Two great letters in The Weekly Standard

In the Oct 18 Weekly Standard Bill Kristol wrote an article tited, Never: Never have the American people elected as president a candidate with a record on national security issues resembling that of John Kerry

This week, two readers have terrific letters to the editor,

THE CHALLENGE for William Kristol’s succinct editorial “Never“
(Oct. 18) must have been how to choose among Senator John Kerry’s many unique
negatives. I therefore must add another “never before” item, because it still
stuns me.

Last year, Kerry described the 30-plus nations who comprise our coalition in Iraq as a “trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought, and the extorted.”

I have a history question for WEEKLY STANDARD readers: Has any American politician–never mind presidential candidate–ever managed to heap more brazen contempt on more close allies with fewer words?

G. Kendrick Macdowell
Washington, DC

WILLIAM KRISTOL missed one on his “never before” theme: Never before has the
United States elected a president whose speeches were once piped into the cells
of American POWs for the purpose of demoralizing them.

Kirk O. Kolbo
Minneapolis, MN

Deroy Murdock, a syndicated columnist, has put this together to illustrate Saddam’s ties to terrorists. Well done.

John Kerry continues to repeat an easily provable lie day after day on the campaign trail, showing his true character, or lack of it, for the entire world to see. Ralph Peters drops a daisy cutter on John Kerry’s and Big Media’s October Surprise.

THE MYTH OF THE ‘MISSING EXPLOSIVES’: A SHAMELESS LIE
BY RALPH PETERS

October 28, 2004 — SHOULD the United Nations decide who be comes our
president? Sen. John Kerry wouldn’t mind. He’s shamelessly promoting the lies
that the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency is telling about Iraq.

A devious IAEA report suggests that 400 tons of explosives were spirited
away by our enemies under the noses of our Keystone-Cops troops after the fall
of Baghdad. The document just happened to be released in the closing days of our
presidential election. Purely a coincidence, of course. Brought to you by those
selfless U.N. bureaucrats who failed in Iraq and are now failing in Iran.

Sen. Kerry knows this is a bogus issue. And he doesn’t care. He’s willing
to accuse our troops of negligence and incompetence to further his political
career. Of course, he did that once before.

If the mainstream media is going to continue to put out stories that can be so quickly and easily proved false, misleading, or worse, what are we left to conclude other than,

The Game Is Over. Capitulation Time.

The front page NY Times story about missing weapons in Iraq was breathtaking, especially in the wake of the Dan Rather phony document controversy. In each case, the shoddy reporting was trashed within hours. Don’t miss our interview with Scott Johnson of Powerline about the Rather controversy on the Pundit Review Radio Archives to the right.

Despite everything that has changed around them, the mainstream media is still working out of the old playbook. The New York Times drives other media outlets to repeat a story which becomes a national sensation for a few news cycles. With one week to go, the intention here is clear. Having seen this play before, John Kerry is following the script, repeating this claim even though it has been proven to be a fraud.

Noemie Emery wrote a great piece in The Weekly Standard (10/11/2004) titled The Myth of the War Room that looks pretty smart right now,

The Democrats planned to capitalize on the now-notorious Dan Rather 60 Minutes
“scoop” of September 8, and prepared a film, “Fortunate Son,” that carried on
the charges of dereliction of duty made in the program, and even incorporated
footage from the show (although not of the phony memos that had been used to
document the accusations). But they kept the film up for days after it had
become clear that the entire Guard issue was tainted and toxic, that Rather’s
claims had been based on obvious forgeries, and that the controversial name at
the heart of the scandal had become Rather and not Bush.

THE KERRY CAMPAIGN is so enamored of the rapid response that it is given to attacking by reflex, even when the response is doomed to be counter-productive or so dissonant that it makes people wince.

How right she was. The Kerry campaign released an instant response ad to the now discredited New York Times story in which he said,

The obligation of a commander in chief is to keep our country safe. In Iraq,
George Bush has overextended our troops and now failed to secure 380 tons of
deadly explosives. The kind used for attacks in Iraq, and for terrorist
bombings.

Cliff May has an interesting observation on The Corner tonight,

RICHARD HOLBROOKE TO JOHN GIBSON On Fox just now re the missing explosives: â??John, you donâ??t know what happened and I donâ??t know what
happened.�

But the Kerry campaign is making ads placing the blame?

Deacon at Powerline comments on John Edwards taking this ball and running it with,

These are exactly the kind of explosives terrorists want. They’re the dangerous
weapons we wanted to keep from falling in the hands of terrorists. And now these
explosives are out there, and we have no idea who’s got them.

So Edwards is now acknowledging that when we invaded Iraq Saddam Hussein possessed “exactly” the kind of “dangerous weapons” that “terrorists want.” Does Edwards still believe that this was “the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Noemie Emery gets the last word,

Master politicians such as Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan were tough, but
they could also inspire, and none ever pulled stunts such as these. They were
too self-protective, as well as too sensible: Since Kerry took up his pugnacious
persona, his ratings have dropped like a rock. None of this seems likely to
deter other Democrats, who, believing as they do that Republicans only win by
mud-slinging, will want to sling more mud themselves.

The war-room obsession has serious drawbacks. It helps to be tough, and to
press your case strongly. But first, you need something to say.

This week we spoke with Bill Lalor, the man behind Citizen-Journal.net. Bill is a lawyer by trade and we spoke to him about the Florida fiasco in 2000, the Bush V. Gore court battle and what to look for in this election.

We also touched on Michael Moore’s appearence at Bill’s alma mater, Penn State, the crushing defeat of his Yankees at the expense of our Red Sox (he was in the stands for game 7) and his great web site, Citizen-Journal.net.

We thank Bill spending part of his Saturday with us on Pundit Review Radio.

This week we talked Red Sox baseball, the flu vaccine shortage (who’s fault is it?), the real reasons behind the high price of oil (it’s not SUV’s, Iraq or Bush’s relationship with the Saudi’s), and John Kerry’s continuing mis-adventures as a ‘sportsman’ trying to solidify his ‘regular guy’ credentials.

Our advice, stick with the $6000 bicycle and windsurfing.

This takes a minute to load, but it is well worth it. Enjoy.