|
Contributors
Chris Field- Contributor
Chris
Field is Editor of Human
Events Online [go
to Field index]
TWO
CENTS
 Smack
Down: Massachusetts Blowhards
Putting Kennedy and Kerry in their place...
[Chris Field] 2/7/05
Have you ever listened to politicians like Teddy Kennedy and
John Kerry and wished you had the perfect retort to really put
them in their place? Or maybe you've come up with a great response
to one of their inane rants but had no place to air it.
I've had the same frustrations. That's why I love it when I
get to see someone else do it -- especially when it's not a conservative
Republican or someone else with a potential political axe to
grind.
So today I want to share with you a glorious example of our
beloved Lefties Kennedy and Kerry as the victims of a verbal
two-point-takedown and pin by an Iraqi official discussing last
weekend's better-than-expected elections.
On January 27, three days before the Iraq elections, Sen. Kennedy
performed for the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies. Kennedy went on and on about how horrible the Bush Administration
is, how poorly things are going in Iraq, how our military is
now part of the problem in Iraq, and how Iraq is a quagmire --
just like Vietnam. (He, of course, went on to NOT mention Presidents
Kennedy and Johnson's involvement in that war.)
Here is a portion of what Kennedy said:
"In the name
of a misguided cause, we continued the war too long. We failed
to comprehend the events around us. We did
not understand that our very presence was creating new enemies
and defeating the very goals we set out to achieve. We cannot
allow that history to repeat itself in Iraq.
"We must learn
from our mistakes. We must recognize what a large and growing
number of Iraqis now believe. The war in
Iraq has become a war against the American occupation.
"We have reached
the point that a prolonged American military presence in Iraq
is no longer productive for either Iraq or the
United States. The U.S. military presence has become part of
the problem, not part of the solution."
Not to be outdone
by Kennedy's bloviation, Sen. Kerry went on NBC's "Meet the Press" on
January 30, the very day of the Iraq elections, and, while
reminding everyone in the country
why we should be glad he was not elected president, told Tim
Russert:
"No one in the
United States should try to over-hype this election.
"t's hard to
say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the
country can't vote and doesn't vote. I think this
election was important. I was for the election taking place.
You may recall that back in--well, there's no reason you would--but
back in Fulton, Missouri, during the campaign, I laid out four
steps, and I said at the time, 'This may be the president's last
chance to get it right.'
"The four steps
were, number one, massive rapid training. Number two, you've
got to do reconstruction, and you've got to
get the services to the Iraqis. Number three, you've got to bring
the international community in the effort. Number four, you've
got to have the elections.
"Well, today
we did number four, we had the elections. But the other three
are almost--I mean, they're lagging so significantly
that the task has been made that much harder. And I will say
unequivocally today that what the administration does in these
next few days will decide the outcome of Iraq, and this is--not
maybe--this is the last chance for the president to get it right."
Now for the good part.
On the afternoon of the 30th, CNN's "Late
Edition with Wolf Blitzer" had as one of its guests Feisal
Istrabadi, the Iraqi Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN,
a man whom Blitzer described as "one man who helped plan
the road Iraq hopes to take toward democracy." Asked for
his response to Kennedy's remarks on the U.S. Military, Istrabadi
stated:
"Well, obviously
the senator from Massachusetts is free to say whatever he wants
to for and on behalf of his constituents
and as an American.
"But I would
appreciate his not arrogating to himself the right to speak
on behalf of Iraqis. We have a sovereign government
that can do that, and it is at the invitation of that sovereign
government that American forces are in Iraq now.
"And I expect
that American forces will continue to be in Iraq after the
transitional government emerges.
"The fact of
the matter is, we need American forces to keep the peace and
to secure our borders. And until we are capable
of handling those two tasks ourselves, the Americans and the
multinational force will likely stay at the invitation of our
government."
And in response to Kerry's criticism of the administration's
handling of Iraq, Mr. Istrabadi offered this thought:
"Well, with all
respect again, of course the -- look, without the United States
and without this administration, we would not
have been liberated, we would not today be talking about an election
and who may or may not emerge as possible contenders for whatever
position.
"We will always
be grateful to the United States. We will always be grateful
to the government of the United States and
the United Kingdom and their various allies in the multinational
force. But the people who are going to make a difference toward
the success or failure, God forbid, of this project are the people
of Iraq, the people who today defied bombs and terrorists and
explosions and possible death so that they could vote in a free
election.
"These are the
people who today emerged to regain control of their own futures,
as any free peoples do, and it is we who
will make the difference to the outcome of our country."
Thank you, Mr. Istrabadi. From all of us who didn't get to tell
the world what we thought of Kennedy and Kerry's blowhard-ness. tOR
copyright
2005 Human Events
§
|
