…and so I think it’s very likely that the number of people seeing the movie is actually lower…
So I hate to burst your bubble, but F911 will not draw more viewers than voters who vote Republican…
Getting back to the original point about Ted Kennedy’s remark, I think Lileks does a great job summing it up:
Teddy Kennedy said in his convention speech: “The only thing we have to fear is four more years of George Bush.” It’s really quite simple, isn’t it? We live in a manufactured climate of fear ginned up by war-crazed neocon overlords. There is no threat. The only thing we have to fear is Bush, who sits as we speak in the Oval Office sucking the marrow from Whoopi’s shin-bones.
If so, I wonder why anyone agreed to the stringent security policies that characterize this year’s conventions. Why the bomb-sniffing dogs? Why the snipers? Why the metal detectors, the invasive inspection of bags? Is it all an elaborate defense against Bush crashing the party and setting off a bomb belt, shouting God is Great, y’all!
No, they’re fearful of something else.
Damned if I know what, though.
Chet: One vial of smallpox could kill 30 million. One nuke could kill 750,000-2 million.
The September 11 attacks cost the economy one trillion. It directly cost $120 billion. It bankrupted airlines and decimated the travel industry.
Trying to argue that motocycle accidents are just as bad only illustrates my point: Democrats are clueless on national security.
One vial of smallpox could kill 30 million. One nuke could kill 750,000-2 million.
Sure, but earthquakes can and have killed many, many times as more. Hell, if we’re going to talk about worst-case scenarios, drastic environmental change could end the human race.
Trying to argue that motocycle accidents are just as bad
I don’t recall arguing that they were just as bad. I do recall stating that as many people died on a motorcycle in 2001 as were killed in th Trade Center. Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that you’ve misrepresented my arguments.
You still haven’t answered the question. It’s a simple one, so I’ll repeat it – by what criteria do you come to the non-obvious conclusion that terrorism is the danger with the highest priority?
Yes, I did. If you can’t read it yourself, find someone to read it to you.