Contributors
J.F. Kelly, Jr. - Contributor

J.F. Kelly, Jr. is a retired Navy Captain and bank executive who writes on current events and military subjects. He is a resident of Coronado, California. [go to Kelly index]

Things I Hate About Each Presidential Candidate
Choosing...
[J. F. Kelly, Jr.] 10/21/04

It’s time to vote for president again and I’m reminded of an old Woody Allen routine that goes something like this: “We are faced with a critical choice. On the one hand, lies hardship and danger; on the other, peril and pain. God grant us the wisdom to make the right choice.”

I’m not ecstatic about either candidate and I resent having to choose between two less than ideal choices. I realize that there are minor party candidates also, but I’m not a single issue person and most of them are. Still, I do have tests which both candidates fail and I hate to compromise principle by applying a lesser-of-two-evils approach.

This is not to say that either candidate is even remotely bad. On the contrary; both are good, intelligent men at the top of their profession, which is politics. Don’t for a moment believe that stuff spewed by the Bush haters that Bush is a dummy. Dummies do not earn Yale degrees and Harvard MBAs. I spent a semester at the Harvard Business School and there were no dummies there. Influence does not buy you a Harvard MBA.

Nor should voters buy into the flip-flop rap against Kerry. His political career and philosophy have been remarkably consistent. He is a solid liberal, anti-war, anti-defense professional politician whose views and voting record stand to the left of his mentor, Edward Kennedy. The list of weapons systems and military improvements he has opposed is almost endless. If you are an anti-war, tax and spend liberal and believe that only the UN can authorize military force, then John Kerry is clearly your man. Personally, I’m not comfortable with making U.S. security contingent upon U.N. approval or European consensus.

President Bush, while displaying commendable leadership and resolve in defending America by his willingness to preempt terrorism, has presided over record deficits without vetoing a single pork-laden spending bill. Our children and grandchildren will inherit this mounting debt and they will not thank us for it. They deserved better fiscal stewardship from their elders.

Also during his presidency, illegal immigration has continued to soar in spite of the post-9/11 security risks. There can be only one reason for this failure to act on the illegal alien crisis. He is pandering to the Hispanic vote and to business interests that demand the cheap labor that the illegals provide. It is both a disgrace and a ticking time bomb that his administration and the congress must take full responsibility for.

Additionally, I resent Mr. Bush imposing his religious principles on the rest of us, notably with respect to embryonic stem cell research. I do believe that religious and moral principles should guide personal behavior but not dictate behavior in office with respect to public policy. Religion must be kept separate from government. This is a principle that that divides us from the terrorists we are fighting.

Having served with John Kerry for a year in the close community of a Navy warship, I know first hand of his many attributes and competencies. I give him a pass on his actions during his less than four months of Swift boat duty in Vietnam, because I wasn’t there. I don’t know if he really earned his combat awards but I must assume that he did. Others who weren’t there should assume the same. None of his less than three years of naval service, much of it spent ashore and in training, qualifies him for the presidency. His post military career as an anti-war activist, on the other hand, disqualifies him as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. His outrageous allegations of atrocities, which directly aided the enemy and increased the pain and suffering of our POWs in Vietnamese prisons, were, moreover, downright treasonous.

Whatever his positive attributes, his politics and world view do not, in my estimation, commend him for the most powerful office on earth. He would be hesitant to use military force against terrorism until it was too late, relying instead on summitry and diplomacy, however dim the outlook for success. A Kerry administration would likely be characterized by endless UN debates and resolutions accompanied by meaningless threats of military action which he would always stop short of authorizing. For all his war hero chest thumping, he is a born peacenik whose hesitation to use force would send a message of weakness to those who seek to destroy us.

Regardless of their failings, we must choose one of them to lead us through a dangerous and uncertain four years. We must rally around whoever wins and support him, warts and all. Personally, I wish we had more choices. Sure, I know that there is no better system in all the world for choosing a leader, but perhaps there ought to be. CRO

copyright 2004 J. F. Kelly, Jr.

§